Title

Oral History with Gene Erickson

Creation Date

January 13 2012
1941 – 2012

Description

Oral history, Eugene Erickson by Pat Zankman
Gene talks about growing up in Tofte, working at Reserve Mining, families and resorts of Tofte, Tofte Airport and being County Commissioner
OH-0331-2012
Gene Erickson, Jan 13, 2012
PZ: Today is Jan 13, 2012, this is Pat Zankman and I am here with Gene Erickson for an interview. Hello Gene.
GE: Hello Pat.
PZ: You grew up in Tofte and well, let's talk about going to school in Tofte. Who were the other students in your class?
GE: That's a good question, I'll think about it in a minute. But I'd like to talk about what I remember about growing up in Tofte and I'd like to mention that the first, the oldest thing I can remember is that my folks had bought Cobblestone Cabins. And we operated them, it probably started in '39-'40 and the war which started Dec. 7, 1941 and that's the oldest thing I can remember. Really, other than being around Cobblestone cabins was when the Duluth paper came out and the front page was the sinking of the ships in Pearl Harbor. So that's where I'd like to start from. Secondly, I'll talk about my 2nd year of school. I was trying to put this together, it might be a little wrong, we rode on a school bus, it was a 39 Chevy. Sedan driven by Mathilda Tormondsen. They'd pick us up, my brother and I at Cobblestone. I think, from what I remember everything and I put things together, I was born in '36. When I was in the 1st grade I only got to ride on that school bus-it wasn't a bus it was a '39 Chevy car. Probably only 2 months or so, we moved to Tofte, my mother and dad-mainly my mother took over the switchboard with Northwestern Bell, it was in a house owned by Old Osbocken. So we moved there and lived there, my mother run the switch board it was so much history I think today I can tell about different telephone numbers in Tofte! Just like I said, Mathilda Tormondsen, I think her telephone number was 15R5! 15R5, it anyone knows about those numbers, the R meant there was 5 shorts. When you ran the call you'd use a button and if it was a long you'd have it for 10 seconds and the shorts were 1 second!

Complete transcript available from the CCHS.