First Books - Gateway To the World

Across the Fence #584

One thing I vividly remember about grade school was ordering paperback books. Several times each year, our teacher would receive a catalog of available books from TAB, the Teen Age Book Club. We would eagerly look through the listing of available books to see if there was something we wanted to order. Each book would have a picture of the cover, a short description of the book, the price, and an order number.

I would look through the list and get to order a couple books each time. I loved the books about animals and adventure stories. I still have many of those books today. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away or give them away when we moved. So I packed them up and carted them with us.

There was Red Fox by Charles Roberts, The Red Pony by John Steinbeck, Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, Midnight–The Story of a Wild Horse, and Ghost Town Adventure, both by Rutherford Montgomery, The Mudhen, and The Mudhen and the Walrus, both by Merritt Parmelee Allen, Big Red, Outlaw Red, and Irish Red, all by Jim Kjelgaard, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Jim Davis–Smuggler’s Captive by John Masefield, Down the Big River– Two Boys Battle the Ohio Cave Gang by Stephen Meader, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss, Anne Frank–The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and The Mystery of the Spanish Cave by Geoffrey Housebolt.

There were many more, but that’s a sampling of the books I read during my grade school days. At that time, in the 1950’s, a paperback book cost twenty-five or thirty-five cents. That was probably a lot of money to be spending on books by the parents of most of us at Smith, a one-room country school.

It was always exciting when the package arrived containing the books. There was something magical about receiving a book that was your very own to keep. The covers always had wonderful illustrations and we could hardly wait to start reading the selections we received. I should mention that the available books for reading in a rural school library were very limited. Our library consisted of one small bookcase at the back of the room. I don’t remember very many books in it. 

After school, when I could sit down at home with my new books, I would lose myself in the story I was reading. I sailed down the Big River in search of pirates, or followed the adventures of the dog, Big Red. I had tears in my eyes when Old Yeller and The Red Pony died. I was there when Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher had their adventures together, and I sailed on the raft, down the Mississippi River, with Huck Finn and Jim. I lived the life of the Red Fox and was there in the den with the Gray Wolf. It gave me an appreciation for wild animals.

Books could take me places I had never been, and participate in adventures I would never otherwise have. I could go to all those places and experience all those things without ever leaving my room. Those books expanded my horizons and sparked my imagination. They let me explore fantasy worlds and real worlds. What wonderful things they were to me. I think those books from the Teen Age Book Club started me on the path to enjoying reading, and also writing.  

They led to my first writing attempts. One of the stories I wrote was a pirate adventure. I don’t remember much about the story now, but I doubt if my great, literary gem would have rivaled Treasure Island. I wish I had a copy of that story now. Another writing attempt was a series of stories called, “The Adventures of Rocky Rooster,” illustrated of course. How many adventures could a rooster have anyway? 

When we cleaned out the old farmhouse after my parents died, I was hoping to come across those old stories. We didn’t find any trace of them. I suspect they were thrown in the trash and destroyed years ago. Such literary treasures, up in smoke! I jest of course, but I would love to be able to read today what I wrote so many years ago. 

Another of my literary gems was an illustrated story about a country mouse titled, “Under The Country Oak Tree.”  I still have that one. It’s a real Shakespearean tragedy. The poor mouse dies in the end. I thought I had accidentally thrown it out when we were getting rid of “stuff” before we moved. I was glad when I came across it last weekend, as we moved the last of our stuff to Westby. Now the problem is, which box did I throw it in? At least I know where those old books are. They’re all in a special box. 

  

The books we ordered from that book club, while I was in grade school, were very important to a young farm boy and they still are. Perhaps that’s why I saved them all these years. I wonder if other rural students still have some of their TAB books? To most people they’re just old, cheap paperbacks, but to me those books opened up a whole new world. They were worth every penny back in the 50’s, and they’re real treasures today.

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Surrounded by Ancestral History

Across the Fence#583


It was late in the day as I gazed out the window of our house, still under construction, and looked at the cold winter landscape surrounding me. The abundance of December snow and freezing temperatures had added winter problems to our house-building adventure. A temporary heater and fans were keeping the house warm enough for drywall to be applied. I needed to check the house a couple times during the evening to make sure the heater was still functioning properly. The furnace couldn’t be hooked up until the drywall job was completed, or the warrantee would be null and void if it sucked all the drywall dust into the furnace and damaged it. This house building was a real learning experience for me.

I half-jokingly told an old army buddy; I think I had less stress when we were in Vietnam together and getting shot at. I suspect anyone who has gone through the adventure of building a house, and trying to sell one at the same time, knows what I’m talking about.

As I stood alone, looking out the window, in the darkened house that day, I was questioning my sanity. We could have bought a house in town and avoided all the extra expenses and building problems. After all, houses on the market were plentiful and their prices kept dropping as fast as President Bushs’ approval ratings. The sub-zero temperature, and the biting wind forming drifts in the snow around the house, added to the weight that was pushing my spirits down.

I was checking a west window for condensation, when I saw the lights of the Erlandson farm to the northwest. It had a warm, inviting glow with the snow-covered ground surrounding it, and the last brilliant pink of the fading sun peeking through cold-looking clouds in the distance. It was like viewing a gorgeous winter landscape painted by a master artist. My spirits began to lift. Views like that are priceless and one of the many reasons I wanted to live in the country again.

The Sherpe farm as it looked when I was growing up.

That’s when it suddenly dawned on me that I was surrounded by ancestral history. My great, great grandparents, Lars and Bertha Tomtengen, homesteaded the farm I was looking at, when they came to this country from Norway in 1850. My great grandmother, Lisa, who married Hans Hanson Sherpe, was raised there. That ancestral farm now bordered us, just across the road, to the north.

I looked out another window to the southwest. There were the lights of the farm where Syvert Sherpe once lived. He was a brother of my great grandfather. He also married one of the Tomtengen girls. That farm borders us to the west, just across the fence. 

Out the southern windows I could see lights in the house where my grandparents, Oscar and Julia Hanson had lived. They were my mother’s parents.  Just beyond their farm, I saw the farm where an aunt and uncle had lived, Maynard and Jeannette Hanson, and my cousins, Cynthia and Brian.

Across the highway from their farm, I could see the lights of the farm where I was born and lived for the first nine years of my life. I still refer to it as the Hauge farm. 

Just across the road from my grandparents I could see the dark silhouettes of the trees that surrounded Smith School, where I went for eight years. The building was recently moved.

Straight to the south of us I could see Birch Hill on the Thompson farm, where we spent many wonderful days exploring the woods and rocks and playing with neighbor kids.

I went to the front of the house and looked out the north windows. Just over the hill in the distance I could see the treetops of the farm where another uncle and aunt had lived, LaMont and Hazel Hanson, and my cousins, Lyle and Wayne.

To the northeast, about a mile-and-a-half away, I could see the farm where my great grandparents, Hans and Lisa Sherpe lived. Hans bought that farm in the 1860s after coming to America from Norway. My grandfather, Andrew Sherpe was born and died there. My father lived there when he married my mother. It’s right across the road from the Old Towne Motel, where I lived for six months while our house was being built.

Looking out the east window, I could see lights at the Richard and Sharon Gilbeck farm, just across Highway 14. My grandparents, Andrew and Inga Sherpe once owned that farm until they lost it during the Depression. Grandpa Andrew built the barn that’s still standing. My father and his sister, Juna, lived there when they were young.

Halfway between that farm and our house I see the lights of the farm where I grew up, along with my brothers and sister. My younger brother, Arden, and his wife Jan, and their girls, Katelyn and Kassie, live there now. That farm borders us on the east.

Yes, I’m surrounded by ancestral history. It hadn’t dawned on me until I was checking the windows that cold, blustery evening. I’ve always had a deep interest in family history and genealogy. I may be the new kid on the block, but I have very deep roots here. I think it’s only appropriate that I began the New Year in an old setting, surrounded by history, and the ghosts of my ancestors. It felt good. It felt like home.

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