Dan Markell was born in Minneapolis, but Dan’s father, Ralph John, had grown up in Green Valley. He returned with his young family to become one of Schwan Dairy’s first sales managers. So, Dan grew up in Green Valley during the 1950s and early ’60s.

“I lived right in town. Green Valley is divided by railroad tracks and we were on the west side of the tracks. Uptown was on the east side of the tracks,” Dan said with a chuckle.

He looks back fondly on his childhood in Green Valley.

“Green Valley back in my growing up days was kind of a booming little town. We had two elevators, a church, a Post Office, two grocery stores, two pool halls, a lumber yard, and a country school.”

He described the “kid scene” in Green Valley.

“There were a lot of kids in town, so we’d play a lot of baseball and football and whatnot and cops and robbers and like that,” he said laughing, “It was a great place to grow up.”

Dan also explained how the railroad was another source of endless entertainment.

“I guess (my folks) weren’t too concerned about our safety because we’d be playing at the depot, watching the trains go by while standing on the platform. Probably one of our biggest playgrounds was the railroad siding because the elevators and the lumber yard would have all their materials brought in by rail. So, there would be rail cars there and we’d be playing on them all the time. Playing on the tracks was just kind of second nature – putting pennies down,” Dan recalled with a laugh.

Dan continued, “It was also kind of fun because the stationmaster was the postmaster and also the rail agent. Fred Braakman was very good with the telegraph. It was kind of fun to watch him do that.”

Dan also described how Fred communicated with train crews.

“They had a long stick, kind of like a “Y,” and it had like a double string going from each end of the “Y.” The stationmaster would stand out on the platform and, when the train went by, they’d grab the message.”

The children of Green Valley spent much of their year attending a two-room schoolhouse located next to the lumber yard.

Dan explained how the school was organized around two teachers who commuted from Marshall.

“We had the first 3 grades – Mrs. Hixson taught us. And 4th through 8th grade, we called that the big room. Mrs. Lenz taught those kids. And there were anywhere from — I think one of the grades had only one student and my grade had, at the height, probably six or seven students.”

Dan described the layout of the school building.

“It was a fairly large structure. It had like a vestibule entryway with a cloakroom that was divided for the big room and the little room. And then on one side was the first through third grade and the other was fourth through eighth and in the back was a library that had books and things.”

Sometimes the smallest details stand out. For instance, Dan remembered how the school’s fuel oil heater affected the modeling clay they used in the early grades.

“When (the teachers) got there in the morning, they’d light it up, but by the time we got there at 8 o’clock, the clay was still so hard, you could hardly mold it,” Dan recalled laughing, “I mean it was just like rock.”

Dan did not hesitate to identify a favorite memory from classes at that school.

“I was the champion speller in fourth-grade. The school had large windows and at the beginning of the year, the teacher had us each make a picture of a race car (for the window). If you got 100% on your spelling test, you could move a whole window. So, I got to move a whole window at a time. My greatest disappointment was one day I spelled “Wednesday” wrong, so I didn’t get to move the whole window. Every time I see “Wednesday,” I remember Mrs. Lenz,” he said, laughing.

Dan explained that the kids also had school chores.

“We had a pump out in the school yard and it was the job of one of the classes – we’d go out and pump water and put it in a water cooler. It had a drinking fountain and it also had a station where you could wash your hands. After school we’d have to clean out the erasers — just pound them together to get the chalk out. We’d sweep the floor and take the trash out and burn it.”

Every school kid loves recess and the Green Valley students were no different.

“It had a big yard out back. We had a big swing set and a teeter-totter and a merry-go-round. It was quite large — you could probably set the whole school on it and then you’d have people take turns pushing it around.”

Dan also recalled the games they played, “Well, we’d play either softball or crack the whip or pump-pump pull away or something like that.”

Dan’s public school education changed after the fourth-grade.

“When I was in fifth-grade my folks decided it was time to get to the big school, so I went to East Side Grade School in Marshall.”

Next week we will explore the rest of Dan’s early life and how he found himself in the Army.

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