MAY 9, 2024 – Next door (upstream along the Mississippi River) to Caines lived the Moores. The parents, Fred and Ruth, were smart, sharp, kind, cultured, and civic minded, and from my perspective, their impressive house and yard reflected their well-deserved reputation as pillars of the community. I’ll save them for last.
For now, I’ll cross the street to the driveway into the Rathbun jungle, then veer sharply left to the Holland “cottage” on the smallish lot that adjoined the jungle. Mind you, our house was on the opposite side of Rathbun’s, putting us two doors down from the Holland house.
I don’t know when I first learned the connection between “Dutch” and “Holland,” but it was well before kindergarten. My sisters made it in jest when referring to our neighbors, the “Hollands.” Once my sisters explained where “Holland” was and what the people there were called, I assumed my friend David Holland, his parents, Earl and Alice, and younger sister, Randi, were as “Dutch” as Dad, my sisters and I were Swedish. As it turned out, however, Earl was very Norwegian, an active member of the Sons of Norway, and maintained close connections with his relatives on Helgoy Island near Stavanger. Alice was likewise very Norwegian, educated in a one-room schoolhouse in South Dakota. She later borrowed funds to attend college in Aberdeen to become a teacher.
While she was teaching—in a South Dakota one-room schoolhouse—Earl, a bachelor farmer in the vicinity, was hired to fix the windows. The two met and wound up farming near Webster, South Dakota. After a hailstorm did serious damage to the farm, Earl applied for and was hired for a maintenance job with the Anoka-Hennepin School District, of all places. That turn in their lives is what brought them to the Halloween Capital of the World.
The Hollands occupied the tiny house with eaves so low, Dave’s mother, who was taller than Dave’s father, almost had to stoop to enter and exit the abode without striking her head. The house was smaller than many of the garages on our street.
The place was also rickety and reminded me of the second little pig’s house built of sticks: a huff and a puff by the big bad wolf and it would turn into pieces strewn across the lot. What the house did have going for it, however, was that it was as neat as a pin. Mrs. Holland ran a tight ship, and if they didn’t own a lot of stuff, it was always in perfect order.
The items in largest quantity were Dave’s kids books. Since he was a year older than I, he got to attend (morning) kindergarten before me. Because he was my main friend at the time, I always wanted to intercept him the minute he arrived home from school. The best way to ensure this, I discovered, was to find my way over to the Holland’s house well before Dave was expected. Mrs. Holland would graciously allow me in and grant me free access to the living room cabinet with glass doors where the collection of kids books were stored. I “read” while she worked away at her sewing machine making clothes for hire.
What seemed like two hours later, Dave would come through the side door into the kitchen. He’d join me on the sofa to “read” his own selection of kid books while his mom worked up baloney sandwiches for us. After downing this delectable lunch, we’d go out and play.
At around 4:00 or so—it was long before my dad came home from work—Dave’s father would pull into the Holland’s dirt driveway. His sturdy vehicle was an old Ford pickup with a broom sticking up out of a hole in each side just behind the cab. Mr. Holland wore a gray uniform with “Earl” embroidered just above one of the pockets. He was laconic and always wore a serious face. I never remember him cracking a smile, certainly never a joke, but he was even-keeled and cordial enough when he alighted from his pick-up to greet Dave and me.
He was definitely a member of the “tight ship” society, and on Saturdays when I was invited to join the family for lunch, which they called, “dinner,” Earl said the grace. Table manners were the order of the day, and I worried that I’d bungle what seemed to be the cardinal rule: prefacing every request by saying, “May I please have . . .” as opposed to simply, “Could I have . . .”
Dave’s younger sister, Randi, was a plump, happy little kid, who hung out with my younger sister, Jenny.
When I was in third grade the Hollands moved to a proper house a block from our elementary school. I remember having mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I was sorry to have my closest buddy move out of the neighborhood. On the other hand I was relieved that his nice, perfectly behaved family would now get to live in a proper house. Plus, Mrs. Holland would have much greater space to expand her business as a seamstress.
Mrs. Holland volunteered to become a cub scout den mother when Dave became a Bobcat. When I joined the den as a bobcat the next year, Dave was elevated to Wolfdom. His mother ran well-organized, no nonsense den meetings. She wasn’t necessarily stern or severe, but by example, she discouraged any horsing around. We learned how to be honorable cub scouts plus how to make crafty stuff. For the latter, Mrs. Holland was always well prepared, having procured and organized all the materials well before any of us appeared for our meetings.
I didn’t make it Boy Scouts, but not because of lack of effort by Mrs. Holland. After moving on to middle school, I lost all contact with the Hollands. Sadly, Randi died—as an adult, but long before her time; I have no idea where Dave wound up. Earl and Alice both lived into their 90s, and I was surprised to learn after they’d left this world that they enjoyed classical music and sang in their church choir; the Hollands were good Norwegians, after all, and simply good people, all the way around. Alice and Earl might’ve learned, taught, and met in a one-room schoolhouse on the Dakota prairie and later lived in a modest cottage in an old Minnesota lumber town, but in their own private, quiet way, they were . . . giants in the earth.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
