The ties that bind
June 21, 1999
Grand Forks N.D.

Dear Classmates and friends,

Today is the first day of summer and I am left wishing for the return of summer as I remember it from childhood -- one hot sunny day followed by another, until the fields and pastures turned golden and then baked brown. These days summer brings entirely too much rain and drizzle The summers of the 1980s, when we lived in Rapid City, S.D., were drought years. The city's main water reserve, Pactola Reservoir, fell so low that we could walk halfway down the dry lakebed. The Black Hills and surrounding prairies were so dry that every week seemed to bring another devastating fire. Eureka was one of the driest spots of all. Crops shriveled in the field and ranchers fed their cattle year-round, moved them to greener pastures or sold them. National and international media came to McPherson County to cover the story and one day hundreds of Eurekans gathered on Main Street to pray for rain. Those were desperate days.

What we're finding in the Nineties is that too much water is also a curse. Here in North Dakota, the water in Devils Lake has risen to unheard of levels. People are beginning to believe that little towns like Minnewaukan and Churches Ferry could be swallowed by the water and cease to exist in the next couple of years. The city of Devils Lake, too, is in grave danger. If the water gets much higher, it will begin to spill into nearby lakes, run off into the Sheyenne River, then the Red River, and then on to Canada. Everyone says, we must do something. But what can you do with a few billion cubic feet of too much water?

McPherson County, too, is wetter than ever. At one point about three years ago, each of the three main highways from the east, west and south into Eureka was under water in at least one place. I wonder how much the state and county has spent raising highways and gravel roads in South Dakota. This year many fields around Eureka are still too wet to plant.

Perhaps it's a desperate attempt to find the silver lining in all this, perhaps it's denial or just black humor, but all these water-logged communities love to point out that flooding makes for good fishing. The Devils Lake basin has become a Mecca for those who take their fishing seriously. Lake Eureka has been yielding some fine walleye. And Spring Creek and its potholes are said to be full of carp and even Northern Pike. Recently a fellow drove his pickup truck over a Northern Pike in a shallow spot in Spring Creek north of town. Squashed that sucker flat. A few evenings ago my mother, sister June, daughter Emily and I drove out north of Eureka on the 47 to find some rocks to decorate my flower garden back in Grand Forks. We got 8 miles north of town and turned west on the gravel road that takes you to Artas, then stopped after less than a mile and turned into a section line right next to where Spring Creek No. 4 school used to be. We walked through thick waist-high grass and soon realized the rock pile was a lot further away than we thought. Emily screamed really loud and swore she saw something black slithering through the grass, and Mom and I came very close to falling into several fairly big holes. However for our trouble we found some beautiful wild roses and came away with a couple of rocks suitable for landscaping. (Just in case you were wondering, there are no rocks in Grand Forks County.)

We then drove east of the 47 a couple of miles to the spot where Friedens Lutheran Church used to stand. The church closed nearly 50 years ago, but the cemetery remains and includes the graves of several members of the Joachim family and some of our Pfeifle and Beck relatives. It was about 8 o'clock in the evening, still a little damp from the rain the previous day. The evening was perfectly calm with mist rising in the distance as the sun fell toward the horizon. All around us the birds chirped and sang and the air was cool and fragrant. We stood there for a long time and just enjoyed the evening. The prairie was so beautiful, I tried to memorize it so I would have a lovely memory to get me through next March. Again, we saw very few seeded fields north of Eureka, but we did spot many, many pheasants and at least one deer bounding through the tall grass.

I spend a lot of time in Eureka during the summer so my connection to home is still strong. It's hard for me to imagine what it's like for people like our classmate Debbie Delzer Mellert to come back to the Dakotas after living 20 years in Germany. Debbie was a Spanish major at SDSU when she went to Germany to assist a Christian organization. Through her work she met Hans Mellert, they married and now have three children. Debbie is still an American citizen so their children have dual citizenship. Their oldest, Stefan, has lived in Bismarck, N.D., for the past two years with Debbie's mother and he recently graduated from high school. His parents came for graduation and spent three weeks visiting friends and relatives in the Dakotas. Debbie, Hans and I met recently in Jamestown and spent an afternoon together - we found that we were all good talkers and had a great visit.

Debbie grew up at Artas and didn't come to the Eureka school until freshman year. Until then her only classmates were Jerome Berreth and Larry Kauk. Debbie has seven brothers and sisters; her sister, Cindy, who graduated in 1972, also lives in Germany and teaches English. Another sister, Denise, married Paul Bauer, brother of our classmate, Betty Bauer Walker. Debbie said she didn't stop in Artas this trip. The last time there made her too sad.

Debbie and Hans and their family have traveled extensively because of his mission work and his work leading Christian retreats. For several years when they were first married they lived in Africa. After talking to them, I would have to say it might be easier for them to list the places they haven't been than the places they have. The latter category also includes Egypt, the Middle East, most of Europe and Scandinavia, many parts of the former Soviet Union and 48 U.S. States. Hans told me he had recently visited Kazakhstan, a country where many Germans who lived in Russia were exiled during the Stalin regime.

After 20 years abroad, Debbie said she even dreams in German. I asked her what she missed about America and she laughed and said, brown sugar and chocolate chips. More seriously, Debbie said, she misses the American way of life and the friendliness of the people of the Dakotas. She said she marvels at the way her mother can strike up a conversation with strangers in the streets of Bismarck. That would never happen in Germany. One of the things they most enjoy when they come home, they said, was spending a day fishing on the Missouri River near Mobridge on Debbie's brother's boat. Hans and Debbie and their family live in a duplex in the town of Lohne and are very good friends with the family that shares their building. I asked Debbie what the town was like, was it real urban or was it in the countryside. She said there is no countryside in Germany. It is too populous to have any wide open spaces. Debbie currently works as a medical transcriber, a job that at first greatly tested her mastery of German and has certainly expanded her vocabulary. She loves to knit and was wearing a beautiful sweater that showed her skill in that area. She also does piecework and quilting and was having fun buying fabrics to take home with her.

Debbie told me German television carries many American shows, some of them vintage, like "The Virginian" and "Bonanza". She also told me part of her daily ritual is to sit down at 5:30 to watch a certain American sitcom. She told me the name of it and it didn't ring a bell. Then she said the main character was a young man named Steve. I was still drawing a blank. Finally she said, "You know - Urkel!" I am still trying to imagine Urkel with German subtitles.

Debbie and Hans and I looked at our class scrapbook and at pictures from our reunion last year. As we talked and laughed together I rejoiced again at the ties of friendship forged so long ago at Eureka High School that have overcome time and distance and keep us connected still.

With best wishes to all, Paulette

(Paulette Haupt Tobin grew up 12 miles north of Eureka and graduated from EHS in 1973. Today she lives in Grand Forks and works as a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald. You can email her at [email protected])