By Bill Anderson

The thunderstorm that rumbled through on the afternoon of Saturday, June 3, Presented Rutland with .65 of an inch of rain, according to Roger Pearson’s rain gauge, and with .6 of an inch of rain according to the rain gauge of his neighbor, Norbert Kulzer, a few feet to the east. The rain came in a hurry, with the storm lasting only a few minutes, but it was a welcome relief from the incessant wind and heat of the preceding week. Cameron Gulleson reported that the storm also deposited .6 of an inch of rain on the Gulleson Farm, a mile and a half east of town. The rain fell in a narrow band, with only a few drops north of ND Highway #11 and an equally parsimonious amount 2 miles south of town. Well, this is the time of the year when it does rain on the just and the unjust, alike, but neither at the same time nor in equal amounts.

Rodney Erickson reports that the process of acquiring a new Post Office in Rutland continues to make progress, although at what seems to an outside observer to be a snail’s pace. The Postal Service proposes to lease approximately 700 sq. feet of Rodney’s building, the original Prindiville’s Saloon, now at the corner of First & Arthur Streets, and has had an office floor plan drawn up that has been approved by the powers that be at the USPS and by Rodney. After the Post Office is up and running, Rodney will still possess enough space in the building to create a professional office and a small studio apartment. Rodney is hopeful that the new Post Office will be open before September 30, 2023, the second anniversary of the closure of the old Post Office. Rodney also reports that he has been working full time getting his new, well, new to him, ready for the upcoming aerial application season. His new spray plane is an Air Tractor Model 802, powered by a 1,350 horsepower turbo prop engine. He states that this plane has an 800 gallon capacity, about 300 gallons more than his old plane. The plane is currently housed in a hangar at Bear Creek Flying Service’s facilities at Oakes ND. Bear Creek Flying Service is owned by Rodney’s friend and fellow aviator, Travis McPherson of Oakes. Rodney says that he expects to be heading up north, to the area around Bottineau and Rugby during the last week of June to begin applying fungicide and herbicide in that area before moving down to Nebraska to apply agricultural chemicals to corn fields down there. Then he will be heading back to Central North Dakota to apply fungicides and insecticides to sunflower fields, and then back up to North Dakota’s northern tier counties, along the Canadian border, to apply herbicides and desiccants to wheat and canola fields in that region of the State. By then, it will be time to put the plane back into the barn and begin working on getting it ready for next year. Too bad that he can’t find anything to do in his spare time. Oh, that’s right, he owns and operates Wheaton-Dumont Co-op’s grain handling facility, the Rutland Elevator, here during the remainder of the year, when he isn’t remodeling his family’s home.

On Friday, June 2^nd, Renee Larson, Colleen Sundquist, and Diane Pierson presented a check to Chelsey, Four Seasons Healthcare Center Activity Director, in the amount of $2,085.00, the amount raised from the Spring Plant Auction held on Monday, May 22. Unable to attend were plant auction organizers Val Bjork and Ione Lunneborg. Sixty-three bidders vied for a variety of plants and garden items with the bidding getting very raucous at times to the delight of everyone. Miss Sargent County, Autum Zirnhelt and Miss Sargent County 1st runner up, Anna Hoistad assisted throughout the evening. Several residents of Four Seasons attended the auction, and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The committee extends a huge thank you to the community for helping raise funds to help fund various outings and events at Four Seasons. Thanks to Ione Lunneborg for the information in this report.

This community was saddened on the morning of Saturday, June 3, 2023, when lifelong Rutland resident Kathleen “Kathy” Brakke departed this life at Lilac Homes Memory Care in Moorhead MN.  Kathy had attained the age of 81 years 11 months and 6 days at the time of her death. 

Kathleen Ann Bauman was born to Robert and Harriet Ingeborg “Imbur” (Hoffman) Bauman on a farm near Cayuga in Kingston Township, Sargent County, North Dakota, on June 28, 1941.  According to family lore, she was born on the kitchen table in the kitchen of the Mary & Pete Banish farmhouse.  Mary Banish was Bob Bauman’s sister, Kathy’s aunt.  A month later Kathy’s cousin, Tom Banish, was born in the same kitchen, on the same table.  During Kathy’s early childhood the family lived in the main farmhouse on the Hoffman farm, situated on the SW¼ of Section 15 in Ransom Township.  Bob Bauman was a farmer and a handyman carpenter, and Imbur was employed as a schoolteacher in local 1-room country schools.  Kathy’s maternal grandparents Harry & Lydia (Ahrlin) Hoffman, her great-uncle Oscar Ahrlin and her uncle, Ahrlin Hoffman, lived on the same farmstead.  Members of the Ahrlin family were all musically talented, and Kathy inherited that talent.  Great-Uncle Oscar Ahrlin taught her how to play the piano, Grandma Lydia Hoffman taught her the guitar and Uncle Ahrlin Hoffman taught her how to yodel.  As a young adult, she taught herself how to play the accordion.  Kathy did not have any professional music lessons until her children were taking lessons from Sister Solitaries of Hankinson, and Kathy concluded that as long as she had to supervise the Children’s’ practice sessions she might as well take lessons herself. 

In 1947 her dad managed the Marcus Johnson farm in Weber Township, the farmstead now owned by Shannon & Toni Hajek, and Kathy started first grade at the school in Havana.  The next year they were back on the Hoffman farm, and Kathy went to school at Ransom #2, on the north side of ND Highway #11, 2½ miles west of the Cayuga corner.  Kathy enjoyed school, and even on the coldest, windiest days of winter, insisted on going to school if she could see the flag flying above the schoolhouse a mile to the north.  Most of the time, Kathy and her brothers walked to school, but on the coldest days their dad, or one of the other men on the farm, would harness a team, hitch it to a bobsleigh and take them to school, bundled in quilts and snuggled in the straw.  During one of her years at Ransom #2, Kathy completed 2 years of schoolwork in 1 year, jumping ahead a grade.  As a young girl growing up on the farm, Kathy had her own transportation, a paint horse named “Patches.”  She loved to race Patches across the north pasture and leap the stone fence that some pioneer had built years before in a gravity defying display of horsemanship.  Her dad died in 1953, when she was 12 years old, and she moved to a small house in Rutland with her mother and her 3 brothers.  Their house was situated on Bagley Street, where the Rutland-Cayuga Fire Hall now stands.  Kathy donated the property to the Rutland-Cayuga Fire District. 

From the 7th grade on Kathy went to school in Rutland, and her mother taught elementary classes in the Rutland school.  She enjoyed school and had many friends.  She often reminisced about going to dances with some of her school friends, including:Beverly (Sundlie) Kulzer; Shirley (Lee) Prindiville; Yvonne (Christianson) Johnson; Corrine (Narum) Romereim; Janet (McNeil) Malstrom; and, Sonja (Anderson) Christensen.  The girls would wear their “can-can” skirts & petticoats to the dance. The petticoats were stiffly starched to keep the can-can skirts poofed out.  As starch was more expensive than sugar, they used sugar water to starch their petticoats and, as they danced, sugar would shake out of their petticoats onto the dance floor.  There was no air conditioning in the local dance halls of the 1950’s.  Think about it.  When they wanted to go to a dance, the girls would stand on the street corner by Hermanson’s Grocery and wait for someone reliable like Grant Gulleson, an excellent dancer, or Roy Pearson who would give them a ride to the dance.  Occasionally they might even get a ride with one or more of their parents.  The rule was that you went home with the person who brought you to the dance. 

On October 28, 1957, Kathy married Darwin Brakke at a ceremony at the Lutheran Parsonage in Forman, Rev. J. T. Rotto officiating.  Kathy would have been a member of the RHS Class of ’58, but with the assistance of Rutland School Superintendent Walter Richter and the faculty at Rutland High School, she obtained her GED diploma in 1958 instead.  Kathy & Darwin lived in Mooreton ND for a while, where Darwin was employed by a local farmer before moving back to Rutland where Darwin worked for the local plumber, Ronald Donaldson, and Kathleen supplemented their income with many jobs, including using her sewing skills to make and alter clothing for herself, her family and for others; taking in laundry; and, mowing lawns, among others.  In 1968 they bought the Lariat Bar from Ronald Donaldson and operated it successfully with many promotions including: bullhead frys; hog roasts; and live music.  On the first day that they ran The Lariat, they had to borrow $20 from Darwin’s dad so they could make change.  During this time an impromptu music group made up of Kathleen with the accordion; Larry Anderson with a guitar; Pastor Andy Boe with a guitar; and Ed Skluzak with a fiddle; entertained themselves and the customers during the Noon hour.  In 1974, Kathy & Darwin sold the Bar. Kathy and her sister-in-law, Janice Christensen then purchased Hermanson’s Grocery in Rutland, renaming it “The J & K Market.”  Kathleen and Darwin were divorced in 1983.  She continued to work in the grocery business, and also started her own arts & crafts business, creating and selling Norse Rosemaling, Swedish folk art and other items.  Kathleen held annual open houses at her home in Rutland where she displayed and sold her arts & crafts items.  Her home was decorated with her art, historic photos, maps & documents, and an eclectic mix of antique and just plain comfortable & interesting furniture.  Her porch and front yard were noted for the beautiful flower gardens and floral displays that Kathy designed and created on her own with flowers of all kinds.

On March 13 of 1987, Kathleen and Earl W. “Bill” Anderson were married in a ceremony at the Grand Forks County Courthouse presided over by Cogswell native Kirk Smith, a Judge of the District Court.  They went on a 2-month honeymoon in Norway and Sweden where they visited many cousins and made many new friends.  In 1989 Kathy stopped working at the grocery store and accepted a job as office manager and legal assistant in Bill’s law office in Rutland.  She also got interested in quilting at this time and created many beautiful quilt designs, including the Buffalo and Horse quilts that celebrated her native American heritage. The “Quilting Cousins” group gathered annually, each Spring, first at Kathy’s home and later at the Coteau des Prairies Lodge, to pursue their passion for quilting.

Kathleen enjoyed entertaining at her home; organizing family reunions and putting together family histories for her diverse ethnic ancestry (Swedish, Dutch, German, Metis and Wahpeton-Sisseton Dakota Oyate; as well as organizing and promoting many community events.  She was a major participant in the “90 Years On The Prairie” celebration in 1972; Rutland’s observance of the national Bicentennial in 1976; Rutland’s “Pride Of The Prairie” Centennial Celebration in 1982; and Rutland’s observance of the North Dakota Centennial in 1988 & 1989.  Along with Bill Anderson, Milton McLaen & Danene McLaen, Kathy was one of the 4 Rutland community members who proposed the community’s annual observance of Uff-Da Day to the Rutland Community Club back in 1985, and she was an active worker in ensuring the success of the event, chairing the arts & crafts committee and serving as Editor In Chief of The Rutland Leader promotional newspaper until dementia took away her ability to do so. 

Kathy contributed her considerable musical talents to many community plays, ceremonies and events.  She was the organist for Nordland Lutheran Church in Rutland from 1966 to 1991, and she also played for many funerals, weddings and other events.  She also was the pianist for the combined Baptist-Congregational churches of Rutland, Forman & Havana from the early 2000’s until 2017.  She donated her piano to the new chapel at Four Seasons Healthcare in Forman.  She was a community leader who blazed new paths for women, becoming the first woman to be elected to the Nordland Lutheran Church Council in Rutland, and the first woman elected to the Rutland City Council.  In 1999 Kathleen and Bill purchased the Sargent County Abstract & Title Guarantee Co., and Kathleen did all of the researching and assembling of real property abstracts for land in Sargent County during the time they owned the company.  In 2011, Kathy and her sister-in-law, Susan Anderson, started “The Old Parsonage,” an antiques & collectibles shop situated in the former Baptist Parsonage on Rutland’s Main Street.  When Susan passed away in 2012, their friend, Mary Ann Thornberg, stepped in to help out. Their husbands said that they had as much fun as young girls arranging furniture and dishes in a playhouse.  In 2014 she began to exhibit the first symptoms of the dementia that eventually ended her life. 

Kathleen is survived by: her husband, Bill Anderson of Rutland; 2 daughters: Darby (Robert Sebree) Brakke of Cincinnati OH; and, Janelle Brakke of Fargo; 1 son, Jesse Brakke of Rutland; 1 son-in-law, Steve Thorfinnson of Fort Ransom ND; 2 granddaughters: Kaia (Kyle) Mahrer of Rutland; and, Claire Brakke of Madison WI; 1 grandson, James (Sydny) Brakke of Somerset WI; 4 great-grandchildren: Brody, Julia, Adalyn & Kaitlyn Mahrer of Rutland; 2 brothers: Robert (Elsie) Bauman of Portland OR; and, Ronald “Red” (Bonnie) Bauman of Fergus Falls MN; by numerous nieces, nephews and cousins; and, by a host of friends.  

She was preceded in death by her parents; 1 daughter, Julie Thorfinnson, in 2003; one great-granddaughter, Aunika Mahrer; one daughter-in-law, Michelle Brakke; one brother, Earl Mark Bauman; and by all of her uncles and aunts. 

 A private family service for the interment of Kathy’s cremains in the Rutland Cemetery is planned for Saturday, July 8.  A Celebration of Life, celebrating the memory of Kathleen Brakke’s life in, and contributions to, this community will be held at the Rutland Town Hall on Saturday, October 14, 2023. Autumn Olson of Price Funeral Chapel of Britton SD & Forman ND is assisting the family with arrangements. 

Condolences may be sent to The Family of Kathleen Brakke c/o Bill Anderson, PO Box 100, Rutland ND 58067. 

In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorials be made to: The Sargent Central Music Program; the Rutland Community Club; and Hospice of the Red River Valley.  

The Rutland community extends its condolences to the family and friends of Kathy Brakke, a leader of uncommon talent and ability.

An online guestbook and obituary is available at www.pricefuneralchapel.net.  

The Rutland City Council met at 5:05 p.m. on Monday, June 5, with Mayor Mike Mahrer; City Auditor Deb Banish; and Council Members Bill Anderson and Delores Lysne present. Council Members Rodney Erickson and, Lori McLaen absent. Rutland resident Dave Young and City Engineer Mike Bassingthwaite of Interstate Engineering, Wahpeton, were also present.

Mr. Young asked what progress had been made on repairing the drain from the slough north of the Cramton residence on the southwest corner of town. The Council requested that the City Attorney draw up an easement obtaining permission from the property owner to drain water west into the existing Legal Drain #8. Mayor Mahrer reported that he had conferred with Calvin Jacobson of Jacobson Plumbing, Heating & Excavating about installing a new drain tile for that purpose. Council Member Lori McLaen entered the meeting at 5:20 p.m. The Council adopted a resolution authorizing filing of an application to the ND Department of Environmental Quality for assistance performing a lead service line inventory in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule revisions in Federal & State Law. The Council discussed the deplorable condition of the sidewalk on the east side of main street and will be working with the City Engineer to proceed with improvements and replacement as soon as possible. The City Attorney suggests proceeding to remove the raccoons from the Hamilton Building on Main Street, the former location of the Rutland Post Office, with a plan to invoice Hamilton Enterprises by the end of this month, allowing the owner 30 days to pay. The amount of the charge will be attached to the real estate taxes on the building if not paid on time. After reviewing the financial reports, the Council authorized the payment of approximately $11,000 of bills submitted. The meeting adjourned at 6:20 pm. The next meeting of the Rutland City Council is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. on Monday, July 10, 2023, in the Rutland Town Hall. All meetings of the Rutland City Council are open to the public, and Rutland residents are invited to come in and observe their city’s governing board in action.

The Annual Rutland Community Block Party will be held at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, in the City Park on Gay Street, next to the Rutland Veterans’ Monument and the Rutland Town Hall. All in the Rutland community, particularly those who are new to Rutland and the vicinity, are invited to join in for fun, games, burgers, brats, and other good stuff. The Rutland Volunteer Firemen will be grilling the burgers & brats, as well as providing water games for the kids. Come one, come all, to the Annual Rutland Community Block Party on Wednesday, June 14.

It’s back! The Lariat Bar will be sponsoring the Annual Rutland Rib Fest once again, on Saturday, August 5, on Main Street in Rutland. More details later.

Meanwhile, on the national scene, North Dakota’s Governor, Doug Burgum, has announced that he is a candidate for President of the United States in 2024. He enters a crowded GOP field, but at least he is not a convicted felon, as is the current front runner for the GOP endorsement. Well, Gov. Burgum can’t be worse than former President Trump, can he?

That’s the news from Rutland for this week. For additional information about what’s going on in the little city that can, check out the community’s internet web site at www.rutlandnd.com, and take a look at the Rutland Facebook page while you’re at it, too. Remember to patronize your local Post Office, and don’t forget to keep the pressure on the U.S. Postal Service and the North Dakota Congressional delegation to SAVE OUR POST OFFICE! Later.