Floyd and Ethel: Dancing, Work, and Seven Children

Dan raised corn on the Falk property. He and Olive lived there for a long time and well after all their children had left home. In the driveway there sat a big rock that Floyd and Clarence inscribed with the saying, “The Devil is buried here.” It is still there. Speculation on why they wrote it there is rampant throughout the family, but neither Floyd nor Clarence ever admitted why or even if they wrote it. From time to time, one or another of the grown girls moved back home between marriages. When Myrtle Mae was 22, Olive noted on her 1918 wall calendar, in the July 27th space, in her own hand, “Myrtle had a big day today. Sold 52 dozen minnows.” Another note two days later, on July 19th, said, “Took down the [minnow] sign.” Minnows were commonly used as fishing bait and for mosquito abatement as they eat mosquito larvae which hatch in open, still water. Dan and Olive lived with Myrtle’s son Orville Prescott and his wife for a time in later life, and both eventually went in and out of nursing homes where Bob, Bernie and Floyd saw them for the last time. When Dan lost the property he had inherited to the bank, Clarence traveled to Flandreau, South Dakota to live with his sister, Bessie, and her husband. Bessie had left home to marry Ira Ringering in 1919, upon Ira’s return from serving in the army in World War I. Bessie and Ira had courted before the war while she was still living on the old farm with Dan and Olive. Ira, Olive, and Dan all got quarantined to that farm by the sheriff when Bessie contracted diphtheria in 1917. Ira took care of Bessie night and day and fell in love with her, according to Merlin. Floyd and Clarence “took off a-runnin’” when they spotted the sheriff coming to avoid being included in the quarantine. After Dan lost the property, Floyd went to live with his Uncle Bernal Almond Guild and his aunt Belle in Bimidji, Minnesota. Bernal, who was called Uncle Bernie by everybody, and for whom Floyd named his son, Bernie, raised horses on his farm at that time, and Floyd, only half-kidding, told Bernie that Bernal had been a horse thief who got away with it. Bernal was Floyd’s favorite relative and spoke fondly of him often to his sons. He learned everything about horses and how to joke around from him. Bernal taught Floyd to feed the horses pulling the buggy green apples so they would fart and embarrass and titillate Floyd’s girlfriends. When Floyd returned for a visit after Floyd married, Bernal helped Floyd rig the muffler on his first Model-A Ford to cut out when a wire inside the car was pulled. Merlin said, “It made one heck of a noise.” This was also to impress girls, of course. Shortly after his stay with Uncle Bernie, in 1921, Floyd moved to Moline, Illinois after taking Gus Falk, Harold Falk’s grandfather, up on his offer to get him a job at John Deere Plow Works in Moline, where Gus worked in a supervisory position. Floyd had met Gus when Gus came to visit his son on his annual fishing trips to Brainerd. He rode to Moline in Gus Falk’s car. Floyd stayed friends with Gus all his life. This is what Merlin’s brother, Arnold Ringering (Floyd’s nephew), said about that in a letter to Merlin. “Floyd was a proud man, and should be proud of himself because he advanced from the sheltered country boy to ending up better than any of his relatives. When Gus Falk found him in the country and saw that he had the making of a great young man, he took him to Moline and gave him a job.” When Floyd returned to Minnesota to make up with his father, he was hailed by all as the one relative who had really “made it.” Floyd’s many new cars and new clothes were, no doubt, the proof. From then on, though, Floyd was careful not to flaunt it because he didn’t want his relatives “mooching” off of him. It is not surprising that Floyd was a hero to all the poor relatives he left behind as well as their offspring—his nieces, nephews and cousins. They always awaited his return and hailed him as the favorite relative of all time. All his half sisters, made a big fuss over him and contrived complicated and devious schemes to get him to come back to Minnesota to live. But he just laughed about it. Young Merlin, for one, worshipped him. Merlin, proud to have a widow’s peak like his Uncle Floyd, combed his hair like Floyd and even tried to make his eyebrows grow like Floyd’s. Merlin, to this day, says, “Yep” very rapidly, exactly as Floyd did. Both of Floyd’s parents lived well into old age. Dan died on September 1, 1947 at the age of 70 of atherosclerosis and general decline, and finally of pneumonia brought on by a fractured hip. He was senile in his last years. Olive, after suffering from arthritis all of her adult life, died in 1951 at age 81 from complications of congestive heart failure, a broken hip and pneumonia. She was also senile. Floyd made many trips, with Ethel, his wife, and three of his seven children—Iris, Bernie and Bob—to Brainerd, Bimidji, Worthington and Rochester, Minnesota to visit his brothers, sisters and parents in later years—usually for Forth of July family reunions. Floyd, who was only 9 when she died, never spoke of his Aunt Sophrona, perhaps because of that family tragedy. Sophrona, as she was called, was said to be a beautiful redhead who was proud to have inherited a family trait, her father Newton’s smallish right ear. Adah Sophrona Guild Beckman was born in 1875 and died at age 38 of tuberculosis. She bore 9 children, one of whom, Samuel, died at age 2, when he climbed up on the kitchen table and drank fly poison kept there in an open jar. Her husband, John Franklin “Frank” Beckman, widowed with their 8 surviving kids, married a terrible woman named Clara, who physically abused his 18 month old daughter, Edith (not to be confused with Floyd’s half sister, Edith Vosburg). Dan and Bernal never approved of Frank Beckman because he was dumb and “German” and blamed him personally for the tragedy that follows. Clara, of whom we know no other details, abused the youngest stepchild, Edith, by beating her with a horsewhip as she ran through a doorway, also, by burning her knee with a hot iron and making her sit in ice cube baths for wetting her pants. Frank, unaware of this abuse at first, had Clara arrested immediately upon discovery. She was tried and sent to prison for a good long time. Little Edith recovered and turned into a loving woman who treated her own children tenderly. She said later in life, “The love my dying mother gave me as a baby was enough to last a lifetime.” The family was saddened and mortified by these events but covered up the crime and prison sentence with a story that Clara had a brain tumor. They all lied to protect Frank, who everyone blamed for marrying Adah in the first place and not seeing the abuse sooner in the second place. Frank, soon after however, married a woman named Mary who loved all of Frank’s kids. Mary healed little Edith and raised and loved Frank’s children. They had no children of their own. Edith’s daughter, Gerri Beckman Payne, supplied some of the details of Adah Sophrona’s life and little Edith’s tragedy. Frank Beckman was a carpenter and handyman. He squandered Adah’s inheritance from Newton on a bad business deal. Later, he had the first “booze” bar in Minnesota, a resort on Wabedo Lake, called Frank’s Place, about 5 miles from Longeville, Minnesota. The bar is still there. It is not known if that land was bequeathed to Adah Sophrona by Newton, who is known to have owned land on the lake. After his mother died, Floyd stopped going to Minnesota. Floyd’s brother Clarence, who was a successful farmer, his wife, Francis, and his family visited Floyd and his family in Moline several times. Floyd’s half sisters, Edith and Gertrude, who were very eccentric in manners (had none) and in dress (like floozies) visited Floyd and his family in Moline, unannounced, only once anyone can remember. But that once was enough as they were outspoken, irreverent and unrestrained in their carrying on, and completely terrorized Ethel who said, “I cannot imagine anyone acting like that in front of children, let alone in public!” Floyd’s life after moving to Moline and his married life are well recounted in the stories of his seven kids told in this book but for completeness, following is a brief history of that time. Floyd met Ethel Katherine Williams, who he called a “Looker” and a “Honey” on a blind date in about 1926. They went roller-skating. Their courtship was mostly spent dancing (they were both fabulous ballroom dancers) at the Turner Lodge and going on weekend picnics. On November 6, 1928 they were married by a Justice of the Peace in Moline, Illinois. Frank Melton, a work associate, (who nicknamed Floyd “Casey”) and his wife, Elva, stood up for them. They all went to a movie after the ceremony. They remained close friends with the Meltons their entire lives. Ethel and Floyd had seven children: Iris Lee, Bernard James, Robert Ray, Carol Mae, Delores Ann, Diana Joyce, and Barbara Kay. Floyd enjoyed the birth of 10 grandchildren before he died and Ethel 18 grandchildren, plus 10 great grandchildren. Floyd worked his entire life for John Deere Plow Works. He held positions as a machinist, as a forge operator tempering steel plowshares, and later as a line inspector. For about a year during the Great Depression of the Thirties, Lloyd, Ethel’s brother, a truck driver himself, got Floyd a job driving a gravel truck on a WPA road-building project after being laid off for that time from John Deere. Except for occasional episodes of malaria, Floyd enjoyed, until the very end, excellent health his entire life. Floyd was not afraid of hard work, or expressing his opinion. He loved to kid around and to get a rise out of people and was quite taken with himself—and knew it, but just couldn’t resist showing off anyway. He did this all his life. He was fiercely loyal and dedicated to providing for the well being of his family. There is no doubt that he was a good father and loved his wife and his seven children dearly. His life was entirely defined by his dedication to family. Floyd died on May 23, 1968 at the age of 64 of acute kidney failure, after having a severe stroke two years earlier from which he never fully recovered. Floyd is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois with Ethel right next to him.