Winnifred Ruth Bale Iverson, 1914 - 2001

Winnifred Ruth Bale

Photos from an old scrapbook

   My grandma, Winnfred Ruth Bale was born on October 17th, 1914 in Lisbon, North Dakota.  She was the ninth of eleven children.  She and her family lived in town until Winnifred was nine years old and then they moved out to the farm.  The house in town was large and had running water, electricity, a cookstove, and steam heat radiators.  The house at the farm did not have indoor plumbing, but it did have running water and gas lamps.  Both houses had telephones, but only the house in town had a piano.  The family used a horse-drawn buggy or lumber wagon to get around until the family got a car (when Winnifred was in eighth grade).
    When I was a girl, growing up in the 1980s, Grandma used to tell me stories about her childhood.  She remembers living in town and kicking her heels on the wall of the front porch and listening to it echo across the valley.  She'd sing and yell and listen to the echo.  She remembers going to the playground that was just a block away and swinging as high as the treetops on the board-seat swings.  She remembers pulling her little brother into town on the wagon one day.  They were quite dirty from playing and when Winnifred's older siblings saw them in town, they were embarrassed.
     When Winnifred was in second grade, she looked forward to gathering around the cookstove each afternoon with her siblings to tell her mother about the school day.  One day her older siblings were talking about someone who had "played hooky" from school.  Winnifred thought it sounded like fun, so she tried it herself.  She went to visit her Aunt Ora, who promptly called Winnifred's mother, who wasted no time in punishing Winnifred.  After that, the older siblings would spell their stories around the cookstove when they didn't want to influence Winnifred.
     Winnifred's family loved to tell stories.  Sometimes they would play a game where one person started a story and then the story would be passed along and added on to.  Some evenings after supper, the family would sit around the dinner table for 30 - 40 minutes and tap out rhythms to songs.  Everyone else would try to guess the song.  Winnifred's family played card games, Dominoes, and Monopoly too.  The girls enjoyed singing songs in harmony together as they did the dishes.

Winnifred, Age 14

     The only time the Bale family was quiet and somber was on Sunday afternoons after church.  Winnifred's mother did not even cook on Sundays.  Winnifred loved to hear the choir sing at church.  But, once she moved to the farm, Winnifred did not go to church anymore because she struggled from motion sickness and the 12 miles into town was too much for her.
     The transition from school in town to country school was rough on Winnifred.  Her classmates would tease her for not knowing farm-related things such as what a harness was.  But, Winnifred soon excelled, especially in spelling.  The year she was in fifth grade, Winnifred's mother was the country school teacher!  She wasn't always easy on Winnifred, either.      
     Winnifred was 15 years old when the Great Depression changed American life.  In an interview I did with her in the 1990s, she told me that the beginnings of the depression didn't affect her father's farm very much because most of the children were already on their own.  She said, "We were living off of milk and cream and chickens.  We had no money, just what the farm was able to provide.  We didn't lose the farm, but the farm was not so productive because of the drought.  We kept everything.  I remember the grasshoppers.  Clouds of grasshoppers stripped the grain right out of the field."


     When Winnifred was a freshman in high school, she and her brother Robert went to Lisbon to live with their sister Helen and Helen's husband.  Then her sophomore year, she moved to Minot to live with her sister Gertrude.  She had to walk a mile to school each day.  Winnifred's last two years of high school were spent in Valley City, living with Helen and Helen's husband who had moved there.  Winnifred's senior year, she was able to take college classes instead of high school classes because she had completed her sixteen credits and was an honor student.

My beautiful Grandma

   The summer after her senior year, Winnifred went right to Valley City College for summer sessions.  She had one year and another summer at college and had her Second Grade Professional Degree, which qualified her to teach.  She lived at home and taught in a country school for seventeen kids in all grades but eighth grade.  In addition to teaching, she had to start the stove each morning and sweep and clean up the school each day.  She was paid $45 a month that year (1933).
   After her first year of teaching, Winnifred joined her sister Edith and brother Sanford in Baldwin (which was 25 miles from Valley City) where she taught for two more years.  She lived in the teacherage with Sanford and his wife.  She was paid $65 a month, but had to pay Sanford $20 a month for meals.  Winnifred taught grades 1-3 and typing.  After her two years of teaching in Baldwin, Winnifred went back to college and got her four-year teaching degree.
    A small German-Russian community named Kulm was the town Winnifred moved to next.  She taught first and second grade there for two years while living with a couple housemates.  The housemates got along so well, that they decided to move together to Montana, where teacher salaries were better.  Winnifred attended a few classes at the University of Missoula that summer to prepare her to teach in Montana.
    While going to the University, Winnifred attended a picnic for people from North Dakota.  There was a young man there named Norman Iverson who also attended the University.  They were on opposing teams for a volleyball game.  Winnifred fell into a gopher hole when Norman hit her with the volleyball.  Winnifred liked to tell people that she "fell for him."
     Winnifred and Norman were interested in the same things and enjoyed spending time together.  They both liked concerts, choral groups, and singing together.  Sometimes they got hamburgers for 25 cents near campus.  Norman was working on his Master's Thesis and Winnifred typed all of it for him.  Before parting after the summer together at school, Norman gave Winnifred his picture and they wrote letters to each other.
    Winnifred taught 23 children in first through fourth grade in the small town of Moccasin, Montana that fall.  The following year, she taught in Sidney.  Sometimes Norman would come visit Winnifred in Sidney and they would go pheasant hunting or watch birds together.  Norman liked to say that Winnifred was a good birddog!  It was on one of these excursions that Norman asked Winnifred to marry him.  They were married on July 27th, 1940.

Norman and Winnifred Iverson

    The marriage ceremony was a small family wedding at the home of Winnifred's sister, Gertrude.  Winnifred's father had died, the farm was sold, and Winnifred's mother was living with daughter Katherine.  Winnifred wore a $50 peach dress from Billings and Norman wore his best suit.  Helen's husband sang "O Promise Me" and "The Lord's Prayer."  The couple went to Yellowstone Park for their honeymoon and then settled in Glendive.
   Norman was a vocal music and general business teacher in Glendive, but Winnifred could not teach, because at that time, female teachers could not be married.  Winnifred missed teaching.  They lived in Glendive for four years.  On March 14th, 1942, their first child was born:  Robert Iver  (my dad)!  Then in February of 1947, Patricia Ann was born.

Winnifred with Robert

The family of four

    

    After Glendive, the family lived in Terry for a year and then in Fairview for ten years after that. Unfortunately, it was during that time (in 1950) that Winnifred had to experience something that no mother should ever have to experience.  Her daughter Patty died of leukemia.  I cannot imagine the pain and grief she went through.
    God blessed Winnifred and Norman with two more daughters.  Karen Jean was born on October 12th, 1949 in Sidney, Montana and then Mary Florence was born on January 31st, 1953, also in Sidney.  Then when Robert was in sixth grade, Karen four years old, and Mary four months old, the family moved to Dickinson, North Dakota.

Family of Five

    

     Thanks to Women's Suffrage, Winnifred was able to teach again!  She taught for 25 years in Dickinson.  Her first class had 33 first graders in it.  In addition to teaching and raising her family, Winnifred helped Norman in the music store that they owned.  She cleaned things and sorted music.  Winnifred also joined the Zonta Society for women in the business world.

Winnifred Iverson

     Winnifred's family grew up and eventually Norman and Winnifred retired in Dickinson.  They enjoyed their community activities and their trips in their motorhome.  Winnifred enjoyed being Grandma to 10 grandchildren!  

     I consider myself lucky to have had Grandma be a part of my life.  She encouraged creativity and reading.  She liked my writing and listened to me practice music.  She wanted me to work hard in school and she was pleased that I connected so well with children.  She introduced me to arts and crafts projects and helped me appreciate the beauty of North Dakota.  I always felt that she was one of my biggest fans.  I liked spending time with my Grandma.  I became a teacher in 2000 and my last conversation with my grandma was about teaching.  I have always loved that Grandma was a teacher.  I feel a connection with her.  

  

  

Grandma died in 2001.  Grandpa followed soon after in 2002.  I like knowing they are in Heaven together.  I like knowing that they were only apart for a matter of months.  I look forward to seeing them again some day.  I bet Grandma will enjoy hearing some of my teaching stories!  What a beautiful reunion that will be!