Barnes County: A Moment In Time

1919 100 Years Ago...

Some time ago the Times-Record suggested that the city flood the basement of the old armory to make a skating ring for the “kiddies” of the city exclusively. The proposition seems to meet with much favor by the mothers of the city, several of them today asking us to again agitate this step in behalf of the little ones. Again we say that it would cost very little, would furnish a safe place for the younger children, and ease the minds of the mothers who have children teasing them all the time to go skating but who do not take kindly to having them go so far away from home to get this sport. Think it over city dads. Let go of a few dollars in a good cause. None of us will mind the extra expense a hundred years from now.

Dr. R. E. Skonnord was at Jamestown yesterday, testifying in a railing road damage suit in which a Henry Nygard, of Jamestown, was suing for $30,000 damages for injuries received two years ago while operating a pile driver for the railroad company. Dr. Skonnord took X-ray views of Mr. Nygard’s back and and plates made so that when he was called to Jamestown he went as an expert to present the plates to the jury.

1944 75 Years Ago... McConn Has Little Respect For Japanese Gunnery

What happens aboard a Liberty ship when Jap planes are “paying a visit” was described vividly by Seaman Nick W. McConn, sone of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. McConn, in a letter written November 25, after his ship had returned to New Guinea following a session in the Philippines.

“The ship I’m on now is a Liberty ship,” he related. I was assigned to it when it was just being finished in Henry Kaiser’s shipyard, where Les Gallipo works. That was back in May, and whew! What has happened since then!

“We came from San Francisco straight across the pond to new Guinea, where we made several short trips before heading for the Philippine show. We arrived in the P. Is. just four days after D- day at about 8:30 a.m. We were just picking our teeth after breakfast and hadn’t dropped anchor yet when the Japs decided to pay us a call, by air of course.

“Well, all hell broke loose, what with ackack and bombs fallingMy station when under attack is on the biggest gun on the ship and I think I broke some speed records getting to it. I wear a pair of asbestos gloves and pull out the shell case after the gun fires.

“After is was all over the ship was still O. K., but two Jap planes weren’t flying any more. The first came over the fore part of the ship. It was a bomber and he had dropped his bombs already before he got to us, although he hadn’t closed the doors to his bomb bay. The boys let him have it with everything that would shoot lead and he burst into flame and came down like a Roman candle. That was number one!

“Number two came right behind the first but banked so that he passed over the after end of the ship. We gave him a good dose and he fluttered down like a tired old bird. That was the first attack and the first real war that I had see. Don’t you think my knees were shaking? Well, you’re right, they were, but loud.

“Well, that’s enough of blood and thunder. The rest of our stay was a continuation of the same stuff on the average of about every two hours. Some of the time they didn’t get close enough for us to shoot at them and some other times they got too awful close. They couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with their bombs unless they were lucky. I can remember only one direct hit on all the ships that were around and that one was a dud that didn’t go off. Lucky people! “There were a few ships hit by falling Zeroes. Believe it or not they try to dive their planes into any ship that’s close. They can’t even hit them very often then, the bums! I could write quite a few pages about the different bits of action during the 26 days we were there, but some of it isn’t very pretty. The main thing is that we are out of it now without anybody hurt except a few people with jumpy nerves.

“Outside of such times as I have told you about already, the life aboard ship is very dull. All the magazines and reading material are about read to pieces. I found a last March Readers Digest and before I had it half read, at least a dozen other fellows had spoken for it. So time drags along.”

Anderson Saves Girl From Icy Clutches of Sheyenne

Except for the quick work of Freeman Anderson, Valley City mail carrier, the Sheyenne river would have claimed another victim Sunday afternoon. T

Three youngsters were skating under the First street bridge near the west end of the park and one of them, Romona Blumler, about 13, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Blumler, Jarvis apartments, crashed through thin ice.

Her companions ran screaming up the bank toward the Anderson home and Mr. Anderson, seated near the window reading the paper, sensed what had happened.

He grabbed a ladder which he has kept in the same place for years with the idea that some day it might be useful for just such an emergency.

He shoved the ladder toward the hole where the girl was floundering, at the same time admonishing her to keep cool, to grab the edge of the ice and just hang on. When the ladder was close enough she grabbed it, rested a minute or two, and then hung on while Anderson pulled it back.

She had broken a hole about 10 feet in diameter trying to get out of the water before help arrived.

A crowd of neighborhood people came running to the scene but none of them had so much as a stick or a rake or rope to help with the rescue.

1969 50 Years Ago... Local CAP Searches for Downed Plane

Continued poor visibility interfered with plans of the Valley City CAP squadron to continue Monday morning a four day search they have been carrying out to locate a downed plane.

The squadron was called on Friday to join a two day search for two missing men and a plane thought to be someplace between Fergus Falls and Minot.

Aboard the downed plane were Dee Nelson, Minneapolis, the pilot, and Richard Stone, 50, Ladysmith, Wis.

A rising ceiling afforded possibilities that the local group could resume the search Monday afternoon to complete two grids in their area still to be checked. The first is an area from Jamestown to Courenay and the second from Oriska south 18 miles.

First object of the local search was from Fargo to Jamestown and Valley City to Carrington following the major rail and highway liens a pilot might be expected to follow.

Failing to find sign of the downed plane, the group were assigned to grid sections under the CAP master plan and made sweeps over the areas.

CAP maps are divided into search areas fifteen miles square and are covered in sweeps made from north to south and from east to west.

Called by Earl Cross on Saturday morning, I joined the search taking the place of Lloyed Schmidt as observer in the plane piloted by corss and assigned to Grid 89. This area covers from three miles north of Valley City to Luverne and from Lake Ashtabula east to two miles east of Pillsbury. As a low ceiling hindered visibility we made our sweep at 600 feet limiting our observation to about one mile each side of the plane. Cross and Schmidt had covered the area in east and west sweeps operating in this two mile fashion and had made several of the northsouth sweeps.

Two sweeps remained in Grid 89 when Cross and I left on our time, but with the ceiling lowering still more after as we returned to Valley City borders it was deemed advisable to abandon the search until better weather was on hand.

The search was begun again on Saturday afternoon at two o’clock and continued until dark. Other units took up the search again on Sunday afternoon as weather cleared.

The Valley City squadron of the CAP had three planes out Sunday and eight persons cooperating in the search. The squadron is directed by Alfred “Jiggs” Becker. A one plane search with four people active was held Saturday and about the same routine on Friday when the local group first joined the search.

The Valley City group were operating under orders from Fargo, maintaining a communications link with the main search and rescue center under CAP operations there. Communications here have been completed by Phillip “Flip” Miller at the Valley City airport.

Grids are 18 miles by 12 miles, an area of 216 square miles to a grid. Since Friday the Valley City chapter has covered eleven grids, searching 2376 square miles in the grid pattern, besides a sweep of rail and highway lines.

With Our Servicemen

John C. Klein, son of Dr. and Mrs. Clifford Klein, graduated from Armor Non- commissioned Officers Candidate Course at the U. S. Army Armor School at Ft. Know, Ky., has been promoted to the rank of Sergeant. The Armory School is the largest in the world of it’s kind and has trained nearly 300,000 armor leaders and technician’s since their beginning in 1940.

Sgt. Klein, a 1968 graduate of St. Catherine’s High School, enlisted in the army in March of 1969 and received his basic training at Ft. Louis, Wash. He was then transferred to Ft. Knox, where he was assigned to reconnaissance training. He is now stationed at St. Carson, Colo., for on the job training.

1994 25 Years Ago... Stoudt-Ross Ford Buys Miller Motors; Car Dealership Will Retain Name, Staff

Stoudt-Ross Ford has announced the purchase of Miller Motors from long-time owner Ray Miller, who plans to retire after more than 50 years in the car dealership business. new ownership will be official December 19, 1994.

According to Casey Stoudt, who also owns a car dealership in Jamestown, there are no plans to change personnel or move offices in the transaction. Each busi

ness will maintain its own identity and the name of the dealership will also remain the same. Stoudt says that Miller Motors will be closed for inventory Dec. 17 and open again on the 19th.

Steve Ross, co- owner of Stoudt- Ross Ford, and Dick nelson, former general manager of Miller Motors, will manage the day- to- day operation fo the newly acquired business. Nelson has been with Miller Motors since 1968 and will now be the sales manager.

Miller Motors carries a complete line of Chrysler and Dodge cars and trucks.

TV Show to Feature Henderson Farm

Brion Henderson of tower City is a partner in a family farm operation that covers move than 9,000 acres. That alone requires significant storage capacity, but the operation also serves as a storage facility for other area farmers. The end result is a grain handling facility that is larger than some commercial elevators.

Henderson estimates that the total storage capacity on the farm is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million bushels, including flat storage. The most advanced portion of the handling system involves more than one- third of the total capacity, and is tied together by a Hutchinson grain pump that can move 4,000 bushels an hour.

The Henderson handling system will be featured on an upcoming episode of the Prairie Farm Report, along with several other practical and efficient grain handling ideas. This particular episode is scheduled to air Sunday, Dec. 25. The Prairie Farm Report is seen on KTHI (Channel 11) on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m.

The Prairie Farm Report airs on a network of stations across western Canada and the norther United States.