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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Person Not Viewable

  2. Dolores Marie Hone Craik: Birth: 1 JUN 1949 in Valley City, ND. Death: 2 AUG 1996 in Grand Forks, ND


Notes
a. Note:   (as written in Genealogy Report by Joy Korf)- In 1938 the Hone's neighbor's wife introduced them to her two sisters who had come to visit. They lived in Trail City, SD, but were working in Fargo. Before the year was out both boys were marrind. Walter married Mary Reiss in March and Bert married Kathy in October. After a honeymoon in SD, Burt and Kathy settled on the farm with his parents. Two dauthers were born to them: Patricia Ann on August 28, 1945 and Dolores Marie on June 1, 1949. The girls went to Alta Number 8 school, which was 3 miles west of the farm. This school closed in 1955 so everyone then took their children to school in Valley City. In 1957 Bert and Kathy moved their Family to Valley City. Bert got a job at the North Dakota State Highway Department and Kathy went to work at the Green Valley Laundry. They lived in a 3 room apartment at first because it was all they could afford. It was nice nice though to have lights at the flick of a switch and not having to carry water from the well in the middle of winter. The 12 block walk to school was no further than the walk to the car had been back on the farm; it was usually left out by the main road because the farmyard was blocked in. In 1959 Bert was finally able to get a decent car. It was a 1957 Chevy. He says he wishes he still had it, but with 2 teenage daughters learning to drive, that just wasn't possible. In 1967 both of the Hone daughters married. Patricia Ann married Raymond Korf, and Dolores Marie married Darrel Harstad. Bert has 8 grandchildren: Mark, Brent, Kent, Dick, Diane, Dennis and Joy Korf, and Lori Ann Harstad. In 1967 Bert and Kathy were able to buy the house they'd hoped to own some day. It was a 3 bedroom house on Third Street Southeast. They had room for a garden and plenty of space to grow flowers. Bert Hone is my only living grandparent, and he told me some of what it was like growing up on an early farm. There was no electricity. Stoves burned wood, coal, or kerosene. Lamps and refrigerators burned kerosene to make them work. Late chores were done by the light of a kerosene lantern. Machinery was horse-drawn. You sat on it and used levers and pedals to make it do what you wanted it to do. The first plow they had dug up only one furrow at a time. The horse pulled it and you walked behind it, regulating the depth and straightness of the furrows by using 2 long wooden handles. In later years they had 2 and 3 bottom ploughs and used a tractor to pull them. By the time the planting was doe, it was time to make hay. This was hot, thirsty work. They piled the hay into stacks by hand. Later they had a stacker that fit on a tractor. One person still had to work on top of the stack to move the hay around and keep the stack straight. For harvesting, a binder was used to cut and bundle the grain. These bundles were set into shocks with the heads up to dry out for a while. Then came threshing time. The bundles of grain were loaded onto wagons and hauled to the threshing machine. The bundles were pitched into the threshing machines where the grain was beaten, chopped, and blown until it was all separated from the straw. The grain ran out a spout into a wagon and the straw was blown out the back of the machine into a pile. These strawpiles were really fun to slide down unless it was barley straw. The barley beards would stick in your clothes and you would really itch. Your first job as a child was to shovel the grain away from the grain spout so the wagons didn't run over. The same threshing machine that was used on the Hone farm is still working today (1987). It is used for threshing demonstrations at both the Oriska and Valley City Centennials. In 1981 Bert's brother Walter ran the machine at the Oriska Centennial. He was killed in a traffic accident later that same summer. During the Valley City Centennial it was operated by Walter's oldest son, Irvin, who is the prestent owner of the machine. All early machinery had either wooden or steel wheels. Tractor wheels had lugs on them which dug into the ground to give traction. The first tractors they had were steam engines, later there were gas tractors. The Hone boys went to a little country school called Alta District 76. The school was about 2 miles away from the farm so the boys rode horseback to get to school. Most recesses for the older boys were spent cleaningout the school barn. Sometimes for fun they would snare gophers in the schoolyard. In the early 1950'3 the school district was disolved and the school was torn down. Bert bought the desk he had carved his initials in so many years ago. We still have that desk. Bert went to high school at VCHS, graduating in 1930. During high school he played drums in the school band and played on the HiLiner football team. During the week he stayed with his aunt and uncle, Rose and Steve Bush. On the weekends he would return to the farm to help out. His favorite subjects in school were math and industrial arts. After school he played with various dance bands around the area. For fun the kids swam, rode bicycle, ice skated, skiied, and tobagganed. Walter and Bert even built a miniaturesteam engine and threshing machine. He says they worked-- sort of. The summer he was 16 years old, Bert and 2 of his friends rode the freight train that went through the front yard to Billings, MT where they spent the summer working. Some other things he remembers are the first real movies. He says they were quite a change from the old silent ones. He also remembers 3 day blizzards and having to shovel to get out of the house. He remembers the draught of the 1930's. In 1936 a tornado came through the yard and blew some of the smaller buildings down, and a train wreck not far from the farm. On the 4th of July the small towns always had big celebrations. Firecrackers were a lot bigger and more powerful than they are today. The rockets were big too. Bert spent 19 years building roads all over the state. His final years with the highway department were spent working with the tourism department during the winter when no construction was in progress. Bert retired in 1976. As a retirement gift he received a fishing outfit from his fellow workers. 1976 was a hard year for Bert. On May 17 his mother died, she was 98 years old. On September 8th his wife of nearly 38 years died also. She was only 61. Retirement wasn't much fun all by himself so Bert went back to work, this time as a janitor at Beyer's Cement. At Christmas time i n1983, Bert retired again and this time he says its for good. Now days Bert works in his garden among the vegetables and flowers. Inside the house is a jungle of houseplants, he is kept busy building plant stands to hold them. He is especially proud of his African Violets. Bert feeds the birds and squirrels all year round, he even has names for some of them. He still enjoys hunting and fishing. In 1977 he got a real treat. His-son-in law, Ray Korf, and a group of people were going to Canada, and he went along. Bert had never been in Canada before and he caught more fish than anyone else. He says he just got tired of reeling them in. On Saturday nights Burt is either out dancing or at home with some of his pals and a few instruments, playing the oldtime waltzes that he loves. When ashed if he knows the meaning of "slow down", Bert only laughs and says, "I'm not stopping till I get to be 100, after all my mother almost made it."


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