| Summary: | Ricka & Edward Gittel Ruth, Esther Edward & Fredericka Gittel Edward, oldest son of Michael and Margaret (Feil) Gittel, bought his parents' farm in 1910. The 3-room sod house in which he grew up still stands about four miles out of Blue- grass. Michael and Margaret had built another house on the property and remained there until moving into Glen Ullin. Edward and his wife Fredericka (Bickel), also a native of Bluegrass, raised grains, corn, livestock and chickens on their farm. The couple had five children: Milton, Roy, and Lillian. All the Gittel children attended the Bluegrass school 1 Vi miles from the farm. The one-room school, in which eight grades were taught, was heated by a coal stove. In the winter when snow frosted the fields and roads, Milton and Roy skied cross country to school. When the weather warmed in the spring, a day was always set aside for track races. Milton attended Glen Ullin schools during his 8th grade and first year of high school. Milton and Roy both served in the military during WWII. Roy was drafted into the navy; Milton enlisted in the marines and fought overseas in the 4th Def. Bat. for 34 months. He was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed in 1941 and every five years he returns to Hawaii for the Pearl Harbor reunion. Milton has been an employee at the Bismarck Hospital for the past 28 years. He married Mildred Kube in Lidgerwood, ND, Milton & Mildred Gittel in 1973. Roy, a security guard, lives in New Jersey; Ruth (Westmeyer) lives in rural Bismarck; Esther (Chenoweth) is in a nursing home in Washington state, and Lillian (Robertson) resides in Olympia, WA. Jacob & Mathilda (Bickel) Gittel Jacob Gittel and Mathilda Bickel were married in 1921, on Jan. 13, Mathilda's birthday. Jacob was born in Marion, SD, on July 16, 1897. His parents, Michael and Margaret (Feil) Gittel, moved to North Dakota in 1903 and settled in the Bluegrass area northeast of Glen Ullin. Mathilda was born in a sod house, in 1900, to John and Fredericka (Ellwein) Bickel, also of the Bluegrass area. "The first year we were married we lived in the Bluegrass vicinity in a small house on a hill on the Paul Muhlhauser farm we rented. It was a dry year. We paid $6.00 for a bushel of seed wheat. We did not have much of a crop but we headered it and got a few little stacks. Soon after it was harvested, a hail storm came up and the stacks, being near the creek, were washed away. The hail stones knocked all the windows out in the little house. The top buggy was blown down the hill. (We didn't have a car then.) We had two cows, three horses, 12 hens and one rooster. We went to town to Glen Ullin by team, 14 miles, about once in 10 days and sold a few gallons of cream and a few dozen eggs. Eggs brought only 5<t a dozen. We had no other spending money. But groceries were cheap, like 5C for a can of beans. "In October of 1921 we moved to Otter Creek, ND. There was a old man, named Ludwig Mantel, whose wife had died. He knew the old folks, the Gittels and Bickels, so he wanted us to move onto his place. He said, as long as he lives, we can stay there. That year we were so poor. It was dry and no crops. My husband trapped a weasel. We had just enough money to send the hide away, we got 92<t for it. There was a little store close by where we bought kerosene, syrup and matches. Then we got a few fresh cows, so we had milk and a little cream to sell. During the wjnter some of our neighbors were out of hay. We had an old straw stack, so they came to get straw with a hayrack on a sled. The snow was so deep they could hardly get through. The snowstorms were so bad and sometimes they lasted several days. Often you could not see the barn a little distance away. We had a rope from the barn to the house to keep in the right direction." In the fall of 1929 Ludwig Mantel died. His only grandson inherited the farm and traded it off for other land. The new owners took over, so Jacob and Mathilda had to move. "We moved to a little 2-room house 16 miles south of Hazen, ND, in October 1929. Our youngest daughter was born just a few days after we moved there. We did not know anybody and could not get a doctor (It was a Sunday evening, Oct. 16), so my husband had to be the doctor. With my instructions, everything went O.K. It is most surprising what can be done if it has to be. "In the 1930's we had the bad depression years and we had such dry years. The dust storms were like snowstorms, we could not see but a short distance. We had hardly any grass, so the children had to take the cattle away about three miles every day and watch them. When they came home they could hardly see - their eyes, noses and ears were all full of dust. Sometimes it was so dark in the daytime we had to burn the lamps. It lasted for weeks. The cattle were just skin and bones. We had very poor crops all five years. Towards fall it rained. Thick green thistles grew so we cut them for hay. We had to work fast, while they were green and soft, to make the stacks. When they were dry they got brittle but the cattle ate them because there was no other hay. The weather during the summer was frightening. Our little 2-room house on top of the hill had no basement, but there was a little root cellar a ways from the house. Several times one week we had to flee in there during the night. We had to get the children out of bed. We had some old blankets and coats down there so they could sleep. One night our neighbors came to join us in the root cellar. They were so afraid, and that night the storm destroyed their house. The shed on our little house was blown away, also several barns in the area. It rained so hard the bridge washed out and our neighbors could not go home. The rain came too late in the season to help the crops. "After five years on the farm by Otter Creek we moved back to Bluegrass, onto my husband's brother John's place. We felt like we were half ways to heaven. We lived there until 1950 when we moved to Glen Ullin. "In December 1962 our son Clarence bought the farm just before we went to California to spend the winter with Jacob's sister who lived in Lodi. In Lodi, Jacob became sick with a heart condition. He passed away Feb. 3, 1963. In 1970 I moved into Harmony Acres. All in all the Lord has blessed us all these years." Jacob and Mathilda had five children: Clarence (1921) was in the service from 1942-1946 and stationed in Germany, France and Alaska; Chester (1922); Irene (1924) (Mrs. Ed Skaley); Ray (1927) was in the service 21 years (1943-1964) stationed in Greenland, Hawaii, New Guinea, Beirut, Bagdad, Holland and VietNam; Loretta (1929) (Mrs. Richard Gordon) lived in North Carolina; she passed away in June, 1979. Clarence, Loretta, Ray, Chester, Irene, Janet, Tillie, Jacob. 249 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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