I'm addicted. I go through starts and stops, looking for data and photos. My project over the summer has been to put stories and descriptions to the photos of us growing up. Because a photo has little meaning if you don't give it some perspective, something people can relate to! This is a photo of Emma Pape Beckman.And with all the technology these days, all the things being digitized, you just never know what you're going to find when you search out something.
My latest? My great grandfather traveled to America in 1882 with his sister. I was always told her name was Anna. Turns out, it's Emma! And after some trial and error and hours of research, I finally found that she decided she was going to be a part of this great nation. She got herself a claim of land in "Dutch Point" North Dakota. (Later to be Nelson County, then Tolna). She married the man who's land bordered hers. But I also found a description of life on that prairie!
Emma Pape came to America and to Grand Forks with her uncle, Fred Forrester, in 1882. There her uncle started the first meat market in that new town with a Mr. Dobmeyer. With uncounted acres of "free land" on every side the young woman, Emma Pape, soon staked out a claim on what was known as "Dutch Point". She met the conditions of a strange land and reacted as did all the pioneers who stuck to their land. In the following year, 1885, Emma was married to Charles Beckman whose homestead joined hers.
Their honeymoon was a train trip from Grand Forks to Michigan, from which point Charles walked to his pre-emption, returning the next day with a yoke of oxen and a new wagon to take his bride to their prairie home. They were destined to live their for four decades. Their house was a 10 by 10 shack. They proved 320 acres of land on the spot where the present farmstead now is located.
After a few months in the tiny shack, the Beckman's built a 12 by 18 home on the line between their two claims. This seemed luxurious after living in the small quarters where bedding and other things had to be put outside each day to make room for the daily activities. The furniture in the first home consisted of one wooden bedstead, a second hand dresser, cook stove, and two chairs. The carpenter who built the 12 by 18 house also built a table and some shelves, and also a bench.
Now... can you imagine? Living in a 10x10 shack? The two of you. Yikes! And even their home being 12x18, and raising five kids in there. Granted, it doesn't say but after a convo with my mom, I'm betting this new home had a sleeping loft for the kids! Spring, Summer, Fall, you can spend a lot of time outdoors, but winter in North Dakota!?? Brrrrr!!!! All 7 people holed up .... Yep, I'd have me a bad case of cabin fever in just a few days!
