The need for an unrestricted contact with my teenaged beau was prompted not because we had planned to write love letters steaming with lewd desires, (We wouldn’t have even know how to write such letters) but simply from aspiring for freedom of expression without the nuns nitpicking our every word.
Even as I began to plot my rebellion, following the Katzenjammer paradigm, nostalgic thoughts of home and hearth suspended my attempts to form a clear strategy.
This time my memories didn’t drift toward Gene and Fritz, but to my older sister, Lil, the fourth “red-head” to grace our family. Here was a gal that could teach me a thing or two about how to outfox the most watchful nuns.
Because of her placement in the family, she was an expert in the art of self-preservation. She found herself sandwiched between two sets of brothers, two red-heads, older: Don and Ralph, two black-heads, younger: Gene and Fritz. This became an uncomfortable position. At least three of those four brothers, rambunctious and full of life, could choose to make Lil a bit miserable with their incessant teasing. She had to fight for her rights and therefore, she developed a feisty personality as a means of survival.
One example of that teasing came one evening when Lil thought she was home alone, listening to the radio program, “The Shadow”. Gene and Fritz played a trick on her. They were hiding quietly in the back porch. Just at the most hair-raising part of the program, they tiptoed to the fuse box, pulled the main switch and turned off all the lights. A thoroughly terrified girl came streaking from the house to find safety at a neighbor’s home.
She always had plenty of boyfriends who pursued her attentively, if they could withstand her brothers’ mischievous pranks. Mildred and I weren’t exactly angels in this department either. We contributed to her embarrassment at times.
One of Lil’s many beaus was Johnny O’Donnell, who worked at the local grocery store. When, once in a blue moon, Mildred and I had a nickel to spend for candy, we would go to the store and tell Johnny that we were buying candy for Lil. He would heap up the bag to overflowing. This worked well until Lil found out we were using her name to get more than our money’s worth of candy.
But, if truth were told, we did look up to our pretty, popular sister. She, in turn, tried to advise us when she thought it necessary. On one such occasion, she caught Mil and me smoking cigarettes. She and her friend, Lois, were horrified that we were smoking at such a young age. They issued a strong sermon on the evils of smoking and they took our cigarettes away. Later in the day, we were thoroughly disillusioned when we, unexpectedly, came upon Lil and Lois smoking the confiscated cigarettes.
We found out later that Lil smoked whenever she got a chance away from the prying eyes of her siblings. She would come home from school at noon, eat her lunch hurriedly and retreat to her room on the second floor. Fritz and Gene became suspicious of the way she hurried through lunch. They planned to go outside, sneak up to the low flat roof just outside Lil’s room so they could find out if she was “up to no good.” When they went outside they spotted her trying to wave the smoke out of her opened window. They yelled, “Fire! Fire!” at the top of their lungs to let her know they were on to her.
It was a great trial to her when Fritz contracted Scarlet Fever. The whole household was quarantined for several long weeks. The neighbors had to get groceries for the family. They carried them in special pails to the edge of the family property and then they would leave the pails of supplies and run off quickly so they would not catch the fever. It was hard for Lil as an active teenager to be trapped for weeks on end in the house full of four younger, restless children.
At first, Mom tried to keep the uninfected children from coming in contact with Fritz. This was a difficult task, as our house did not have that many rooms that could facilitate complete segregation. After Fritz recovered, the house was fumigated and everyone waited for the doctor to give us the green light to go back to school. Instead, he found Mildred had come down with the fever. Back into quarantine, we all went. After that, Mom gave up trying to keep everyone isolated from the others. Everyone but Lil caught the fever. The day we were finally released, it was like letting chickens out of the coop after a long, hard winter.
Lil had a beautiful voice and she could sing like a lark. In high school, she and two other girls, were chosen to sing for a popular radio program called the “Amateur Hour”. They went to Valley City for the audition. The song they sang was “Three Old Maids from Lynn.” They were dressed appropriately in old-fashioned long dresses with button top shoes. It was a thrill for the whole family to hear our sister sing over the radio. It was too bad that TV had not yet come vogue. She would have been a star.
Lil was a star on the basketball floor. She and Eldean Shadler were an unbeatable team. They were both red heads with nimble, athletic bodies, full of energy and skill with the basketball.
After Lil graduated from High School, she entered nurses’ training at Mercy Hospital in Valley City. She had a lot of interesting experiences there. The discipline under the Sisters of Mercy was tough, seeming almost “unmerciful” to her young mind. Lil had been accustomed to being watched by her siblings but this did not compare to the close supervision of those nuns.
There was one nun, Sister Herbert, whom Lil liked especially well because she had a good sense of humor. It seemed that Lil put her foot in her mouth on several occasions while she was working with Sister Herbert. Once while she was waiting for the dumb waiter to be fill with desserts for the patients waiting on the first floor, Lil hollered down the shaft, “Shoot the sherbert to me, Herbert!” To Lil’s dismay, Sister Herbert called back, “Coming right up!” She didn’t always get off so easily.
Lil was a rebel. She took every opportunity to thumb her nose at rigid rules and regulations. She and several other girls would scramble out of their dorm windows after lights out. They were off to the hot spots in town. It didn’t take them long to meet other young people of the town who plied them with illegal beer and cigarettes. This was definitely not the lifestyle compatible with that of a dedicated nurse.
She may well have settled down after a bit but someone squealed on them and she was expelled from nursing. She knew this news would break my mom’s heart so she went to Minneapolis and she did not return to face the consequences of her actions until several years later.
So why was I looking to Lil for ideas about how to outwit the nuns? I didn’t want to get expelled for sure. There just had to be another way around this problem.
Finally I had a brilliant idea. I believed that I had found a way around having my letters read by the nuns. The next day I went to work to set my plan in action.
One of my new friends, Eileen Bernier, a day scholar, agreed to smuggle out a letter for me. I had to inform Dick not to write to me directly. He was to put my letter in one envelope and then address another envelope to Eileen who lived outside the convent fence, at the village store. All went well for a few weeks until Mrs. Bernier finally intercepted one these letters coming to her daughter from an unknown source. She squealed to the nuns. She was kind enough not to tell them which girl the letters were meant to reach. I lucked out there but I did lose all communication with Dick.
Naturally, I had to find another boyfriend. The school took in several delinquent teenagers from the Fargo area, but there were also some very nice boys. Even Joel Adams became a friendly colleague. All the students who lived at the school were supervised very closely but we did find chances to clandestinely meet our special friends for a little innocent smooching.
During the evening study hall, my friend, Steve, would ask permission to go downstairs for a book, or to go to the bathroom. I would wait several minutes and then I would make up some excuse to go to the dormitory, or the kitchen. Steve would be waiting for me in some quiet, predetermined corner. His kisses were not as good as Dick Taylor’s had been. He couldn’t dance very well either, but he filled the bill for me because all the girls at boarding school had paired off with some boy.
When November rolled around, I was looking forward to going home for a short visit. I had to catch the train to Verona at Horace, ND, a nearby town. Since the train came through that town at a very early hour, I was allowed to stay overnight at the Burnett’s home. I was in class with Buddy Burnett. He had an older sister, Betty, who was a senior at our school. The nuns trusted that I would be safe in her care. I had a great time that night, playing cards and visiting with Betty and Buddy and their parents. We went to bed very late and I almost missed the train the next morning. I would have been so disappointed if that would have happened because I missed my family a lot.
When I arrived home, Mom was glad to see that I looked happy and healthy. She was still so worried about my brothers at war that she was relieved that she didn’t have to worry about me too. Gene had left for the Navy before he finished his senior year. Fritz was still at home but she knew the minute he graduated, he would be enlisting in the Marines. Don was already in Europe serving in the Army's medic division. Ralph was in Africa and had not been heard from for several months. My oldest brother, Paul, was working in the shipyards in CA. He suffered from ulcerated eyes and was not allowed to enlist in the military.
The day before Thanksgiving, I couldn’t stay close enough to Mom. I hung around the kitchen, helping her prepare food and telling her about some but not all of my experiences at school. She was especially happy to hear me go on and on about my wonderful religion classes.
Finally, she must have had enough of my stories and she suggested that Mil and I go skating. She helped us find our skates and off we went. I was delighted to see Dick sailing around the pond, skating like a champion. I wasn’t all that great on skates as my ankles were weak. I always felt like I should find two wooden slats that I could have stuck in my skate shoes to prop up my ankles. Dick didn’t seem to mind that he had to slow down to match my inferior skating skills. We skated and talked all afternoon and promised that we would be back tomorrow after the Thanksgiving meals had been devoured.
We went to Mass the next morning to thank God for all His blessings and to prayer for the safety of my brothers. We enjoyed a meal together with other family members who had come home for this holiday. Then it was back to the pond for another long afternoon with Dick. I didn’t dare tell him about Steve but I am sure he held back a few things from me too.
Fritz and Gene had bought an old car before Gene had left for the Navy. Fritz offered to take me back to school since it would give me a little extra time at home instead of having to take the train.
When the girls at school saw my brother, they practically swooned to see his broad shoulders and good looks. I thought they were crazy. He was just my plain old brother. He enjoyed their company and he completed a thorough inspection of that school. I never did find out what he really thought about it but I am sure he went back home with a full report to Mom of all that he had seen.
I got through my freshman year and passed all my subjects, even French, which I had found so difficult at first. It was great to be going home for the summer.
Next: Adventures in Minneapolis