| Summary: | with the horses on the run, pointing to grey clouds of smoke, a much feared prairie fire. There were two methods of fighting prairie fires; a fire break between the fire and buildings. If the fire spread fast, the fire was fought at the edge. This one, aided by a strong northwest wind, was coming fast. No time to plow. Father hitched a horse to the stone boat, loaded a barrel, filled with water and drove close to the fire's edge. We and several members of the Zinc family, who had come to help, soaked gunny sacks in the water and stomped out the fire. Exhausted, soaked to the skin, we smelled like smoke for a week. In 1919 we bought our first car — a Model T Ford. We cranked it by hand, sometimes wearing ourselves out getting it started. We could put the top up or down and there were side curtains we could hook on in wind or rain. No driver's license was required, we learned to drive by experience. I ran into a cow that changed her mind in the middle of the road, bending the fender and getting a dirty look from the cow. I soon learned to clean and replace spark plugs as well as fix flat tires. The greatest traffic problem then was meeting horse-drawn vehicles. Beth was in the first class to be graduated from Medina High School in 1918. There were six members in the class, including Mae and Pearl Olson and Carl Manley, the only boy. There were only three in my class, Irma Leudtke, Loretta Meade and I. After finishing high school I taught country school and Beth went to college. That year the bank went broke but we managed, to keep her in school. The next year she married John Buck, who was teaching High School in the Medina school. I went on to college and graduated with the Class of 1926, at Jamestown College, then went to teach high school in Gregory, South Dakota. During this time Father passed away. He had been failing, but never complained. Mother sold the stock and machinery but stayed on the farm, renting out the land. She lived on the farm for about ten years. This was during the depression and crop failures. We had to skimp to make money stretch to pay the interest to say nothing of the principal. It was pretty much the same for everyone. We had lots of company. Meanwhile Beth and her husband had moved to Oregon. Mother and I went to visit them the summer of 1937. Mother stayed, returning to Medina only to take care of renting the farm. After teaching in Illinois, I too, came to Oregon to live. In 1942, I married Eugene Goude who had lived in the coastal area most of his life. Our first home was in Marshfield (now Coos Bay) and we have lived here since. Taking a trip back there in 1970 imagine my surprise seeing large groves of trees, no longer the dry, brown, wind-swept prairies! Mother passed away in February of 1965. We took her back to Medina for burial where Father is buried. Pioneer life on the prairie provided challenges. Our experiences were interesting if not always pleasant ones. No time for self-pity. We learned to take things in stride, broadening our horizons to fully appreciate the little things in life. — Ruby Wright Goude MR. AND MRS. GOTTLIEB BIETZ Pressured by political and social conditions in Russia, which made it an unpleasant place to live for free dom loving Germans, Gottlieb Bietz came to the United States with his father and mother (Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb Bietz, Sr.) and three other children in 1883. His father's brother, George, had come to America in 1877 and lived in Scotland, South Dakota. Here they stayed until the spring of 1885, when they loaded, their household goods, machinery, two pair of oxen, two cows, two horses and came as far as Ipswich, South Dakota, which was the end of the railroad line. Here they loaded their wagons and started the slow trek towards their homestead (Beaver Creek) in the Western corner of Mcintosh County, which took eleven days. There were more immigrants and their families in this moving caravan making the trip. When night came the men lifted the Bietz's cast iron range from their wagon and supper was made for the entire caravan. Reaching the homestead, the first few days were spent in quickly building a temporary shelter, then breaking up the sod began. Their first crop yield wasn't much, a scant 10 bushels of wheat and about 40 bushels of flax. Farming was crude, threshing done by hand. Sometimes the flour supply ran short. Wheat then was ground in the coffee mill until it was fine. Coffee and sugar were a luxury. Wheat was roasted, ground and used, to make coffee. The morning meal was wheat grits, potato soup for the noon meal and corn meal mush for the evening meal. Buffalo bones were picked and sold for $5 to $8 a load, which often bought the flour and staples needed, and the children grew up healthy and strong. Their whiskers were cut but once a month, with a shears. By 1887, farming was easier. There was a market for the grain, and machinery could be obtained reasonably. Farming was good. The soil was rich and the garden vegetables grew in an abundance, potatoes enough for the hogs. Wild game was plentiful and fishing was good in Beaver Creek. In 1898 Gottlieb Jr. took up a homestead south of Wishek and was married to Anna Maria Mantz, born October 3, 1877, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb Mantz. (They had come to U. S. in 1894, settling near Kulm, North Dakota.) They farmed there for five years and then moved to a farm north of Medina where they lived until 1939, when they retired and moved into Cleveland, North Dakota. Mrs. Bietz died December 2, 1950 Mr. Bietz died July 17, 1955. Ten children were born to them: Theophil, rural 38 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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