Harriet Boostrom Taus interview by Pat Zankman

At Mrs. Taus home on Clearwater Lake on August 28, 2008

Transcribed by Carrie McHugh 11/12/08

18 pages

Harriet talks about her family history, the origins of Clearwater Lodge on the Gunflint trail, her father Charlie Boostrom, and growing up in the “country”.

P: Let me ask a couple questions. Your mother was Petra.

H: Petra (pronounces it Peetra)

P: What was her maiden name?

H: Her maiden name was Erstgard.
P: Erstgard. Was she related to Adolf?
H: Yeah.
P: Was that her brother?
H: Um, hum Adolf and Carl and Oliver – all came to live in Cook County.
P: Where was Petra born?
H: Petra’s parents came from Denmark.
P: Where in Denmark? Do you know?
H: Well, I don’t know that.
P: Okay
H: And, they homesteaded in Brandt, South Dakota. And, when my mother was just a baby her dad died. And, my mother never would talk about that. For years we never realized that my mother and Adolf and Carl were just half brother and sisters. My mother never talked about it. My mother never talked about anything bad that ever happened in her life. She said it wasn’t a good experience so I don’t talk about it. But anyway, she lived Brandt, South Dakota. And, after her dad died, her mother …hard to get jobs. And, her mother was just young with this new baby. And, there was an older man in town who had four teenage children, and his wife had just died of cancer. And, he was looking for a housekeeper. And so, my grandmother applied and she got the job. And he said it was okay if she had this baby. And, so my mother, my grandmother went to work for this John Erstgard.
P: So what was her name before it was Ertsgard?
H: Holmes
P: h-o-l-m-e-s? That was a married name?
H: Well, we assume that…like I say my mother wouldn’t talk about any of this stuff. And, so it really wasn’t until after, really after she died that we got more of this history from my grandmother’s bible.

P: That’s interesting. Okay, so go on…

H: So, then these children were in high school. And, there were two boys and two girls. And, once they got older and went off to school or college or work, I’m not sure what. Then a friend of John Ertsgard, a Mr. Pete Soder from Milaca – owned the Milaca Hotel. He encouraged them to come to Minnesota that times were better there. My mother hated it in South Dakota. She said there wasn’t a tree in sight. And, it blew and it blew and it blew and it blew. And, you couldn’t go outside unless you hung onto a rope to get to the barn-wherever you went. There were just in God forsaken country. And, as a child… she was five when they left. But, she really remembers that and then she said all they did…and this is a child talking… they spent the whole time out picking up cow piles…cow pies because that’s what they burned in the winter.
P: For heat?
H: Can you imagine that?
P: Yes
H: And so, anyway she … so now Mr. Pete Soder said “things are better in Minnesota.”
P: Well, had your grandmother married Mr. Erstgard?
H: No, no not yet. So, he was encouraging them to come to Minnesota. Well, now this John Erstgard was 23 years older that my grandmother. And, now he is wondering what am I going to do? If I take this housekeeper with me, I’m not married to her. So, I guess her decided that maybe her should marry her. And, my poor grandma now her little girl was five years old, and I don’t suppose she felt there was any prospect to marry anyone else. So, who knows? But, anyway she married him.
P: Did they have any more children?
H: Oh yeah, that’s how they had all…
P: That’s the other Erstgard… Carl and Adolf.
H: So then, they got married before they left South Dakota and he adopted her so they all had the same name now. And, they moved to Minnesota. And, they moved to Onamia which is about 12 miles north of Milaca. And, I’m not sure what they did there. They farmed in South Dakota and I don’t know what they did there. And, like I say my mother never talked about this. But, when my mother….This step father was not a nice father. He was mean, and I remember talking to her once about church stuff. Now my dad he had… he went to church and had church upbringing was even confirmed. But, my mom – nothing. And, I remember talking to my mother about that, and my mother said “you know my earliest recollections were this man beating his children…strapping them when they could learn these bible verse to go these classes” And, she said, “I thought how can anything be so loving and gooding and wonderful, if you have to beat your children to have them learn.” So, my mother didn’t have a good, happy background, you know. But, anyway so now they moved to Milaca… to Onamia and there living there. And, of course you know what happened once they got married. Well, she just had all these children. She had ten children.
P: Oh my Lord. Your mother was the oldest and then there were nine or ten other children?
H: Well, of course only five of them grew up to be adults. Because back in those days, you know half the children died before…and so, like I say. She just kept having all these children. And, then Carl was the oldest, and then Adolf, and then Bill, and then Oliver, and then Auntie Jenny – my Auntie Jenny. My mother just had one sister, and there was another sister that was born. That my mother never mentioned, we seen it in my grandmother’s bible after my aunt died. I had never seen that bible before.
P: How young had that child been when she died?
H: That girl was 21 years old when she died.
P: What did she die of, did you know?

H: We don’t know. It didn’t say that in the bible. And, then she had three children. Three babies that …one lived to be a few months old. The others died at birth. So, like I say those were hard times and that was not unusual – at that time.
P: No.
H: To have that happen.
P: Nor was it not unusual not to talk about these things, I suppose.
H: Oh no.
P: They were not things you really wanted to remember.
H: And, my mother was like that even later on in our life. She would never repeat any gossip she heard about anybody. And, she never would say anything bad about anybody. She just… and when bad things happen, she just forgot about it.
P: So, how did she end up in Grand Marais…or Cook County?
H: So, what happened then is they were very, very poor. And when she was ten years old, now they had had some more children, of course. And when she was ten years old, she had to quit school and go to work and she went to Mr. Pete Soder’s…he suggested that she come and work for him at the hotel. And, so she went and she cleaned rooms and helped with laundry and made beds and stuff. And, she was ten years old! She quit, she only went to third grade. And, so … and she was happy there. He was very, very nice man and all the people that worked were nice. And my mother said it was nice. She lived right there. And at the end of the month, Mr. Soder would bring her home. And, they would go to the dry goods store; he would pay her fifty cents a month. And, they would go to the dry goods store in Milaca and she would get a pair of shoe laces and a pair of long stockings and a yard and a half of material. And, then he would take her home to Onamia and she would spend the day there with her mother. And, her mother would make her a new dress and bloomers to match. So, every month she got a new dress. And, then she saved that kind of for good and then wore her older one. And of course back in those days, they always talked about, my mother talked about the dresses fading and getting washed out. And so, that’s why they needed a new dress. But anyway and so just think what they got for wages and what they did. But, everything was so poor. Nobody had any money. And, the rest of the money she gave to her mother for groceries.
P: What would be less than fifty cents, right?
H: right, but she said like shoe laces would be a penny and long stockings a couple of cents, and the material probably ten cents. Imagine that! And, she was just a little girl it didn’t take much material. Anyway, so that was her life. So, she lived at that Milaca Hotel all her life, and she gradually started working in the kitchen. And, that’s were she learned to cook and get ready to work up here. And, she had met my dad.
P: Okay, she met him there?
H: And, like I say, and as she got older she started working in the kitchen, I suppose and waiting tables. And, that was her life you know. And, we do have a few pictures of her when she was young with other girls. We have a picture of her at the Soder – at the Milaca Hotel. It is still there, but it’s not a hotel anymore. It is an office building.
P: She and your dad married. How old was she when they got married?
H: Well, now my dad. Now that’s another story. My dad’s parents came from Sweden.
P: And, do you know where in Sweden?

H: No, you know kids…we just didn’t pay any attention.
P: I know. That’s why I am asking. Maybe you would know. But, okay go on.
H: I just didn’t. The only reason I knew this about my grandmother and grandfather was when I was in school, and had Hannah Peterson for a school teacher, she was the most wonderful teacher there ever was. She was strict, and I really didn’t care that much for her because she picked on us country kids because…
P: Now, Hannah Peterson became Hannah Johnson, Mrs. Ted Johnson.
H: And, she kind of picked on us country kids, I thought. Well actually she wasn’t picking on us. She was trying…. (interruption). She was trying to encourage us to talk in front of the class. So, anyway she always called on us few kids from the country school, because she was trying to encourage us and I realize that now, but at the time I just thought she was picking on us. And so, she was the one who wanted us to interview our grandparents. And, my grandfather had come to live with us.
P: Now your grandfather is your father’s father you are talking about.
H: He had come to live with us, so when I was in high school he lived with us. And, my mother’s mother still lived in Onamia and her youngest daughter took care of her and lived with her.
P: That was Jenny.
H: That was Auntie Jenny. And they came up every summer on vacation. And, my mother…my grandmother spent several summers staying up here and helping taking care of the babies when my mother was so busy. And, so I interviewed her one summer. And, that’s how I found out stuff about her. And all my sisters and brothers would say “Harriet how do you know that?” And, then I said, “Well, I had to do that.” So that’s the most wonderful thing that English teachers do. Is to encourage their children…their students to learn about their… because children don’t do that. Why didn’t we learn some…. (tape interruption) …teachers do that because children can be with there grandparents and never think to tell…

P: and never think about asking things they want to know after.
H: no, and then it’s too late.
P: So, how did your parents get...
H: So, anyway my dad was born in Minneapolis. When my grandfather came to this country he wanted to go to a place where the climate was from Sweden. And so, that’s how come so many people came to Minnesota. And so, he came here and he homesteaded in Minneapolis right where the Nicollet Hotel sat. On the town was down under the falls by the falls.
P: Yeah, St. Anthony.
H: And, so he was way out in the country. Well, pretty soon the country started… the city started moving out in the country. So, then he moved to 33rd and Pleasant. Way out. But of course everybody walked in those days. They had a horse and buggy that you could get a ride with, but people didn’t have money, have horses. So anyway, when the city started getting too big, my grandfather decided to move and he went up to Lake Mille Lacs. And, when he first moved up there, they lived in a little town called Foreston – its still there. And, then later on they bought a little place down on the lake in a little town called Cove. And there was a little farm there, and it had two cabins on lot that they rented out to people that came in the summer. And so, now here is my dad growing up there and he trapped on Lake Mille Lacs and so he had done that. And it was kind of country you know? And, they loved fishing and they had people who came and stayed. And, so he had had a little bit of that. And, went to school there and like I say, he went to church. They went to a Swedish Lutheran church somewhere up there. But anyway, one of the bad things that happened from my dad’s records is …everything in that country burned in the Hinckley fire. So all their records, their marriage, their school, his church things, all that was destroyed. So when my dad needed to get Social security, we had to go to the church in Minneapolis that he was baptized in, and the churches do keep really good records. And so, he knew when he was born and who his grandparents were… and so that was helpful. And so, that was one thing that was hard. But anyway, now he had met my mom. And so, when he first came up here it was in 1909, and he was 21 years old. And, there was an old prospector from Onamia called Herman Sakke. And, he was getting old now and he was sure that there were gold and silver up here. And they had that old Paulson mine, there’s a lot of talk about that at this time. So, this old prospector knew that they had found some stuff up here. And, of course that collapsed in the 90s.
P: 1890s. I just want it for the record

H: And so anyway, he was coming up here – now he’s getting older and he needs help. So he hires a couple of young men to come to carry his heavy equipment, pitch the tent and do the cooking. And so, that spring of 1909 they came and took the boat to Grand Marais.

P: The America?

H: Un huh (affirmative) and walked up the Gunflint Trail and I suppose they went out pretty close to where that old mine was. This old prospector must have heard about that because there was a lot of speculation, a lot of talk about it. You know. But anyway, I don’t know any of those particulars, but all that is how my dad got up here. And, they got up here and just walked out in the woods and camped. And, this fellow started looking with this equipment. It was some kind of drilling equipment that he had and he took samples and stuff. And so, that’s what my dad did he just carried the stuff around, pitched the tent, did the cooking. And they traveled the whole Boundary Waters moving every few days, you know. And so they just went the whole gamut of the BWCA and my dad just fell in love with the country. And all there were up here were Indians and they were all friendly, they all spoke English because they were used going and trading their furs. And of course, my dad he just loved it. And he thought it would be nice to live up here and the Indians assured him that he could make a good living trapping. And of course my dad had trapped. And so, he knew about that. And so the Indians told him that they got this long trap line all along the boundary waters-each little creek that goes from one lake to the other that’s were the animals come. And there was plenty room for all those Indians and him too. And they had these trapper shacks every now and then and if there was nobody in them, he could stay in those. And so my dad… and he could live off the land. Once, he sold his furs he made enough money to last him to buy supplies all year. And so my dad, he just believed them and went home and decided he was going to do that. So, he worked for two years saving his money, buying a sleeping bag and a tent and some traps, and then came up here. And he just walked up there where he had been. And joined the Indians and he always said he learned to live up here by the Indians. They taught him everything he knew. And, some of the Indians told stories about my dad and said “he became a better Indian than most Indians”.