The Sheldon School Reunion

 

 

There we were, over 300 of us, gathered to celebrate memories held dear from attending the Sheldon Public School. Our square brick school building no longer stands and most of the buildings on main street are gone, but the spirit of the place could almost be touched this day as it hovered over the occasion on Saturday, June 22, 2024. 

The high school closed in 1996 while the elementary school continued several years more before closing the doors in 2008.  The gymnasium, built in 1960, was the site that spring of its first event, the graduation ceremony for my senior class. It still stands as the remaining landmark. While the shingles on its roof are starting to look beaten and weathered, one can still read the letters that roofers weaved into them - S H A D O W S. Without modern facilities, the gym can no longer host events. In fact its east end stands open and gaping to allow all types of critters to come and go.

Our athletic teams wore the name SHADOWS on their uniforms. Someone might know when the mascot name was first adopted, but that’s likely lost in history. Perhaps it was chosen when a  few people sat around brainstorming and stopped wide-eyed when one of them suggested SHELDON SHADOWS.  “Hey, that’s it! Sounds good.” Now a shadow isn’t something you can hold or pet so we never had a replica of it to sew on our uniforms, but maybe that Shadow hovered over us this day.

Fortunately, a rather large gathering space that could host such an event was recently built on the east end of main street. The building is the result of a collaborative effort which the community center and Enderlin-Sheldon Fire Department shares. The caterers prepped the delicious food in the modern, shiny kitchen on the north end of the community center’s side of the building and dished out the meals from the large serving windows where they offered a choice of beef or turkey. I asked one of the servers if they had enough food on hand. She replied, “Ask me at the end.” 

The large collection of Sheldon’s class graduation pictures and other miscellaneous community memorabilia found a permanent home on the walls of this center. It took a great deal of volunteer effort to gather and prepare all the items for permanent display. Speaking of volunteers, the work of a six-person committee that brought us together for this reunion need to be congratulated. They are Becky Spiekermeier Radtke, Betty Bartholomay Luther, Claudia Anderson Janz, Pat Swanson Olson, Leon Bartholomay, and Dan Spiekermeier.

Over three hundred plus attendees came from many places. A quick glance at the parked cars revealed alumni traveled from many states. The couple traveling the longest distance to attend was Jim Bueling and his wife who came from their home in Kiev, Ukraine. The honor of representing the oldest class in attendance went to Connie Spiekermeier who graduated in 1949. She proudly held the certificate of appreciation the committee awarded her for dedicating her time, effort, and community knowledge to this reunion and those in the past.

Norm’s Bar worked in concert with the event by serving a spaghetti supper on Friday as well as providing a thirst-quenching oasis. The Lions Club, an active group in the community for many years, served up a pancake breakfast in the morning. There’s more. A raffle raised a nice sum of money to donate back to the center and fire department. A photographer took pictures of each class. The hayride trailer filled and drove groups around town. A few classic cars sat ready for inspection on the street. An open air street dance featuring oldies started at 7:00.

 

What is left to say? The camaraderie was in full bloom and smiling faces were the order of the day. Time had its way of spreading people apart, but this reunion brought them back together. Memories of good times, sad times, youthful antics, dreams for success, favorite teachers, and more have made up for the sum total of the Sheldon Shadow experience. We can only wish for more of the same.

Random Thoughts - Wed, June 26, 2024

  Enderlin Independent  published the Sheldon school reunion story with pictures on front page … New community building in Sheldon easily handled 300 people … On this day in 1997 J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone  was first published (and I’ve never read it) … Irish joke: difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral - one less person at the funeral … Cool, breezy day today … So many to talk to at reunion that I missed a lot of them, but greatly enjoyed visits with those I did … An apple a day keeps the doctor away – if you throw it hard enough … Bye

4th Cousin Twice Removed

 Yesterday we met up with a young fellow we have come to know through family history. Parker Johnson is a mature-thinking family researcher, all of 16 years old, with whom I share some ancestral background. I asked Mary what degree of cousin the two of us are. She took a piece of paper, started charting it out, and pronounced that Parker and I are 4th cousins, twice removed. Much of the connection originated in the Owego, sandhills, and Leonard area. He and his grandmother Carol Johnson had flown in from North Carolina the day before and will stay through Sunday to celebrate the 90th birthday of relative Jerry Johnson, originally from Enderlin. It was at his home where we met and Jerry and I finally got acquainted, even though I had seen him around Enderlin many times.

Thoughts About D-Day

We recently commemorated Memorial Day, and then another day of note occurred, the 80th

anniversary of D-Day. I was all of two years old at the time, but a record of it exists in print and film for history buffs like myself to study and gain a bit of understanding. As for the reality of battle, I can only imagine. Thoughts about the day came to me while wandering about the cemetery on Memorial Day. One weathering gravestone drew my attention, that of Russ Ray Ranney 1892-1947.

    Mr. Ranney was the publisher of the Sheldon Progress during those years of World War II and wrote a gripping editorial in the August 20, 1942 issue about his son Myron. He wrote, “A letter came this morning from my son, Myron, saying he had volunteered for the paratroop division of the army. Myron is nineteen and a former student of the University of N. D. The letter brought a lump in my throat and made it hard for me to work. He was not forced to go. But he loves his own country greater than his own security.”

    The unit Myron joined, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 596th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, was made famous by the Stephen Ambrose story of it in his book Band of Brothers.

A film account of it by the same name is the ten-part series that ran in 2001 which I just

watched on Netflix. While reading the book we see Myron’s name mentioned frequently.

He took basic training in Georgia and quickly earned the rank of staff sergeant. The leader of their company was disliked, and Myron and a fellow soldier started a mutiny protesting his leadership which got him arrested and busted to private. But he soon saw action when he jumped into Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944 and regained his sergeant stripes as well as a bronze star for bravery.

    Company E jumped in the dark of night and landed in various stages of disarray. Strong

slipstreams encountered on exiting the plane caused some of their equipment and weapons to tear away from the paratroops and scatter about the drop zone. They found themselves separated singly or in twos or threes and now faced the need to reassemble into fighting units as soon as possible, a difficult task in the dark.

    There was an immediate task for E Company to follow and accomplish, but their respected new commander Dick Winters could find only thirteen men to accomplish it. They were ordered to attack and destroy German artillery pieces that were firing on men wading ashore on Utah Beach. Short-handed as he was, he ordered them to assault and destroy these guns which they accomplished so well that West Point still studies the way they accomplished their assignment.

    Without trying to explain the situation, it can be simply said that Ranney and one other man successfully attacked the German’s right flank. Winters said that Ranney was one of “Easy Company’s killers who instinctively understood the intricacies of battle.” Winters sent a few men to crawl through an open field on the left, get as close to the artillery gun as they could and throw grenades. As for Winters he led a charge up the middle. Their training and discipline paid off when these thirteen men successfully knocked out four German guns, thereby saving many U. S. soldiers’ lives.

    As the war progressed, E Company stayed in the middle of the fight. In December of 1944 a major German push caught the U. S. military off guard. Our army wasn’t prepared to stop their advances. Cold winter weather found the men without adequate warm clothing. They were forced to fight without reserves of ammunition or medical supplies. While the battle raged on the sky remained overcast and prevented accurate airplane drops of supplies.

Centered on the town of Bastogne, it sat on an important crossroads where all traffic had to flow through. It was a prize the Germans had to take. The 101st Airborne found themselves encircled here by enemy forces whose success depended on taking the town. They failed because of the determined defense the U. S. forces made. Their division commander, General McAuliffe, wrote a Merry Christmas letter to the troops on December 24, 1944. His opening line, “What’s merry about all this you ask? We’re fighting — it’s cold, we aren’t home.” But he went on to tell them of the letter demanding their surrender he’d received from the German commander. McAulliffe then told his men, “The German commander received the following reply: NUTS.” His reply probably served as a morale booster since the defenders continued to hold the city until help    arrived.

    E Company went on to witness the horrendous conditions of prison camps and gained the

distinction of being the first to enter Hitler’s lavish Eagle’s Nest after it had been vacated. In later years Major Winters frequently repeated a quote from a letter dated January 25, 1982 that Ranney wrote to him, “In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I am treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war? No, I answered, but I served with a company of heroes.’”

    Stephen Ambrose made the observation that most of these young men would rather have stayed at home and shoot a .22 rifle instead of an M-1 and throw baseballs instead of grenades. My recent article here mentioned the war hero Woody Keeble. He gave up a promising major league career as a baseball pitcher and found himself throwing grenades in battles with distance and

accuracy.

    A mark of paratrooper pride showed when they were permitted to tuck their pant legs into their boots and blouse them out. In grade school it became the fad of hero worship for boys to wear a pair of combat boots like the big guys wore. I wore a pair.

    Ambrose reached deeply into a Shakespeare play when he titled his book The Band of Brothers. In the play “Henry V,” the king on the eve of battle with the French in 1415 said to his army, “From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Piepkorn for Governor

 When in Medora a couple of weeks ago we ran into Merrill Piepkorn who I told has my vote for Governor. As he pinned a campaign button on me in the Western Edge Bookstore he invited us to his birthday party at the Crooked Lane Farm east of Colfax. We thought it would be a good way to spend Sunday afternoon on a nice day. His band, the Radio Stars, played, and they are GOOD. The day was good, the food was good, the music was good. His running partner Patrick Hart came over to visit with us, and Piepkorn/Hart must have been gratified to see the crowd growing as the afternoon went on.