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The Victoria

GAZETTE

May 2011

         "Mom also made us coats,” continued Elizabeth.  “She made them over, actually.  That's how we said it, 'made them over.'  My confirmation suit was red and it was made over.  I was so proud of that red suit that it was sinful.  It had gold satin lining.  None of us kids learned how to sew.  My two older sisters did the ironing.  It was a flat iron and originally they set it on the cookstove to heat up.  Later on they used to fill a small tank with kerosene or some kind of fuel that got clamped on and that was the iron.”

         Since there was no plumbing at the Diethelm farm, there were also no indoor bathroom facilities.  "We took baths in big metal tubs in the middle of the kitchen floor,” said Elizabeth.  “In the backyard we had an outhouse with two holes and we used catalogs for toilet paper.  I don't think we ever did have real toilet paper on the farm.  We used Montgomery Ward catalogs.  Mom didn't order from Sears.  If we needed more paper, we got catalogs from my aunts.  We also used orange wrappers.  That's when oranges came individually wrapped.  It was dark in that outhouse.  We never had indoor plumbing or electricity all the while we lived on that farm.  But my mother never complained.  Mom never complained about anything.”

         Elizabeth and her siblings attended the St. Victoria Catholic School, which was within easy walking distance just north of the Diethelm farm.  Elizabeth remembers her mother helping with her homework.  "That's how Mom learned, too, the spelling and other lessons," she said.  "Mom went to school for only four years, and not right away in Canada because there was nothing there when they first arrived, certainly no schools."

         What did Ida Diethelm do for fun?  "I know they went dancing in the old Victoria dance hall and also at the Fire Barn," said Elizabeth.  "They played 500 card games with some of the farmers who would get together.  They never went to the movies and we didn't have a radio.  There wasn’t electricity for a radio anyway.  There was mostly just work.”

         And prayer.  “Mom was very prayerful,” added Elizabeth.  “Whenever there was an opportunity, she walked to church for Mass.  Mom never drove the car.  That was men’s job.  We said the rosary at home daily during Lent, on our knees in the dining room, which later became the living room.  Dad joined us.”

         Was Ida a strict mother?  "No," replied Elizabeth.  "She didn't have to be strict.  We were obedient.  We knew how to behave.  I know that we kids did not have occasion to visit when people came over because we stayed out of the room.”  She remembers her dad as having a good sense of humor and that he liked people.  “He always greeted new people who came to church,” said Elizabeth.

         During the Great Depression, the Diethelm farm came to be owned by the Daytons’, the family that became well known in Minnesota for the Dayton-Hudson department stores.

         Julianne, born in 1933, knows that she was two years old when her parents and siblings moved to a house located on Stieger Lake, just east of the Victoria Dairy Queen.  It still stands today.

         "We called it the Salter House," said Julianne, "probably because the Salters owned it or used to own it."  This home, too, was not equipped with water, plumbing, or electricity, but there was another large garden.  Anton Diethelm worked for Honeywell during the War and then did yard work for people on Lake Minnetonka.

         The first children of Anton and Ida Diethelm attended school at St. Victoria and then the Victoria Public High School for two years, but by the time Elizabeth got to be of age, the Victoria school had closed and it was on to the Chaska High School.  After graduation in 1942 she worked at the Notermann’s store in Victoria and then many years as a bookkeeper in downtown Minneapolis for a dental supply company and then a plumbing company. 

 

Click here to continue The Work of Our Mother.
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The Diethelm girls, from left to right, but not in order of age or birth:  Mildred (Pribyl), Julianne (Wartman), Jeanne (Corcoran), Elizabeth, Elaine (Simon), Marie (Schneider).  Not pictured:  the three Diethelm brothers, Joe, Paul, Dan.  Of the nine siblings, Joe and Dan are deceased.