Williston
A Stopover in Williston, North Dakota
Bob Haverfield in Williston, spring 1920.
As the family’s first year without husband and father slowly passed by, Pluma was aware that the insurance money Arthur had left for her would not sustain the family indefinitely and that she would not be able to earn income outside of her home with four young children to care for. Her aunts and uncles in Dunseith were busy raising their own families, and her grandparents in Missouri were now too old to take on four youngsters. Her dad had by this time moved to Arkansas, where he had remarried and started a new family. Her options were few.
When they learned about their son’s death, Joseph Arthur’s parents Alexander and Elizabeth Haverfield invited Pluma to bring the children to live with them on their Lonesome Butte homestead in southern Saskatchewan, and she decided to accept this invitation. Pluma knew that she needed help, and she and Percy already had plans to make a life together in a few years’ time. Before the year was out, Pluma moved her children to Williston, North Dakota. One of her father’s sisters owned a hotel there, where they could stay until Percy could come to help them make the move to Lonesome Butte.
Edna Fern recorded few memories of the family’s time in Williston, but she did remember one time when Ruth saved her from being carried down the Missouri River as the spring runoff flowed over the bank near their hotel room home in Williston: “I had barely fallen down the bank into the water when she grabbed my dress, hung on, and yelled bloody murder (as my mother would say) until Mother came rushing down the path to set things right; namely, me on my feet. Ruth, being the eldest, always took charge when something went wrong. It was not just age that gave her the edge; she was also big for her age, and she was a sensible lass.”
When they learned about their son’s death, Joseph Arthur’s parents Alexander and Elizabeth Haverfield invited Pluma to bring the children to live with them on their Lonesome Butte homestead in southern Saskatchewan, and she decided to accept this invitation. Pluma knew that she needed help, and she and Percy already had plans to make a life together in a few years’ time. Before the year was out, Pluma moved her children to Williston, North Dakota. One of her father’s sisters owned a hotel there, where they could stay until Percy could come to help them make the move to Lonesome Butte.
Edna Fern recorded few memories of the family’s time in Williston, but she did remember one time when Ruth saved her from being carried down the Missouri River as the spring runoff flowed over the bank near their hotel room home in Williston: “I had barely fallen down the bank into the water when she grabbed my dress, hung on, and yelled bloody murder (as my mother would say) until Mother came rushing down the path to set things right; namely, me on my feet. Ruth, being the eldest, always took charge when something went wrong. It was not just age that gave her the edge; she was also big for her age, and she was a sensible lass.”
Lyman Haverfield in Williston, spring 1920.
A Hayrack Ride North to Lonesome Butte, Saskatchewan, with Uncle Percy
Soon after that event, Percy came down from southern Saskatchewan with a team of horses hauling a hayrack to carry the family and their possessions north into Canada. Pluma had first met Percy around 1910 in Dunseith at the same time that she’d met Joseph, his oldest brother; while Joseph worked on the railway, Percy had a job picking up country children in his wagon and taking them to school in Dunseith. Pluma and Joseph’s children had spent time with him when visiting their grandparents’ farm the previous summer, and he had visited them shortly after their papa had died.
Percy was much shorter than Joseph and had light-colored eyes and brown hair while their papa was a tall gangly man with dark brown eyes and dark hair. Edna Fern wrote, “None of Papa’s clothes or shoes were any use to Percy—Papa wore size 12 shoes while Percy wore only size 8 shoes.” She went on to say that her papa walked with a brisk gait while Uncle Percy walked in a rocking motion as one leg was shorter than the other.
The children were curious about their Uncle Percy’s rocking walk but it wasn’t until they were older that one of them got up the nerve to ask him about it. Percy told of how the injury happened when he was 16 and he and his younger brother Ralph were herding cattle south of their parents’ farm near the Montana border. The animals had to be herded as there weren’t any fences to keep them within their grazing land. To hold the milk cow in place to get her milked, they had to put a halter on her and rope her to a three-foot-long metal picket that was hammered into the ground.
When Percy and Ralph went after her, the milk cow put her head up and took off with the rope wrapped around Percy’s leg. Finally, Percy was able to grab onto a bush and “hang on for dear life” while Ralph caught up with him to get him untangled. In telling this story, Lela imagined the scene: “I can just see Dad bouncing while the cow ran as fast as she could—if not for that bush, he would have ended up clear down in Montana because that’s where the herd would drift.” But Percy was dragged long enough that his leg bone was dislocated from his hip, and since there was no medical help available the space in the hip joint filled in with calcium, causing him to walk with a limp.
Percy was much shorter than Joseph and had light-colored eyes and brown hair while their papa was a tall gangly man with dark brown eyes and dark hair. Edna Fern wrote, “None of Papa’s clothes or shoes were any use to Percy—Papa wore size 12 shoes while Percy wore only size 8 shoes.” She went on to say that her papa walked with a brisk gait while Uncle Percy walked in a rocking motion as one leg was shorter than the other.
The children were curious about their Uncle Percy’s rocking walk but it wasn’t until they were older that one of them got up the nerve to ask him about it. Percy told of how the injury happened when he was 16 and he and his younger brother Ralph were herding cattle south of their parents’ farm near the Montana border. The animals had to be herded as there weren’t any fences to keep them within their grazing land. To hold the milk cow in place to get her milked, they had to put a halter on her and rope her to a three-foot-long metal picket that was hammered into the ground.
When Percy and Ralph went after her, the milk cow put her head up and took off with the rope wrapped around Percy’s leg. Finally, Percy was able to grab onto a bush and “hang on for dear life” while Ralph caught up with him to get him untangled. In telling this story, Lela imagined the scene: “I can just see Dad bouncing while the cow ran as fast as she could—if not for that bush, he would have ended up clear down in Montana because that’s where the herd would drift.” But Percy was dragged long enough that his leg bone was dislocated from his hip, and since there was no medical help available the space in the hip joint filled in with calcium, causing him to walk with a limp.
Monarch stove.
Horse-drawn hayrack, Saskatchewan, circa 1910.
Pedal-operated White sewing machine.
Heading west from Williston with Uncle Percy, the hayrack was piled high with furniture—beds, table and chairs, the Monarch cook stove, the White sewing machine—all of the family’s personal belongings, including some of Joseph’s treasured books. Percy sat up front guiding the horses, and I imagine that Pluma sat beside him under a buffalo hide to keep warm against the constant prairie wind.
The four children would have been snuggled behind Percy and their mother, dressed in their snow pants and jackets and mitts and toques under piles of quilts. But even so, Edna Fern remembered that she was crying because she was cold, and she got her first taste of her bachelor uncle’s lack of patience with children: “Uncle Percy was sixteen years younger than Papa—he was 23 at the time and didn’t know much about children. When he heard me crying, he gave me a sharp warning, ‘If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.’ That threat shocked me so that I immediately stopped crying and moved closer to Ruth for comfort.”
It would have taken three long days to travel on the horse-drawn hayrack along grassy dirt roads and trails from Williston to Alexander and Elizabeth Haverfield’s homestead in southern Saskatchewan; today it takes about five hours by car. The spring wind would bring a chill and it would have been tiresome for young children watching mile after mile of icy prairie drift by. The only excitement Edna Fern remembered from the trip was stopping at a restaurant in Glasgow, Montana, just a day away from their destination:
“Our mother was a wonderful cook but it was special to be having a meal in a restaurant and Uncle Percy said we could order anything we wanted. For dessert, I had a piece of pineapple pie, a treat that I’d never had before. Maybe Uncle felt badly about being so impatient with us and so he gave us a reward for staying quiet.”
That kindness must have been encouraging for these four young children, and they had only one more day to travel to arrive at their grandparents’ home, where they hoped all would be well again.
The four children would have been snuggled behind Percy and their mother, dressed in their snow pants and jackets and mitts and toques under piles of quilts. But even so, Edna Fern remembered that she was crying because she was cold, and she got her first taste of her bachelor uncle’s lack of patience with children: “Uncle Percy was sixteen years younger than Papa—he was 23 at the time and didn’t know much about children. When he heard me crying, he gave me a sharp warning, ‘If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.’ That threat shocked me so that I immediately stopped crying and moved closer to Ruth for comfort.”
It would have taken three long days to travel on the horse-drawn hayrack along grassy dirt roads and trails from Williston to Alexander and Elizabeth Haverfield’s homestead in southern Saskatchewan; today it takes about five hours by car. The spring wind would bring a chill and it would have been tiresome for young children watching mile after mile of icy prairie drift by. The only excitement Edna Fern remembered from the trip was stopping at a restaurant in Glasgow, Montana, just a day away from their destination:
“Our mother was a wonderful cook but it was special to be having a meal in a restaurant and Uncle Percy said we could order anything we wanted. For dessert, I had a piece of pineapple pie, a treat that I’d never had before. Maybe Uncle felt badly about being so impatient with us and so he gave us a reward for staying quiet.”
That kindness must have been encouraging for these four young children, and they had only one more day to travel to arrive at their grandparents’ home, where they hoped all would be well again.