Category: Memories from Grandma Ruth

This is Part 3 of my mother’s biography. She wrote Parts 1 and 2 as an essay when she was 15 years old and in 10th grade in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. You can read those posts here:

https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-1/ and

https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-2/

This post continues the story from her high school years to her marriage to Paul Bixby, my dad. It is based on a few documents and photographs I found after she passed away. After 1935, the information I have about her life was woven into letters written by my dad to family in Minnesota. I hope you enjoy her journey to 1935.

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And the story continues…

Ruth’s High School Years…1928-1930

In high school, Ruth was the Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook, “The Senior Otter.” She was the general class treasurer, class president for one year and a member of the Glee Club. Her description under her picture was, “Little, sweet, clever, dependable,” and her nickname was “Ruthie Jane.” Two fellow classmates that worked with her on the Yearbook, wrote:

“Your sunny disposition alone will crown you with success’s laurel wreath,” and “I shall always remember you as the most optimistic of my acquaintances!”

Another wrote: “In beauty, in character and fine, high-spirit optimism, I do not know your peer!”

Ruth graduated from Fergus Falls High School May 29, 1930. Ruth met Paul Bixby in high school and their relationship continued beyond graduation.

Ruth’s College Years…1930-1932

Ruth attended St. Cloud Teachers College for two years to become certified to teach in elementary school. She was responsible for keeping track of her expenses, as shown in her small account book right down to the penny. She would carry these skills of thrift and accounting throughout her life.

Her grades were mostly A’s and B’s with a few C’s mixed in. After graduation she received her Elementary School Certificate. In 1932 she obtained a position as a teacher in a one-room school. She had to live with a farm family to be closer to the school during the school year.

Ruth’s Teaching Year…1932-1933

Her teaching contract, dated 1932, committed her to 8 months at $75/month. It also outlined the teacher’s responsibilities: “Teacher is to do own janitor work…including building of fires, sweeping and keeping the school room clean.”

Curiously, her background of in-town living and her academic college courses did not adequately prepare her to face the reality of handling the one-room school situation. (Note: Paul, on the other hand, grew up on a farm, attended a one-room school himself, and was quite prepared for the daily duties of building fires and keeping a school room warm and clean.)

While the students in a one-room school included small first graders, there were also large farm boys that did not want to be there. In later years, she would often refer to her one year of teaching as a “nightmare!” In this photo of her class from her photo album, she even wrote, “My Nightmare” across the picture!

Paul also taught in a different one-room school four miles away and roomed with a farm family close to his school. During this year of teaching, Ruth and Paul were “courting,” figuring out the party line telephone system between the two farm houses where they lived so they could talk and make plans for getting together. I found several (quite steamy) letters Paul wrote to Ruth during this time so I wasn’t surprised to see her teaching career ended after one year and she focused on wedding preparations.

Ruth and Paul’s Wedding…1935

Wedding plans were made for June 1, 1935…twenty-five years after Paul’s parents, John and Cora, were married at the Davis farmhouse. Paul’s account of the day is preserved in his book of stories:

High noon was the obvious hour for a wedding in the Basswood farming community in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. Because of morning and evening chores, the Bixby and Davis families could be spic and span only at mid-day for dress-up events. So it had been in 1910 when at noon on June 1, John and Cora spoke their promises at the Davis farmhouse and then hurried back to the honeymoon house they were building on the hundred-acre wedding gift Father Bixby had whittled off the lakeshore homestead. A quarter century later Paul and Ruth decided to continue the rural schedule although Ruth’s city family thought it a strange hour for a wedding and a celebration of a silver anniversary.

Minnesota summer in 1935 was gloomy. Drought and blustery Westerly winds were cooperating to bring tons of the best North Dakota topsoil to fertilize the farm land and dust the furniture in even tightly closed homes. The porch floor of the Lowry home in Fergus Falls had been swept and polished in the morning but by noon the procession made tracks in the dust. The over warm house had to be closed against the dust-laden wind. My lapel flower brushed my cheek giving a sense of sweat about to make rivulets to my shirt collar as I tried to remember my cues as directed by the Episcopal Prayer Book.

Formalities over, socializing between town and country families was heartening. The veal bird dinner was superior. Then continuing the custom set by John and Cora a quarter century earlier, Ruth and I hurried our much-used Chevy toward our dream for the future. John and Cora remembered a house they had to finish before the cold winter. Paul and Ruth had a professional education to complete before financial security could be attained. As we coasted down the Whitford Street hill away from our supportive parents we could not know that it would be twelve exciting but strenuous years before we would move into our first stable home near the campus of Penn State.

Paul, Ruth, Minnie S. Lowry, Stewart B. Lowry

Paul, Ruth, Cora D. Bixby, John L. Bixby

Ruth L. Bixby and Paul W. Bixby

So for now, that’s the end of the biography of my mother, Ruth Lowry Bixby. I have continued her life story in my files, but my source material came mostly from letters and stories my dad wrote and a few photographs. Ruth did not keep a daily journal, but did write down some of her experiences to contribute to my dad’s record of their various travels.

I hope you enjoyed reading my posts about my mother. Writing these stories has helped me remember my mother’s journey from 1912 to 1935. I was born in 1946, and she passed in 1988, so her story and mine are intertwined for another 42 years! Enjoy!

This is Part 2 of Ruth’s biography. Ruth Lowry Bixby was my mother. She
wrote this essay about her life so far in 1927…when she was 15 years old and in
the 10^th grade. You can read Part 1 at this link: https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-1/

And the story continues…

I am one of the few persons of the younger generation who does not care for
movies. It isn’t the fact that I think movies an evil because I really think
that they are very educational. My parents are not against movies. When I was
very small I saw several very bloody movies which would give anyone the
“creeps”. Now I can’t go to them unless I get the same “creepy” feelings. I
wish I could enjoy them like other people do but I think that it must be one of
my peculiarities.

During the summer of 1919 on a Sunday in June when I was seven years old, Fergus Falls was visited by a very destructive tornado. We had invited some friends for dinner. Late in the afternoon we noticed how very queer and hot it was outside. About five thirty the sky turned inky black and the whole city was swept by a very bad storm. Our home was not destroyed but two windows were broken and part of the chimney and roof was torn off. We considered ourselves very lucky after we had seen the dreadful sights around us. There was so much destruction of homes and their contents that upon looking over Lake Alice which was near our home, it looked as though it were not a lake at all but an area of wood. This was decidedly a pathetic scene. Our friends’ home was destroyed entirely. For about a month after the storm our friends rented the upstairs of our house. About three weeks after the cyclone we moved to our present home [on Whitford Street].

Lake Alice before the tornado on the right; after the tornado on the left above.

In the next year Rev. Lund’s family moved next door. They had seven children. The
two youngest boys were about my age and during the following summer I played
with them. All my girlfriends had gone to the different lakes while I had to
stay at home and play with boys. And then I started taking music lessons.
Another striking event of this summer was my first introduction to a radio.
This seemed very complicated to me and I did not understand any of the
principles.

Of my girlfriends, I have been mostly with Gertrude Lee. I have chummed with Ruth Townsend and Anne Dybdal all through the grades. Many a good time the Lees have given me.

The Lees have a summer cottage at Swan Lake which is only seven miles from town. I have spent many good times out at their cottage. During one summer they had a tent in a grove of trees near by the house. Trudy and I decided to sleep in the tent one night. Mrs. Lee said that she knew that we would be frightened and come back to the cottage before morning. Trudy and I promised that we weren’t afraid of anything. Mrs. Lee got a mattress from an extra bed and spent a long time arranging the bed for us. When evening came Trudy and I went out to the tent with a little lantern and went to bed. Before we had gotten very sound asleep we heard some men talking. They seemed to be on the lake shore. Trudy assured me that she wasn’t afraid. I didn’t say whether I was afraid or not. Trudy got up and peered out of the tent.

“Well, I don’t see anyone, but I suppose we might just as well go in the cottage now as in the morning,” Trudy whispered. Mrs. Lee laughed very hard when she heard us crawl into our bed in the cottage. We have had many other similar interesting experiences too numerous to mention.

I had never been to Minneapolis until I was thirteen years old. The Lees drove there
in their car and took me with them. When we first came to Minneapolis it was
about four-thirty in the afternoon. We stayed at the new Nichalet hotel that
night until the following afternoon. Being in a large hotel was a great
experience for me. Trudy and her eight-year-old sister, Mary, and I rode up and
down the elevators several times. Once when we asked to go down to the main
floor they took us up instead. I will never forget the queer sensation we all
had. My uncle came to the hotel and took me to his home. I had a very good time
with my cousin while I was there. On the next Sunday my Aunt Mary, who lives in
North St. Paul came to Minneapolis and took me to St. Paul. I did something
interesting every day that I was on the trip. I have never been shown more
kindness than by the Lees.

I have had many enjoyable times at Star Lake with the Townsends. When I was with Townsends the most interesting thing we did was to swim. The beach at Star Lake is very sandy. On one occasion at Star Lake it happened that the clock stopped during the night and Mr. Townsend had already gone to town by the time we had got up. The people in the camps around us were not at home. We had such fun eating when we thought it was meal time. We made a sun dial but it was in the afternoon and we did not know how to mark it off into hours so it didn’t do us any good.

Nine of us girls formed a Camp Fire (group) two years ago. Miss Frankaniz was our guardian the first year. We went on a camping trip to Hodgson’s cottage at Ottertail Lake. Miss Marion Allen went with us because Miss Frankaniz went on a trip at that time. I remember what a good time we had. We bought two chickens from the nearby farm. Ethel Bye and Annastasin Hodgson cleaned them and dressed them. No one knew exactly how to go about cleaning them but at last they were dressed. We laughed so hard that the two girls did not mind their dirty job. Last winter Holly
Krienbring was our Camp Fire guardian. Under her guidance we obtained our first
rank. We went camping last year at Mortenson’s cottage at Fish Lake. It rained
three days that we were there. We had a “treasure hunt” on the last day. After
tramping through the woods for about two miles we found the treasure—twelve
suckers.

When I was eleven years old Winifred was married. I played the wedding march. Many of our relatives came to our house. The night of the wedding I had to sleep at Townsend’s because it was too crowded at home. July 26, 1925, I became an “Aunt.” Little Robert Lowry was born with red hair. He was a very healthy baby. Now he is two and a half years old and is just beginning to talk. I am anxiously waiting until he can say “Aunt Ruth.”

Last summer dad’s sister, Mira Lowry, visited us [for] two months. She taught me how to make yarn flowers, chocolate rocks, and seven-minute frosting. This fall Richard went to Moorhead to attend the Moorhead State Teachers’ College. I was left alone with my parents. Only time can write the rest of my autobiography. [Ruth Jane Lowry, 1927]

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This is the end of Ruth’s handwritten autobiography. She never wrote more but I’ve managed to pull together the rest of the story from a few photos and other documents. I will continue the story, in my words, in the next post…don’t you want to know when she met Paul and suffered through her first (and only) one-room-school teaching experience? Stay tuned for Part 3…

Ruth Lowry Bixby was my mother. She was born in 1912 and died in 1988. I’ve been thinking about her a lot, especially because her birthday is next week. I’ve been re-reading her “autobiography” that she wrote when she was in the 10th grade…1927. Her handwritten essay had been in a file drawer that I cleaned out shortly after she passed away. I had never seen it before and was thrilled that I had found the document. I’d like to share the document for several reasons.

First, it’s a good reminder that learning to read (and write) cursive writing is a valuable skill. I may not hand write much these days, but I can certainly read my mother’s original essay! Luckily, I was able to transcribe the text so my kids and grandkids can learn about their Grandma Ruth!

Second, reading this essay again has reminded me that my mother was not just the person I knew at the end of her life, but she had a whole life with many details that we had never talked about. I’ll share the whole document over the next few posts…I hope you enjoy it! Consider encouraging everyone you know…young or old…to begin writing down their memories so they can be enjoyed by the next generation!

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Ruth Jane Lowry Bixby, 1912-1988. A Biography, Part 1

“A Child’s Life in Prose”

There is a tradition that the Lowry family in America descended from a widow with eight sons. She is said to have crossed the Atlantic from Ireland in a boat owned and sailed by her and her sons. My mother’s people, the Sweet’s, were from New York State. They landed in America before the Revolution and lived at first in Pennsylvania and then New York having come originally from Holland. Grandfather [Sweet] has always said that he was full-blooded Yankee.

My Grandmother Sweet was Swedish. She came to America when she was a young woman. She was gifted in the art of making wooden dolls, homely but very substantial. She carved not only dolls but domestic animals such as horses, cows with crooked horns, pigs and sheep. The animals’ bodies were made of solid wood but the legs were usually nails. She covered the animals with fur and fuzzy cloth. All her grandchildren delighted in playing with her many wood toys.

(Photo of Merit Swanson Sweet holding the armload of handmade dolls and animals. Ruth was five years old when Grandma Sweet died. This picture was added by Mary Kisner.)

I have always lived in Fergus Falls. I was born in a pink house on Mount Faith Avenue about two blocks on this side of the Jefferson school house.

I have a sister, Winifred, who is seven years older than I and a brother, Richard, five years older than I am. I was two years old when we moved to a house on Cleveland Avenue. We moved a few days before Christmas. Mother put our big cat in a pillow case with its head exposed. The cat, the pillow case, and I were wheeled in my baby buggy to our new home. The cat did not enjoy the ride and after frantic struggles it escaped from its covering and ran away. We never have seen it since.

It was at this new home I became acquainted with Gracie who was my daily companion for several years. She lived next door. During the winter time she came to our house just after she had eaten her breakfast and stayed until noon. She would come back in the afternoon. We played “Old Maid” and copied “Peter Rabbit” the way the monks of old copied the Bible, letter by letter.

Both the deck of “Old Maid” and the book of “Peter Rabbit” belonged to Richard but mother coaxed him to let us play with them because then we didn’t bother her while she was working. Gracie had a very sweet disposition and it was very seldom that we quarreled.

Before I went to school I had most all the common diseases including pink-eye, measles, whooping cough, scarlatina, mumps, and the “flu”. Only one of these illnesses was very serious, the “flu”. My mother has told me how she watched beside me one night not knowing if I would live until morning.

Later on I was proud and happy to have my tonsils out because all my friends had told me how they had gone to the hospital and what the doctor said and did. After I had come out of ether I changed my opinion of hospitals, nurses, and
operations.

Margaretta Wright was my Sunday School teacher for several years. Under her guidance I was in several plays and on all the Christmas and Easter programs.

I was the leading character in one little play entitled, “Little Jane Patchwork.”
One distressing thing happened. The weather was cold and mother had put on me heavy home-knit black woolen stockings over my white ones I was to wear in the play. In the excitement of getting on the stage I forgot to take off these
stockings and I went through the whole play with them on. Mother was horrified, as most mothers usually are when anything like that happens, but I don’t think anyone else noticed them.

Of all my years in school the fifth grade was one of the most enjoyable. We all had lots of fun in the sixth grade but we did not realize it until we came to the seventh grade where everything was new. After entering high school my most enjoyable studies have been algebra and English.

(To Be Continued…)