Recording – 11-05-2024 13:17:34

00:00 My name is Aunica Ekholm. I'm 18 years old. And today on November 5th, I'm speaking with Patricia Gordon, who's my grandma, and I just have a few questions for her about our family homestead in Vergas Minnesota. So, Grammy, when was the homestead built? Do you know?

00:28 I believe it was somewhere around 1897. And it was built as a. They called it a cabin at the time. It's a log cabin. And over the years it did get modernized. They built on and did a little modernization to us, so there was indoor plumbing.

00:43 Okay, and where did our family come from, do you know?

00:49 Actually, they came from Maine. And prior to that, some of the ancestors, my best guess would be England because the last name Bradbury is very English. And a lot of people who came over from England did settle in Maine. So they came from Maine. Some settled in southern Minnesota and then migrated up this way. Others did come here directly. And at that time they could find a parcel of land that wasn't owned. And the government, if you took care of it for so long, the government would handed over to you.

01:21 Right. Okay. So what are some memories you have about growing up in Vergas A.

01:28 Well, a lot, because our family was there and we were so close together. So the one lady who took care of the homestead after her parents and grandparents had passed away, she stayed there and she had an invitation to go over to England to be a lady, like they have ladies and lords to come over and be in line to be a lady in England. But she would have to give up her citizenship in the United States and get her citizenship over there. And she said, no, someone needs to stay and take care of the cabin. So she and her brother had lived there and he passed away. But prior to her living there, in the end, she had moved to Texas with her husband. She had gotten married and they moved to Texas and then they'd come back in the summer and go to Texas in the winter. So she ended up when he passed away, just staying at the so called cabin or the homestead as we call it. It's still there today. And some of my memories were going over. She had an old pump organ. I would go over and I would try to play the pump organ. And then when I finally learned how to play the piano, I could go and actually play the pump, Oregon play music on it. She had a round record player. So the records were round many, many, many years ago. She wouldn't let the kids play with it, but she would start that round record player and let us listen to it. She had her father's gun hanging above the dining room table where he always had it. And it was like black powder or whatever. Black powder gun. She had pictures of her parents and grandparents on the walls. So a lot of memories of the cabin over there, especially because we have a cemetery across the road from there. And right now we have five generations in there already.

03:15 Oh, yeah.

03:16 And there's a story on how that started.

03:19 Do you want to tell the story?

03:20 I do. So my great great grandfather, who helped his son homestead the place, said one day, and this was passed down. So how accurate it is, I'm not sure. But he was known to say that when I pass away one day, I want to be buried under this tree, which was across the road. And it was a field area. I'm sure that they farmed it. And so he said he wanted to be buried under a certain tree. That's what started it. And from there we've got babies in there, we've got great greats. We've got greats, we've got grands. And we've got our own parents. So far, no siblings, which I'm grateful for, but cousins.

04:01 Right. So who owned it originally?

04:05 It would have been my great grandfather and his parents lived with him. So the great great grandfather and his wife, great great grandmother lived there. I want to say the great greats is Moses and Sarah. And then the great grandparents were Horus and Moriah.

04:24 Okay.

04:25 My grandparents then were Harry and Mary, my great aunt, who stayed at the homestead. And my grandfather came from a family of about six siblings, or six children, I should say. And there was one from the first marriage. The mother died after she was the daughter was born. And so he had remarried then and had the other five children.

04:50 Oh, geez. So you mentioned that you visited a lot when you were a kid. And we do still use it for reunions while we used to. And I was wondering why it is no longer in the family.

05:06 Yeah. So what happened was my great aunt who had it, it was deeded to her in the end there, and she in turn deeded it over to her children. Her daughter was the only one who really wanted it because they had all moved away. They grew up mainly in Texas, and they had moved on and, you know, had a life elsewhere. So they didn't have the interest that most of us would have. And so she sold it. And the only one who wanted it was someone outside the family because most of us were too young to be able to consider it at the time. But the gentleman who bought it was friends With a family member and he's really studied the history and he really took a very deep interest in it, which was nice. But it's just that that little cabin or homestead, it's just so memorable. It's something that means a lot to most of us. I mean, my grandfather, my great aunt, his sister and the siblings were all born in that one little bedroom there.

06:04 Yeah.

06:05 Which is amazing. You think about it, we all go to the hospital today. They were all born in that little bedroom right there. In fact, my grandfather even talked about back in the day, he had a bow, bow and arrow. He had. Didn't have the arrows, but he had a bow that was made by Native Americans. And back in the day they were referred to as Indians. And he said they came, they were hungry, they. They came through their yard and said they wanted food. How they communicated, I'm not sure because I'm sure there is a language barrier. So they gave, said they would give a bow if they could have food. So they gave them food.

06:42 That's crazy.

06:43 Yeah.

06:45 Wow.

06:46 Yeah.

06:47 Our family used to own most of the land in Vergas, right?

06:50 Well, in that area of the country outside of Vergas, yes. So she owned that. And there's actually two lakes that her property went up to. So now of course it belongs to the gentleman who bought the place. And the cemetery is of course on property that's owned by family. And then my grandfather just lived up the road and so they had a huge part of a lake, two lakes that joined together. But the one lake there especially. And then my father had a lot of property up the road from there, so. Yes. And his sisters lived close by and they had property. So a huge area that was owned by the Bradbury family.

07:37 Right. And that's now been like sectioned off and you know.

07:40 Yeah. Yes.

07:42 You do still own one part.

07:45 I do. Because when my grandparents passed away, that was my go to. Besides the homestead, it was like my sanctuary, if you will. It was a place I went and I just felt very special. I grew up with five siblings. We lived in like a little two bedroom house.

08:03 Right.

08:04 And it was, I always said it's a shack. It was a shack there. It had a cement floor in parts and no indoor plumbing. So when I could go to my grandparents house, that was fabulous. And then we could go to the lake because they own so much of the property around the lake. Well, when they passed that all changed because everything got sold. Or every member or every sibling, I should say, of my dads, they all got two Lots each, two parcels each. Well, so many of them sold it off for money. And so my one aunt had gotten the piece that I have now with the cabin on it. When she and her husband passed, it went to her daughter or my cousin and she didn't want it. And it was for sale. And I was too young. I was 12 and 14 when my grandparents died. I was too young to get anything from them. And it meant so much to me that for years and years I had this hole in my heart, so to speak, that I would have dreams about them and they'd be there and it was so real, I missed them immensely. Never had the opportunity, like you at 18, to have a grandparent you can talk to. And so when I saw it was going up for sale by owner, I called my cousin and I said, I want it.

09:20 Right?

09:20 I'm buying it. And so I ended up buying it. And I've tried to retain it as best as I can and just keep it so much like it was things of my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. I've made sure that I've kept those in the cabin. And I've had to, of course, bring it up to kind of up to snuff, as they say, you know, just to. To make it livable and usable. But it's, it's very special.

09:48 Yeah. That's kind of funny because how you were saying it was your sanctuary and now it's like the grandkids sanctuary.

09:55 Absolutely. And so, so what I did is I put it in a life estate for your mom and her two sisters. And so technically your name would be on there as well, because it's going to go to, you know, the kids of my children one day if, when I'm gone. It doesn't get sold outside of the family, of course, but it's been paid for free and clear. So my hope is that one of the grandchildren would hopefully one day want to take it over or share it with others, what have you. But it's, it's my happy place. I want it to be somewhere that people can come and enjoy.

10:36 Right.

10:37 So if my kids or my grandkids have it, they'll put out the welcome mat and say, I want people to come and enjoy the lake, enjoy the fishing and just let's enjoy the outdoors.

10:46 Yeah. And that's only like, what, five minutes from the homestead maybe?

10:50 Yeah. Not even. Yeah, it's. It's about mile and a half, two miles.

10:55 Yeah. And it's funny because our homestead is right across from like the town hall. The old Fergus town hall. Right. It's a candor hall.

11:02 It's the Kander town hall. It's a township town hall. It used to be a schoolhouse back in the day. That's what most school houses looked like, was a country school. And I'm not sure who went there, I don't recall. But so many of that, so much of that area, I should say. So many people in the family built and because there my aunt, other aunt and uncle, great, great uncle and aunt I guess you'd say, had built right across from the homestead by that town hall at one time.

11:29 Right.

11:30 And others built close by. And so the families stayed together, close together and they helped each other out with the farming and just with children and whatnot.

11:41 Right.

11:42 Different today.

11:43 Oh yeah, for sure. And one of your brothers lives across from the homestead, right?

11:47 He lives right behind it. Okay, yeah, right behind it. He built a house on family land, of course. So yeah. And then I have another brother who lives up the road and he's on the town board. So he wants to try to maintain things so that it's country living but that it's still very usable.

12:05 The Vigus population is like 200 or something, right?

12:09 Yes. It used to be 2:30, I want to say, I think. Or maybe it's up to 230 now. 225, something like that. So it's a very small town. Everybody knows everybody.

12:22 Right. Do you have any other stories or anything you'd like to share about the homestead?

12:30 I think just that it was such a memorable place and it had such meaning to my great aunt and I think she passed that down as a legacy that it's something we need to treasure, we need to really take care of. I know that she used to drive this little white car with little red interior and she'd have her little dog in the back window. And that was a far cry from how she grew up with horses, horse drawn buggies and horse drawn discs and stuff they use for farming. In fact, her garage used to be a barn for the horses and they converted it into a garage. And if you look, the door is very low but tall enough for horses to get in. And they have the old granary there. That that building is still there because they would store their grain and whatever they got out of their crops in there.

13:22 So our relatives who own the homestead were farming on that land then?

13:27 Oh yes, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. A lot of field area there that I'm not sure how because that soil is so rocky that I don't know how they could do it with all the rocks in there, But I bet they picked a lot of rock.

13:40 Yeah, I'm sure they did.

13:43 Yeah. No, it is. It's a very memorable place.

13:45 Yeah. And I know it's, like, important to our family as far as, like, reunions go, which we don't really do that anymore, but it would be nice if it was restored because it's kind of in a, like, depreciating state.

13:59 It is. It is very much in a depreciating state. And I've offered. The gentleman who owns it is 96, and he's a wonderful man. He still works. He used to fly up and put his float plane on that one lake there across the road. He knows it needs to get fixed up, but I think he's counting on his children to do that. It's just. It's sad to see that it's not being taken care of now like it used to be. He used to keep it up. It's one of those things that you want to do something about it and you can't.

14:29 Right. Yeah.

14:30 And it's very frustrating because I would like to. I would like to help out with it.

14:36 Right.

14:37 So. But yeah, we did used to have reunions there just the last few years. Well, we took a break, for one thing, and then. Then the next year we had it. We had it at. At the Bradbury beach, my. By my cabin and. Because the gentleman who owns the homestead is getting elderly and his children felt it was too much on him, Although he loved it. He's the one who said they needed to be there at the homestead dead. So, you know, we've just resorted to having it elsewhere.

15:06 Right. And there is a lot of stuff from our family still in there. Right. Like pictures and things.

15:12 I think it was all removed.

15:14 Okay.

15:14 Yeah, there used to be, but I think it's all been removed in the meantime and. But I'm just grateful that that gentleman has been so open. He's got information on our family and the homestead, and he's always willing to share it. And he's part of our reunion. He's part of our family now.

15:30 Right.

15:31 But, yeah, it's. It's very special.

15:34 Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you for letting me interview you today.

15:38 You're welcome. Aunica If I can mention one more thing, that when we do have people in the family pass away, we typically have some kind of a celebration of life or memorial over at the homestead, and then the burial is done right across the road.

15:54 So would we not be doing that anymore?

15:56 We will. Okay, we will. Yeah. Even if. Even if it gets to the point where the gentleman isn't around anymore and his children say they'd rather not, we'll have it there. Until then, we'll still have that celebration of life or whatever over at Redbury Beach. And then we can do the burial over at the cemetery.

16:12 Right? Yeah. A lot of traditions surrounding that.

16:16 A lot. A lot. Yes, absolutely. And you have memories now?

16:20 Oh, yeah, definitely.

16:23 So my hope is that you will enjoy it in the years to come.

16:26 I will.

16:27 Okay.

16:28 Thank you so much.

16:29 You're welcome, Aunica