Nation's Center News Article: Meet Your Neighbor: Frank Lewton

 Meet Your Neighbor: FRANK LEWTON

By Linda Stephens

NATION'S CENTER NEWS

Buffalo, SD

Articles from Wednesday, December 5 & 12, 1984 editions.

Reprinted by Penny Binek with permission from Wally Stephens. (Mick Lewton)

Friday, November 30, 1984, I finally got together with Frank to do his interview. We have tried to get together several times over the last ten months, but every time we had an interview scheduled, Frank would call and postpone it as something would come up. Actually, I think he was trying to avoid me, but finally just gave in…

Frank was the oldest of 12 children born to Jennie Alice (Gorman) and John William Lewton. Only seven of the twelve children grew to adulthood. They are as follows:

Frank Gorman was born June 28, 1907 in Omaha, NE. (continued later).

Florence Katherine was born May 12, 1909. She married Harold Gunn and they live southwest of Lemmon, SD on a ranch. They have one son and two daughters. Their son Vince is the County Agent for Perkins County.

Cecil Clare (May 12, 1911--Dec. 25, 1911) died of spinal meningitis.

Jessie Lorena was born Dec. 16, 1912 in Liberty, IL. Jessie married Ralph Berg (deceased--summer 1984). They lived in Hettinger, ND and he worked at the Farmers Union Station. They had 10 children—1 deceased. Jessie now lives with a son in Grand Forks, ND.

John Maurice was born August 9, 1914. He ranched near Chance, SD

(south of Bison) for many years. He was known to many area folks as the “watermelon man” as he would sell watermelons all over the area including Buffalo on Labor Day. He is now retired, living in Rapid City, SD. His present wife is Thelma Eichenbruger. He has eight children.

Lyle Bernard was born June 8, 1916. He married Katherine Hunt. They were both killed May 10, 1970 in an automobile accident north of Bowman on the county line. They had 13 children, 12 of which are living. They lived on the old Holman ranch 8 miles northwest of Camp Crook. After their death their son Larry came home from the service and took care of all the kids and saw to it that they got through school.

George William was born June 4, 1918. He married Bernice Palmer (divorced). He is retired, living in Tucson, AZ. He has 5 children.

Alan Mason was born Feb. 11, 1920 and died Feb. 16, 1920 of heart trouble.

Henry “Woodrow” was born April 1, 1921. Woodrow married Elizabeth Exman and they live on a ranch near 

Lodgepole, SD. They have one son and one daughter.

Ralph Edson was born Dec. 4, 1922 and died Dec. 13, 1922 of heart trouble.

Eugene Paul was born Sept. 18, 1924 and died Feb. 5, 1926 of whooping cough.

Jerome was born Dec. 15, 1927 and died Dec. 15, 1927 of heart trouble.

John and Jennie Lewton were married at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on September 5, 1905, and then went to Omaha, NE where John worked for the Union Pacific Railroad. He was a finish carpenter working on the Pullman cars. Jennie had taught school a few years before they were married, but afterwards worked as a housewife.

The Interior Department decided to open up about three million acres of free land to homesteaders. Anyone with fourteen dollars filing fee and enough money to put up a homestead shanty could file on 160 acres of free land. If you qualified with the regulations of building a one-room shanty, digging a well, breaking five acres of land, and living on this claim 14 months, you would own your claim. At this time John was earning $100 per month from the railroad, and the idea of homesteading appealed to him.

In the fall of 1907 John came to Hettinger, ND to locate some land. His homestead was located south of Lodgepole, SD on the south side of the South Grand River on the old T.X. Trail that led from Bismarck, ND to Belle Fourche, SD. All mail for the early settlers in this area first came to Belle Fourche and someone would ride or drive horses down for it. Later a post office was established at the Fred Nelson’s Sidney Store, and it was here the Lewtons got their mail and groceries from 1909 until 1914. From 1914 to 1922 their mail came to Strool, SD. Then in 1923, after moving across to the north side of the river and building a new home, their mail was changed to Lodgepole, SD. Both Sidney and Strool have been discontinued as post offices.

In the spring of 1909 Jennie and her young son, Frank, came by railroad to Hettinger, ND where they were met by John. They then rode out to the claim in a lumber wagon. They lived with Jennie’s brother, Maurice Gorman, who had been in South Dakota since 1896, running cattle on the wild open prairies with no fences and no owned land.

While John and Jennie were building their sod house, they had to keep an umbrella over Frank to keep him dry as the weather was rainy. The lumber for their roof came from Sturgis, SD. Frank said, “It was a one-room shack with a portiere (hanging cloth) dividing the room. Now I suppose you’d call it drapes or a curtain, but then we called it a portiere. We also had a cook stove that burned both coal and wood. There also weren’t any fences in the area, only a little one for the horses.”

Frank continued, “My uncle Maurice Gorman had come from Quincy, IL and his wife Anna was from Iowa. They settled on the only land in the area where cottonwood trees were growing. We lived about ¾ mile from each other. In 1911, during the drought they moved back to Iowa in a covered wagon. They had 5 children, but now the whole family is dead. Their children died when they weren’t very old.”

In 1909 there was a terrible prairie fire that started in the Slim Buttes and burned to the South Grand River. The fire burned right beside John’s sod house and pole corral. There was also a terrific wind along with the fire. Jennie went out to watch the fire. She was wearing a new bonnet at the time and a gust of wind blew it off her head. The bonnet was blown high into the air and across the prairie it went. She never recovered her bonnet.

John needed a team of horses, so in the spring of 1908 he took his last $300 and went over to Doc Hodge’s ranch in the Slim Buttes and bought his first team. Frank was very proud of that team. Now John would be able to farm and also have a means of transportation. The horses were high spirited, but John was a young man and figured he could handle them. He got his field plowed with a one-furrow plow that he walked behind and held onto the handles. But, when it came to harrowing the plowed ground that was another matter. John got in front of the team to fix the harness when something spooked them and they ran away and pulled the drag over him. There was no doctor or hospital but John eventually recovered from the ordeal.

The drought of 1911 was hard enough to battle, but sickness and death were much worse. Their little daughter Cecil Clare came down with spinal meningitis. Dr. Frank Walker of Bison, SD had been out to the ranch home several times to treat her, but she didn’t get any better. Finally on Christmas Eve, she was in such pain that John set out with the team and wagon to bring Dr. Walker. It was a forty mile trip. He reached Bison with no trouble, but on the homeward journey it was so dark and hard to see that the horses got out of the trail and ran through a barbed wire fence, nearly cutting the leg off one of the horses. Dr. Walker and John took the remaining horse and rode double to the Lewton home. Nothing the doctor could do helped and she died on Christmas Day, December 25, 1911. Because at that time graveyards were so far away, she was buried on the Lewton ranch where she still lies.

Through the years times improved, but still there were hardships. The Lewton children had to cross the South Grand River in order to drive seven miles to school by horse and buggy. There was no bridge across the river. One night in early spring, Florence, Jessie, John and Lyle were returning from school. The river was high and floating with ice, and some ice was just breaking up. When they tried to cross the swollen river, the horse floundered, broke through the ice, swam, went down, and finally got the cart turned around so he could swim downstream with the current until they finally made it back to shore where they had started. Taking a sixteen mile detour by the Sidney Bridge, they finally reached home to be greeted by frantic parents. Florence wrote a poem about this tragedy called “That Wicked River.”

In 1923 John and Jennie built a modern home on the north side of the South Grand River and built up a fine herd of Hereford cattle.

Frank said, “We went to school part time at our house and mother taught us. Sometimes we stayed at the school house with a teacher. We had a hard time getting to school.”

In 1929 the Great Depression began when so many banks closed and the depositors lost a lot of money. The prices of cattle, grain and sheep were very cheap. Wheat sold for 25 cents a bushel. In 1934 the government bought the cattle, sheep and hogs from the farmers and had them slaughtered and thrown into a deep trench and buried. The government paid $20 a head for cattle over two years old and $8 for calves. John took a lot of cattle to Hettinger, ND and sold them to the government at these prices. He also sent a car load of the best steers to Chicago and received $23 each. John and his sons also helped slaughter sheep at the sheep ranches and brought home carcasses to feed his hogs. Because of the extreme drought there was very little feed for hogs or stock of any kind, so farmers and ranchers were forced to sell their stock to the government.

John was stricken with a fatal heart attack on August 23, 1956, at Bismarck, ND where he had gone for a checkup. Jennie continued to operate the 666 Ranch with the help of her son Woodrow until the fall of 1971, when she decided to quit ranching and sold her cattle. She then made her home with her daughter Florence, and son-in-law, Harold Gunn until her death December 26, 1976.

While Frank was growing up he raised a little over an acre of onions each year. Frank said, “One of the first things Dad did when he came here was to build a dam along with my uncle Maurice Gorman. Each year Dad plowed me up a patch of ground where it was flood irrigated. We’d put the onions on a new plot every year, but the big problem was weeds. The flood water would bring every kind of weed imaginable. At that time we couldn’t get onion sets but planted them all from seed. An onion seed looks like a buckwheat seed—it is a 3-cornered seed but about half the size of a buckwheat seed. I sold the onions as soon as they were big enough to neighbors, people in town and the Fair in Lemmon. My onion patch provided me with quite a bit of spending money in those days.”

Frank recalled seeing his first automobile. “I was about 5-6 years old and had never seen anything come in,” stated Frank, “without horses pulling it. I looked at the hill and here came the mail carrier in a white car. I just couldn’t believe what I saw! I walked around the car two to three times looking for the horses! Then about 3-4 years later, the mail man got some old trucks and used them to deliver the mail in.”

Jello was also quite a novelty item for Frank. Frank chuckled, “The first time I can remember seeing jello was when the Fred Nelson’s had it for dinner. They ran the Sidney Post Office, and I just couldn’t believe it. I was about 6-8 years old and all we had ever had before was gelatin. How here was jello with all those colors! I remember that Mom sent to Sears & Roebuck and got jello. It was really a treat!”

The flu epidemic spread over the country in 1918. Frank was 11 years old and had driven a wagon load of hogs to Hettinger with his dad. It was a 2-day trip and when they got back Frank’s dad and then the whole family came down with the flu, all except Frank. Frank said, “I had to feed the cows and pitch hay over the fence. I know I sure thought it was lots of cows that I had to feed. When my dad got well, he went around the neighborhood and helped many people. I know it was because of my dad that many people made it through the flu epidemic. Dad’s remedy was to fry up big gobs of onions and make an onion poultice. He would put the onions in a flannel cloth and put it on their chest. He also had them drink hot jello water.”

Frank attended Hettinger High starting in 1922 and graduating in 1926. During 3-1/2 of those high school years he worked at Hancock’s Drug Store. Frank said, “I did everything from keeping the furnace to helping make prescriptions. One day I was making up 1 lb. packages of Epsom salts and alum. I had them sitting side by side in two piles, but hadn’t marked which was which. In those days heavy-set ladies would use Epsom salts in their bath water which was supposed to help them reduce their weight. A rather heavy-set lady came in to purchase Epsom salts and the druggist grabbed a package of alum and sold it to her instead. Later she told how she had put it in her tub and it had puckered her up like a prune. I sure felt badly about it, but it wasn’t my fault really as the druggist didn’t ask me which pile to get the Epsom salt from.”

After high school graduation, Frank came home to work with his dad. Sometimes he took the younger children to school and that was a good excuse to meet the new schoolteacher—Pearl Myrtle Allinson. Frank also decided that it would be the neighborly thing to do if he would occasionally stop and help her build the fire in the school house stove. It wasn’t too long before Frank was dating the young school marm.

Pearl had a younger sister Opal who was attending college in Aberdeen, so in May 0f 1928, Pearl and Frank decided to drive to Aberdeen and visit her. Frank said, “We had a nice trip down. That evening was beautiful and everyone was sitting outside visiting. The next day we left to go home. We got almost to Mobridge when the wind hit. All we had was side curtains on the car and it got so dusty and dirty we could hardly breathe. I think we drove off in the worst field we could find and we sat there for almost 2 hours in the car. We had our good clothes on and when we finally drove into Mobridge we looked like a couple of mud hens with just slits for our eyes. There was just a little sprinkle of rain, enough to make the dirt stick to you. We really looked a sight! To make matters worse, here we weren’t married and had to check into the hotel and get a couple rooms to take a bath and clean up. You never could imagine any two people coming into a hotel looking like that!” Frank continued, “I know some of your readers will remember that same wind that hit the Camp Crook area in 1928. The wind blew 80-90 mph and it tore some of those big trees off the ridges that had been there for 200 years. It blew lots of lumber down in the Long Pine Hills. Later, after Pearl and I were married, we moved to Camp Crook and I cut a lot of that timber for our own wood. We also made pitch pine posts out of the hearts of many of the large trees that were blown over.”

Pearl Myrtle Allinson was born in Adair, Oklahoma Territory, before it was a state, to Anna (Ridgeway) and Curtis Allinson. She had no birth certificate as she was born on the Indian reservation. Her parents moved to Harding County in the early 1900’s and homesteaded on the south side of the Grand River right north of the Slim Buttes. They had a sheep ranch and finally lived in an old log house on the river where Claude Olson lived for awhile. 

Jim and John Ridgeway, her mother’s brothers, also lived nearby. John was married but had no family. Jim was married and Charles, Betty and Fern were his children.

In 1917 the Allinson’s moved to a ranch just 1mile east and ½ mile south of Bowman, ND where Frank presently lives today. They ran sheep here, and also north of town, south of Marmarth and north of Camp Crook in South Dakota.

In 1917 Anna and Curtis took their two girls Pearl and Opal with them to go check on the sheep. There was something wrong with the car so Curtis took it to the Sampson Garage and they gave him another car to use. The shifting gears weren’t the same and Curtis had a hard time getting used to driving it. They camped all night on a 40- foot bank overlooking the Little Missouri River. They got up, ate breakfast, and all piled into the car to start for home. Curtis started the car but pushed the wrong pedal and instead of going 

into reverse, it went forward and plunged 40 feet into the river. They were all crippled 

except Pearl. She walked to the Ray Miller ranch to get help. As a result of the 

accident Curtis spent the next 17 years of his life in bed as he broke his back and was 

paralyzed from the waist down. 

           Anna took care of Curtis until 1936 when she died from Tularemia. She had taken Dean and Gene Lewton, her grandchildren, up on the Buttes behind their house and had gotten a tick. The tick gave her this disease which is normally associated as “rabbit sickness.”

After Anna’s death, a lady by the name of Lucy Wolf began taking care of Curtis who was an invalid. She got a trailer house and pulled it with a car. She took him on trips around the country and made several trips to Florida where Curtis’s father was living. They would stay in Orlando, FL during the winter and come back here in the summer. Curtis died the day before Christmas in 1941.

Pearl’s sister Opal attended high school in Bowman and then college in Aberdeen. She married Homer Cornell (Carl’s son—from Buffalo) and they lived at Fort Yates for many years where he worked in Indian service. They later moved to Bismarck where he worked for the State Highway Department. They have now retired and live in California near Sacramento. They have two children. Their son, Alan, is a professor at Berkley University near San Francisco, and their daughter, Joan, is married and lives in Fargo, ND where they own Scheel’s Hardware.

Pearl attended college in Dickinson for part of a year. She then taught the Ridgeway School east of Buffalo. She then went to Aberdeen and got her teaching certificate. The next year she taught the Fredlund School in Perkins County near Lodgepole. After teaching a year, she and Frank decided to get married. They were married July 2, 1928 in Baker, MT. Frank’s sister, Florence, went along and was their witness. Frank said, “It seems about everyone in those days drove to Baker and got married. I had a brand new Ford Sport Coupe Model A car that I had bought in Hettinger for $700. I had it all shiny and polished. While driving near Griffin, ND on the way home, another car hit a big mud hole just as we passed by and plastered my car. That sure made me mad!”

Frank and Pearl went to the Black Hills on their honeymoon. Frank said, “Everywhere we went, somebody would run us down to look at that car. It was a new model and they hadn’t seen anything like it.”

Pearl and Frank lived with his parents that summer and the fall of 1928 they moved 12-13 miles north of Camp Crook. They lived across the creek from the Otto Burghduffs. Frank said, “That first winter was the worst time. We lived in a little tar paper shack. It had plain boards on the outside and red and blue building paper on the inside with a little cook stove. Alice Goggins, a lady who lived in Rapid City, had said we could rent this place from her. She had a nice house there and was going to have it fixed up. She bought finish lumber, but not the windows, so we couldn’t live in the house. First we lived in the granary and then we got into this 8x10 shack that sat kind of kiddy wampus. Alice had 25-30 head of horses that I was to take care of, but there wasn’t much to do.”

In the spring of 1929 Frank visited with Gilbert Osheim, a bachelor, to see if they could rent his place. Gilbert’s mother lived in Kalispell, MT and he said they’d have to talk to her. Mrs. Osheim decided they could rent the place, but Gilbert didn’t have any place to live, so he moved in with them and slept upstairs. Frank said, “Gilbert was just out of the service and was very bashful. I think if any girl looked at him he’d run 4 miles. A bunch of the young guys in Camp Crook knew he had all this money to spend from being in the service so they talked him into buying a car. Gilbert couldn’t drive it, so they took his car all over the country. Sometimes they took Gilbert with them and sometimes they didn’t. Finally I decided I’d better teach Gilbert to drive so we took the car down on the sage brush flat and taught him how to drive. He didn’t like to shift. I’ll never forget when he came to the big creek--he’d gun it and down he’d go and just swoop right out through the dust like a big bird on the other side. He didn’t want to have to shift so he’d get up enough speed going down so he could make it up the other side without shifting!”

In the spring of 1930 Frank and Pearl moved to the Allinson place just east of Bowman. In later years Frank bought the place from him.

Five children were born to Frank and Pearl. They are as follows:

Twins—Dean Clarence and Gene Curtis were born May 6, 1929 in Camp Crook at the home of Mrs. Charlie Turbiville. Frank said, “We took them home and we both had a wrestling match—we had to pack water to the house and wash clothes with a wash board. That first year was really something!”

Dean Clarence attended Bowman High School and BHSC in Spearfish, SD. He married Leona Kivimaki and they lived 15 miles southwest of Bowman for many years. They now live in Bowman and Dean is a mechanic and works on carburetors. They have 8 children: Gary married Doreen Fadness. They live on the home place southwest of Bowman. They have two children—Ali and Renae; Jerry married Candice Doe. They live in Reeder, ND and he works for Knife River Coal Co. They have 1 daughter, Melissa; Steve married Nadine Fadness. They live in Bowman. He is a small appliance repairman and also drives the school bus. They have 2 children—Abby and Thaddeus; Mick married Mary Breen. They live in Dickinson where he works for Hersruds International Harvester and she is and R.N. at the hospital. They have two boys—Marcus and Matthew; Laurie attended NDSU at Fargo and has a degree in Foods and Nutrition. She is presently living at home and works at Gambles and Bomars; Tim married Cheryl Mollman. He is a mechanic at the Carburetor Shop in Bowman. They have one daughter—Crystal; Penny attended NDSU for one year. She now works at Bennett Drug in Bowman; David is an 8^th grader.

Gene Curtis graduated Bowman High School and attended BHSC. He then attended church college in Chicago. He married Marion Empie, a minister’s daughter from Bowman. They went as missionaries to Kenya, Africa and have been there since 1954. It soon will be 30 years that they have lived there. Gene is now involved in building a 90-bed hospital in Tenwek, Kenya. They have four children: Colleen married Terry Hawk of Ohio. They live in Honduras, Central America and are missionaries. They live on a cattle ranch and teach the natives how to run stock. They have 2 children—Jeremie and Benjie; Kenneth and his wife Sherry live in Jackson, Mississippi. He is a minister. They have two boys—Dennie and Joel; Diane has a 4-year degree in nursing and is a captain in the Air Force; Dwight is a computer technician and operator living in Oklahoma City, OK.

Gail Lee was born March 12, 1933 at the farm in Bowman. Frank said he had been up night and day lambing for two weeks before Gail was born. Pearl’s folks finally found a hired man and sent him out to help Frank. Frank said, “He came about 6 PM and we worked until midnight. I told him to go upstairs and sleep. About 1 AM Pearl poked me and told me I had to go get the doctor. I was so tired I just told her to roll over and go back to sleep! Well, she wouldn’t let me so I got out of bed. Gail was going to be born in the front room so I decided if I was going to get the hired man out, I’d better do it now. He had barely got to sleep and I told him what was happening and he’d better get out of there, so he went down to the shed and slept with the sheep. I’ll bet he wondered what kind of slave driver I was!” Frank managed to get Dr. Cornelius to the house. He said the snow was so deep that it was over the fence. The doctor had to walk downhill to get into the house.

Gail attended Bowman High School and National College in Rapid City. She completed her nurse’s training at the hospital in Rapid City and became an R.N. She married Delbert “Bud” Murner of Rapid City. They live in Woodland, CA where he worked for the Fire Department and she is a registered nurse. They have three children: Linda married Joe Yingst (divorced). They had one daughter, Amanda. Linda is a bookkeeper at the hospital and has also taken nurse’s training; Mike works for Pacific Power Co. and is putting in high lines from the thermal power plants; Larry attended school in Phoenix, AZ. He has since made it his home and is an IBM technician and operator.

Sue Ann was born on Labor Day, Sept. 1, 1936 in the Bowman hospital. She died in February of 1978 of cancer.

Sue Ann graduated Bowman High School and attended Dickinson College one year and got a teaching certificate. She taught Cottage School north of Bowman. Before the school year was out she married a local rancher Don Burke. They lived 15 miles north of Bowman. They had seven children: Tom married Twyla Frietag. He ranches on the place with his dad. They have 4 boys—Don, Matthew, Mike & John; Wanda is married to Ron McKitrick. They live 7 miles southeast of Bowman. They have 3 children—Amy Sue, Garrett and Joseph; Bruce married Tammy Teske. They live in Bowman and own Twin Butte Liquor. They have one son—Ryan Michael; Donna married Craig Speidel. They live in Bismarck where he works for Montana-Dakota Utilities. They have one son—Nicholas; Mark married Kitty Theuer. They live in Bismarck where he is an insurance agent for American Family. They have 2 children—Sue and Adam; Patrick is in his 3^rd year at SDSM&T but should graduate this spring. He is presently doing some of his college work for a company in Cedar Rapids, IA; Ruth is a 7^th grader.

Linda Jo was born July 12, 1939. She graduated Bowman High School, attended college at Grand Forks and Fargo, and then finished in Ames, IA with a degree in Home Economics. She married Jay Olpin and they live in Frederick, MD. He is a scientist and has been involved in cancer research for 20 years. Linda helps him with various scientific projects. They have 3 children: Rebecca is a sophomore at Brigham Young Univ. in Provo, UT; Ruth is in high school; Tim is in grade school.

Pearl and Frank always raised a large garden. Frank said that Pearl would can anything that would go into a jar. Frank also planted and raised apricots, crab apples, apples and pears. When I was there on Friday we had apricot sauce that was made from the apricots on the place.

Pearl and Frank enjoyed traveling. Frank said, “We traveled all over the U.S. by car, train and plane. We went to Chicago once or twice a year to see Gene when he was going to college. We have been to Mexico, and to California, several times. We drove to New York City to see Gene when he came home from Africa. We flew to Washington, D.C. several times to see Linda and her family. We’ve been to Missouri to see all the Ridgeway relatives. The only place we haven’t been is in the real southern states and the far northeastern states.”

In 1977 Maxine Paulson started coming to the farm to help Pearl. She has been coming off and on three times a week since. She was there the day I interviewed Frank and made us a good noon meal.

Pearl died September 4, 1983 after suffering a series of strokes. She had been hospitalized many times the last three years of her life.

Frank manages to keep himself busy on the farm. He enjoys working outside and keeps himself busy.

Frank Lewton is a very nice man. I’ve certainly enjoyed visiting with him and I’m sure you would, too.