Courtship and Marriage
We exchanged a few letters. Then one day a letter came saying he was on his way back to Minnesota. We enjoyed a short courtship of four months. I loved his free easy ways and outgoing personality. His dream, too, was to have a home and family of his own. He had experienced disappointment and sorrows but he trusted that God would help the two of us to make a good home together.
On Friday night a week before our wedding, the day before I was to leave Uncle Henry’s place to go home, Halvorsons invited Uncle Henry, his children, and me over for the evening. Arriving there, just as I stepped inside the door, Geneva, Myrtle, and 15 girl friends shouted, “Surprise.” Before I realized what was up, Geneva sat down at the piano and played the wedding march and down the open stairway came a mock wedding procession.
We played games during the evening. Later a basket filled with packages was set on the middle of the floor. Myrtle offered to sit down with me and help open the gifts. A delicious lunch was served by Geneva and Aunty Halvorson.
Myrtle Halvorson (at left) with Margit.
And so we got married at high noon on a cold second day of December at Highland Prairie parsonage by Rev. N.S. Magelssen. Our attendants were my sister Gunhild and Palmer’s cousin, Minor Johnson.
It had been mild and rainy weather the previous week. The roads were terribly muddy. The cars had made deep ruts. The night before our wedding it suddenly turned very cold and froze the ground solid. The four of us had to drive to the parsonage with team and surrey bouncing from one rut to another. My parents gave a dinner and reception at home for 40 invited guests. We received many nice and useful gifts.
The wedding party: Palmer and Margit (seated), with a cousin and a sister as attendants
Right after we were married we bought a Norwegian devotional book to remind us daily that if we ask God’s forgiveness for our failures and sings and trust in Jesus as our Savior he will guide us through life.
On a Saturday night eight days after we were married, a number of our friends in the neighborhood gathered at my parents’ home bringing baskets of food for refreshments. We played games until midnight. Then the bountiful pot luck lunch was served. We received useful kitchen utensils and money.
Palmer and I made our home with my parents the first winter after we were married. Palmer helped with chores and hauled logs to the saw mill in Peterson. Father had cut the logs to be used for a house and chicken coop that he planned to build on the Staaland place the next year.
A few years earlier Father had bought the 40 acres of the Staaland farm that cornered into his farm. In April that spring we moved into the two room log cabin on the Staaland 40 acres.
(Father later moved the larger room of the cabin to the Highland Prairie Church Park where it is still in use as a museum to show a typical home and furnishings of the early settlers in that area.)
The Staaland cabin as a present-day museum
We whitewashed the walls and painted the floor and woodwork. I made matching unbleached muslin curtains and bedspread appliqued and trimmed with pink borders. A large homemade cupboard was left in the log house when Father bought it. It held all our dining and kitchen supplies, mostly all gifts. This old cupboard was our standby for over 30 years. We bought an old secondhand Quick Meal Range. It was meant to tide us over for couple years. We ended up having it for 20 years. We refinished four old oak chairs to match an extension dining room table. Around this table centered most of our family social activities. If it could talk it would tell about both happy and troubled times. We got a large mission style library table from my sister and brothers for our wedding. For money gifts received at the kitchen shower we bought two mission style rockers. We bought a new Singer sewing machine and a new bed, spring, and mattress. An old fashioned dresser and washstand and little sewing rocker (in our case more correctly called a “baby rocker”) completed our furniture the first years.
In the fall we rented my parents’ farm and moved back to the house where I had grown up. This second winter we bought a little secondhand Crosley radio. Its loud speaker was a large horn. We used the ear phones when only one listened at a time.
Our married life has had both joys and sorrows. We made some wrong decisions and plans throughout our married life which caused misunderstanding and left unpleasant memories. But our marriage and family life has been happy. My childhood dreams and prayers came true. God entrusted us with six little bundles from heaven.
Next: Chapter 7: Children
Margit Mindrum 