Sisterhood of Lake Alice: A journey of friendship

By Mari M. Osmon

In the quaint town of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a place small enough that everyone knows each other's business, four unlikely girls become the best of friends. As freshmen in high school, Emily, Grace, Lindy, and Rebecca form a talented singing quartet. They name their group SOLA (Sisterhood of Lake Alice) in recognition of the small lake that's

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quantum Discovery
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960197498

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Sisterhood of Lake Alice

Copyright © 2023 by Mari M. Osmon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN

978-1-960197-48-1 (Paperback)

978-1-960197-49-8 (eBook)

A special thank you to my husband Roy, who introduced me this magical little town of Fergus Falls, Minnesota. I immediately fell in love with its tree-lined streets and easy-going residents.

I also want to thanks Kelli, Traci, Eric, Chad, Lara, Lauren and Kate for the joy they bring into my daily life.

A special thanks to Judy and Dee for their inspiring friendship, which is filled with laughter, tears, hugs and comfort that only true friends can give to each other.

Table of Contents

For Today

Prologue Welcome to Fergus Falls – 1955

Chapter 1Emily Larson

Chapter 2Grace O’Malley

Chapter 3Lindy Pulaski

Chapter 4Rebecca DuPree

Chapter 5Going Away

Chapter 6Emily

Chapter 7Grace O’Malley

Chapter 8Lindy

Chapter 9Rebecca

Chapter 10Emily

Chapter 11Grace

Chapter 12Lindy

Chapter 13Rebecca

Chapter 14The Invitation

Chapter 15Coming Home

Chapter 16Reconnecting

Chapter 17Dinner

Chapter 18Singing Again

Chapter 19Emily’s sleepover

Chapter 20A New Day

Chapter 21Back Home

Chapter 22First Snow Fall

Chapter 23One day at a time

Chapter 24The Larson House

Chapter 25The Friendship Gifts

Chapter 26Fun in the Sun

Chapter 27Rebecca’s Challenge

Chapter 28The Homecoming

Chapter 29Two Years Later

For Today

Just for Today, I will box up my worries, cares and concerns

I will place them in my box with its strong lid and lock,

I will lock them up and tuck the key away – Just for today

Just for Today, I will be kind to me and know this is well-deserved,

I will allow all my gentle thoughts to simply flow from me and

I will be free to be happy– Just for Today

Just for Today – I will be kind when logic says I should not be,

I will find some way to make this a better day for all who come my way

I will give smiles instead of frowns – Just for Today

Just for Today – I will learn to be better than I am right now,

I will fill my mind and soul with one great inspiration

I will give myself the gift of knowledge – Just for Today

Just for Today – I will look for beauty in everyday places,

I will smell a flower and look at the evening stars,

I will find pleasure in what I already have – Just for Today

Just for Today – I will love someone who simply needs to be loved

I will show a child, a loved one or friend that I cherish and honor them

I will give the gift of ME – Just for Today

Just for Today – when I reach for my box of worries, cares and concerns again

I will take out my key and lift up the lid

Peeking inside, I will find my box empty and I will be free…

Just for Today

— Mari M. Osmon October 16, 2001

Prologue

Welcome to Fergus Falls – 1955

Welcome to Fergus Falls, Minnesota – population 12,460 proud Americans, at least that is how the sign reads which greets people entering into town. There are 10,026 assorted types of Lutherans - 1,130 Catholics and the rest of the people are considered the others. In the middle of beautiful and abundant land with rolling green hills lies this little town. It is about fifty miles east of Fargo, North Dakota. A scenic little place, the town is surrounded by farms that have the blackest dirt I have ever seen and their cows almost seem to smile. Aside from the regular Fergus Falls residents, almost every Saturday, the farmers and their families come to town to bring something in for trade, to shop, visit relatives or just have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. They talk about the wind and the weather. The town resembles a mix between a Norman Rockwell and a Currier & Ives painting with tree-lined streets and flowerbeds of daisies, mums and roses, everywhere you look.

Only four blocks long, Downtown Fergus, offers you every kind of shop you can imagine. For example, City Café and Bakery serves some of the best coffee and Danish pastries around the area and the Viking restaurant boasts of the best big juicy burgers, rich thick chocolate malts and blue-plate specials known for miles. Victor Lundeens Bookstore is the place to buy a book, candles, writing paper or to just run into to someone and chat for a while. All the women in town shop for dresses, hats, aprons and other necessities at Norby’s, O’Meara’s and Gambles department stores. Claire’s Dress Shop is the only place, where women would think about going to buy their special occasion and fancy clothes. Many of the men in town go to Claire’s to buy their wife a surprise gift for a birthday, anniversary and Christmas. Claire makes a point of knowing almost all the women in town. Claire keeps a card file with the women’s names, sizes, special dates, favorite color and what would be the perfect gift for her.

The two largest stores in downtown are S&L and J.C. Penney’s. They both stand three stories high and keep their hardwood floors highly polished and clean. There are tubes that send the money and paperwork from the upstairs cashier office, back to the salesclerks. There is even talk about Penney’s putting in an elevator. All the stores in downtown compete for the prettiest and creative windows, especially at Christmas time. It is always fun to walk the downtown streets.

Olson Furniture and Funeral Home takes up half of block. They are the first in the area to start selling television sets. They keep one turned on in the front display window at all times. There always seems to be a crowd of people standing around watching a T.V. show from the sidewalk. Then, there is St. Claire & Rovang where the men go to buy their one going to church and funeral suit. The store also carries overalls, blue jeans, and flannel shirts in the downstairs shop.

The Fergus Theater is right next to Olsons. A Saturday afternoon matinee costs 10 cents and another 10 cents will buy you popcorn and small pop or a box of candy. Eddy is the head usher and always on the lookout for a troublemaker. He wears his 15-year-old navy blue jacket, which is many sizes too small for him, with his name embroidered on it. No one has ever seen him smile. Rumor has it that he lost all his teeth from eating too much candy. He is mean and loves to throw kids out of the movies. By some unknown magic, whenever he does kick kids out of the show, their parents always find out about it. Once that happens, it normally means you are not going to the movies for the next few weeks.

Fergus also boasts of two five & dime stores, Woolworth and Kreesge which for some odd reason are right next store to each other. There is also the Coast-to-Coast Hardware, two drug stores, Tolbarts jewelry shop, Rolandson Card Shop and two banks. Just one block north from downtown is the Red Mills Flour Mill, where you can buy 20 or 50 lb bags of fresh ground flour for a few dollars. Downtown even has two taverns. Vic’s Tap is a friendly kind of place, where the men sometime stop for a beer. However, The Spot has a rather shady reputation because of the two pool tables in the back room. Yes, anything you think you will ever need, can be found on Lincoln Avenue in downtown Fergus Falls,

Fergus Falls just installed the only two automatic stop signs in town. They are both downtown, one on the corner of Union and Lincoln, while the other is on the intersection of Mill and Lincoln. They sit right in the middle of Lincoln Street on a six-foot wood block of wood. Two sides of the block are painted red and the opposite sides painted green. Every three minutes the block turns. All the cars obey the color in front of them. Everyone seems to have an opinion about the stop signs. Some folks feel all you need to do is to just be polite and wait for your turn. Nevertheless, when an outsider hit Doctor Burn’s car, nearly injuring Anna Burns, everyone knew the time had come to do something. Change is good, at least once in a while. Within a few weeks, Kenneth, the town handy man, invented the two automatic stop signs. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the town always celebrates the beginning of the Christmas season. It was a perfect time to introduce the new automatic stop signs. Everyone in town came to witness the event. People clapped as they all watched the signs slowly move into action. Kenneth’s picture appeared on the front page of the Daily Journal with the mayor and a few of the important downtown businessmen. The mayor let Mrs. Burns cut the ribbons, which were tied around the new stop signals. It was quite a big change for Fergus Falls. Change does not happen fast or without some pain in town.

Located a few block west of downtown and right next to the railroad station is tree-lined Northwest-Pacific Park. It has the only band shell, playground and picnic tables in the area. During the summer, every Wednesday evening, there is a concert featuring local talents playing the accordion, guitar, singing or whatever talent is available. Emerson’s popcorn wagon sells the best real-buttered popcorn in the world. They sometime surprise the crowd with a special batch of caramel popcorn, a few times during the year. The park is always full for the concerts. Once the music begins, everyone goes to their blankets, lights a punk or a candle to keep the bugs away and settles in for the show.

Fergus Falls is a town of well-kept little houses with vegetable gardens in most backyards. Mighty oaks and graceful elm trees line the streets. During the summer, the trees keep most of the houses cool. During the fall, the leaves turn incredible shades of red, gold and orange. As the leaves fall from the trees, they are raked into huge piles that sit on the curbs waiting for the street cleaner machine to come and get them. In the meantime, it is a great place for the kids to take a running start, throw themselves into the middle of the pile or play a game of hide and seek covered with leaves. It smells so good during the Fall when the air is crisp and clean.

Fergus Falls is a small enough town where everyone seems to know each other’s business. There is the group of rubbernecks, the town gossips that can send a story around town faster than the Daily Journal. The only real outcasts in town are the people who drink too much at The Spot. Sometimes, the hobos hang around behind the train station. If the police find them, they take them to the city jail, where they get a hot shower and a good homemade meal, which Millie Moody makes for them. After a good night’s sleep, they go on their way with a brown bag lunch. Everyone figures that it is a nice thing to do for the hobos.

Another wonderful part of Fergus Falls is Lake Alice, which is only a few blocks from downtown. A tiny lake, probably more like a big pond, is beautiful anytime of the year. All the kids and even some adults go ice-skating as soon as the water freezes and the green light on the lamp post tells them that it is safe to skate. From the small warming shed, you can hear the music playing over the loud speaker. Not one fish lives in Lake Alice but lots of ducks, geese, and even an occasional swan glide through the murky water. People bring stale bread or crackers to feed them. Some of the biggest and most beautiful houses surround Lake Alice on Lakeside Drive. Most of the residents of these houses are doctors, dentists, lawyers and businessmen. Everyone knows this is where the rich people live.

Grotto Lake edges the town. It has a baseball diamond and some brand new green bleachers. However, the most popular swimming spot is Pebble Lake, about one mile from Grotto Lake. A brand new Golf course just opened there. The businessmen hired big city golf pro from Minneapolis to teach them how to play. At Pebble Lake, the water is always cold from the springs in the lake. It is so clear that you can see your feet. There is a raft, picnic tables, a great concession stand, which sells giant hot dogs and ice-cold orange pop. During a hot summer day, the place is alive with families laughing and having a good time. The steep hill right behind the beach area is where the kids love to start at the top of the hill and roll down to the beach. You just need to be careful not to run into a tree on the way down; a few kids have broken an arm or leg hitting the trees on the way down.

It seems as though there is a church on almost every corner in Fergus. All of them take great pride in their beautiful stained glass windows, steeples and huge wooden doors that weigh a ton, making them hard to open. There is even a Catholic church in town. Our Lady of Victory has a huge church and the only private grade school in town. Everyone gets along okay, however the silent rule that Catholics and Lutherans do not mix socially. Each group seems to have their own way of doing things. For example, the Lutheran women make and sell lefse several times a year. They have a big celebration in May, called "Sitnamae, which is a meatball dinner with all the fixings to raise money for their needy causes. The Catholics have bingo games, smokers" for the men, where they have beer, cigars, play cards, New Year Eve dances and are capable of raising thousands of dollars, while having a good time.

Recently, Fergus Falls decided it was time to merge two small hospitals into one big one. Lake Region Hospital is the new name and there are many plans for it to become an impressive place in the next few years. The most beautiful building award in Fergus Falls goes to City Hall. Covered in gold tin its tall steeple can be seen from miles away. The Post Office building is the biggest building with beautiful marble floors and a statue of someone that no one knows. Surrounded by churches on each corner, the courthouse stands in their midst as a reminder to the criminals in the jail on the top floors of the building, to mend their ways. All of the churches are Lutheran; there is German Lutheran, Norwegian Lutheran, Free Lutheran and just plain Lutheran.

Everyone enjoys a simple and good life in Fergus. You can feel safe walking down the streets at any time of day or night. The kids ride their bikes on their secret routes, taking them through the unpaved alleys all the way to downtown. The winters are hard with temperatures often going below zero with many feet of snow. Ice-skating on Lake Alice or going sledding down Old Smokey are the favorite ways to pass time during the long winter.

There are many ways to celebrate the arrival of springtime in Fergus. Everyone opens their windows to air out the house of the stale winter smells. The clothe lines start to reappear. It is a time to start to hang laundry outside and smell fresh clean sheets again. In most backyards, the men start to plant the gardens, while the women work on their flowerbeds.

Summer is fun because of the many lakes around here. You could go to a different lake each day and still not make it to all the lakes by the end of the summer. The summer is warm but never humid.

By the time Fall arrives, everyone waits and watches as the trees turn to red, gold and orange. It is about the same time that mothers make their homemade apple cider, caramel apples and start bringing out our warm sweaters. The air captures the smells of pot roast cooking, apples, leafs burning and the first hot chocolate being made. Anyone is welcome to take from the baskets of free apples and squash outside the stores.

Yes, Fergus Falls offers all who live here an uncomplicated life. We are not fancy people but we sure are friendly folks. Life is basic here with a strong sense of belonging. The fact that everyone in town knows each other has proven to be both a blessing and a curse to most of us at sometime in our life. Some of young people dream about moving away to the big cities of Fargo, North Dakota or Minneapolis. However, it seems that after you leave for a while, Fergus Falls always calls you back home to the joys of a pretty town with lots of nice people waiting to welcome you home.

Chapter One

Emily Larson

The Meyers moved to Fergus Falls in the early 40’s. Ralph Meyers owned a large construction company, which had been awarded a contract to build the new Lake Region Hospital. William and his wife, Ruth soon became an important part of the community. They often donated large amounts of money to the city for many worthwhile causes. Their twin daughters Joyce and Julia were pampered and spoiled in a way that shocked most of the town folks. Many thought they were self-centered; however, the town learned to accept them for who they were.

It came as no surprise when years later, Joyce Meyers announced her engagement to Dr. Howard Larson. Dr. Larson was not known for a warm caring manner; however, he was considered one of the best surgeons in town. He was also the town’s most sought-after bachelor. In fact, merging the two small hospitals was only accomplished because of his insistence. Once the merger was done, the new hospital would be named Lake Region Hospital. The hospital became a showcase for the area. It became Dr. Larson’s pride and joy. Shortly after it opened, Dr. Larson took the position of chief of staff.

Joyce Meyer’s wedding was the event of the year in 1947. All twelve bridesmaids were all dressed in flowing lavender satin dresses. Two flower girls wore a miniature version of the same dress and scatter white rose petals as they paraded down the long aisle. Dozens of perfect white and pink roses delivered from Fargo and filled the church with their soft fragrance. Joyce’s softly draped satin dress was created by a famous designer from New York City with an Italian lace train over twenty feet long. The dress had a sweetheart neckline and covered with pearls and lace. She looked like a princess with a stunning tiara sitting on top of her mass of curls and veil. Dressed in formal tuxedo, Dr. Larson looked cool and aloof. Ruth’s dress was a deep purple with matching gloves and shoes. To everyone’s surprise, she also wore a tiara.

A large crowd filled Bethlehem Lutheran Church. A few important people from Fergus were invited, but the rest of crowd was out-of-town strangers. The governor of Minnesota and both senators attended to the two-day celebration. Pictures of the wedding appeared in newspapers all over the state. Once again, Dr. and Mrs. Larson were celebrities in this little city.

After a month-long honeymoon to Europe, they returned home to their newly purchased home. The beautiful old Victorian house, which overlooked Lake Alice, had been elegantly restored. It was professionally furnished and filled with priceless antiques. While on their honeymoon in Europe, they purchased tapestries, Persian carpets, and art work to add to their collections.

People often drove past the house, especially in the evening, just to marvel at its style and beauty. It became the site of many parties and charity events. When Joyce discovered that she was pregnant, she was extremely upset. After the first three miserable months, Dr. Larson surprised her with a trip to New York, where she brought one-of-kind maternity clothes. In June, the Doctor informed Joyce that she was carrying twins.

Emily Catherine Larson was born on October 8, 1950 weighing 6lb.13 ounces. She had soft blond hair, big blue eyes and long pretty fingers. She entered this world with a mixture of joy and incredible sorrow. Joyce Larson expected perfect twins, just like her and her twin sister. She had been on a bed rest for several months. That did not stop her from ordering two of everything she could think of for the babies’ rooms. Her husband had little time or patience for all the chaos, which had been caused with the up-coming births. As soon as the pregnancy was announced, he arranged for a live-in nanny. She would arrive one month before the births, so that she could take care of the details of preparing for the arrivals. He seemed to be gone more than he was home these days.

Dr. Larson was in Minneapolis, when Joyce went into labor. Julia, her sister drove her to the hospital. She tried to keep her calm while waiting patiently for the news of the babies’ birth. Within a short time of arriving at the hospital, it became apparent that there were some serious problems with the delivery. Joyce was quickly wheeled into the delivery room. Julia was advised to contact Dr. Larson and tell him that there were complications with the birth of the twins.

Emily was born first. She came into this world with a loud cry. A few minutes later, a little boy was born, however he was silent. The umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his tiny neck. The doctor and nurses worked frantically on the baby for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, they stopped; they had gone well over the normal procedures because this was the child of Dr. Larson. When Joyce woke up in the recovery room, her sister gave her the news. She had a beautiful healthy daughter; however, her twin brother had not survived. Joyce wept for her dead son and refused to hold her newborn daughter. She was well aware that Dr. Larson wanted a son. He had already informed her that their baby boy would be named Joshua after his wealthy grandfather.

By the time Dr. Larson arrived, Joyce was heavily sedated and resting in the nicest rooms in the hospital. When Dr. Larson learned about the births, he simply asked if his daughter was physically okay. When he was assured that the baby was fine, he simply nodded. It had never occurred to him to stop at the nursery to see his new daughter. When the attending physician came into the Joyce’s room to talk to him, he shoved him up against the wall and stumped out of the room. He slammed every door on his way out to the parking lot.