Trial by Fire

By Constance Miller

All through my life people have told me to write a book about my life since I have had many interesting things happen to me. The book includes history, miracles, a poem, recipes, and facts which may save a life. I grew up in Fort Ripley, moved to Brainerd, Minnesota and now reside in Fruitland Park, Florida. My dog Micky a Besenji lives with me. Micky can say I love you and mommy. I love him dearly and hes good company. My hobbies are painting, sewing, crochet, swimming, walking, and I love to read.

My book has pertinent information on Cancer and Lymes Disease.

An Evangelist told me years ago that I would be going through the trial by fi re and its in my book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450244473

Constance Miller

All through my life people have told me to write a book about my life since I had so many interesting things happen to me. My book includes some history, miracles, a poem I wrote, recipe'S, and facts that can save lives. I grew up in Minnesota and now reside in Fruitland Park on Lake Griffin. I live with my dog Micky who says "I love you and mommy". I love him dearly. My hobbies are sewing, painting, crochet, swimming, walking, and I love to read.

Book preview

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

Dedicated to my late husband, Glenn and JoAnne, my sister and best friend.

CHAPTER 1

Character is built on people encountering hardship, generosity, courage, patience, gentleness, and Godliness.

The pathway of my life, brought me fiery trials, and I experienced going through the fire, but also gaining strength from the journey.

The three virtues are faith, hope, and love. Love is the greatest. In my heart I have much love to give to everyone.

This is my life’s story, the paths I took. In the past I chose some wrong paths, bad choices, good choices, very scary times, there is some history, and some recipes.

I hope you enjoy and understand the pain and suffering among the happiness.

I will start with my father’s side of the family the Schulz’s.

My great grandfather August Schulz was born in 1851 and died October 4, 1935 and my great grandmother Emilie died in 1936. They both came from Germany. They had nine children: Charles, Fred, William, Herman, Ida, Anna, Elsie, Clara, and Amelia.

Grandfather Herman was born in Germany and died 1874. He married Albertina in Doering, Wisconsin.

I only remember her once that she was heavy and was kind. After her death when we went to see grandfather, he looked very unhappy and scary. They would always give us money to go to the Dairy Queen which was in front of his house in Royalton, Minnesota. He always gave me an eerie feeling when I was around him and some say there was a Schulz curse. Only mother and father went to the funeral.

Herman and Albertina had four children: Erna, Arnold (father) Arthur his twin and youngest Herman.

Father was born in Doering, Wisconsin and moved to Fort Ripley, Minnesota to work for the Northern Pacific Railroad. There was a horrible derailment and my father broke his back helping and when he recovered, he went right back to work.

He was born December 17, 1901 and died May 30, 1971 after a fatal stroke. He was mowing the cemetery in Fort Ripley when he had a dizzy spell and was taken to Saint Joseph Hospital in Brainerd. He was in a comma for a long time. The Doctors wanted to take him off the machines but mother said no, stop the medicine and let his heart just give out. It was hard on all of us, for we took turns sitting with him.

The funeral was in Saint Francis Catholic Church in Brainerd and the pews were full. A lunch was served in the hall after the service in the cemetery.

My mother’s side of the family was the Hartman’s.

John Hartman my great grandfather was from Tennessee in 1846. John signed up to serve in the Civil War from June 18, 1864 to June 1, 1865 and was in the 37th regiment. He was wounded in Pittsburg with gun shot wounds to his left leg, and the Doctors had to amputate his leg in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He married Louise Dingman on January 6, 1870 at Johnson’s Creek in Wisconsin. John was buried in Lennox, Fort Ripley, Minnesota in a private grave. They had seven boys and five girls: Fred, Frank, Ben, Eddie, Elmer, John, Jim, Ann, Bess, Mary, Elizabeth and Lydia.

My grandmother Lydia was born in Boone, Iowa September 2, 1888 and died September 22, 1963 from cancer. She married Fred Hartman born in Swanville, Minnesota in 1876 and died in 1948.

They had ten children: Pearl, Sadie, William, Jane (mother), Albert, the twins, Lynn, and Leo. Leo has a learning disability and lived in a half way house. Cecil lived two months and Nora and Rosemary lived six years for they had leakage of the heart.

I have fond memories of grandmother for she was a happy, jolly, fun to be with and always had a smile. She loved to pull pranks and have fun. Her son Lynn was exactly like her.

We took some great trips with Grandmother, Pearl, and Leo. Father drove his car and Marie drove her car with us girls and Leo and off to the California we went. It got late and every Motel was filled up for some convention was going on. It was late and the next city was a long ways away. Father was very tired of driving. He came upon this huge house on a hill and the lights were on. He drove up and asked the caretaker if we could pay to spend the night. He said yes. He gave mother and father the bedroom. He told us he had a dog out back. The rest of us could sleep in the porch which had windows all the way around with no blinds. The trees would hit the windows. He said he worked nights so he would see us in the morning. Well they started talking about Ed Gein, a serial killer and here we were in this spooky house. Marie went and put dog food in front of the doors so we would hear if anyone came in during the night but none of us got any sleep. I will always remember that night for the trees hitting the windows and scared to death someone was going to get us all.

We took another trip to Canada and father led the way and Marie followed in her car. We got to the Border and father stopped and they gave him a car sticker and he told them, Marie in the car behind was with him. Marie drove up and stopped and he told us go on through, you’re with your father and Marie said yes.

We had two cabins in the park and they warned us of the black and brown bears and said they were friendly. The showers were down the road from our cabin so while they were fixing supper all of us girls went to shower. Coming back we had the two bears behind us. We walked faster and they did too. We got to the cabin and they were standing outside our door for I guess they smelled the food cooking. They finally left and we had a good time for the fishing was good. We headed back home and got to the Border and father went through. Marie drove up and they asked for our ticket but we told them they didn’t give us one. They made us pull over; father walked back and told them the man waved them through because we were together but they held us there until they found the man working and he had to come down to the Border. A good thing he remembered us or we might be Canadians.

Grandmother said we were related to Gig Young, a movie star.

The young folks would not know him but the older sure would. He was born Byron Barr in Saint Cloud, Minnesota November 4, 1913 and starred in several old movies. He was the youngest child of J. E. Barr, the founder of the Pickling and Preserving Company in Saint Cloud. After the great depression, his father moved the family to Washington DC and became a food broker.

The other two boys followed their fathers foot steps, but Byron wanted in his high school years to act and after graduation he hitch hiked to Los Angeles to pursue his acting.

He worked as a ballroom dancer, car salesman, and at night amateur actor. He won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse with a contract with Warner Brothers in 1941.

He served in the Coast Guard during World War II, but when he returned Warner brothers dropped him in 1947. He got a contract with Columbia Pictures and that is when he changed his name to Gig Young.

He was married to Elizabeth Montgomery from (Bewitched) but he lost his other wife he loved very much to cancer, he started to drink heavy. Then Elizabeth and he wanted children and due to illness they were unable to so it made matters worse. They divorced but that year Gig won best acting award and best supporting actor for They shoot horses, Don’t they staring with Jane Fonda. Also, in 1958 "Teacher’s Pet staring with Debbie Reynolds got an award.

The last film The Game of Death he met a script girl and they married and three weeks later on October 19, 1978 they were found dead, the police said it was a suicide pact.

In the history we also were related to the Blackfoot Indians. The name came from the color of their moccasins with ashes. They were the first among to acquire horses and firearms. They are known to be the strongest and most aggressive, powerful, tribe on the northwestern plains. Each group was divided and lived apart. Most tribes were led by one or two chiefs. All the tribes came together in the Forrest for the Sundance. Three decades beginning in 1806 the Blackfoot prevented Americans and Canadians settlements from farming in their territory.

The first treaty with the United States was in 1855, which the Blackfoot took farming and cattle raising. The Blackfoot descendants numbered some 90,000 in the early 21st century.

I was given this copper very decorative pot with a cover and inside was all copper little bowls with covers, tiny copper plates, used by medicine men to mix up the cures for their people.

Mother was sixteen years old and started dating and she liked Ole Nelson a blonde young good looking man. I got to meet him later on in life; he was still a good looking man when we ran into him. Mother thinks someone was jealous of her and told him something, because all at once he stopped courting her. My mother was pretty and thin with black hair. She did not have to wear any powder her face was flawless.

Then she met Arnold Herman Schulz. He was good looking, short man with a good job with the railroad.

Mother and father got married January 12, 1937 on a cold winter day at the Saint Mathias Church. His brother Herman was best man and his wife Mae, mother’s cousin was maiden of honor.

Mother would tell how they had to walk miles to get to school in the cold winter days. She only went to the eighth grade. They went on hay rides and she liked to dance.

She worked at the hospital for Dr. Thabes in a sanitarium in Walker, Minnesota and she stayed at a boarding house. She also worked in Tucker’s restaurant in Fort Ripley.

She liked working for him very much. She was a hard worker. I wanted to have long black hair like my mothers. She kept cutting my hair so one day I told her I want it to grow to turn black like hers. She sat me down and told me even if my hair grew long it would be blonde and it was pretty. It’s funny when your young the things a person can think.

CHAPTER 2

My parents bought a house in Fort Ripley, Minnesota on the west side of the highway 371. The Mississippi River was a mile behind our house. We had a fenced in pasture. Our garden was off to the side, our clothes line, and the big gas tank was behind our house. We had a barn with a hayloft, a chicken coop, and another shed. JoAnne and I got to make a playhouse out of it. It was fun to put curtains up and we had dishes and old quilts to play house.

We had a big round driveway and in the middle was a old pump that had arms hanging out and she had flower pots with flowers in them all the way around? It was so pretty and everyone told us how nice it looked. There was a big field we owned in front of our house. All of us children would play ball there.

We loved the peonies she had near the house and our spruce trees in the winter looked so good for they were a perfect shape. She had planted glades, dailies, zinnia’s, corn flowers, pinks and many more in the end of the ball field.

The new Fort Ripley was successful and had a post office, grocery store, dance hall, tavern, school house, and the cemetery. There were many families that lived in the surrounding county. In the village were maybe twenty families.

I want to tell you about the Old Fort Ripley and the history is very interesting, so let’s go back in time.

Old Fort Ripley was twenty feet above the river and sat just Northeast of where the New Fort Ripley now stands.

The old site was located within the large Camp Ripley Military Reservation in Morrison County. The Fort was composed of one story wood frame forming three sides and the fourth side the Mississippi River. It never had a wall around the Fort for the first fourteen years of operation, until the fall of 1862.

Long ago there was a bridge in Little Falls which was the closest town only fifteen miles south. The bridge helped the people to cross the river and the locals called it the Pink Bridge only because it was pink. The bridge was moved to Fort Ripley to replace the ferry boat as means to access the military camp on the west side of the river.

The ferry operation was in operation till 1972 on the west abutment is an anchor used now for a power transmission line for the military reservation. On the west side of the River a marker was put there to commentate the history of Old Fort Ripley. It still stands and tells about the Fort.

Fort Ripley was constructed to keep peace in the area between the Winnebago, Chippewa, and the Dakota Sioux Indians. The Winnebago Indians went on a plantation in Long Prairie in 1848. The Fort was called many names, depending on who was running it, until Brigadier General Eleazar W. Ripley: the hero of the War of 1812. Then the Fort was renamed Fort Ripley in 1850.

The Fort was abandoned in July 8, 1857, except for the Chaplin Manney, who stayed behind, but with the Fort closed lawlessness began, traders started selling liquor and soon Fort Ripley had to be re-opened to keep order in September 12, 1857.

The Civil War in April 1961 the army regulars left the post and Minnesota volunteers replaced them. In August 1962 the Chippewa met with the Sioux, frightening the settlers. They thought they would attack the Fort. There was never an assault on the Fort ever. In fact, the Fort became a staging ground for the Indians to meet and campaign. The fires were more of a threat, than the Indians. A fire broke out in the kitchen and burn down the Quartermasters Office, Hospital and a new one was built fast, but not in good condition.

The Chippewa was moved north to Crow Wing There is a Crow Wing Park there now with Indian trails, burial grounds and people are still finding arrowheads.

Several miles north of the mouth of the Crow Wing River were the trading post and the beginning of civilization with a wagon train road.

A mile from the village was the house of Chief Hole-In-The-Day of the Chippewa Indians. This crafty, smart, chief met with the Chaplin and introduced Christianity among the Indian tribes, but someone assassinated the Chief. Before he died, one of his son’s was very sick and dying. The Chief asked the Chaplin to bury his son and he did.

CHAPTER 3

Our house had a front porch, large living room, dining room, the gas furnace sat off to the side and our parent’s bedroom. We had a medium size kitchen with new cupboards mother’s brother built for her. The bathroom was off from it. Then a hall with a back door and across from it was the door to the full size basement. Then there were two bedrooms in the back.

We had a cow, named Bossy, chickens in the chicken coop, kittens and cats father liked to keep the mice away.

I remember standing in front of our old car and having my picture taken. JoAnne and I were dressed alike. She had a green dress and I had blue and we both had the white bib front. We would go in the basement and dig through the boxes and play dress up. We wore the old dresses, coats, heels and I remember mother taking pictures of us.

I liked to play with my sisters bottles. Any finger nail polish, perfume bottles and it would keep me busy for hours. I liked my paper dolls the best. I had a huge collection of Patti Page, Dinah Shore, George Montgomery, Lennon sisters and many more.

JoAnne and I liked to help mother peel the corn husks for we would save the hair and played house with them even. We also drew houses in our driveway in the dirt. Made our different rooms and drew sofa’s tables and then played house there. We had a tire swing we liked too.

I use to get on the picnic table and sing and dance using a stick for my microphone. The Church had a Bazaar and I won the stereo. I was so excited and I even remember my first records Beach Boys, Marie Osmond, Gene Pitney and the Beatles.

We had both the white chickens and the Rhode Island reds. We raised them to butcher for our freezer. Growing up Sunday dinner was usually fried chicken. One day one of the red chickens flew up on my shoulder and would sit on me and became my pet. I could play with her and she would follow me everywhere. I have no idea what happened to her, but we probably ate her.

We had one very mean rooster and one day after bringing the eggs in the house I went outside to play. This rooster chased me and being small and very young it jumped on my back spurring me; I lay down and covered my head crying. Mother and Marie came running out and mother got the rooster off me and said he will never hurt you again for he will become chicken and dumplings.

We went to church at Saint Mathias Catholic Church, and it was a ways from our house but every Sunday and Holy days we went. We would say grace before we ate and sometimes pray after we ate or read the Bible. We were both in the choir and we went to religious instructions. Two nuns came from Belle Prairie where they lived in the convent. I made my first communion and mother bought me a pretty new white dress with a veil, I felt like an angel. I also made my confirmation with Reverent Kiffmeyer and we had the privilege of having the Bishop attend. Marie was my sponsor and stood behind me.

Our church held a Bazaar every year, everyone young and old enjoyed it. They had booths for the children to play pick a duck, ring toss, and fishing pond and gave away presents. There were all kinds of homemade jellies, jams, needle work, and they sold raffle tickets for this beautiful homemade quilt.

The ladies put on a home cooked dinner with all the trimmings in the basement of the church. When we were older we helped in the kitchen and served the drinks. We even stayed and help clean the kitchen up.

Father belonged to the Moose lodge and they had dances and put on some kind of party for every Holiday and we had lots of fun there.

We went to school in the old red school house located near the highway 371 and still standing.

It had blackboards on two sides of the room and windows on the side. All the desks were lined up and the teacher had a big desk. We had Mrs. Paulson for four years and everyone liked her. She was older but everyone liked school until she retired and we got our new teacher Mrs. Larson. She was younger and not friendly. There were three of us that we were the only one in our grade so she just decided she would put the three of us up with the older grades. I missed fourth and fifth grade so when some of the parents heard this they called the school board which my dad and some of the others were on.

One cold morning we walked to school and went in the coatroom and took off our coats and boots. When we came out we were yelled at by Mrs. Larson to go sit in our seats. All of us younger girls did but Mary Ann was older and she said why? Mrs. Larson said your fathers fired me Mary Ann went and got each one of us and dressed us and walked us home. Needless to say Mrs. Larson was gone and Mrs. Paulson said she would teach for the Next Year. The old schools were being closed down and consolidating the rural children to the cities.

We use to play softball at school and one day I got hit in the head and it knocked me out. We had swings and a big slide and teeter totters.

We use to jump rope a lot and have two people swinging and two of us could jump rope singing all kinds of songs. We even learned how to jump between the bamboo poles when they had the rhythm which we learned how at school.

The next year my older sister had to go to Little Falls to school, JoAnne went to Riverside and I went to Harrison Middle School in Brainerd.

I had Mr. Molested and he was related to my neighbors, he sort of knew I missed two grades. He helped me and I did extra credit to catch up to the sixth grade level. He was a very good teacher.

The city kids did not like us and called us names, especially farmers but I told them yes, that is exactly what we are, and you can see the fields of corn and soy beans growing.

We attended the school dances and made friends so we had a good time and looked forward to attending the Franklin Junior High the following year.

Father took us on a trip to California and we were in a city shopping when the

Reviews for Trial by Fire

[carol420 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I really can’t give an honest rating to this book because I couldn’t bring myself to read past the 12th chapter. This “heroine”...and I use the term loosely...needed a lesson in manners...or perhaps a good hard wallop up the side her head. She flew into screaming, cursing tantrums about everything. Actually, all of the characters, up to chapter 12 were angry and spiteful, even in neutral situations. Needless to say, it got very, very annoying. I think of the thousands of books that I have read this one might have been the worse *If by some chance you are a glutton for punishment and feel that you simply must visit with this book.... please, please BORROW it from the library or fish it out the trash can where the last reader threw it...but don’t spend one red cent of your hard-earned money for it!!!!