THIS MAY BE HER:

MEMORIES OF AN EARLY DUPREE

by Maye Lafferty Ronshaugen

    My memories of an early Dupree include remembering the many really fine peoplewho came to "homestead". They would arrive at the railroad station (Dupree had two 

trains a day in those times) with no one to meet them and nowhere to go until they could get transportation to "their land", which sometimes boasted only a sod hut and a hand-dug well. My parents befriended many of these people and made friends who remained so for a lifetime. They were really good and great people.

    My mother was an accomplished seamstress and often helped newcomers with her talents when the need arose. She had once supervised sewing classes at St. John's Episcopal School at Oahe. In Dupree's earlier days, her devotion to her church was often expressed by being able to offer her home for services (before St. Phillips had a church building), by baking bread for Communion Services, and by providing hospitality 

to the bishops when they visited their missionary outposts in this area. In the early 1920's, after my parents had built a new home, which at that time was one of the larger

houses in Dupree, many well remembered teachers made their school-term homes with us.

    In regard to remembrances, I wonder how many readers of this history will recall the Flu Epidemic of 1917, or the first Armistice Day Celebration for World War I when we had a huge bonfire in a gravel pit near Cemetery Hill? Or when Dupree bought an airplane to be piloted by Sim Jeffries, Dupree's own World War I flying ace? My parents deprived me of my hour of glory when they refused an invitation for me to accompany Jim Shelton, long-time friend and the owner of the Dupree Hotel, on the first paid passenger ride local residents were to have. He had paid $100.00 for the privilege and 

he and the pilot had agreed that since I was a very small girl, I could have fitted nicely in the plane with them. I have had countless plane rides both at home and abroad since that time, but I still regret the missing of that opportunity.

    Another memory I find especially poignant is that of recalling the time when radios became available and how many of the townspeople pooled their resources to buy a 

large Atwater-Kent which was housed in the depot where we could all go for an evening, sit around a pot-bellied stove (in winter), and listen to a Hastings, Nebraska station whose reception was cleverly engineered by Frank Bednar, depot agent. Great was the joy!

    As one grows older, memories of family, places, and things once again become lovingly familiar. Ah, things historical! How they have enriched our lives and little did we know as they were being acted out how much they would eventually mean.

Source:

Text of Ziebach Co., SD History (1982) - pages 57 - 79

This file is the text of the book, "South Dakota's Ziebach County, History of the Prairie", published in 1982 by the Ziebach County Historical Society, Dupree, SD

http://files.usgwarchives.net/sd/ziebach/history/z-hst-4.txt