Dearest Inventor of Joy - 1986

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Edited by Bjorn Benson, ElizabethHampsten and Kathryn SweneyUniversity of North Dakota,Grand Forks


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Day In, Day Out

ContentsDedication 1Introduction: In AWhite Room 3The Child is Mother of the Writer

by Lois Phillips Hudson 13Conversions

by Louise Erdrich 23Professing Culture:A History of North Dakota Clubwomen

by Sheryl O'Donnell 31Pen Women of Fargo by Cynthia T. Selland 44

IMetis Women at Turtle Mountain

Growing Up at Standing Rock

by Lise Croonenberghs 59by Sally McBeth 64by Niomi Phillips 81by Dorothy Lukens 90by Lucille Gullickson 9 7by Edna L.Uecker 104

by Virginia Remington 109by Hazel Retzlaff 113

CollaborationThat's All They Knew, Was Work

Hazel Miner, Angel of the PrairiesSherida's StoryAunt Lena and Uncle JoeGertie

Lo rra in e Fa ir fi el d, 34; S uelle n S ch ultz S tein ke , 86; N ancy Pierce, 93

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Catholic Sisterhoods in North DakotaSister Boniface Timmins

Belief in Tender HandsThree German-Russian Faith Healers

DocWinkNursing in North DakotaHoping for Better DaysThe 1940sGrey NunsThe Garrison Life, the Delightful RidesThe Pull of Tradition:The North Dakota AssociationOpposed toWoman SuffrageWomen and North Dakota Politics

Growing up with the Farmers Union

nby Mary Ewens, O.P. 1 1 7by Barbara A.Gehrki, O. S. B. 1 2 0

by Timothy J. Kloberdanzand Nadine Engbrecht-Schaff 1 4 3by Jacqueline K. Dohn 1 4 6by Bonnie Clark 1 5 9by Marjorie Flegel 1 6 9by Edna M. Boardman 1 7 3by Eleanor Merrow 1 8 1by Jane Coleman 1 8 9

by Paul A. Hefti 1 9 7by Lynn Severson 2 0 5by Jeanette Ross 2 0 8

Tu li a S kj ei C h ri st en se n, 115; Ma ry G ue nth er, 155; AnnBerquist , 166; Gayl e S c hu ck , 170; H ild a C arlso n, 1 83;

Sharon N eet, 206

Little CasinoDrive Your Oxen, Ride Your Plows:Homesteading Women in North Dakota

IIIby Frances Wold 2 1 5

by Elaine Lindgrenand William Shennan 219vi


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Day In, Day Out

How Women Support Family Farms

Making Less Than the Rest

by Polly A. Fassingerand Richard W. Rathge 237by Shirley E. Friend 247by Judy Logue 253by Barbara Honeyman Pierce 259by Alice R. Senechal 265by Thomas Matchie 267by Christyann Ranck Maxfield 272by Angie Erdrich 275by Beth Benson Schmidt 279

A Record in FabricUp and Away Over the BamNorth Dakota Women During World War nThe Profession of LawDearest Inventor of JoyProtestant Women In MinistryWorking at Wahpeton Indian School

Orva B r id g efo rd , 213; Mar k V ollm er, 221; JocelynScriba, 228; Audrey M ahoney W ill, 229; LeonaPatenaude, 266; E ls ie S ch ra d er , 268; Ca rmen Re tz la ff,

269; Jo Ann Palm er, 281

IVI Think I'll Make ...Women in the Visual Arts by Laurel Reuter 291Evidence of Having Lived in the State

by Kathleen Norris 30 3Kathy K ram er M aruska , 309

For Further Reading 317

Index 320

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uay In, uay VlH

"Dearest Inventor of Joy"by Thomas Matchie

My mother died last spring. She WaS ninety. I thought how much more frail shelooked in death from the woman I knew in life - with the strength to teach whenshe was young, marry a farmer she loved against the ad vice of her family, and to starther own business school during the Depression when the farm failed. And throughit all, she raised a family of teachers."You're too yo~mg to teach in that school, Gat," her mother had said, the summer

of 1915 after Agatha graduated from Lidgerwood High School. Catherine AgathaDewey (she never used her first name) had just returned from an excursion withsome girl friends to Spiritwood Lake and was on her way to teach at Vaplon Schoola few miles from home. Agatha's sister Mabel is good at quoting their mother, andloves to take me through my mother Agatha's scrapbook, pointing out pictures likethose of the seven girls on that lake trip. One of those girls was Marion "Toots" Eckes(now ninety and living in Parga) who also taught country school. "You didn't haveto have any fancy qualifications in those days," said Toots, "just a six-weeks'permit."Agatha was an independent sort, the oldest of five living children - Mabel andEthel, sisters a few years younger, and twin six-year-old brothers. Two years latershe had her one-year elementary diploma from Valley City Normal School and itwas now clear she intended to make teaching her career.According to Mabel (now eighty-seven and at home in Alexandria, Minnesota),Agatha was a lot like her mother Theresa. Theresa was aggressive, an organizer,sometimes domineering. She wanted Agatha to succeed, but she wanted ither way.Theresa and her husband Andrew Dewey were Irish-Canadian immigrants who


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26 8 Matchiesettled in Lidgerwood. As a boy I remember Grandpa (after Grandma had died)doing dishes in our house in Jamestown. He was an easy-going, bushy-hairedgentleman who lacked his wife's Irish temper. We called him "Bank" because hegave us nickels when he could. Mom said he did odd jobs in Lidgerwood - drivinghorses for Dr. Sasse, serving as a policeman, selling real estate -- to keep the familyin food, clothes and college.Agatha worked hard at everything, including helping her mother garden andplant flowers in the city park, bu t she wanted something different and more exciting.Teaching seemed natural to her and she had determined, said Mabel, to make itanavenue of freedom. During the summers, Agatha combined business courses atDakota Business College in Fargo with more college inValley City so she could teachcommercial subjects in high school. Agatha's teens were disturbing times in NorthDakota; farmers were organizing the Non-Partisan League, and men were going towar. She followed such events, especially the personali ties involved. She would getme to read about Franklin Roosevelt when I was in high school, and later shewouldn't let me miss a Jack Kennedy press conference. These political interestscame a little later, foron the threshhold of the 1920s,she wasfor the first time entirelyon her own and had to worry abou t making a living. At first she tried bookkeepingin the mill at Casselton, where she got her first taste of living alone, eatingdowntown, and finding something to do at night to keep from going stir crazy. Butthen the mill burned - December 19, 1919. The pictures of that fire are in herscrapbook, and Mabel says it was a frightful experience. In the summer of 1920

In Ju ly 1985 I retired after teaching school in C avalier C ounty for 38 years. In theseyears I traveled by airplane , car, farm truck, horseback and on foot. O nce, on M arch 15 ,1951, it took m e an hour and ten m inutes to drive on State H ighway 5 from the Easbycorner w here a sign says "Langdon 5 m iles," into town. U sually, when I drone undersnow y conditions I gu ided m yself by fence posts a t the edges o f farm ers' fields, g rasspro truding through the snow at the edges o f the d itches, or the center o f the h ighwayyellow line. But tha t day I could not see anything and lost m y sense of d irection.

W hen I realized tha t I d id not know whether m y car was still on the road, I braked toa com plete stop, opened the car door and fum bled for foo ting. W hen I could stand up , Itried to determ ine whether or not I was standing on the b lacktop . Being carefu l no t tolose sight o f the car, I a im ed stra igh t to the left, un til by feeling w hat was underfoot Id iscooered where the left edge of the h ighway w as. Then just as carefu lly I retraced m ysteps and , go ing in front of the car, d id the sam e to discooer where the righ t edge of theh ighway was. I cam e to the conclusion that the car was about in the m iddle o f the road .That was not a sa fe place to be when visib ility was zero . I knew I should get back in tothe car and m crue it m ore to the righ t so tha t if there were other m ooing cars I would notbe in the w rong lane. W hen I did ge t hom e, people in Langdon were am azed that I hadd riv en in th at sn ow sto rm .

Elsie SchraderLangdon, N.D.


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Agatha finished school at Valley City and headed across the state to Cando to teachfor the first time commercial subjects, and for the first time students in high school.Miss Dewey, as her students called her, was at home in the classroom. Herstudents thought her smile contagious; they saw her as kind and felt she identifiedwith them. Luella Allickson, a high school student in the '20s, writes:

Your unchanging character, wonderful personality & disposition winthe friendship of many ... I never never shall forget you and your smile.When a student enters the classroom and is met with a "smile" - whyshouldn't she feellikeworking the rest ofthe day? ..Miss Dewey, allow meto say that ifanyone ever loved you more than I do (which covers all thatword love means) they would certainly have to go some.

Administrators, too, saw in her a gifted person, and wrote recommendationssaying she was simply good for the school. Her only "fault" was going to dances,especially barn dances. aut of those dances came numerous friendships. Her lettersshow she was a close friend of Clayton Smith in Casselton, went out often withStirling Thorn in Cando, and the next year, teaching in Kenmare, even ponderedmarriage with R.A. Shonberg, who worked in the Northern Pacific Depot. Accord-ing to her sister Mabel, Agatha hesitated because of her career, and the next year hemarried an old girlfriend, saying "Take care of yourself" as he left. Always one tomove ahead, Agatha applied the next fall at Carrington, where Mabel, after attend-ing dramatic school in Chicago, was also hired to teach. Itpromised to bean exciting

M y father and m other are both teachers in North D akota. M y father saw education as a m eansto ow ning a sm all b usiness; m y m other heard a call to p rofessionalism . A lthoug h career p ossib ilitiesfor wom en w ere rapidly expanding in the fifties when m y m other w as entering the job m arket, rural

Am erica still turned ou t predom inantly one kind of w om an professional - teachers.Being a teachers' k id , I learned about things in teachers' lives that m ost students never see. I

spent countless nights sitting beside m y m other as she read and graded essays and tests. For a tim e,she didn 't teach and I learned that life for four on one teacher's salary m eant a tight budget. W henm y m other returned to teaching , I learned about the b ig w orkload and sm all benefits for a part-tim e

teacher, and ab out re-entering the job m arket as a m id dle-ag ed w om an.I also learned the in and ou ts of sm all tow n academ ic culture as w ell as local and state politics.

W e knew w hich candidates w ould p ush bills to benefit education. A t social gatherings, w e assessedw hether the tow n w as for or against a new school building .

I found doors open for m e that w eren 't for m y father, and especially m y m other. Their educationhelped them up , and now they boost m e even higher.

Carmen RetzlaffMinneapolis, Minn.


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270 Matchieyear.Gat always was close to her sisters, Mabel and Eck. Mabel said that Agatha felta deep love for her sisters all of her life. But, added Mabel, "she was also our ringleader" as she organized dances for the whole town, often inviting friends fromother towns to come join in the fun. One fellow wrote back after one of her suppersat Beaty's Cafe, followed by dancing at the lap' s (later the Rainbow Gardens), callingher "Dearest Inventor of Joy." And so she was successful as a teacher, fun-lovingoutside of school, and close to her sisters who did her bidding as they gave her theirsupport.Agatha was also an adventurer. To the dismay of her family, she left in 1923 forBridger, Montana. Mom often talked about the beauty of that little town nestledamong the Rockies. In less than a month she orchestrated a dinner party at the oldPalace Cafe, which she and two others renovated along the theme of Goldsmith'sDeserted Village. People came from Fromberg and Red Lodge and even Billings toshare in the gaiety, and letters in the paper showed the entire town appreciated theevent. One signed "the men" read:

While we natives were bewailing the lack ofentertainment, three of ourenergetic lady teachers, Misses Mildred Dick, Agatha Dewey and OllieMay Chandler, conceived and executed the idea of the above novel anddelightful little dance party, bearing all expense themselves, and doing allthe work necessary to put the room in condition.

Agatha left Bridger in the spring, and by the mid -1920s settled in Jamestown -a larger town with a bigger school. Though women could now vote, the rule inschool was still that a woman couldn't be married and teach, so Agatha continuedto delay marriage in favor of her career. After two years, however, she began to getanxious, for she had met Timothy Matchie, who farmed near Spiritwood. Dad hadnearly graduated in engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee, but at theoutbreak of World War I had come home to help his folks on the farm. He said that,because Agatha and he were nearly thirty, they decided that if they were going tohave children they shouldn't wait forever. Gat's mother opposed the marriage.Though my father pointed out to her that he was a "good Catholic," Theresa stilldidn't like the idea.They were married secretly in Jamestown in the summer of 1927. The schoolboard found out in November and told her they would terminate her contract in thespring. So Agatha became a farmer's wife. Dad said she never liked the role, butshe was a realist and soon learned to feed cows and pigs and chickens. She alsobecame a good cook, feeding shockers and threshers. But after seven crop failuresTim and Agatha lost the farm. Taking Eck and Harper Brush's two children intotheir family (Eck had died in childbirth), my folks then moved to town, but Dadcould not find work. Mom got him to take a civil service test for an opening at thePost Office - he got the highest score and the job. Gat decided to go back intoteaching, but this time on her own terms.She couldn't teach public school, so she found another way. Selling her diamondring to buy typewriters, she opened her own business school, the Central DakotaCommercial College, above Preds' Ladies' Wear in Jamestown, journeying to the


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Day In, Day Out 271countryside to recruit her first students, even "carrying" many of those studentsuntil they got their first paycheck. Bernice Bagan, a student in 1937, said she had nomoney, but Agatha, who charged little anyway, let her go to school and payafterwards.In the 1940s Agatha moved the school to rooms above Woolworth's (later theHaroldson Office Supply), where she continued to educate most of the secretariesand young business executives in Jamestown. Many of her students were veterans-from World War II, the Korean War, and even into the Vietnam era. Ernie Young,who was there in 1946, said "she was really considerate of us guys." When I waseight years old I learned to type and take shorthand there, and I marvelled at mymother. Never loud or teachy, she got students to practice whatever they weredoing, hardly ever corrected a test, but got them to work on their own. Theatmosphere was a communal one, a kind of academic Cannery Row, and whetheryou were a high school graduate trying to get a job, a veteran collecting your GI Bill,or a teenager learning to type in the summertime, you felt at home in Agatha'sschool. Downstairs on Main Street the Palace Cafe became an extension of theschool, for here the students could relax with their teacher and each other, andAgatha was able tomake contact with future employers. Lucille Hehr (now workingat the Senior Citizen Center in Jamestown), was a waitress at the Palace Cafe in the1940s; she said, "Agatha was such a delight, so much more a human being than theother teachers who ate there; because of her I wanted to go to that school."But Agatha was also a homebody. Though Mom had to teach each day, and oftenat night, she insisted the whole family meet at home for hamburgers at noon-thiswas a communal event, she said, important to keep us all together. In the 1950swhenMike and I were in high school, my folks trusted us with the car out of town, andcame to all our basketball and football games at home. When we were in college atSt. John's University Mom wrote to us almost every day. I was a little embarrassedat this, but one day Bucky Morgenson, who roomed next door in St. Mary's Hall,said, "Geez, she must love you two guys." School and church were central to ourlives; all four kids went to St.Iohn's Academy (the high school closed in the mid 60s)and all fourofus graduated from college; you couldn't be in this family and not valueeducation. In the 19605,after thirty years at the business school, Agatha retired withTim to their home on 4th Avenue, a block from Jamestown High where she had firsttaught when she came to town.Agatha inspired her family as well as her students toward independence, themen as much as the women. She taught us how to be always inventive, and to feeljoy because we felt alive. One day after turning eighty-six, she read an ad in theJamestown Sun advertising for a teaching position in typing and business law, andquipped, "1could fill that spot in a minute." Itwas fitting that at her funeral sevengranddaughters carried her body into St. James Church. The funeral director triedto help, but they insisted it was their job.Thomas Matchie teaches American Literature and the Humanities at NorthDakota State University, Fargo. He grew up in Jamestown, the third of fourchildren of Agatha and Tim Matchie,

Dearest Inventor of Joy - 1986

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