Mary Elizabeth (Atkinson) Klein (1916-2001)
I was born August 15, 1916 in Willmar, Minnesota, the oldest living child of James and Lula Atkinson. Their first-born was Naomi who died shortly after birth and is buried in the Butler, S.D. cemetery.
My Dad worked in the yards of the Great Northern Railroads at that time. When I was still quite young we returned to the Bristol, SD area. Due to a severe bout with rheumatism, he had to leave the railroad work.
As I reflect on my growing up years, I know I was what was called a “tomboy”, and from all reports, pretty strong headed. I exasperated my mother frequently. She said spankings failed to thwart my determinations. However my Dad had a rather unusual approach to discipline and for us it was very effective. He would call our name give us a penetrating look, drop his gaze and shake his head from side to side, It would stop me in my tracks and if it was in public I wished the floor or ground would open and swallow me.
When I was about seven or eight I must have really been out of line one day and he called me to his side. I remember it was in our front yard. He told me that what I had done deserved a punishment. He took out his pocketknife from his overall pocket and opened out the large blade. He then handed it to me and instructed me to go cut a switch. As I recall I cut one from the nearby lilac hedge and walked back to him. He reclaimed the knife, closed it and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he stretched out both of his hands in front of him and said in affect; what you have done deserves punishment and because I love you I am willing to take the punishment you deserve to receive, then he commanded me to strike his outstretched hands with the switch I was holding. I was aghast! How could I strike my Dad? This kind, gentle, loving person who had never physically hurt me in any way. He said, “Go ahead. Hit me.” I gave a token response and he said “Harder”. Whether I struck him again I don’t know. I do know that I could not see clearly for the tears running down my face. I dropped the switch, turned and ran into the house and flung myself on the bed sobbing. I do not recall that another episode like it was repeated. Over the years with love, gentleness and firmness we were taught how to make wise choices. That doesn’t mean I always did but both my sister and I held our parents in high esteem and that kept me in line on many occasions.
As a sub-teen and a in my early teens I longed to be a cowgirl. I spent part of every day except the coldest of winter on the back of my beloved Molly. She was a lively little bronco who could run like the wind and cattle ranch trained to keep up and turn an errant critter. I had to mount her in the barn because the minute your foot was in the saddle stirrup she was ready to go. She met an untimely death and I spent the rest of my riding days with a part Arabian named Barney. He wasn’t quite as spirited but has an easy gate and was long winded.
We moved several times those early years of my life and were renting a farm about 6 or 8 miles west of Butler and slightly farther from Bristol when I started first grade in Valley township school #148. My mother was my teacher for the first three years and I’ve always been thankful for that, as she was a stickler for basics including phonics. For Thera and I it was having a teacher 24 hours a day as the teaching did not stop at the classroom door. We worked on fractions as we cooked and baked and weights and measures as we did farm tasks. One of her favorite control measures when Sid (Thera’s pronunciation of her name when she was little was Sido and the short version stuck for many years) and I got boisterous and scrappy after too much shut-in time in the winter was to have us sit down and we would have a spelling bee. Mother would throw words out to us verbally as she continued getting the meal or ironing or whatever. We both became pretty fair spellers as well as developed our vocabulary. The dictionary became a ready resource. She also taught me to appreciate and enjoy the sound and magical qualities of words. There is more to language than simply communication.
Economics, mediocre roads and the culture we lived in kept us quite close to home especially in the winter months. As Thera mentioned we all loved to read and had no difficulty filling spare time sans radio, television or electronic diversions. Music was also a big factor in our development. Mother played the piano beautifully and gave some lessons to the neighbor children as well as her own. I never achieved anywhere near her skills. Thera had a gift to play by ear and developed her own style. Our Dad had a good singing voice and we girls started singing together at an early age. Thera had the better voice (alto) and she also learned to chord Hawaiian style on a Sears Roebuck Guitar. We sang wherever we were ask to, mostly church and community clubs. Thera played tuba and then baritone horn in the Bristol High School band. I played mellophone, which has the sound and shape of a French horn. I remember how badly I wanted to be in band but how could we possibly find money for an instrument when it took every penny just to exist in those “dirty thirties”? I’m not sure how it came about but my cousin Irene’s husband, Neil Jones, offered to loan me his alto horn. He played it in the Waubay band when he was in high school. I was ecstatic! There was however a problem or possibly several. The instrument obviously was much tarnished brass, no gold or silver plating.
Neil told me it had been used as a visual token of victory. When Waubay won an athletic contest and the band had encouraged their efforts, the alto would be tossed in the air and frequently; used as a football to express their exuberance. It was dented, marred and disfigured but it required much soldering to achieve an acceptable sound. I learned the fundamentals on it and the band slowly began to make music man that took on the task. He made us feel we were capable of great achievement and we were determined to prove him right. The next bandleader we had some how convinced my family that I should have a real horn. We purchased a “satin finished” mellophone, which was my pride and joy. I even won first place in a district music contest in which I played a solo. I didn’t get to go on to regional or state because there were no funds for such at school and for sure we didn’t have the money.
Because Thera graduated at age 15 we were both in the same graduating class of 1934. It was the largest class to graduate from BHS. We had lost a few also over the four years as they moved away or dropped out.
The year after graduation we stayed at home. Jobs were scarce. There was no money for college. I had dreams of being a pharmacist. That year at home I raised Leghorn hens and went in the egg selling business. It was not a gold mine venture! The next summer I saw an ad in the county weekly paper that Peabody School of Nursing in the county seat, Webster, was recruiting a fall class. It wasn’t pharmacy but it was tuition free. The only expenditures were for books and uniforms, which I made. The sale of the leghorns plus a bit of egg money about covered it. There was however more involved as students worked several hours a day in the hospital as part of training and as we mastered skills to fill out the nursing staff. We also worked 20 hours every other weekend. Shifts ran for 12 hours beginning at 7:00AM with 2 hours off sometime during the shift. Staff doctors and nurses taught our classes. It was hard work. Our Superintendent of Nursing was a maiden lady who ruled with an iron hand. I’m glad she was tough but mercy for undergraduates was not in her book although there was an occasional exception. I did not qualify! More than once I would have been happy to close the door behind me and not return. On one of those bents my wise Dad said, “No matter what you do there will be times when you want to walk out of it but that is when you make the choice to be a fighter or a quitter.” I graduated June 3, 1938 and passed the State Board of Nursing examinations. I was a full-fledged Registered Nurse. Coincidentally the doctor who ministered my first spanking as I entered this world was our commencement speaker. Dr. Branton of Willmar, MN was a good friend of our chief of staff, Percy Peabody Sr.
The first year following graduation I worked as a private duty nurse. At that time there were no ICUs so a nurse was called in to give special attention. Also the more affluent would ask for one and sometimes we were even ask to care for people in their homes which I did on several occasions. It was almost a coveted position as you received $8.00 for 12 hours. The average staff nurse received $50 per month.
In August 1939 I went by train to Eureka, SD having answered an ad from the Eureka Community Hospital. I decided the private duty route was not for me. I preferred the ordered routines and challenges of a staff position. I was there about two weeks when I met Barney Klein. It was love at first sight for both and we were married April 2, 1941. We would have married the same year we met but felt our income was insufficient. However it did not improve much and we married anyway. I had left the hospital in January ’41 with the director of nursing and two other nurses and went to Crippled Children’s Hospital in Hot Springs located in the southern Black Hills of SD.
Explanation: A refugee doctor, from one of the Balkan countries, had come to Eureka. It was a time of short supply of MDs especially in small hospitals and rural areas. This man may have been a good doctor but his aseptic techniques were abominable. I was surgical nurse at the time and the DON was the anestethist. We felt we could not work with him and the hospital board felt constrained to keep him.
Barney came out to the Hills the first of April and we were married the next day in a Methodist parsonage in New Castle, WY. We didn’t announce our marriage until he came to get me in June. At that time society frowned upon working married women. That attitude was due to change very shortly. With the advent of World War ll, every able-bodied person felt compelled to do something. It was your patriotic duty!
On our first anniversary Barney received his “greetings from Uncle Sam”. Due to a heavy spring snowfall mail was delayed. He received the induction notice April 2 and reported to the induction center in Sioux Falls April 6. He was gone for three and a half years. Most of that time was overseas.
It was a difficult time. Fortunately I was back to work in the Eureka hospital. Things were also in a flux there. We have been at an all time high of three doctors. They all ended up in the armed services. Doctors came out of retirement to do their bit and we were able to get a man from Chicago area that served us well.
Nurses also left either to be with their husbands while they were still stateside enlist them selves or enter defense or war related efforts. Soon I was the only nurse left at Eureka Community. I too wanted to enlist but Barney said no. He felt we would not be in the same area and this way it was a comfort to him to know where I was and should be safe. I’m sure he was right and now believe my war effort was on the home front in the “home” hospital. Indeed, it was home! I had a room on the basement level, right next to the kitchen. Also I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There were no nurses to be had so I trained women and girls to do nursing tasks. I had never heard of nurse aides or assistants but had a 30-bed hospital to operate! They were terrific! Some lacked high school diplomas but they were caring, strong and willing to learn and implement.
The person responsible for the hospital office also left so hours were stretched a bit more. Then came a period when there was no communication from Barney due I learned later to an ordered blackout, a defensive measure. The combinations of stress eventually caught up with me and I was forced to take some time off. Surprise, surprise! There were nurses out there, right in the city! Retirees were pressed into service while I gained strength and some vigor in the bosom of my family. They urged me not to return but I felt strongly this was my contribution to the war effort. I also increased my dependency on God’s grace and strength. Some one wrote, “They also serve who only sit and wait.”
At last the war in Europe was over and Barney returned to the States. After a several week furlough he went to Camp Crowder in MO where he remained until his discharge that fall of ’45. I spent the last few weeks he was there with him.
Life quickly gained”normality”, whatever that is! We bought a piece of land and Barney built a cement block double garage on it, which he also made into temporary living quarters. In a couple years he drew up plans for a dwelling and put in the foundation. The house never materialized and the fall of ’50 we moved to a farm northeast of Bristol, SD. James Richard had joined us on Feb. 13, 1947 and was now 3 years old.
Farming was less than lucrative; it was confining and hard work but it was some of our best years as a family.
The first winter on the farm we had many cubic yards of snow that kept us snowbound from the first week in January until Palm Sunday, which I believe, was late March that year. It was a winter of innovation, of bonding, of pressing into God’s presence. We just completely enjoyed each other. James turned four in February and that was the only time he and I left the place that winter. Thera sent word by Barney on one of his weekly trips to town via horseback (see section on Barney), inviting us to come celebrate his birthday and stay over night. The only fly in that ointment was that Barney could not be with us because of the livestock chores. The scenario went thus: After morning chores were done Barney took us via horse drawn sled to the County road about a mile and a half north of us. John met us there with the car and we went to enjoy a pleasant respite from our isolation. James thoroughly enjoyed his fourth birthday replete cake, candles, ice cream and presents plus playing with his cousins. The next day the transportation sequence was reversed and we were back to our imposed seclusion.
During his first year of High School James informed us that he wished to be called Jim and we went with that. In the fall of 1965 he enrolled at Northern State College, Aberdeen, SD. I took a job as supervisor and head cook in the lunchroom of the Bristol Public Schools to supplement his meager school funds. He worked for Ne-So-Dak Bible Camps each summer and for Christmas and Easter retreats through college but need a bit more to make ends meet. To give you a glimpse of the times, I received $100 a month. We made everything from scratch mainly from the Surplus Commodity Program under the Dept. of Agriculture.
I operated the lunchroom for a year and a half. Barney and I had been contacted by the planning board of Sun Dial Manor, Inc. to serve as administrator and director of nursing services. Plans had been formulated to construct a 30-bed intermediate care nursing home in Bristol. It was a community venture with not government funding involved. We opened the doors to serve the people of the area June 1, 1968. The next year seven more beds were added. We committed to a ten-year stint and left late June of ’78. It was headache, heartache
But I was glad when it was over.
Our retirement together was short lived as Barney passed away in February 1979 after an illness that was diagnosed just weeks before we retired. It was like losing a part of my body and took some adjusting to get used to it. I went to work in the capacity of a nurse’s aid that fall. I remained at SDM until the fall of ’81. At that time it became evident that the medication I had taken for about 6 years to relieve heart stress was no longer sufficient. I had triple by-pass surgery at the U of Minnesota in Dec. of the same year. Son Jim and sister Thera were there to support each other and to comfort me. I recovered quickly and spent a short time under Thera’s loving care in her home. After Christmas I went to Minnesota to complete my recuperation. By spring I had made plans to make a permanent move to that area. I returned to my home in Bristol the next spring, sold our house and was back to northern Minnesota that falls. I purchased a new 58 ft. Liberty mobile home and placed it in a lovely wooded area in Movil Lake Park 6 miles north of Bemidji. It was to be my home for over 12 years. It was a beautiful spot and I had friendly caring neighbors and landlord. Jim and family were about a mile and a quarter away. Barney would have loved it. He could have gone fishing every day with out getting in the car or hooking up the boat. My house was less that the equivalent of a half block from the lake and I could get a glimpse of it from my eating area.
I spent most of my time from June ’94 in Reynoldsburg, Ohio where Jim and family moved the fall of ’89. After much thought and prayer and the invitation of the Buckeye Bunch I decided to move one more time. As I write this (June 1996) I have been living in their home. A year ago they bought a lovely three-bedroom house on a cul de sac with a large wooded area at the back and is part of the property. It is reminiscent of my beloved Minnesota surroundings. They made a small apartment for me in part of a large room overlooking this area. It is quite, private and comfy. As I write this I am approaching my 80th birthday. I hope there will be no more moving until I get my white robe and wings.
There are other facets to my life but this is the basic physical itinerary.
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