We’ve been learning about MaryAnn (Kack) Blanchette’s life growing up on the family farm near Lake Marshall during the 1930s and 1940s.

Anyone who lives on our Minnesota prairie long enough experiences major winter storms. MaryAnn vividly recalled the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940.

“I remember it was a nice day and then it started snowing and kept getting worse and worse. We had sheep out in the pasture half mile east of us. So, we went out there in the storm and tried to bring them up closer. They wouldn’t go against the wind and that’s the way we wanted them to go. So, we lost quite a few. They were all laying along the fence line. It seemed like it was at least several days before we could get out.”

MaryAnn attended country school at District 6, which was conveniently located immediately west of their farm. She smiled as she recalled her eighth grade graduation in 1945.

“They always had 8th grade graduation with Miss Frost (Lyon County Superintendent of Schools). They’d have this big graduation in the spring. In fact, when I was looking through stuff, I found my graduation certificate from the 8th grade.”

She laughed at some summer memories from that time.

“When I was in my early teens, my dad had that horse truck. So all the neighbor kids would come over; we’d all pile in the back of the truck (her brother, Ted, drove); and we’d all go down to Lake Marshall. We didn’t have swim suits. We just went in (with clothes on) and goofed around for a couple hours. It was usually in the evening. Then we’d all go home soaking wet. Nobody thought anything of it.”

Beginning high school that fall, though, was not in the cards for MaryAnn.

“I stayed out of school a year because my dad hadn’t remarried yet. There was a lot going on. Clementine Giefer (MaryAnn’s best friend) stayed out a whole year. I don’t know if it was just because I didn’t go — we never did talk about it much. But then she and I went to school and we were a year older than everybody else.”

MaryAnn spent that year keeping the family home and helping with the farm. The big news that year was that her dad remarried and the family more than doubled. MaryAnn described her stepmom and the challenges of blending the two families into one.

“Well, they knew each other from St. Leo for years and her husband had died. Mesurik, her name was, and she had 3 boys and a girl. The whole family moved out with us. I had my own room and my brother. But it was different. It was a lot more work to help cook and clean. We had known them for years, but it was still … it was different.”

MaryAnn explained how changes came to the farm in other ways.

“Dad bought the tractor. We had a Ford tractor. That’s how I learned to drive. We would take the tractor when the folks were gone and drive around the yard so we’d know how to drive,” she concluded with a chuckle.

But that tractor meant major changes in how her dad farmed.

“Horses started getting obsolete. We must have had 10 horses at the time. He would take them to South Dakota to this gentleman and paid pasture rent for the summer. I don’t remember what year it was, but nobody wanted horses anymore. Everybody had a tractor. So he gave the guy the horses for the rent.”

MaryAnn and Clementine returned to school the fall of 1946 at Marshall High School, which was a wholly new experience for the two country school graduates. MaryAnn described the difference in getting to school.

“I got on the bus at 7 o’clock in the morning. I was the first one on. But at night I was the first one off, so I got home at a little after 4.”

She also explained the school staffing difference. “We had a lot of teachers.” She fondly recalled art classes with Julian Waller; English classes with Miss Sullivan; and laughed as she remembered the intimidating librarian.

The school was split between two buildings, the 1899 building on Lyon Street and the 1932 building on 4th Street. MaryAnn recalled the unique feature linking the two during inclement weather.

“We used to have a tunnel. There used to be two buildings and we had to go down in that tunnel. Oh, I remember nobody liked that. They hated going through that darn tunnel all the time.”

MaryAnn’s education was again disrupted in 1949.

“I got married, but I continued with school. I got books in the mail and I had lessons to do. Every week I had to mail things. American School is what it was called. I got my diploma from there in 1951.”

MaryAnn and her husband, Gordon, met in high school. They moved to Amiret where Gordon farmed with his dad. They moved to Ashton, Iowa for four years, farming an uncle’s land, before returning to farm south of Milroy for over 50 years.

Although MaryAnn was a farm girl through and through and enjoyed helping with field work, she also worked at the Tracy Senior Center and was a foster grandparent for Lutheran Social Services Childcare.

She and Gordon raised seven children; were lay leaders in Tracy’s St. Mary’s Catholic Parish; and were the sort of neighbors we would all like to have.

I welcome your participation in and ideas about our exploration of prairie lives. You may reach me at prairieview pressllc@gmail.com.