These Memories have some relationship with those events experienced in my life. Some are very vivid and others are dimly remembered. All are personal. They have particularly affected how this person lived his life.

In some ways memories have an affect and perhaps are the origin of ideas what we later consider important. Sometimes our memories need check points which help us determine time and location of events. They help us determine which events in our lives have been of most importance.

I have been able to use items from the Edgeley Mail, The Montpelier Magnet and the Stutsman County Record as an anchor for some experiences. Other types of documents have also been useful. I have tapes of interviews with Mother and Aunt Edith, Aunt Lucille and Uncle Byrl. Mother's letters and Dad's poetry help very much in keeping things in perspective. I have received help and correction from Gordon, Lois, Eugene and Elizabeth and perhaps from other members of the family. I am grateful for your help and material you have sent me. I must, however, accept responsibility for my memories and expression of them as well as what is written herein.

Some things, herein, might be interpreted differently by others. That also is to be expected for so many occurrences are seen from different perspectives. However, in this works some events are dated and placed and occurred in our life together. Each one of us may have been affected differently. At least it is remembered in some way, and in fact, probably in several ways. Probably one of the chief problems with memory is that we have to live with it.

Some events were experienced together. There is little doubt that Eugene fell from the school slide in 1929. All of us who are old enough to have a memory of it, experienced it differently. I remember the cold day of getting the Model T car started so Dad could get to the dentist in 1934 or 1935. Lois is the only one who has memories of riding the train to attend 4H meeting in Chicago in 1940. The rest of us have memories of her winning the honors and perhaps wisps of knowledge of the work that earned her the trip. All our lives benefited by what she contributed to our family living. My memory of that event was of being in a crowded living room the evening of the day she received the news.

There is also the memory of Dad playing with Elizabeth and Edith in the crowded living room on the Ytreeide farm. I may be the only one who has a memory of Lois and I being moved away from the 1915 Model T Ford when there was a flat tire on the Sunshine Trail on the way from Sydney to Edgeley. There may be another reason for mother moving us away which disagrees with my interpretation of the event.

If I have made gross errors in fact, please excuse me and please correct it. There is no doubt that there are errors of spelling, grammar, syntax as well as other things. I have the habit of leaving out words and that may distort meaning. It also gives the reader a chance to substitute their own words. I usually find my mistakes about six years later, the reader will discover these sooner than that. Actually, I am astonished at the things I do remember. There are some of us who have a great deal of our life made up of our memories of experiences and events. The first is the picnic event and that goes back to before Gene was born. . . so I must have been about two and a half years old at the time. That memory is clear even today when so much else has faded. I can see the wagon pulling farther and farther away and of feeling terribly afraid. There is the dome of trees that arched over the place where we had the picnic. I remember the two horses tied to the wagon eating hay. I do not remember going home from that place on the Blind Ditch. I also remember mother telling me, I could not possibly remember that picnic even after I described it to her when I was about fifteen.

May I suggest that my brothers and sisters write out their own version of events. It is entirely possible that I give too little credit to the presence or involvement of other members of the family. It is not intentional it only that we remember our own involvement best. It is a good reason for others also to document their memories. I recognize that our family would not be what it is without each other. We have a need to recognize the times, events and spirit that formed us. Those events may still be forming us. We also took measures to protect ourselves and each other from their impact. I want you to know also that parts of this account have been put together when I had tears in my eyes and found it hard to go on.

For my sons, daughters and grandchildren and others, you are not in a position to challenge the assertions nor the interpretations of personal events documented here. You may well make a judgment about whether it is worthwhile or interesting. It is a story of what I lived through and have interpreted as best I can. You have to keep in mind the possibility that my memory may be in error or the interpretation inaccurate. I have rendered the best that I can from a memory that seems so full of life and events some which seem clamoring for expression. I have checked where possible with documented sources such as newspaper accounts and letters.

I suspect that what may be hardest to understand is the effect of depressed economic conditions and dust storms. The preceding compounded with what must have been a constant depressing battle with illness. I recognize that I am able to write this account of my memories because of the tremendous development of medical techniques that have occurred in my lifetime.

There is also the recognition that what constitutes my life and memory as one individual life seems so filled with contributions from the lives of others. First, there is the contribution of my parents. I think that is clear in this story. I have also in mind Merritt Clancy, and Gladys Talbott Edwards and G.H. Knobel, whose wonderful letter of January 2, 1938, I have not included in this account. I must also mention another special person. It is E.E. Athey, one of my teachers the last two years of high school. He taught so much not only through classroom instruction but by being a person of kindness and compassion. In more ways than I know he served as a model through the years of my own teaching in high school and college. Perhaps his greatest contribution was in teaching us to listen to one another.

There are others close in time and relationship who have most seriously contributed to this work. First, my wife Lorraine Westrup Cofell, my daughter, Ann Cofell and my daughter-in-law, Monica Seiler Cofell. They have contributed by reading the manuscript, criticizing content and correcting errors. They have helped make it a readable story.

All those mentioned above and to those many people who are mentioned in the story my apologies if I have misquoted, misrepresented or failed you in some way.

It seems to me that it is important that those of us who lived through the depression, dust storms, the effects of World War I, and World War II, must tell the story of our lives. There are those who in the 1930's and after were obviously ashamed to have been on one of the public works programs or dependent on welfare. There are many who cannot write the story of the depression or of experiences during the wars. I do not believe my parents were responsible for the conditions they met after World War I. I do believe there was harshness, greediness and self-centeredness on the part of elements in our society who failed to comprehend that if they were to survive then the others must also survive. The people who made refrigerators did not deserve criticism because they wanted to be able to buy them. There was an incomprehension of economic reality or there was a mind set that placed laborers and farmers in the same classification as serfs of medieval times or as slave in our own.

In effect, I hope what is written here will serve as an argument for compassion and if not compassion then for a greater degree of human understanding. So, I am not ashamed of being from a family that was dependent on public works and welfare for six years or more. I am not ashamed for serving my country in World War II. Neither am I ashamed that a grateful nation paid for my education. I am proud of the contribution that I and my family have made to our society. I hope this story will help others understand.

William Lawrence Cofell
Old Collegeville Road.
St. Joseph, Minn., July 26, 2001