Characters Served with Flavor and Spice

To add some gusto to our food, we add seasoning.  Even though salt gets a thumbs down from doctors and dietitians, it remains a guilty pleasure.  And I don’t remember ever hearing that pepper is harmful and often shake it liberally over eggs and meat for a little tang.  

I like a few salty characters adding spice to my life, too.  They’re easy enough to find, whether in the literature we read, the coffee shop where we hang out, our travels, or places we least expect to find them.  It’s hard to imagine a life filled only with dull, bland people, or animals for that matter, who say or do little to set themselves apart and make our imaginations soar.

An area rancher named Don Stevenson owned Hell Diver, a horse that gave a few of his would-be riders something to remember.  Hell Diver owned the reputation as being a tough horse to ride in those days in the early 1900s before rodeos became organized with a rulebook.  This is the horse that threw one cowboy, ran off over the horizon, and when found, three weeks later, he had fattened up on prairie grass.  He’d never been able to shed the saddle that kept tightening with each pound of fat gained.

Accounts tell of another cowboy who was injured when thrown from Hell Diver’s back.  What kind of injury was it?  I imagine it to have been a compound fracture with bones poking through his skin.  Why do I think that?  Well, a Doctor Shortridge from Flasher was called to treat him and needed an operating table that was promptly created with the help of onlookers who turned a wagon box upside down.

A movie could be made from facts of Ben Bird’s life that equals those of Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, those famous characters Larry McMurtry patterned after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving.  Bird, born in 1864, was raised in Texas and traveled north to Montana and North Dakota with three different trail drives.  One of them caused him to shoulder a terrible burden. While taking a herd of horses to Ekalaka, Montana, rustlers ambushed them and killed his sixteen-year-old brother.  He eventually settled in Almont, North Dakota. where the community recognized his strength of character.

In 1909, Almont drew laborers to work on the Northern Pacific which was just coming through.  Bird now served as deputy sheriff and learned of a broad daylight holdup committed by one stranger upon another.  The robber made his escape over the hills, but Bird caught up to him on horseback and shot in front of him to make him stop.  The thief dropped to the ground as though dead and would not get up.  Finally, Bird ordered him to get up or he would shoot him, whereupon he got up to be dealt with.

Saturday nights proved exciting with cowboys riding up and down main street spurring their bucking horses.  In this scene rode a Norwegian named Ole Ramsland who embodied the wild west by riding his bucking horse, rolling a cigarette, and shooting his pistol, all at the same time.  At times like this, because the boys respected Ben Bird, things calmed down when he walked into the middle of the street.

Many times people must take the situation in hand and act.  This was surely the case when a young lady name Hulda Krueger was on the receiving end of a bull’s horn that gored her face.  Her father brought the girl to a neighbor’s place thinking the farmwife could sew it up.  She couldn’t, but since only oxen were available to transport her to Fargo, a trip that would take two days one way, they convinced her husband to set a needle and silk thread into boiling water and sew the girl’s face back together.  The report stated she recovered quite nicely even though she sported a noticeable scar.

Sometimes, nothing can be done but to grin and bear it.  A boy from the now extinct town of Buttzville, North Dakota, kept his wits about him to seek help in a farm accident.  In the year 1898 when binders cut ripe grain, a fifteen-year-old boy was working alone in a field and when finished, reached down to disengage the gears.  Too many exposed gears and chains in those days meant danger to a careless hand; it caught and jammed between a sprocket and link chain.  He couldn’t extricate his hand and, in pain, had to drive his team of horses home with the other.  Luckily a passerby on a township road heard his distressed shouts for help and stopped to help free him.  

In those days when woodhawks camped along the Missouri River to chop and sell wood to passing steamboats, two men found themselves trapped in their rude shack by the unexpected onset of winter.  To make matters worse, the leaky roof spoiled their gunpowder and left them powerless to hunt wild game.  With the passing of time, they faced starvation unless they could find food.  Deliverance came in the form of a mouse which one of the men grabbed.  His partner asked if he was going to eat it.  No, he placed it on a fishhook and caught a large catfish. 

Extraordinary people and events add gusto to our thoughts and imagination.  It’s fun to sprinkle them liberally over our stories.  Dee Brown said, “Sometimes there isn’t enough material.  There’s a story there and you can’t fill it in with facts, so you let your imagination run wild.”  In the above examples I’ve listed all the available facts, but using Dee Brown’s philosophy, we can imagine each scenario in living color.

RANDOM THOUGHTS - Friday, March 20, 2026

I’ve been given one life and have used most of it … We’ve gone to war with an ancient culture that knows how to survive … Read my blog,  Click on this address and hit “Open Link” button that pops up, lynnbueling.blogspot.com … I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul … Uncle Tom's Cabin is published as a novel, 1852 … NDSU big dance basketball game against Michigan State yesterday - Mich. was tough … Class B and A kicked off yesterday … Working on poems now to prepare for Medora Gathering on Memorial Day weekend (A poem can say a lot with few words) … Pleasant weather arrived … Cringe thinking about forest and prairie fires that already started up … Upwards to 40,000 head of cattle displaced in Nebraska prairie fires … I’m still looking for something slow I can chase … Here’s an Easter bunny that hopped by …

Early County History

 H. A. Laughlin of Ransom County played a prominent role in the early history of the county. He was invited to speak at the Sheldon Old Settlers Picnic on July 27, 1907. It was a lengthy talk, and I’ve selected that portion where he tells of first coming to the county.

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     On the 26th day of January, 1882 I first saw North Dakota, arriving in Kindred that morning via Wahpeton, with H. A. Palmer, who still lives near Lisbon. We unloaded a carload of Van Brunt seeders and started the next morning on foot for Lisbon forty miles away, as there were no teams going through. It was a bright, beautiful morning. They told us to take the old government road, and that there were three hotels or places where travelers were kept.  

     These were the only three houses along that forty mile road. About 10 o’clock a dark cloud appeared in the northwest and we were soon in the middle of a genuine blizzard. At French’s they could not keep us, so we tramped on to Porter’s, facing the blizzard nine miles. Mrs. Porter could not give us even a cup of tea, as they were entirely out of provisions. I asked her if she could spare a little heat from her stove.

     We rested awhile, when fortunately a four horse sleigh drove up loaded with merchandise for Joseph Goodman’s store at Sheldon. It was driven by Charlie Smart and Richard Jackson; we got permission to hang on to their sleigh. There was only room on one small box of goods for one to sit on, and as Mr. Palmer had been sick I gave him that privilege. A bundle of brooms stood upright in one rear corner, and by clinging to a broomstick I could keep my head in the shelter of the brooms and stand on the rear end of the runner.

     Once we were lost on the prairie and headed for the sandhills southeast, but Charlie took to the snow ahead of the lead horses and found the trail by intuition. He wore a wolf skin coat and cap, which may have helped him. 

     Arriving in Sheldon about five o’clock the boys stopped in front of the hotel kept by Robert Grieve. It was new and had two blocks of square timber for steps. I got one foot up one step and could not induce the other one to follow, and fell down, unconscious with cold and exhaustion. Mr Grieve and Mr. Smart carried me in and seated me near a good hard coal fire.

     I could not have been unconscious more than two or three minutes, for the boys moved very quickly. Then followed a couple of hours of severe pain, like the toothache in every nerve. Tramping through the snow all day without nourishment was a little too much for me. I felt the circulation stopping and the dull sleep of death, knew that I was freezing and used every possible exertion to keep the blood coursing. The last sensation was one of quiet restful sleep. The storm was so fierce we could not see the lights in the store twenty rods away.

     We slept upstairs and the next morning the snow was an inch deep all over the bed. Our hands were so badly frozen that the landlord had to assist us in dressing. It was forty-four degrees below zero. We arrived in Lisbon that day by the stage driven by Thomas Eastman via Bonnersville and Shenford.

40th Annual Poetry Gathering

The poster for the 40th Annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering arrived, and this is how it looks. It's a fun time that we've attendede and participated in for several years. This year they called and requested me to appear on Sunday evening's show. So that's where we'll be May 23 and 24.

 

Summer of '65

 Summer of 1965. I drove this truck down to southern Kansas the summer after I’d completed my first year of teaching. It was a rickety old truck with a Gleaner combine and fourteen foot header loaded on the bed. For me it was mostly white knuckle driving. When we arrived in Medicine Lodge, Kansas and parked in a large lot behind a truck stop I noticed a sign very near in front of an adjacent house that proclaimed “Home of Carry Nation.”

     Who is Carry Nation? I suppose we’d read about her in our U. S. History class, but it must have passed over me without any retention. Since that time I’ve learned that she viewed liquor with an evil eye and set out to demolish as much of it as she could. In 1890 she used rocks, a sledgehammer, even a billiard ball to smash bottles in five saloons. A bit later she chose as a weapon of choice the hatchet that became her trademark and destroyed a Wichita, Kansas saloon. 

     Even though hard to stop once she started wreaking havoc, the law caught up to her and jailed her many times. To fund her efforts and pay her fines she gave lectures and sold souvenir hatchets. Her influence helped pass the 18th Amendment in 1919 which prohibited the sale of liquor.

     Regarding the combine, an older gentleman from Lake City, KS came looking for an outfit to harvest his wheat crop. He’d been having trouble hiring one because an adjacent river flooded and flattened his wheat. To add to his woes, a good deal of drift wood cluttered the field. We went in setting the headers as low to the ground as possible and started grinding away. We salvaged a great crop and made him a happy man.

This Old Dog

 

A favorite poet of mine, Ted Kooser from Nebraska, writes in a conversational, easy to understand manner that makes for enjoyable reading. Look him up on the internet and find a smattering of this past poet laureate’s work. He recently posted a poem titled “Valentine” containing a line that made me take especial notice. It’s about an old dog that is “looking for something slow he can chase.” Of course it’s about himself, a man in his upper 80s, a place in time that I am nearing.  Thankfully some of us old dogs with pens in paw still find time to learn and produce a few things.

Over 55 years ago I drove up the AlCan Highway in my Chevy Impala with the general intention of going to Alaska, and the specific reason of making my fortune there. The folly of that soon revealed itself.  I’d been watching John Wayne in the “North to Alaska” movie a few too many times. With winter approaching I made a hasty retreat to the lower 48. Rather than drive back I bought the ticket for me and my Impala to ride on a freight ship of the inland ferry system. 

The ship wore the name SS Wickersham on her bow, something meaningless to me at the time. I remember asking about him, only to be met with a shrug of shoulders or a dismissive reply about his being some kind of judge. About 10 years ago I started looking into this man’s history and came away with an interesting story connected to a North Dakotan who had been committing illegal deeds in Alaska.

Alexander Mackenzie had been a mover and a shaker in Dakota Territory politics and succeeded through underhanded tactics to get the capital moved from Yankton to Bismarck. Of course that’s all forgotten now because we achieved statehood and divided into two states each going their own way. In Alaska he’d successfully been fleecing miners out of their gold claims until the law caught up with him in the shape of Judge James Wickersham.

The story was one that I wrote a few articles about several years ago in the Independent and have no desire to revisit it. The point is that it awakened a desire to start digging deeper into state history where one name begged me to learn about him - General T.E.G. Ransom for whom the county is named.

Biographical sketches of Ransom proved to be quite scarce and it took some digging to find facts of the man our forefathers thought worthy of honoring for our county’s name.  His military superiors honored him by naming the fort for him. His presence in the midst of battles earned him respect. Wounded on four different occasions, the fourth one killed him, but not immediately, and he chose to stay in the battle. His last words preserved his spirit, “I am not afraid to die. I have met death too often to be afraid of it now.” Death occurred on October 29, 1864. The Office of Official Records of the Civil War recorded that General Grant wept upon hearing of his death.

Since the railroads stamped their strong mark here and elsewhere, I began looking into the early and local history of that. The railroad reached Sheldon in 1882. I had never given much thought   to the amount of wood that tracks required. Using an estimated mileage of 52 miles from Fargo to Lisbon a rather startling number of 195,000 ties were cut and laid. Old growth forests yielded mightily to furnish demand. Add other wood necessary for engine fuel, bridges, water tanks, freight and passenger cars, depots, and growth of towns along the tracks. Progress came at a cost.

My interest in local and county history grew as I uncovered more of it. The county had hosted a gold rush right after the railroad arrived. Exciting news of it spread quickly and widely and soon the railroad cars arrived filled with people wanting to get rich. In the end, gold fever cooled in the county after they realized the cost of processing the gold far exceeded its value.

The first deep research I did , however, dug into the use of horses in World War I. After gathering information and writing a narrative about the topic, I thought, what the heck, I’ll send this to the Independent. It happened that the editor pasted it across the front page with its headline, “Local Horses Bought for War.” Yes, the death of horses on the battlefields of Europe resulted in a shortage of replacements which forced them to send buyers here to the states to buy replacements. French buyers came to the county to purchase horses, paying $150 per head. One of the buyers scheduled a railroad car to ship horses from Enderlin. When loaded the train took them directly to Chicago where government agents took possession of them.

I loved doing the stories based in Owego township that centered on a spot called Pigeon Point. It had been established mainly as a way station for travelers between Fort Abercrombie and Fort Ransom. That distance too great for a day trip, an overnight stop developed. There resided a favorite character named Nancy McClure who will still get attention from me in the future because of her rich story.  

 The name Pigeon Point led to another search for curiosity’s sake. What about pigeons? I wondered. Old time accounts tells us that they would roost so thick in the trees that a person well armed with a broom could bat them down. The story goes they would be cooked up into tasty dishes after being salted down, placed in barrels, and shipped out east for sale to consumers.

Of late I keep preaching that people should read history, get a handle on where we’ve been, and maybe formulate an explanation  why we make the decisions we do. My journey into that history has uncovered a good deal of interesting material. When I add them up, I’ve published several hundred articles published here and in other publications. If no one else reads them, at least I’ve benefited. Now I think I’ll go off and find something slow to chase.

The Dam

 This is a piece I wrote in 2020. I found it in 'memories' and am posting it here again.

A recent program we attended featured the retired national park superintendent Gerard Baker who left me with an unsettled feeling after hearing one of his statements. The Mandaree Indian born and raised on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota said this night, “My generation never got to see the river bottom.” He was speaking of the consequences of the land being flooded by the Garrison Dam that formed Lake Sakakawea. I wrote the following section three years ago after visiting one of the affected ranchers.

…

The Garrison Dam straddles the Missouri River about seventy miles above North Dakota’s capital city Bismarck. Construction of the huge structure occurred from 1947 through 1953. A mammoth undertaking, the Corps of Engineers deemed it necessary for flood control and hydroelectric generation with the added potential for irrigation and recreation. Over 152,000 acres of land were purchased from the Three Affiliated Tribes for the formation of Lake Sakakawea. Under threat of having land taken from them by eminent domain, the tribal members acquiesced to the demand to sell. This action displaced over 1700 tribal members from the rich bottomland they had lived on for hundreds of years. Three little trading towns - Elbowoods, Sanish, and Van Hook - passed from sight under the rising water, taking with them the social structure, unwritten laws, and conventions that had evolved over many generations.

Some white ranchers also lived on the land and worked harmoniously beside the Indians only to suffer the same fate. So it was that the Voigt family went looking for new land and found a ranch, the Anchor Ranch established by William V. Wade, for their operation south of Raleigh, North Dakota. Their herd of 150 cattle needed to be moved to that new ground, and the decision was made to drive them overland.

…

Neighbors came in the morning and helped the Voigts round up the herd on a fall day in 1951 and came back early the next morning to help start the drive south to their new home. The crew didn’t look forward to crossing the Four Bear Bridge with them. The span was long and narrow and a steep riverbank dropped to the water on either side of the bridge. If a cow broke from the herd at its entrance, she could slip and slide twenty feet down the bank causing a big problem for the cowboys getting her back up.

We sat and listened to Duaine Voigt reminisce in his dining room where a glass-windowed wall opened to a southern exposure of the place he had become a part of on the Cannonball River. Memories of the cattle drive flowed easily like the river in a spring thaw. “We found this place after being told we’d have to move. Realtors came out of the woodwork when the news was out they were going to start flooding the dam. Every real estate guy in the country came to Elbowoods.”

“Once we got started, we were four riders plus Dad who drove a truck where we’d covered the box and rigged it to hold our sleeping cots and supplies.” Once the herd entered the long bridge, it didn’t take long for a problem to present itself. “When we were about a quarter of the way across, a car entered the opposite end and rattled toward us. A dog could trot across the bridge and it would rattle and shake. That spooked the herd and some turned and tried to come back. I was riding my best horse Sitting Bull that day, nobody else could ride him. You could ride him longer than any three of the other horses. We had some turmoil for awhile with cattle bunching up, those in the back still going forward, some in front trying to go back from where they came. Anyway, I was back and forth and got them stopped from going backwards. We got them across, tut then they stampeded and came off the other end like they were shot out of a cannon and took off for the badlands. If they had gotten into those badlands, we would never have found them.” With the neighbors help, they rounded them up again and were able to leave on their planned drive the next morning. “We had 128 cows, each one had a calf, and we had five bulls. I know because I counted them every morning.” He told us they averaged about 17 miles a day and laughed when he told about the time when riding night herd he took a 2-4 a.m. shift. “It got foggy and when the 4-6 a.m. spelled me, I told him it’s pretty dark. When the fog lifted the next morning, here he was going around and around a bunch of rocks with cows scattered all over. On this trip we rode from daylight to dark, so we were really hardened in by the time we got the cows down here. We felt good about it because the cows came through it beautiful.”

…

After 10 1/2 days on the trail, the herd arrived at their new home on the Cannonball River. One of the sons, Duaine, eventually became the owner of the sprawling acreage. Since retired, he leases the property to his daughter and her husband who combine it with their own adjacent ranch where they maintain a large herd of buffalo. Life seems to have gone well for them after the relocation.

Many, maybe most, of their Indian friends and neighbors did not fare so well. A picture taken at the signing ceremony when the federal government took possession depicts the chairman of the tribal government, George Gillette, standing sorrowfully and distraught amid a group of outwardly untouched men. His people gave more than the monetary value of their compensation.