3 Glenfield Boys Enlist in CCC Corps
January 9, 1941 - Andrew Felt, Jr., and Ervin and Norman Papenfuss left Saturday for Jamestown via Fargo where they will join a CCC camp.
Young People Leave -
The following teachers left here on Saturday to return to their teaching positions: Doris Sharpe to Burke, South Dakota; Hannah Larsen to White Lake, South Dakota; Dorothy Johnson to Courtenay; - Stella Sharpe to Sutton and John Vogel to Kensal.
Students leaving Saturday were Elaine Johnson to Valley City; Hope Posey to Fargo and Allen Loken and Marvin Larsen to Grand Forks.
Storm Blocked Roads -
The close of 1940, and the arrival of 1941, brought us a real snow storm and blizzard with all roads blocked. The school teachers and students had real trouble getting back. Mail carriers and REA maintenance men are walking, "Old Dobbin" is much in evidence and shovels are in great demand.
Sharpe to Bismarck -
Representative A. I. Sharpe, accompanied by Mrs. Sharpe, left Monday for Bismarck to be present at the meeting of the legislative assembly on Tuesday.
Glenfield Starts Paralysis Fund
With $31.85 Gift
January 2, 1941 - Starting the 1941 Infantile Paralysis fund with a "bang" the Glenfield community parade a $31.85 gift to the national and county fund last week.
The money represented the net profit from a community rabbit drive.
The hunters brought it to the county fund as a gift from the Glenfield community, to get the 1941 campaign off to a brisk start. No work has been done yet toward organizing the annual drive for funds. The money is usually raised through local Birthday Balls on the president's birthday and through dime donations in the "March of Dimes."
Guy Cook is county chairman in charge of the infantile paralysis fund with N. A. Graves secretary-treasurer.
Snowstorm
March 15, 1941 - North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota were hit by one of the worst wind and snow storms in years. Gales reached velocity of 85 miles an hour in Grand Forks and 75 miles an hour in Fargo. Traffic was tied up, bus service at a standstill, trains were not running.
Storm's Death Toll Reaches 75;
Graves and Engberg Found
Loss Here was Minor; McHenry Father and Son
Were in Storm for 7 Hours and Survived
March 20, 1941 - The damage in Carrington and Foster County from Saturday night's storm was negligible compared to that done in other parts of the state.
The storm, which entered the state from Canada about 6 p.m., Saturday, struck here about 7 p.m. It had been snowing lightly in the afternoon but the storm came almost without warning. Weather forecast for the state had been "light local snows tonight and Sunday with cold wave and strong northerly winds," nothing to bring alarm or preparation for a storm.
The wind velocity locally did not reach that of points further east where a maximum of 80 miles per hour was reported. There was less snow here also.
Missing since Saturday night and object of a two-day search in which upwards of 75 men from Glenfield, Carrington and Cooperstown participated, N. A. (Bud) Graves and Lester Engberg, truckers, caused a riot of anxiety by their absence. They were found safe at the N. O. Golly farm, 14 miles west of Cooperstown and 3 1/2 miles from Sutton Monday morning. They had gone off Highway No. 7 when the storm broke and reached the farm where there was no phone.
They returned to their homes here Monday noon, none the worse for the storm, saying that "All we missed was a shave."
They had driven to Cooperstown Saturday afternoon on business and had started the return trip about 7 p.m. It was snowing a little when they left town, but it wasn't blowing much.
"We stopped the truck after about 14 miles because the blizzard got so bad there was no visibility," Graves said Monday.
"I suppose we were only a block from the Golly farm then. We didn't know the house was there at first. We couldn't see it and walked further down the road.
"Another couple, also forced to get off the road, heard our car and had nobly put a light in the window for us. We saw it and finally made the house.
"There was no phone at the farm and the radio wasn't in working condition. We stayed there the night and Sunday it was blowing almost as badly as it had the night before, and the wind didn't subside until about 7:00 p.m., just about 24 hours to the minute from the time it started.
"It was too late then to ask the farmer to take us to Sutton across the snow-filled roads. So we stayed there again Sunday night and Monday morning about 9:30 Golly drove us to Sutton. We immediately wired Carrington and we planned to return by train.
"But in the half-hour interim following our departure, the searching party found our truck and reached the farm. They wired us to leave the train at Glenfield where they met us."
Mrs. N. A. Graves, mother of Bud Graves, and Mrs. Engberg had become alarmed when the storm came up Saturday night and they put through a call to Cooperstown only to find that the men had left. Sunday morning Lester Graves and Lloyd Jarman drove to within six miles of Glenfield to search. They returned at noon to get a state plow from Devils Lake and a couple of operators. Homer Engberg and Leonard Ibsen accompanied them on a return trip about 2 p.m., and they got a mile beyond Glenfield.
At night when they returned Rev. J. Ralph McNeil had instigated a searching party and a crew of volunteers were prepared to go out. They started about midnight with the Foster County snowplow, loaded on a semi-trailer.
When they got east of Glenfield the plow was set to work, and Lloyd Jarman and Victor Hanson left the group to go by foot, carrying searchlights, for 13 miles east of there toward Cooperstown. When they reached the end of the area no one was there to meet them and it was necessary for them to hike back to meet the local plow. They stopped at a farm to warm themselves, and later in the morning were given breakfast at the Sletten farm east of Glenfield. They finally reached the local searching party again after a fruitless hike of over 25 miles.
By Monday morning a group of 15 more men were organized, dressed to re-hike the 10 mile distance in a wider area. Some 30 or more men were on the job when Engberg and Graves were located.
The vicinity in which the men were thought lost, the area for 10 miles east of Glenfield, has been snowed in practically all winter. Snow plows have opened roads, but they have only remained open for a day or two at a time. Snow banks in some places were 10 feet high and the plows experienced difficulty breaking through them.
The Northern Pacific railroad probably was the heaviest loser in property damage here for the supporting wall on the west side of their coal docks was blown out. A crew was sent in to make temporary emergency repairs at once.
A truck belonging to the North American Creameries was en-route to Carrington from New Rockford when the storm struck but the driver managed to make it home although the drive took him an hour. Visibility was very poor and it was necessary for him to drive with his head out the window most of the way but he kept the truck on the road.
Fred Walbridge and son, Ralph, farmers, left McHenry with a team and two-wheel trailer at 6 p.m., en-route home. They got within one half mile of home when the horses left the track.
Of their experience Ralph says, "The storm was terrific then and we knew we were probably doomed. We turned the horses loose. By that time Dad and I were getting very cold and the snow was covering our faces.
"We decided the best thing to do was to dig a hole in the snow and get under snow if we could. We had stopped in two feet of snow so we broke through the crust with our feet as we had no shovel, and used a cream can cover to throw the snow.
"We finally removed enough snow to get in the full length of our body next to the ground. We lay in the hole 7 hours with our faces down. The biggest job was keeping awake and to keep kicking our feet to keep up circulation. I dozed off to sleep once but Dad woke me up.
"The longer we stayed there the colder and wetter we were getting. When we heard the wind receding we pushed up through the hole to see how the weather was. To my surprise I could see the grove at home.
"Dad being past 60 years old, I had to help him get out. We made it home safely with the exception of freezing faces and wrists slightly."
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Fritz and children and Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Wampler of Bordulac were returning to their home from Carrington when the storm struck. The Wampler car stalled and they attempted to walk to a farm house. Mr. Fritz, who was following them in his car, picked them up and together they reached the Oscar Zink home with Mr. Wampler leading the way on foot with a large flashlight. They spent the night at Zink's.
August Haas and Walter Christie of New Rockford came through the storm safely after their car stalled in a drift half a mile from the Jul Farr farm, as they were returning from making a tractor delivery. Sunday they walked more than 10 miles to reach their New Rockford homes.
A.I. Sharpe, representative from the Foster-Eddy district, and a Glenfield elevator man, was located Sunday morning after he had been unaccounted for since Saturday night: He and Mike Hoffman sat in their car from 8 p.m., to 3 a.m., after it had stalled three miles east of Glenfield. Hoffman then walked to town and Sharpe to the home of a neighbor. Sharpe had one hand badly frozen.
Raymond (Whitey) Johnson of Valley City perished near Cooperstown. He was employed as a baker at Valley City by the Miller Bakery and had gone with Bob Miller to visit his parents at Cooperstown. En-route home when they were 1 1/2 miles out of Cooperstown, Miller tried to turn back and the truck went into the ditch. The two men set out on foot and Johnson collapsed. After repeated efforts to carry him, Miller went on alone to bring help from Cooperstown. Johnson's frozen body was discovered about 7 a.m. Sunday. Miller is in the Valley City hospital badly frozen but is given a chance to recover.
Saturday night's disasters recalled to Dr. Edwin L. Goss of Carrington a storm which occurred years ago on the same day, March 14, and lasted for three days.
Dr. Goss had just arrived in January from Sheffield, Iowa, where he had practiced for 10 years, and had wanted to see a real blizzard and a sod shanty. He saw them both then for he was called to the George Fogle home 16 miles northeast where a baby was born in a sod shanty during the storm. He had to stay there the three days.
"A few people lost their lives then but people generally were dressed warmer to combat the cold. There was a lot of snow in that storm, too," he said.
LOSS OF LIFE
Latest reports bring the toll of known dead to 75 with everyone in North Dakota accounted for. The heaviest loss of life was in northeastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota where side-roads and farmyard drives have been blocked through much of the winter, where the practice was to leave cars parked alongside the main highway and walk the distance to the farmhouse. In that short space, blinded by snow and pounded by the almost irresistible wind, many died.
Freezing, exhaustion and actual suffocation from the pounding of a wind-packed wall of snow and dust, traveling at 60 to 80 miles per hour, accounted for most of the deaths.
During the early evening the wind was light and from south-southwest, veering to the west as it attained velocity about 9 p.m., then straight from the northwest as the gale hit its peak.
The deaths in North Dakota reached a peak of 39 Tuesday; Minnesota, 28; Manitoba, 6; and Saskatchewan, 2.
Robert Moore of Rogers, section hand, and Engineer E. P. Qually of Dillworth, were injured when a two-locomotive powered Russell plow was derailed 25 miles west of Cooperstown on the Valley City-McHenry branch Tuesday.
The accident happened about 9:30 a.m., two miles east of Mose in Griggs County.
Both are patients in a Valley City hospital but Moore is the most seriously injured.
Glenfield Community Club Met on Friday
Program of Plays and Music, Social Hour and
Lunch Were Enjoyed by All Who Attended
April 3, 1941 - A large crowd attended the community club meeting Friday evening.
After a short business meeting the following program was rendered: duet "Whispering Hope", Mrs. E. Ryum and Mrs. W. A. Hoggarth. Mrs. Opal Culver being the accompanist; piano solo, Betty Johnson; one-act play, "Dust of the Road", cast, H. M. Sletten, Leona Halvorson, John Nelson and Keith McDaniel; two vocal numbers by Mrs. O. Bonderud and Hyllis Johnson, accompanied by Mrs. H. G. Hendrickson.
Township Election -
At the township election March 18 Algot Erickson was re-elected supervisor and W. R. Bronaugh justice of the peace.
Glenfield Seniors to Give Class Play
April 20, 1941 - The senior class presents "The Closed Door", a three-act play at the gymnasium Friday, April 25, at 8 o'clock. The cast includes: Dolores Paulson, Myrtle Ordahl, Doris Erickson, Olga Fadness, Kathleen Engstrom, Doris Hawes, Thelma Hoggarth, Lewis Walen, Roy Alley, Leo Larson, Ellert Stangeland and Edwin Dybwad. There will be a matinee Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Admission 10¢ - 20¢ - 30¢. Come out and enjoy this play which promises to be especially good.
Those moving this week are Peter L. Fergusons to Carrington, B. E. Hawkes to the George Young farm south of town, Ed. Watnes to the P. A. Piersons, and Frank Hazletts of Juanita to the Ed. Olson farm east of town.
1500 Lose Lives as Japs Bomb
Hawaiian Island on Sunday
United States and Britain Proclaimed Existence of War
on Monday; Local Men are in Zone of War;
Several Draft Quotas to be Increased
EARLY MORNING FLASH - Germany end Italy today declared war on the United States. Announcement of the joint declaration was made by Premier Mussolini in an address at Rome.
December 11, 1941 - The United States is now engaged in war after the 23 years of peace which followed World War I.
Sunday people of the United States were astounded when word came over the wires that Japanese planes had staged a shocking surprise attack on Pacific possessions of the U. S.A., bombing strategic points in the Hawaiian Islands and attacking Pacific ocean shipping, causing loss of life estimated at around the 1500 mark and doing extensive damage to military objectives.
Governmental wheels turned fast Monday as President Roosevelt spoke at 12:30 for a brief seven minutes, asking Congress to proclaim the existence of a state of war between the United States and the Japanese empire.
By 1:13 p.m., a resolution to that effect had been adopted, the senate voting 82 to 0, with the house following with a 388 to 1 vote for the resolution. The lone negative vote was cast by Rep. Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who also voted against entry of the United States in World War I.
Great Britain Monday kept a pledge, made previously by Winston Churchill to declare war on the aggressor nation within the hour after the U. S. was attacked, by acknowledging a state of war with Japan.
The imperial government of Japan Sunday announced that she was at war with both the United States and the British government.
While the Japanese were staging the surprise attack Sunday Ambassador Nomura of Japan and Saburo Kurusu, special envoy, were in Secretary of State Cordell Hull's office in Washington, D. C., where they were bluntly told that the Tokyo reply to the American note setting forth Hull's peace formula for the Pacific was the damnedest bunch of lies he'd ever heard.
Declarations of war on Japan since her attack on the United States include, besides Britain and her possessions, Nicaragua, The Netherlands, Honduras, Costa Rica, Free France, Haiti, Belgian government-in-exile, Dominican Republic, and San Salvador.
This throws fourth-fifths of the world's populations against the Axis with one-fifth.
Sunday the Pearl Harbor naval base and Hickman air field were seriously going a concerted Japanese army attack. The Japanese have taken the adjoining coastal area and have Hong Kong under siege. London said there is no hope of holding out indefinitely. To relieve Hong Kong two Chinese armies are coming down to engage the Japanese in the Canton-Pingshan area.
NORTH BORNEO was invaded by the Japanese early this week, who met very little resistance and captured valuable property.
THAILAND was an easy victim of the Japanese invasion and is now nearly all under the Japanese thumb.
Ralph Harmon, son of Mrs. and Mrs. Lee Harmon of near Carrington, who returned Tuesday morning from Glendale, California, for Christmas vacation, experienced the trial blackouts in Los Angeles and its suburbs.
"They were regarded as fairly successful," says Ralph, "but authorities have announced there will be no more trials. When another blackout is ordered, it is to be the real thing.
"Most noticeable in the Los Angeles vicinity after the war began was the attitude of aircraft workers, who are now working with a vengeance to do their part to revenge the Japs. They're taking their work much more seriously.
"All factories, docks and the like are under heavy guard and it's practically impossible to go into the factories with even workers required to show identification cards.
"Little Tokio in Los Angeles has been barricaded with Japs ordered to stay inside, and a strong soldier guard is in evidence around the barricade.
"On the coast, naturally, every one is extremely aware of the war, much more so than here," he stated.
Col. C. K. Wing, who had been stationed in the Hawaiian Islands, was ordered to leave Honolulu for Camp Davis, N. C., previous to the war outbreak. No definite word has been received as to where he is now in North Carolina.
Robert Midtlyng, son of Roert Midtlyng of Deer Lodge, Montana, former resident of Carrington, has been promoted to a Lieutenant Commander in the U. S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Annapolis, Md. Another brother, Thomas Midtlyng, is with the U. S. Coast Guard in Alaskan waters. He graduated from the Coast Guard academy at New London, Conn. The boys are nephews of Mrs. Carl Hall.
Take Me Back to North Dakota.
Somewhere in the South Pacific
where the sun is like a curse
And each long day is followed
by another slightly worse
The jungle vines are thicker
than the wheat upon the plain
And all of us are waiting
for the day we'er home again.
Somewhere in the South Pacific
where a woman is never seen
Where the sky is never cloudy
and the grass is never green
Where the monkeys chatter all nite long
and a man can get no rest
Oh, take me back to North Dakota
the place I like the best.
Somewhere in the south Pacific
where the mail is always late
Where Christmas cards at Easter
are considered up to date
Where we always have a pay roll
but never have a cent
We never miss the money
for we could not get it spent.
Somewhere in the South Pacific
where the monkeys scream and cry
And the lumbering deep sea turtles
come out on the beach to die
Oh, take me back to North Dakota.
the place I love so well
For this God Forsaken Island
is the place we call Green Hell.
By Stg Earl H. Halvorson
Company "F" 164th Inf
This poem was written while in a fox hole
at Guadalcanal.
Source: Glenfield History 1886 – 1987 Page 77