Kinder, Gentler Ways: Reflections of a River Town Boy

By Kent Otto Stever

Harsh as the times of post-World War II days were in appearance, the 1950s comprised an era of proven practice—with common denominators of honesty and truth binding together the “kinder, gentler ways.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780878399567

Kent Otto Stever

Kent O. Stever is a storyteller, a sort of historic sage, a grand researcher who looks in every corner for ways to personalize and make researched topics fun—or "compelling," as one reader has offered. His stories evidence life based upon early-learned values. He is a math major, Ph.D., fifty-year educator, researcher, truck driver, parent and grandparent. He attempts to capture histories that others might pass by. He resides in Lakeville, Minnesota, where he "enjoys a stroll back in time to a simpler place," relishing memories and joys of neighbors, friends and community members who supported one another. He invites your comments at [e-mail]. 

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Author’s Note

I love the idea of having grown up in an era of kinder, gentler ways.

Harsh as the post-WWII days were in appearance, they comprised an era of proven practices—with common denominators of honesty and truth. As Harry Truman stated for each of us, The Buck Stops Here.

In these writings I attempt to wrap thoughts and remembrances of the times into little stories—some personal, some historical. They are little gifts of storytelling that offer a structure and consistency to the times. The memories included are gifts given to me—far surpassing any wrapped gifts of birthday or Christmas. Like the carving of decoys, fishing lures or wooden whistles, these are gifts passed from the hands of one generation to the next.

Core family leaders passed on the torches of continuity, flow, learned philosophies and common behavior with strong, gentle, firm and expectant hands. My stories reflect these values—supported by parents, neighbors, schools, churches and community members of the time. Every boy can be a member of the YMCA! Wow! (City Directory, 1946.)

The stories outline treasures gained and questions pondered in my development. There is a transition in the mix of stories from memory of childhood to simple, researched histories to application and philosophy. Herein are some lessons of life.

We each seek to answer questions along the line and throughout life. Who is responsible? or How do I get there? we ask. Answers in hand, we then proceed to accomplish. The book is about the foibles of life, of growth, and of people met along the way. It is about hardships and the fun of new experiences throughout life. It is also about remembrance. In it, I strive to coordinate, capsulize and otherwise organize thoughts for friends of the past and those of new generations.

Through suggestions of others who know my writing, I researched a bit to capture the essence of the milkman, rollerskating, grocery stores, boathouses, dance band and others. I even investigated Pepin Pickles. They were part of our history in building a base of people-centered accomplishment.

Hopefully, I have addressed a concept in a new way. It’s about fresh thinking. In the words of David Housewright, fellow author and mystery writer, I want to take you places and introduce you to people you haven’t met. I’ll have you meet my father, Carl the Milkman and the Triple Toungueing Trio, among others. I will share learned lessons and extend a bit into today’s thoughts.

I attempt to provide rich detail to center the reader—and make him or her feel that he or she is present in the place or moment. One writer suggests that if I thoroughly, deeply describe a place; the story will evolve. Throughout I attempt to make thoughtful transitions and give you controlled pacing. I believe in juxtaposition—a chaotic ordering or chance happening—to offer variety, maybe a surprise.

As with other writers, we write to express ourselves. We also offer entertainment and engagement along the way. It is a personal act that takes one deeper into our individual psyche every time we write. John Updike in his memoir entitled Self-Consciousness takes us deeper than we want to go. Barbara Kingsolver in Small Wonders suggests a potion of minimum requirements for daily sustenance of the soul—including kindness, charity, effort, commitment, sincerity, hard work, thoughtfulness and graciousness. I like it.

Hopefully, I have dug a little deeper for you.

Chapter One

After School

It’s interesting how powerful we felt walking around and through our town.

We knew that time in the woods, walking up and down limestone river valley bluffs on a regular basis or riding bikes everywhere built us up physically for future missions. Physical fitness wasn’t something that a physical education teacher taught us. We didn’t have one.

We found physical fitness on our own—like traipsing off to the Swap Shop, a second-hand store on the main drag of downtown, on a moment’s notice or heading out in the hills on our bikes when the weather was amenable.

Like our heroes of World War II and Korean War army combat movies and through G.I. Joe comics, we knew hard work and constant training would prepare us to be physically fit in time of national need. It was something that was just known.

Physical education consisted of kickball on the blacktopped playground at school recess under the supervision of one or more of our female old maid teachers. It was augmented by our once-per-week indoor basketball sessions after school. During these moments of shooting buckets and running drills established by Ev, a sixth grade teacher and coach, we envisioned ourselves as the future superstars of basketball.

Our knowledge of superstars came from watching the high school team with H-Bomb Heinz on Friday nights, through an occasional visit to the floor of the local teachers college to watch a Saturday morning basketball team scrimmage, or in seeing the likes of the Phillips 66’ers or Holy Cross team members in the shiny pages of Sport Magazine. We were able to try out our techniques all week long after school on the tarred playground lot with its steel-poled basketball bang-board and metal-webbed net.

From Davey’s bedroom window facing the asphalt of the playground, we were able to keep an eye on the space and the competition for use of the court for the hours we needed. We gained our time slot without shivering on the sidelines as others finished their game. Temperature, darkness or the draw of an eight-cent Pepsi at Deilke’s Grocery across the street helped determine the length of our sessions.

Shooting a ball with icy patches imprinted on it from each bounce one late spring day, we decided that enough was enough. You can’t shoot a ball with gloves on. You also can’t shoot a ball bare-handed for endless hours on a barely thawing day in April without getting frozen joints and ice on your fingertips.

The impediments of weather messed with our accuracy toward the steel-webbed net. Maybe that’s why the best ball players come from Los Angeles or Atlanta or French Lick, Indiana. They can shoot until the cows come home—and have warm fingers.

On this particular day it was definitely time to move on. Since homework was somewhere between slim and none for mental giants like us, we decided to leave the court and head over the tracks to visit our buddy, Wayne. His house was always a good spot to visit in the late afternoon. His ma was forever cooking something on the wood stove and she always made us welcome. It seems like the coffee pot never left the top of the stove—to serve guests and family at any time of night or day.

It was still a shock for us to sit with Wayne, his brothers, ma, or pa the milk hauler at the kitchen table and drink coffee. Why Wayne’s family, with his father a milk hauler, had such a dedication to coffee is a mystery yet today. Some of us were still novices at understanding pungent adult liquids, yet we imbibed.

We were raised in the state that boasted Princess Kay of the Milky Way, the annual queen of June’s Dairy Month. Dairy products seemed to be everywhere. Even though dollars were short in our house most of the time, the milkman made his every-other-day stop at our house (and everyone else’s) to deliver glass bottles of milk to the back porch.

It was milk for growing bodies and minds. As much as we went without other things, milk flowed throughout the years. Pa’s milk bill never did get paid in full. We went to the corner grocery to pick up two-pound rolls of butter wrapped in waxed paper—or if dollars were very short, to get the plastic packet of oleomargarine with the push button red blob that we kneaded into what seemed like semi-yellow white lard. We never did get quite used to it.

In Wayne’s room, an extension of the small house across a small porch, we sat around like three small soldiers in a bunkroom. And no wonder—beds were U. S. Army issue, with USA stamped on the footboards.

A small, self-contained kerosene stove kept the room warm on a chilly day while creating a permanent smell of kerosene that stung our noses upon entry. The room and furnishings may have been sparse and utilitarian, but Wayne’s comic book collection drew our attention and masked any discomfort. His assortment was stupendous—a resident horde of comic books over a foot high. Wow! The assortment included GI Joe, Captain Marvel, Superman, Lash LaRue, Dick Tracy, Archie, and what seemed like a hundred more.

We may not have been the most excited readers of American history or the dusty novels from the school library, but we were voracious in our appetites for good comics. As with marbles, the greater the stock, the choicer the opportunity in trading. The routine, of course, was to get together with others and with their stacks to trade one-for-one or two-for-one, if necessary, to both expand one’s literary awareness and the quality of one’s stock.

Our friend, Bruce, was the only one of the gang who had a controlled stock. His father, the Sunday school supervisor and the junior high principal, was the resident censor in his house. The rest of us seemed to be control-free, since our parents likely had read most of the comics themselves or didn’t care. The most common remark overheard from parents was,at least they’re reading.

David, a neighbor kid a few years older than us, had a good stock of comics—but we didn’t engage in trading with him. His mother, a single parent with a strong Catholic background, saw that all his comics were stamped with the seal of approval of the Catholic Church. Their subject matter just didn’t have the mass market appeal of blood and guts and glory that we all sought.

After our confab in Wayne’s room, we decided to head off on a comic book trading mission. On the way from Wayne’s, we stopped by my house and Davey’s to grab our own stacks of comics. Dragging our stacks over our shoulder in cloth bags, we headed off to the Swap Shop.

It was only a couple of miles, so we could make it down and back before suppertime. With a few nickels in hand, we might even purchase an item of Edson’s comic stock for half the original, listed price. If we chose to trade with him, the standard policy was two for one—that is, two of ours for each one of his. But his shelves were loaded with adventures new and old, so we were ready to trade.

Comics, playground and home visits filled our after-school time. We would walk to Wayne’s or Johnny’s or Bruce’s or my house—or any one of twenty other destinations. Playmates were those with whom we went to school. All seemed to be within a ten block radius, as if someone had defined our perimeter of socialization. In fact, boundaries had been created by the school. Since kindergarten, our circle of friends and the range of our wanderings held pretty close to those defined boundaries.

In most cases parents were at home, but there was the occasion or two when we were left on our own after school to make hot cocoa or peanut butter sandwiches. There was the time when we got on the telephone and called names in the book at random to ask the answering party if their radio was on. If they said; Yes, then we asked how it fit -and quickly hung up. It was good for a few yuks. Pranks were relatively harmless.

We occasionally tossed a few snowballs at cars and ran like the wind across backyards to our hiding places in the neighborhood. Only Jim and Eddie were more adventurous. They went off one day to the boathouses down by the frozen river and burned one of them to the ground (or the ice). They were found out and met their due with the police at school the next day—and with some long-term counseling and guidance of Pus-Eye, the county probation officer.

It’s hard to remember someone new coming into our midst. There were a few, but like the new neighbors of today, they had a hard time breaking into the routine of relationships that had been established.

Little Marsh was an exception. He was a little guy who came into our midst for a few years beginning around third grade. He was just too pretty. He had slicked-down hair, new corduroys on nearly every day and a house that was just too nice. I don’t remember ever seeing him messed up or dirty.

We liked to visit his place. It had so many of the things absent in our little houses—like television, a forced-air furnace for whole-house heating, new toys of the best quality and even a separate room for toys, comics, and playthings.

In the living room, his parents had a brand-new Zenith floor model radio—the world’s best (or so we were told). It was wooden, shiny and effective. With it, one had the capability to bring in frequencies that ranged from our local radio station, KWNO, with its everyday happenings to police frequencies and airline chatter, as well as short wave—a magical wonder that took us around the world.

We could listen for hours while very slowly turning the colored, lighted short wave dial to French, Japanese, and other stations and receive what seemed like hundreds of dialects we didn’t understand.

Marsh’s every cap pistol, comic and toy—from his electric football set to his beautiful Lionel train—was shiny and new. We enjoyed them all.

With all the things around him it was always a quiet house, nevertheless. His parents must have been successful. We hardly ever saw them.

He wasn’t a bad kid, either.

Of Guitars, Hook Shots, and Sawdust

In the dark of morning I wander into my unheated garage. If the temperature exceeds forty degrees there, I spend an hour or so at my workbench plucking my guitar or banjo. If the temperature isn’t welcoming, I retreat to my small office inside.

My musicianship is low skill, yet enjoyable. With coffee cup at hand, I practice a few bars and rhythms—and savor the peace. Through snowstorm and summer breeze, I have practiced diligently five days per week for many years. I’m a little less regular today, what with my workdays and busy times writing.

I am now accomplished enough to chord and slowly stumble my way through a hundred or more melodies. Over the past fifteen years or so, I have taken the Beginning Guitar course three times. I have also rebuilt two banjos and taught myself how to play them with a do-it-yourself book. The guitar is mellow, the banjo raucous and freewheeling. Fingerpicking and note playing of the banjo are slow to come, but I persevere.

As I hear the ease of a guitarist on public radio or observe musicians at church or concerts, I know that I won’t get to their level. I don’t know a clef symbol from a cleft palate. Starting to play one’s first musical instrument at age fifty-five without musical training is a bit akin to trying to play basketball for the first time at a similar age.

The rhythm of the dribble, the turn of the hook shot and the side-sliding moves of defense in basketball learned as a boy would today be, in the least, challenging and unnatural. In like fashion, with what seems to be an age-defined limit on chord dexterity, my little finger can’t stretch to the necessary fret for chord achievement. So I use three fingers rather than four. Yet I persevere to achieve the blues progression and sink my hook shot of musical performance.

From diligence of guitar or banjo practice, I move on to high-tech. The computer is more able than I am to go places. I gently spend some time checking email, newspapers and sites of interest—and try to avoid multiple download offers. I should be a prime candidate for eBay with my vast collection of collectibles, but have found that it’s a game I don’t often wish to play. The low bids (and lack of bids) and the hassle of shipping a $3.95 item are less than motivational.

I do know my stuff, however. If I have something really unique (like a collectible Coke product from the 1950s or a marked item from Saks Fifth Avenue), I know it will bid and sell. But everything else of limited value usually goes for ten cents on the dollar. Rather than doing online sales, I’m motivated to be out of doors, being project-oriented and focused on physical activities. My hope is for a sun-filled day in the twenties or higher to get me out in the yard or garage. If not, it’s back to the computer for some writing—an act similar to guitar playing, where I miss a chord or two.

My garage is my home in the months of March through October. Essentials of outdoor life, tools and treasures surround me. With more than forty years as worker and homeowner, I have patterned it as a place of escape and empowerment. Tossing off my suit and tie at the end of a professional day for jeans and sweatshirt, the garage has always been my welcome home. It has been a place of respite away from the intellectual and social challenges—a place to be encapsulated by freedom in doing what I choose.

Most often, with sawdust on my shirt, glue and wood filler stuck to my fingers, and tools strewn throughout the garage, I move to complete another project. This time, it is slicing up pieces of ponderosa pine to form the base for a wooden, mitered box of weathered wood. It will serve as a table centerpiece filled with antique items, grasses and floral accents, all in a western, country motif.

It’s an idea I picked up in a unique western store in the mountainous trout stream country of Montana. Using a napkin and a borrowed pencil in their shop, I sketched out the rough design and dimensions for a home project to challenge me in the cool days of Minnesota winter. Back at the cabin, I loaded a few pieces of Montana pine from the firewood pile into my van for the project.

I have restored vintage pickup trucks, tables, chairs and antique outboard motors. I have built cedar boxes and birdhouses and maintained our gardens and lawn to an impeccable state. Over the years I have done hundreds of projects that now grace the homes of children and friends. This winter I completed a cherry duck decoy formed and carved from a chunk of cherry wood rescued from my neighbor’s woodpile. Upon completion, I started carving and finishing some Cypress knees.

A treasured find, the extended pieces of cypress tree roots are unusual in formation. They were received in remembrance of my daughter-in-law’s father. He specified that several knees be gathered and passed on to me before he recently succumbed at his small rural home in Louisiana. I treasure every moment of creating artistic treasures in his honor.

This is one of those days to take an extra hour of writing before projects begin—as I wait for daylight and good weather to show up. My writing usually takes the form of stories of childhood and self-development. I’ve written stories of Christmas at home, first jobs on the milk route, baseball and even one about Grandpa being an Indian. I’m working on publishing my second book.

Sometimes I sit in my little house—a cabin with a loft that I built at the lakeside for our children over thirty years ago. I am at ease. The old Mac computer on an older oak beam table has all the necessary word power that I need to compose my simple stories. It’s also the place where I peel bushels of apples in season to pass on as pie-ready packets for family and friends.

The sun is coming, although there seem to be more gray days than blue in Minnesota’s cool seasons. In a moment or two, I’ll take my break from writing, grab a cup of coffee and strum my guitar until the sun rises. Later, I will wander by the open gymnasium of the YMCA for due diligence on the stationary bike. I may also practice my hook shot.

Studying the hook shot, playing the guitar and thinking of the beauty in working with wood, it feels as if this story is evolving into one of the life of the retired—a much-ballyhooed activity. We all work so hard and strive for so many years to save and plan for a future without work. For what purpose?

This is the autumn of life for retired folks. It happens also to be my favorite season of the year. In the glories of fall crispness, my home country of southern Minnesota beckons me to sit a moment on a south-exposed hillside in a hardwood forest. In the sun’s warmth I can bask in the contributions of labor and gifts shared with others along the journey—while gathering hickory nuts. Setting out for the nearby orchard, burgeoning trees await and invite my handpicking.

Homemade Cherry Duck with Model - Author photo.

My soul is warmed by these thoughts in the fashion of watching quiet flames of the campfire or seated beside the gas-fired fireplace in our family room. Presence of family and thoughts of past accomplishments imbue our spirits. We should be basking—in the joy of having achieved three score and ten.

Instead, our days often get filled with the mundane—a golf game with other seniors on Wednesdays (where conversation revolves around the latest big dog driver), a three-hundred-mile trip to a meaningless place to fill a vacuum of involvement, or an important visit to an ailing relative or friend. We sometimes have an issue with a neighbor, an adult child or grandchild that causes anxiety. We need simply to remind ourselves that we have weathered the storms before and this too shall pass. We need to stop to enjoy the sunshine.

Work was a good thing. We used our brains and were challenged at every turn. The joy of solving complex organizational problems or overcoming a personal challenge with an employee or client caused us to think on our feet and engage all our senses. Some would call this pressure and stress—but there are those of us who enjoyed the challenge of continuous learning and updating of skills to not only maintain, but lead the organization to new heights.

I am reminded of a friend who just retired after forty-two years of educational leadership. His skills on the job are many, but his developed hobbies are few. It’s only been a couple of months for him, but I sense in him a longing to return for another fall opening of school. Upon my retirement, I had a conversation with a friend who was similarly approaching the time of the gold watch (in our case an engraved brass school bell.)

He suggested that we had become institutionalized over our thirty or forty years in the school organization. The school bell rang on the hour, the annual calendar prescribed our workdays and projected accomplishments by target dates, and our offices were familiar havens of comfort and camaraderie. In his scenario, we were not retiring—we were being released from a self-imposed sentence in the big house.

Having now become experienced in the domain of retirement over more than ten years, I recall advice from an eighty-year-old doctor who counseled me before giving up my day job against giving up the routine and the stress. An uncle, a retired insurance agent, offered the same advice. But I took the early out. Today, I would offer my friends’ thoughts to anyone who asked.

No wonder the retirement venue is so hard to accept. In today’s society, we are not held in esteem as elders who can continue to share wisdom with younger members of the tribe. We are an anachronism, simply cast off with a pension to find a new life—and essentially invited to put our brains and energy on the shelf, never to return. We have not been sent to a halfway house to transition or decompress into this new way of life.

Children are great, but they are busy with their worlds of work and corralling their own lives into a semblance of order. They are daily ignored by their own kids who are filled with their texting behaviors and themselves. They seem to have given up on bringing known, needed standards to their children. It is just too much of a hassle. Then suddenly their little ones are in or approaching college and are seemingly at a loss for personal direction. And they wonder why.

The opportunity in some law firms recognizing long-term and skilled employees as senior partners is refreshing. They are treated as august members of the profession, given lesser task responsibilities and time commitments—and viewed with respect for their experiences. They are of counsel in the fashion that leading universities defer to and recognize past leaders in the role of professor emeritus.

Each is available to mentor, to guide and to contribute in ways that benefit all. They are not cast out upon the streets to find meaning through a life of golf games or volunteerism. One of my friends, a successful land and project developer, returns weekly to an office held for senior retirees in the company he founded. It is a space of welcome and a place for engagement with those who have followed in their footsteps.

I have explored the concept of retirement and work with male acquaintances at a similar point in their lives. Those whom I see as most vibrant and effective are those who are yet involved with their world of work—and with their families. One of the fellows has a restored 1947 International dump truck that he keeps at his son’s place and uses for fun and productive work in caring for the needs of his family and his small country acreage.

He hauls manure for his gardens, crushed rock for his grandson’s ventures in landscaping, firewood for family and friends, and enjoys keeping the luster on his 6,000-mile truck—all related to his family history in trucking and his sense of contribution yet today. On summer Sundays he shines and buffs and drives his antique vehicle in small-town parades, with family member assistance.

A dynamic seventy-nine-year-old golfer I play with hits his golf drives over two hundred yards, takes his memories and collection of ancient rods and reels muskie-fishing regularly—and works several days a week in his son-in-law’s shop as gofer and shop maintainer. His work is rewarding—again in the company of those who care for him—with his expertise occasionally called upon. He has a special spirit and verve about him that tells me he has a combination of work, hobbies and family that combine to sustain his self-esteem.

Another of the fellows, in his early seventies, drives a couple of hundred miles a day in metro traffic delivering Toyota parts; another has his growing Internet sales business and full-time sales of band uniforms to schools and universities, which he operates at age seventy-four, to sustain his need for accomplishment and personal recognition through his new toys. A third keeps up a day or two with his past vocation as barber—even when he’s away for several months in Arizona. His tools are at his side and he achieves a small income and grand recognition as he plies his trade in his ultra-clean Arizona Room.

Few of those I value as friends have given up on the concept of work. Those who find themselves drawn to the casinos, incessant television and couch potato activities while living the townhouse life are content—but I wonder.

At the moment, I am finishing several woodworking projects. One is for my wife—a wooden bowl I brought her from Vermont forty years ago, one for the young priest whom I an introducing to the world of antiques and restoration, one for a neighbor who dropped off a chair for me to repair and one for me—a 1938 Johnson 1.1 horsepower outboard motor.

School will soon begin again and I will return for my fiftieth year in a classroom. For a couple days a week, I will substitute teach in the local high school where I continue my experiences in education, receive limited recognition by students and staff for a job well done, and earn a few dollars to enrich our family experience.

Along with my devoted life partner and loving family, I will continue to focus on hook shot, guitar, sawdust and writing to fill my days.

1938 Johnson Outboard Motor - Author photo.

The Milk Man Cometh

Very early in the day,

Long before it was time to play,

Our senses awaken.

A clap of hooves,

A clinking of bottles,

The soft tap on our screen door,

Brings milk of the day.

A soft whistle,

A gentle smile,

Springdale bottles set at the back door by Carl,

Are filled with the sunshine of life.

For over seventy-five years, the folks of Winona had Carl and his counterparts stopping by their homes on an every-other-day basis, with home milk delivery even on Sundays, until 1941. Many dairies fought the battle of quality product and services—until all faded into the supermarket parking lots of the 1960s.

We lost the clink of bottles, the soft whistle of the deliveryman and a very unique, personal and trusting relationship with one another. In many ways, we lost some sunshine in our lives.

Milk deliveries most frequently occurred in the morning.

It was not uncommon for the milkman to deliver products other than milk, such as eggs, cream, and butter. Pete, the iceman, often followed the milkman. Originally, milk needed to be delivered to houses daily due to lack of good refrigeration, which caused it to quickly spoil. Refrigerators came, iceboxes went and frequent milk delivery shrunk to three days a week.

In many small towns, some of the houses had a milk chute built into an outside wall—a small cabinet with a door on the outside through which the milkman placed the milk bottles. A door on the inside allowed the resident to retrieve the bottles. Thus the milkman could deliver the milk without entering the home, and the resident could retrieve the milk without going outside. Many homes, including our own, had a small back porch with a screen door for storing firewood for the potbelly stove, a wringer washing machine and the empty milk bottles awaiting exchange for full.

Growth in the number of Minnesota cows—from six hundred in 1850 to 600,000 in 1890—might have had something to do with opening the nation’s first dairy college at the University of Minnesota Farm of St. Paul in 1891.

By 1900, the State Dairy Commission was about enforcing standards, yielding one hundred eighty cases with convictions. Violations by those selling oleomargarine without a proper sign (seventy-nine), vending watered milk (five) and selling milk without a license (only one person?) tell us that milk was a business. As such, it needed regulation.

The Earl of Hardwick

J.W. Hardwick of Winona started to show his stuff before the age of twenty as a farmer and dairyman at the Winona County Fair in 1872. Speaker-of-the-day Captain Barton of Northfield announced to the gathered audience that there was a scarcity of skilled labor for the farm. He suggested further that young men have an aversion to honest toil.

James W. was not one of those with said aversion, having entered his wheat, squash, potatoes, and butter in the fair. In 1875, John Cator, George Clark and James Hardwick each entered a crock of butter—and this comprises the extent of the dairy products.

Having taught school for six years in Winona, he married in 1877 and took charge of butter dairying—and after a couple of years entered the milk business. After buying eighty acres (at twelve dollars and fifty cents per acre) next to his father in Gilmore Valley in 1878, James continued entries at the fair and extended his plantings and herd.

Born in 1853 in England, James immigrated with parents in 1857 to a Winona valley with seven log houses, five frame houses and a tavern called ‘Queen of the Valley.’ His grandmother had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, his grandfather a dairyman. He was the great-grandson of the Earl of Hardwick. Before leaving England in 1856, he remembered having a glimpse of Queen Victoria in Bristol as she passed by in a carriage drawn by six white horses.

He established his dairy at 68 East Fourth Street in 1886, where Hardwick’s Dairy Products are perfectly pasteurized. He was the first to pasteurize milk in Winona and sell it. And sell it he did—offering Guernsey milk, cream,