Earning $2.50 a week is real money – Minute 2

Went to work in a bakery shop — you may not know what scraping bread pans is — $2.50 cents a week. That’s money. That was real money. And the following year in 1912, come back to Melrose, Minnesota. Went to work for the Great Northern Railroad in 1913 when I was 16 years old. Had to lie a little bit because Jim Hill wouldn’t hire anybody that wasn’t 18 years old. So when he came to town – which is very often with his private car, I would have to hide some place because he didn’t want to see me and I didn’t want to see him.

I’m 113, born in 1896 – Minute 1

Well…I’m 113, born September 21, 1896 in Melrose, Minnesota. Moved to Minneapolis in the next year. I remember getting a haircut when I was four years old – you know – I cried like a damn baby there. Then from Minneapolis, my father got a job in De Smet, South Dakota… Engineer. And, uh, in 1901 we moved to De Smet and I went to school the next year – six years old. In the 10th grade I had to quit. Our family broke up.