Minnesota Now and Then: Christmas in the 1880s on the prairie

NINA MOINI: Time now for a look back at some Minnesota Public Radio history all the way back to 1975. Former NPR reporter Bill Siemering interviewed a 97-year-old Ole Olson near Fargo. He shared Happy Christmas memories from the Minnesota and Dakota prairies in the 1880s. The Olson family didn't have much for little Ole at the time. They decorated for the holiday with tumbleweeds, and one of the big gifts was an apple. But Ole says he had absolutely nothing to complain about. For Minnesota Now and Then, here's NPR's Bill Siemering and Ole Olson.

BILL SIEMERING: We all find ourselves rummaging among relics of Christmas past in the attic of our minds, sometimes quite unexpectedly, as we hear a special carol or see a familiar toy or ornament. These are private, bittersweet gifts we regive ourselves. There is little in today's world to remind 97-year-old Ole Olson of Fargo of the Christmases he recalls when he lived in a sod house on the Dakota prairie in the 1880s.

OLE OLSON: We didn't have much to do with, so we couldn't put on a very big splurge for Christmas. Everything was homemade. We took this tumbleweed and we molded a few candles out of white tallow. We could mold six at a time. And we had paper ornaments. We'd string popcorn and one of these rosebuds, roseberries, red roseberries, every other one, one popcorn and one roseberry. So string that around the tumbleweed, and they look pretty.

BILL SIEMERING: Classy. You didn't have a Christmas tree?

OLE OLSON: That was the Christmas tree was the tumbleweed. It was a big one, covered half of the table, about 4 feet wide.

BILL SIEMERING: What do you remember as presents that you got when you were young on the prairie?

OLE OLSON: Well, there were homemade presents. Usually, it'd be a pair of stockings reached to the knees. Mother had a spinning wheel. She'd buy some wool in the rough and wash it and cart it and spin the yarn and then knit it and made our mittens the same way. And the wrislets and scarves, all homemade, out of woolen yarn.

BILL SIEMERING: So you might get a pair of mittens for Christmas, and that would be the one present?

OLE OLSON: That'd be about the only present I'd get, would be a pair of mitt-- but then we'd get some candy. We always got one apple, anyhow, for Christmas. And as I grew along a little older, once a year, we got an orange. Mother made a rice cake with raisins in it. That was a real delicacy.

And then we had that rice mush for Christmas Eve. And we had a-- one special dish was always served was headcheese made out of pork. We had that on Christmas Eve about around 4 or 5 o'clock, had a lunch, coffee, and usually had what they called flatbread and lefse with the coffee.

BILL SIEMERING: Do you remember any unusual gifts that you have ever gotten that really struck your fancy?

OLE OLSON: I remember what I consider the greatest gift I ever got was a pair of skates. My father went to an auction sale, and he came back with a pair of skates for me. We lived right by a lake in Minnesota, about 10 rods from the lake, and I put them skates on right away when he came home, and I went out on the ice and skated till it was plumb dark. And I figured that was the greatest present I ever got. At least I appreciated more than any other present that I ever got. It wasn't worth more than about $0.65, but it was worth more than that to me.

BILL SIEMERING: Did you open your gifts that night or wait till morning?

OLE OLSON: We always open it in the Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, we just had a service, a religious service. Father would read a chapter out of the Bible, and they'd sing a few hymns, and he'd give a prayer, and that was all the Christmas service we had.

BILL SIEMERING: And did you have a big meal on Christmas Day?

OLE OLSON: Well, we had the biggest meal we could have with what supplies we had on hand. I don't remember how big it was now, but we had the best in the house on the table on that day.

BILL SIEMERING: What might that consist of?

OLE OLSON: Why, it be potatoes and gravy and that there rice cake, and what they called julekake. That's a bread dough with raisins and some sweetening in it. It looks like a cake when you cut it.

BILL SIEMERING: Did you have meat?

OLE OLSON: We always had salt pork. We'd buy two little pigs every spring, kill one in the fall, and save the other one for next spring, and salt them down the barrel and had salt pork. That's the only meat we had unless we kill a chicken once in a while. If we had surplus roosters, we'd kill off some.

BILL SIEMERING: Now were living in a sod hut at that time.

OLE OLSON: It was a frame hut with a wooden floor, but there was sodded up on the outside to protect it and make it warmer and was sodded on the roof, so it looked like a sod house from the outside. There was nothing inside except door and one window. The rest was sod. Weeds would grow on top of the roof and prairie fire would come along and burn them off.

BILL SIEMERING: Around Christmas time, did you go out and play in the snow?

OLE OLSON: No, no, there were no way to play in the snow. We had to stay in the house.

BILL SIEMERING: How come?

OLE OLSON: Too cold. Couldn't stand it. And then the blizzards.

BILL SIEMERING: It was dangerous, then.

OLE OLSON: Yeah, if you get a little ways from the house, you might get lost. My father used to tie a twine to his door and take the twine ball with him to the barn and tie it to the barn. And then he could run his hand through that twine when he wanted to come back to the house, and he'd leave it there and use it all winter.

BILL SIEMERING: Did you play some games inside, or what would you do to amuse yourselves, then, on Christmas?

OLE OLSON: Well, we always had quite a lot of fun playing dominoes. And we played a game we called the Old Maid and checkers. Dad and I played a lot of checkers.

BILL SIEMERING: You said you were about as happy as you could be, perhaps, on the prairie when you were young.

OLE OLSON: I think so. We never complained. And I don't complain about it now because we did the best we could with what we had.

BILL SIEMERING: Is that the secret to being happy?

OLE OLSON: I think so. I think so. What you don't know don't hurt you, you know.

BILL SIEMERING: You've always been a pretty happy person, haven't you?

OLE OLSON: Yeah, I never worried very much about anything. No use to sit down and worry. I think that helped me to live quite longer than many people, too.

BILL SIEMERING: And you generally enjoy life.

OLE OLSON: Oh, yes, I've enjoyed every year that I've lived. I'm sure of that.

BILL SIEMERING: Recollections of Christmas past with 97-year-old Ole Olson of Fargo, North Dakota. I'm Bill Siemering.

NINA MOINI: Wise words from Ole. That was archival tape of former NPR reporter Bill Siemering talking to Ole Olson at 97 years old back in 1975.