The Arness Archives: My Grandparents, Dad, & The Farm (Part 2)

I adored my long summers on the Arness farm as a child and remember my dear paternal grandparents with such fondness.  I grew up hearing so many funny and amazing stories of their young adulthood, family, married life, which was hard to reconcile with the people I knew in their 60s and 70s (and beyond, for my Grandma), but they were truly remarkable people!   Going through the family records and photos, many marked/labeled with my Grandma Georgine's classic scrawl (and, thankfully, with some dates), was a delight and a trip down memory lane. 

My dad's father, Alton Arness, was born Jan 18, 1921, and was the fourth generation of Arness farmers to live near Fisher, Minnesota. His only brother, my Great-Uncle Duane, was born in 1933, and suffered bad allergies to grain dust, which led to his pursuing a career in accounting rather than farming. 

Alton Arness, 1921 

Grandpa Alton attended the local country school house for eight years and then attended agricultural classes in Crookston at the Northwest Agricultural School in Crookston until he graduated at the young age of 16. 

Grandma Georgine grew up in Climax with her parents and siblings in extremely poor conditions, and told my dad that she had to travel by sleigh to school in the wintertime. She enjoyed playing the trombone, and graduated an impressive third in her class in 1941.

Alton and Georgine, HS Report cards, 1939

1941 Georgine's HS diploma

My grandpa Alton was an incredible musician and played with his father, Art, in the Arness Orchestra, which ran on Saturday nights from about 1924-1948.  From what I recall, he did not read music, only played by ear, and his favorite pieces were ragtime numbers (The Entertainer, Maple Leaf Rag, 12th Street Rag), which I learned to be able to play alongside him as I did so many summers.  He was a talented on the saxophone and trumpet, as well as the piano, on which he also served as a frequent accompanist. My grandparents met on the dance floor, and enjoyed dancing every Saturday night for most of their adult life. My grandmother had lovely ball gowns for their nights out, one of which I proudly wore to my own junior prom in high school! 

 Alton Arness age 19, 1940

 Georgine Elaine Wehus, 1941

Alton accompanied Georgine to her first high school prom and, after a two-year courtship, they married September 19th, 1942 in Climax, her hometown. Their original wedding book (annotated with the various gifts they received, ranging from $0.50- $1) was sweet to see and is now in my "family album." They honeymooned in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.  Alton was able to defer his WWII military service to remain on and work the Arness farm.

Alton farmed sugar beets and grain. I remember Grandpa Alton telling me often how much he hated chicken because it was his job to slaughter the chickens on the farm while growing up (we, KFC lovers, were aghast).  He was not a wealthy man or high earner, but he saved enough and was able to comfortably retire at age 62 in 1983.

Farming in Fisher, 1942-1983  

Grandma Georgine's siblings did enter WW2 military service, following in her ancestors' footsteps. Her oldest brother, Ainsworth (Ace) Wehus, served as a flight engineer on a B-29 bomber in the Pacific, and and spent twenty-two years in the Airforce, retiring in Oregon.

Ainsworth in 1943 

 I was closest to my Great-Uncle Larry, who joined the Navy in 1943 as a seventeen-year-old and fought in the Pacific. His ship, the U.S.S. Alpine, was struck by Japanese kamikaze bombers. He rejoined the Navy and also served in the Korean War but had significant PTSD from his wartime service. He lived in his later years with a later wife, Chris, in a converted mobile home/cabin in in the woods near Blackduck, Minnesota. I still remember his grizzled voice, his popeye-like appearance, his cozy home, and his array of taxidermied animals within.  (Mountain Peaks and Dogs' Tails, p. 67-68).

Lawrence Wehus and Georgine Wehus Arness, 1945 

Georgine's youngest brother Wallace (Wally) Wehus also joined the army.  He later worked for Dow Chemicals and lived in Denver, Colorado.

 

Gayle, my Grandmother Georgine's youngest sister, passed away early at age 29 from likely Crohn's disease, leaving behind three young children (Randy, Kristi, and Teresa). Only having one son (my dad, Craig, wo had flown the nest at that point), Grandma took in Gayle's two daughter, Kristi, and Teresa, and cared for them as her own children for two and a half years, until their father, Gordon Hadrava, remarried (Mountain Peaks and Dogs' Tails, p. 69). 

My dad, Craig Arden, was born in 1948, and was the only child of my grandparents. My grandmother was so proud of her son, and saved so many of his childhood photos, awards, and news articles about him, over his lifetime. Many of these were displayed in the grand "history wall" on the farm, but there were many photos that I hadn't remembered seeing before which are now in my album sleeves.  My Dad tells his firsthand account of his (pretty happy) childhood in many pages of his memoir-- I'm amazed at how many people, including pastors, neighbors, and classmates, he can recall with such detail, > 60 years later!

Alton and Craig, stellar musicians, 1950 

1950

1951

1952

Georgine, Craig, Alton Arness 1952

Craig and Alton, 1952

Dad spent many hours alone on the farm and in the farm house reading, tinkering, exploring, and playing, and is the person I know most happiest to be left alone (I might be a close second)! The farm house got indoor plumbing in around 1948, the year of his birth!

Cowboy Craig,  1954

Georgine, Alton, and Craig 1954 

 Craig with Great Uncle Gustave and Irene, Brainerd MN, 1954

Georgine and Craig at the piano, 1955 (age 7)

Ventriloquist in Training, 1956

Winter on the Arness Farm, 1957

Grandma Georgine was pretty rigid forcing him into piano and tap dancing lessons (starting at age five).

With Boni Huber, tap partner, 1957

Dad's paternal Grandparents Clara and Arthur Arness, 1957

He took up the trumpet and, in fifth grade, was part of Fisher High School's band!

1958

Tickling the ivories, just like his dad, 1959

He was an outstanding trumpet soloist, 1961

Georgine and Alton Arness, 1960s

Lewis/Nina Wehus with Gayle, Ainsworth, Wally, Georgine, c. 1960s

My dad was (still is!) an incredibly well-read person, and excelled at his tiny local rural school of Fisher High.  Quite quite the academic and musician, he also played baseball, basketball, and football. 

He was Valedictorian in 1966.

He went on to attend Carleton College in Northfield, MN, the first in his family to leave the farming tradition.

Alton and Craig c. 1966  

He got his undergraduate degree in Russian Area Studies and was one of twenty-five students selected for a summer experience in Europe in 1968. After studying Russian in Moscow, he witnessed (and wrote about) the Russian invasion of Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1968. He then went on to obtain a Master's degree at Yale.

Carleton College Graduation in 1970

Alton, Craig, Georgine 1970s

Craig met my mom, Rekha, while he was assigned to work for the U.S. government in Madras, India in the 1970s after his Master's program and she had returned home after college in Virginia.  His letters home even made the local news in tiny Fisher, MN! 

Jaipur Gate, India, ~1975

from farms to elephant-riding!

Rekha Visvanathan

~1972 (age 19)

My Mom (Rekha) and family 

My parents married in 1976 with receptions in both India and in Minnesota.

Laurie Kleven, a farm neighbor, celebrates in an Indian sari, 1976

Teresa, Georgine, Rekha, and Kristi, ~1976

This is one of my parents' first Christmases married, when they lived in NY (1977).

Rekha, Alton, and Georgine, 1980

I knew Georgine and Alton as fun, mostly grandparents in their older years, but my dad remembers and recalls a lot more in his book. He recounts how stressed by Grandpa could be about the weather and finances involving farming. He also talks about how rigid and demanding his mom was as a parent.  While he brought her much joy and helped take care of her at the end, they were much different people!  He was bookish, highly educated, and cultured, and she cared a lot about decorations and fashion, turning their farmhouse into a mix of pink and purple (shag carpet!) in their later years.

Georgine and Alton Arness, 1980s

In 1982, my grandparents celebrated 40 years of marriage

(me in 1998, junior prom, in the same dress)

I was baptized in Fisher in the summer of 1982, and the pastor famously forgot to show up!

My Grandma Nina Dale Wehus was still alive until I was about 11 years old.

Grandma Nina (left) with daughter Georgine

In the 1980s and onward in retirement, my grandparents enjoyed music, dancing, farmstead beautification, church, and community events. Grandpa Alton served as chairman of Roome Township, president of the Farmers Elevator Company of Eldred, president of the Fisher Lutheran Church, Council, and County 4-H President, and was a member of the Eagles Lodge and Sons of Norway (among other roles). Grandma Georgine taught Sunday School at Fisher Lutheran Church for sixteen years, and found joy in art work, ceramic painting, gardening, and interior (and exterior) decorating. I remember volunteering and making "recycled" greeting cards with scalloped scissors at the Golden Link Senior Center in Crookston.

Craig and Alton, 1980s

 Senior Prom Grand Forks ND, 1988

Arness Farm in summer

Fall visitor: a moose! 

The farm was seasonally decorated, always, by my Grandma.

April! (still winter in northern MN!)

Grandpa Alton was an incredibly genial and easygoing man, and a delightful human without any enemies. I remember his hilarious stories about how he once closed a car door on his own head, and how in a restaurant, he sent a steak flying across the room when trying to politely cut it with a knife.   I adored visiting their farmhouse most summers, with the pink and purple rooms (Vanessa and I had the room next to theirs) and the different other bedrooms of the four-bedroom house with "tiger" and "leopard" themes. The five-acre farmstead was meticulously kept, with beautiful flower gardens kept and weeded by my Grandma (in coveralls and a hair bonnet) and mowed on Tuesdays, and painted ceramic animals all around.

 Grandpa Alton enjoyed morning coffee with his buddies at nearby cafes and tinkering with his classic cars, but he faithfully and cheerfully did his tractor mowing and "drove miss Daisy" and us girls around-- to the Crookston pool, the library, to weekly shopping and hair appointments on Fridays in Grand Forks and to eat at the Royal Fork buffet. Grandma always had closets of frilly dresses for us to wear in the summers, spoiled us at Grand Forks' Columbia Mall, and had a freezer full of homemade treats (cookies and "bars") for us to enjoy (my favorites were divinity, butterscotch-marshmallow bars, and sugar cookies). Grandma woke up every day at 5 a.m., always had her make-up done, and should have bought stock in Aqua Net hairspray.

Arness family in 1985 with Alton's 1957 Thunderbird

Alton 1990s

1987 

Musical magic with Alton! 1988

I started playing the flute in around 1990 (can you see the living room purple shag carpet beneath our feet?).

Reunion for Alton, c 1990

Norwegian dress, Georgine, 1990s

We loved seeing our other MN Arness family-- with Amy, Richard, Marilyn and Duane in 1989

with Ty and Alex Pearson, 1991 

With cousins Stacy, Jessica, Lyndsey, Nicole, Courtney, and Lee, c. 1992

Arnesses at Maple Lake, where Duane and Marilyn lived, in 1992 

In 1992, my grandparents celebrated fifty years of marriage! I was so awed and amazed at the milestone, and my parents just celebrated their Golden Anniversary this summer! 

My grandmother, Nina, survived several heart attacks but lived to celebrate the day, only to pass later in the year (with Larry, Georgine, Ainsworth, and Wally).

1994 or 1995 

Outstanding Senior Citizens, 1995

Alton with Vanessa,  1996

Our last Christmas together in McLean, 1997

My beloved Grandfather, a longtime smoker, had bouts of prostate and later lung cancer, and died in March of 1998 at age 77.  I remember being extremely distraught at his funeral. The world lost a great man that day. 

He, like almost all my Arness relatives, is buried in local Bardo Cemetery.

My Grandma continued to live life to the fullest, even as a widow, for more than two decades. 

The "Red Hat" club.  ~2004 

Her classic Christmas tree

Grandma Georgine moved off the large farm after my grandfather's death into a smaller Summit Place apartment, which I visited while in college and then, later, when I attended medical school at Mayo in Minnesota which I was so glad kept me (geographically) closer than I'd ever been. She was so proud to see me graduate high school, college, and from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in  2007, but suffered various health issues as she aged, including heart attacks, breast cancer, arthritis, and dementia, later ending up in a memory care unit in Crookston. 

She died October 10, 2018 at age ninety-five, which I wrote about here, titled after her favorite song (Somewhere, My Love, from Dr. Zhivago) and where I reunited for her memorial with a lot of my MN family and roots, sadly, probably for one of my last times in a corner of the state and world that held so much history of my family, as my aging parents reside in Virginia.  I will, as long as I live, remember my Arness grandparents, their farm, and their ancestors whose history I'm happy to know. Rest in peace!