Happenings in Greenbush, Minnesota on December 7, 1911

The following was printed in The Princeton Union on Thursday, December 7, 1911 on Page 7.  It was under the heading of "The Farm Fireside. Gleanings by our Country Correspondents......" under the Greenbush section.

The Princeton Union, Thursday, Dec. 7, 1911, pg. 7

  The school children of district 5 are

preparing for a Christmas program.

  Frank Grow was among the crowd

who attended the dance in Santiago

on Thursday.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Grow and

son, Leland, of Foley were here visiting

with relatives a few days.

   Quite a number of young people of

this vicinity attended the dance at

Santiago last Thursday evening.

  Mr. and Mrs. Nels Robideau and

Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Grow were welcome

callers at Mr. and Mrs. John

Odegard's on Sunday.

  A dance will be given at the residence

of Nels Robideau on Friday,

December 15. Supper will be served

and a good time is assured. Everyone

is invited.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rant Ross, Mr. and

Mrs. Sidney Grow, Mr. and Mrs.

Clyde Ross, Miss Conroy and Miss

Davis called on Mr. and Mrs. Thomas

Grow on Sunday.

  Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Ross and

daughter, Orpha, and Mr. and Mrs.

Sidney Grow and son, Leland, visited

with Mr. and Mrs. John Grow and

family on Sunday.
                                                             

  Most of the people in this article are my relatives!  I'll try to explain who they are, and later on, in a different posting, I will give you more information on each one of them.
  First, Mr. & Mrs. Nels Robideau are my great great grandparents.  Nels and Annie (Grow) Robideau are my great grandmother Lulu (Robideau) Elsner's parents.
  Five of Annie Grow's siblings are mentioned: John Grow, Sidney Grow, Thomas Grow, Alma Grow (Mrs. John Odegard), and Frank Grow.
  At the time this was written, Frank Grow was single and 20 years old;  Sidney Grow, 34, was married to Nellie (Ross), 29, and their son Leland was 6; John Odegard, abt 29, was married to Alma (Grow), 26; Thomas Grow, 27, was married to Ella (Taylor), 22; John Grow, 40, was married to Mary (Burke), 41.
  I wonder how many people attended the dinner and dance at the Robideau home?!  At the time, Nels, 45, and Annie, 38, had 11 children and one on the way.  My great grandmother, Lulu was 15 yrs old.  So there were already a lot of people in attendance!
 





Newspaper is from the Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspaper site: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016758/1911-12-07/ed-1/seq-7/

A Jaunt Down Memory Lane with Grandma Elsner

When I was 7 years old, my parents divorced and Mom moved with my sister and I to an apartment in Culver City, California. It was in the same complex that Grandpa and Grandma Elsner lived. (They were my great grandparents) I used to go to their apartment just about every day. I spent most of the time indoors with Grandma while Grandpa was usually outside in the carport "tinkering".

Grandma would play cards with me and we would sing songs and she would teach me things. She had a straight stitch sewing machine that she would help me sew very simple things on. Usually it was just a square or rectangle of fabric sewn together on three sides. Kind of like a pocket. And I thought I was really making something great! I would proudly take them home and put Barbie things in them.
 
She used to let me help her cook too. I got to stand on a stool next to the stove and stir things and shake the pan when we made popcorn! I would help her fix lunch for grandpa too.

After lunch was over and we had cleaned the kitchen, Grandma would want to take a nap. So we would go lay on her bed and she would close her eyes and I would ask her to tell me a story. So with her eyes closed, she would tell me the story of Goldilocks, or Jack and the Beanstalk, or sometimes she would recite children's poems like Little Miss Muffet. And sometimes, she would tell me about her family "back east". She had 14 brothers and sisters and I liked to ask her their names just so she would recite all their names for me. She would tell me about the farm and how having that many kids around was good help on the farm. Since she was the eldest daughter, she helped care for the young ones. Her parents names were Annie and Nels Robideau. Annie's maiden name was Grow. She told me that when she would get mad at her mother, she would take something her mother used a lot like a pair of scissors or her thimble and hide it! Her favorite place to hide things was in the wall. There was a loose board on the house and she would hide things in there. She said that if anyone ever knocked the house down to build something else, they were going to find a lot of her mother's "missing" things!
  
Sometimes she would tell me about Grandpa's family. About how they came to live on a farm in Minnesota not far from where she lived. She told me about how Grandpa's father, mother, and eldest brother came from Germany to the United States through New York. Their names were Albert, Lydia, and Fred. She said that Albert & Lydia lived in Chicago before they moved to Minnesota and that Grandpa Erick was born in Chicago. She told me that Lydia's maiden name was Richter and Grandpa had a sister named Elizabeth and two brothers, Fred and Otto.

There are many more memories I have with my great grandparents that I will write about later. After all, this is a blog, not a book!

I hope you enjoyed this jaunt down memory lane.