Dakota Datebook: Catherine Geiszler Vanourny

Dec. 3, 2018 — On this date in 1909, Charles and Catherine Vanourny had been married only a day, but it’s unlikely they were honeymooning. They were, after all, frugal, hard-working Germans from Russia. A 31-year-old widower, Charles had homesteaded his 160-acre farm southeast of Ashley. His new 25-year-old bride, Catherine Geiszler, had the distinction of being the first girl born in McIntosh County.

According to “Women of the Northern Plains” by Barbara Handy-Marchello, Catherine’s mother reared her “in the ordinary fashion of the prairie, teaching the oldest to mind the younger ones and to manage some simple household tasks while (mother) worked in the fields. By the age of five… Catherine looked after the babies while her parents were out of the house” and she was also taught to “start the fire to heat the noon meal when the sun reached a certain spot on the floor.”

Catherine was only 13 when her life changed dramatically. Capricious, uncontrollable fires were common on the dry, flat prairie. One afternoon two of her younger sisters had gone to bring in the cows as prairie fires danced nearby. Noting a change in the wind, her mother rushed home from the field and found the girls, each grasping the tail of a terrified cow, racing for home, but little Annie’s foot caught in a gopher hole and her mother reached her just as the flames engulfed them.

Hours later, Annie died. Their mother hung on for 15 days, desperately instructing Catherine in the details of housework and childcare despite incredible pain. Drawing her last breath, she asked Catherine to “be good to your stepmother,” knowing that her husband would remarry in order to keep his family together.

Less than two months later, he did remarry. Catherine was no doubt a great help to her 18-year-old stepmother as they cared for the house and six younger siblings, as well as 13 additional children who would be born to her stepmother. This undoubtedly left Catherine well prepared to start her own family, as she began married life on the prairie, more than one hundred years ago.

“Father De Smet and the Snorer”

by Merry Helm

Dec. 6, 2018 — Father Pierre De Smet entered North Dakota from Montana in 1840, calling it the best “retreat” he ever made; he was petrified of warring Blackfeet. “...only a rocky point separated us from a savage war-party,” he wrote. “Without losing time, we...started at full gallop... That day we made forty to fifty miles without a halt, and did not camp until two hours after sunset...”

His only companion, a Belgian trapper, posed a different kind of problem that night. “My grenadier, braver than I, was soon snoring like a steam engine in full swing; running through all the notes of the chromatic scale, he closed each movement of his prelude with a deep sigh, by way of modulation.”

The next day, they found a freshly killed buffalo. “We trembled at this sight, thinking the enemy was not far away; but... the Lord... had thus prepared food for our evening meal... That night we camped among rocks that are the resort of bears and tigers. There I had a good sleep. This time the music of my companion’s snoring did not trouble me.”

“Pearl Harbor—Sim and Rup”

by Merry Helm

Dec. 7, 2018 — On this date in 1941, many North Dakotans witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, including Carl “Sim” Simensen. After graduating from Grandin High School, he went to UND and earned a degree in commerce. He joined the Marine Corps, was commissioned a second lieutenant, and in June 1941, was assigned to the battleship U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

Edwin Rupp, who had played football with Simensen at UND, reached Pearl Harbor a few months later aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee. When the Tennessee reported to the Arizona, Simensen was the Officer of the Deck, and the two friends had a surprise reunion.

When the Japanese attacked two months later, Rupp was one of the survivors. But Simensen wasn’t so lucky; of the 2,390 lives lost during the attack, half of them were on his battleship. At least 13 North Dakotans died aboard the Arizona when it sunk, but young Simensen had the sad distinction of becoming the first UND graduate killed in action in World War II.

“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from the North Dakota Humanities Council. See all the Dakota Datebooks at prairiepublic.org, or subscribe to the “Dakota Datebook” podcast.