Laura Ingalls Wilder fans from across the globe journey to stay at Prairie House Manor in De Smet. Our November/December issue features a story on the bed and breakfast that is now for sale. Katie Hunhoff took several photos during her visit. Here are a few that didn’t make the magazine.
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Having grown up in Hamlin County, I had plenty of chances to visit Kingsbury County, our neighbor to the southwest. We’d go to De Smet for basketball games or school tours of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. We went to the dentist in Arlington or visited Uncle James at his J&M Cafe in Lake Preston. My grandpa went to high school in Hetland, my grandma grew up near Badger and my aunt unwittingly became an entry in a Main Street parade while driving through Oldham one weekend.
It stands to reason that the closer you live to a certain place, the more connected you feel toward it. But it occurred to me that South Dakotans from Buffalo to Elk Point are probably connected to Kingsbury County to a certain degree. If you don’t have a Harvey Dunn print hanging in your living room, one of your neighbors probably does. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s”Little House” series sits on most of our shelves, but if you don’t own a copy of Little House on the Prairie, you don’t have to look far to find one. Many of us have even been the givers (or lucky recipients) of Beef Bucks, or cooked a rib eye on a grill made in Lake Preston.
These all trace back to Kingsbury County, 838 square miles in east central South Dakota that was created in 1873. The county is named after brothers George and Theodore Kingsbury, natives of New York who ventured to Dakota Territory in the early 1860s. Both served in the territorial legislature, and George published a newspaper in Yankton for 40 years. He also authored an incredibly detailed, multi-volume history of Dakota Territory that may be part of your library (if not, you probably know someone who owns a complete set).
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| Luke Latza and Ryan Fucs wait for walleye at Lake Thompson. Photo by Greg Latza. |
Seven years after its establishment, Tom and Bersha Dunn homesteaded on a piece of land near Fairview, soon to be renamed Manchester. The prairies along Redstone Creek are where Harvey Dunn toiled for the first 17 years of his life. He studied art at South Dakota State College in Brookings (despite his father’s misgivings) and eventually set up a studio on the East Coast. He served as an artist with the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I and was a successful commercial artist, but his greatest fame came from his prairie paintings. He was a regular summer visitor to Kingsbury County, sketching scenes against the steering wheel of his car. In all, he painted several hundred pictures of the grasslands around his home. Some can still be seen hanging in De Smet, but the lion’s share — including his masterpiece The Prairie is My Garden — are housed at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings.
About the same time the Dunns settled near Manchester, Charles and Caroline Ingalls filed on a homestead near De Smet, and watched as the town sprang up in 1880. The family soon settled in De Smet, and daughter Laura — by then a teenager — accepted her first position teaching school. The experiences of her family in De Smet are well chronicled in her immensely popular”Little House” series.
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| Families delight in tours at the Ingalls Homestead. |
Another historical figure in South Dakota had roots in Kingsbury County. Emil Loriks grew up near Oldham. He served in the state legislature in the 1920s but made his mark as leader of the Depression-era Farm Holiday movement in South Dakota and later as president of the South Dakota Farmers Union.
The Farm Holiday’s goals were to encourage farmers to hold on to crops until market conditions improved and try to prevent farm mortgage foreclosures.”Probably some of the things we did were illegal, like closing the stockyards, but it was the only way to bring the farmers’ plight to people’s attention,” he told South Dakota Magazine in 1985.
Visit Kingsbury County today and you can see vestiges of their existence. Emil Loriks’ home in Oldham is preserved as the Loriks-Peterson Heritage House. It includes a small museum and tours can be arranged.
The schoolhouse that Harvey Dunn attended has been moved into De Smet, but sadly nothing remains of his hometown of Manchester. In 2003, an F4 tornado destroyed the village. Former residents erected a monument that lists the names of families who lived in the township. It stands just off Highway 14.
In De Smet you can still see the stand of cottonwood trees that Pa Ingalls planted on their homestead, or visit the church and home he helped build in town. Local actors bring Laura Ingalls Wilder’s words to life every summer through the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant.
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| Bob and Nancy Montross raise cattle on their farm east of De Smet and helped develop the Beef Bucks program. |
There are other people and places to see and things to do. A statue honoring Father Pierre Jean De Smet stands in Washington Park in De Smet. The Jesuit missionary spread Catholicism over the Northern Plains in the 19th century, and though he died in 1873, settlers decided to name their town after him in 1880. The statue is a replica of the one that stands in De Smet’s hometown of Dendermonde, Belgium.
There’s good fishing in Kingsbury County thanks to the wet years of the 1980s. Lake Thompson was nothing more than a marsh, but heavy rains in 1984 and 1985 left a lake 11 miles long and covering 7,500 acres. It prompted one farm couple to turn their machine shed into a marina, and lake life blossomed. Today it covers over 16,000 acres, measures 26 feet deep in spots and features 44 miles of shoreline. It has also been protected as a National Natural Landmark, one of 13 such spots in South Dakota.
You can pull good size walleye from Lake Thompson, but my aunt and uncle specialize in another fish at the J&M Cafe in Lake Preston. Aunt Marla is the designated lutefisk chef at all Andrews family gatherings, and several years ago we asked for the secret to making a perfectly flaky filet.”We bring a large pot of water to a roaring boil,” Uncle James told us.”Put the pieces of fish in the water, and when it comes back to a good boil, the fish should be done.” Stop in December and sample for yourselves at their annual lutefisk feed.
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| Wally and Adam Sorenson developed Dakota Grills on their farm near Lake Preston. |
Can you grill lutefisk? We’ve never tried, but maybe the Sorensons have. Since 2004, Wally Sorenson and his son, Adam, have produced Dakota Grills from their farm near Lake Preston. The two tinkered with airflow and designed a computer program that keeps meat at a constant temperature. There’s no smoke, no flare-ups and no blackened hot dogs.
There may be lutefisk in Hetland this May 17 when the tiny town with lots of Norwegian heritage celebrates the Syttende Mai. A potluck, featuring egg coffee and other traditional Norwegian foods, begins at 6 p.m., in the Legion Hall followed by entertainment from the Nordic Nimble Feet. The dance troupe, comprised of Brookings and Estelline residents, meets twice a week to practice Norwegian dancing and travels to festivals throughout the state sharing their culture. Syttende Mai celebrates the signing of the Norwegian constitution in 1814.
Arlington has a lake too, but it’s a man-made creation. It sits at the busy intersection of U.S. Highways 81 and 14, along with a veterans’ memorial. When I was a kid, we always passed by a sign that said Arlington was home to”999 happy peopleÖ and 1 grouch.” I never did discover who the grouch was, though for a time I suspected it might be my dentist. Everyone there seemed so friendly and welcoming, and over time I came to see that Dr. Larry Green was, too. The citizens once even placed an ad inviting Californians to move there following an earthquake. As I recall, a family or two even accepted the offer. So it seems that Kingsbury County’s connections extend beyond our borders, as well.
Editor’s Note: This is the 21st installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.
When Charles and Caroline Ingalls brought their family to Dakota Territory in 1879, they found a winter home in a railroad surveyor’s house on the shore of Silver Lake, near DeSmet. All the surveyor asked was that Charles guard the company tools.
The Ingalls lived cozily in the house (which has since been restored by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society and is open to visitors to DeSmet.) It must have been a memorable winter, because Laura — who went on to become famous for her Little House writings — wrote about it 37 years later (1916) in a Thanksgiving column for The Missouri Ruralist. We first published her account in our November/December 1988 issue, and are pleased to have the opportunity to share it with you again.
As Thanksgiving Day draws near again, I am reminded of an occurrence of my childhood. To tell the truth, it is a yearly habit of mine to think of it about this time and to smile at it once more.
We were living on the frontier in South Dakota then. There’s no more frontier within the boundaries of the United States, more’s the pity, but then we were ahead of the railroad in a new unsettled country. Our nearest and only neighbor was 12 miles away and the store was 40 miles distant.
Father had laid in a supply of provisions for the winter and among them were salt meats, but for fresh meat we depended on father’s gun and the antelope which fed in herds across the prairie. So we were quite excited, one day near Thanksgiving, when father hurried into the house for his gun and then away again to try for a shot at a belated flock of wild geese hurrying south.
We would have roast goose for Thanksgiving dinner! “Roast goose and dressing seasoned with sage,” said sister Mary. “No, not sage! I don’t like sage and we won’t have it in the dressing,” I exclaimed. Then we quarreled, sister Mary and I, she insisting that there should be sage in the dressing and I declaring there should not be sage in the dressing, until father returned — without the goose!
I remember saying in a meek voice to sister Mary, “I wish I had let you have the sage,” and to this day when I think of it I feel again just as I felt then and realize how thankful I would have been for roast goose and dressing with sage seasoning — with or without any seasoning — I could even have gotten along without the dressing. Just plain goose roasted would have been plenty good enough.
This little happening has helped me to be properly thankful even tho at times the seasoning of my blessings has not been just such as I would have chosen.
“I suppose I should be thankful for what we have, but I can’t feel very thankful when I have to pay $2.60 for a little flour and the price still going up,” writes a friend, and in the same letter she says, “We are in our usual health.” The family is so used to good health that it is not even taken into consideration as a cause of thanksgiving. We are so inclined to take for granted the blessings we possess and to look for something peculiar, some special good luck for which to be thankful.
I read a Thanksgiving story the other day in which a woman sent her little boy out to walk around the block and look for something for which to be thankful. One would think that the fact of his being able to walk around the block and that he had a mother to send him would have been sufficient cause for thankfulness.
We are nearly all afflicted with mental farsightedness and so easily overlook the thing which is obvious and near. There are our hands and feet — who ever thinks of giving thanks for them, until indeed they, or the use of them, are lost. We usually accept them as a matter of course, without a thought, but a year of being crippled has taught me the value of my feet and two perfectly good feet are now among my dearest possessions. Why! There is greater occasion for thankfulness just in the unimpaired possession of one of the five senses than there would be if some one left us a fortune. Indeed, how could the value of one be reckoned? When we have all five in good working condition we surely need not make a search for anything else in order to feel that we should give thanks to Whom thanks are due.
I once remarked upon how happy and cheerful a new acquaintance seemed always to be and the young man to whom I spoke replied, “Oh he’s just glad that he is alive.” Upon inquiry, I learned that several years before this man had been seriously ill, that there had been no hope of his living, but to everyone’s surprise he had made a complete recovery and since then he had always been remarkably happy and cheerful.
So if for nothing else, let’s “just be glad that we are alive” and be doubly thankful if, like the Scotch poet, we have a good appetite and the means to gratify it.
Some hae meat that canna eat
And some want meat that lack it.
But I hae meat and I can eat,
And sae the Lord be thanked.
De Smet was a busy prairie town in 1917. Many trains passed through each day, and the three blocks of Main Street hummed with business. Both teams of horses and automobiles could be found on the streets. It was a pleasant town in which to live. There was quiet order to the days. The neat, well-kept houses that faced the street had barns that faced the alley. Some barns were used as garages for the new automobiles and some still sheltered horses. In residence in many of the barns was a milk cow. Refrigeration wasn’t great yet, and although you could order milk delivered from the dairy, many people still preferred their own supply.
Ten-year-old Harold Fritzel had developed a business. In partnership with his father, the two had decided that the Fritzel pasture on the edge of town could accommodate eight or ten milk cows. For $1.50 a month, young Harold would pick the cows up from their barns after morning milking, herd them to the pasture and return them to their barns in time for evening milking. Harold became a successful businessman. He had eight customers.
For the first few days, Harold’s father helped him. Once the cows knew where they were going, they would march out of their barns as Harold opened the door, join the cow parade and swing their tails in good style. None of the cows were above grabbing a bite here and there as they went. A small Jersey was the worst offender and the worst kicker. The tall, thin boy carrying a long stick and following his herd became a familiar alley sight.
In later years, Harold Fritzel recalled, “I knew every step of the alleys and most of the barns in De Smet. Along my route was a house shared by a widow and her blind daughter, Mary. They had neither cow nor barn. Their back yard was as neatly kept as the front. A rope was strung across the yard so the blind girl could walk around. The widow raised a large vegetable garden.
“Every morning and evening as I passed their house the old lady stood between her garden and the alley with a hoe in her hand. They had no alley fence, but I just figured she spent a lot of time working in her garden. I can shut my eyes and see her yet, the clothes she wore, the look on her face, the way she held her hoe.
“I always said … ‘Good Morning Mrs. Ingalls.’ She would reply, ‘Hello Harold.’ It didn’t dawn on me until years later that she stood there with the hoe in her hand to guard her garden, guard it from my cows.
“Of course, no one in De Smet had any idea that Caroline Ingalls’ daughter, Laura, would put us all on the map. “In those day I was just a kid and Ma Ingalls was a polite old lady, an old lady with a hoe, watching over her garden.”
Editor’s Note: Harold Fritzell recalled his daily encounter with Ma Ingalls in July of 1989. He died in 2002. Marian Cramer of Bryant, South Dakota shared his story with our readers in our May/June 1990 issue. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.
Years have passed since we’ve covered the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead in our magazine. This gorgeous slideshow by David Eggen from the New York Times reminded us why we need to get up there.
