My First Home

I was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, the state capitol, for reasons not clear to me.  I have asked my aunt Cora Ziebarth, who was living with my grandparents AJ and Addie at that time while her husband, Milton, Harold’s brother, was in the WWII Armed Forces.  Unfortunately Cora’s memory does not include the reason for Mother’s being in Bismarck for my birth.  I do know that there had been an earlier pregnancy which ended in miscarriage, possibly in connection with some incident involving a sleigh ride.  It seems likely that her doctor advised hospitalization prior to delivery.  But why this was as far away as Bismarck instead of closer, possibly Dickinson or Glendive where my brother Tim was born a few years later, I probably will never be able to find out.

After my birth, April 20, 1943, we lived on a farm/ranch near Harold’s parents, AJ and Addie, south of Sentinel Butte, North Dakota in the house shown in this picture taken a few years  later in the 1940s. 

This house is on 320 acre property originally homesteaded by Michael Jesok in 1915, later sold to Robert Sonnek, then apparently foreclosed on so that Harold purchased it from the State of North Dakota in 1947.  How they could have lived there before the purchase is not clear, but perhaps the property was leased from the state, or purchased on a contract allowing occupancy during its term.  Harold also owned an adjacent 160 acre property purchased from Andrew and Bridget Gamrath in 1939.  I remember outbuildings, including the warehouse/granary shown in this picture,

on that property, but no house.  And Harold had also purchased a nearby 640 acre property from Gust Burke in 1943, shortly after my birth.  There was a house on that property that I’ll write about later, but we never lived there that I remember.  And Harold purchased one other property, an adjacent 160 acres from First Minneapolis Company in 1944, making his total holding 1120 acres.

In the early 1990s, on the way back from picking up our daughter Jennifer from college, we visited the North Dakota area where her grandparents had lived.  This first house is still there, still occupied, and still as isolated as before.  No one was at home so we could not investigate further.  I may have taken a photo that I will find later in my project.  Jennifer could not conceive that her prim and fastidious grandmother could ever have lived in such a location.