Edna Fern wrote, “Mother often said, ‘My cup runneth over.’ We had a good life and didn’t even suspect that we were poor, but during the ten years we lived on our farm we had only two crops Dad could sell for cash. If it wasn’t an early frost, it was grasshoppers or hail that destroyed the crops. I remember one year when we children held pillows to the windows so they wouldn’t break during a hailstorm.”

Lela recalled, “Every fall, Dad would first put up the hay for the livestock, then harvest whatever grain crop there was, and finally harvest the garden crops to store in the root cellar for the long winter ahead. Even though we were cash-poor, we knew we wouldn’t be without a warm home and food to eat, so we children never really thought of our family as being poor. Besides, pretty much everyone else living on farms in our area were in the same dire straits so we didn’t have anyone of means to compare ourselves to.”

Edna Fern remembered, “One time when our parents went to La Fleche, they asked each of us children what we would like them to bring back for us. My choice was a can of Van Camp Pork and Beans. We thought that anything bought in a store must be superior, but we soon learned that nothing was as tasty or as lovely as our own mother’s homemade food and clothes.

“Sometimes during the drought years of the 1930s, most of the people would take help from the government, but mother was too proud to accept help from that source. She did, however, gladly accept clothes from her teacher cousins in Dunseith; they were the daughters of her dad’s sister, Aunt Frankie, and so were like sisters to her. We didn’t need closets as we had so few clothes, but we had all of the necessities of life—healthy, delicious food, warm shelter, books to read, the love of God and our mother and dad, and many friends.”

“We had happy times: tobogganing in the winter, getting cooled off in Rock Creek in the summer, smelling the abundance of June roses, picking berries, visiting with neighbors. Often on summer Sundays, a group of people would come to our place, and while we were out enjoying a game of softball Mother would be cooking and baking for the hungry crowd that would gather inside after the game.”

Lela remembered, “It was common to have an evening of games. The older Anderson boys would sometimes ride over and join us. Mother and Dad played Chinese checkers most every night of their forty-three years of marriage. Mother enjoyed music and dancing and tried to teach Dad how to waltz, ‘One, two, three, one, two, three …’ I don’t think he ever caught on, but he liked to sing along with her. If the family had sing-alongs with friends, Edna Fern and Bob would take turns accompanying the singing on their harmonica.”

All farm and ranch families living in isolated areas like the Haverfields and the Andersons found their own entertainment. There was no nearby movie house as there had been for Pluma in Minot and Williston. They had a radio, and even though the reception was crackly they could listen to news and weather reports, mostly from faraway stations in the United States. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that the CBC could be heard in this region and comedy shows like Fibber McGee and Molly became part of the culture, but Percy and Pluma had moved back south “across the line” by then.

Edna Fern remembered, “Mother and Dad most enjoyed when neighbors would come in the evening and they would play whist. We didn’t have much company, though, as people had to drive by sleigh or wagon and it took a long time. Most people had to stay home to feed and water the livestock day in and day out, as it wasn’t easy to get hired help for just for a day or two. But when we did have visitors there was a lot of community news shared and stories and jokes told.

“Mother had a great sense of humor, and when a joke struck her as funny it was hard for her to stop laughing. Her favorite joke was about a humble-looking man getting on a streetcar and shuffling to the back to sit down. In those days, the driver didn’t have a button to push to open and close the doors, and the man hadn’t closed the door after he got on. The driver hollered at him, ‘Why didn’t you shut the door? Were you born in a barn?’ The man slouched to the front to shut the door and started sobbing into his hands. The driver was taken aback and apologized, ‘I say, old man, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’ Still sobbing, the man replied, ‘But, you see, I was born in a barn, and every time I hear a jackass bray it makes me homesick!’

“Where we lived there weren’t any streetcars and Mother had to explain to us what they were, so the joke didn’t really have a lot of meaning to us kids, but every time she heard this joke it would break her up. And hearing her laughter made us laugh too. I love to remember her laughter.”