Dunn Center, North Dakota

I've never been to Dunn Center, North Dakota, but here it is.

With the assistance of Google Maps, I am able to see the road from Billings, MT northeast along old Highway 10 to Glendive, then east to Dickinson, ND. It gives me a birds eye view of the route my dad, Webster Warren Bateman, and his sister travelled on March 10, 1939 to the funeral of dad's first wife, Dorothy. From Dickinson, they turned north on Highway 22 and then east on Highway 200 to arrive - late - to the funeral at the Normanna Lutheran Church.

In this photo, you can see the location of the church. It's the grey area on the east side of Dunn Center, the right side of the photo. The grey area is parking lot. The north/south road on the far right of Dunn Center leading to the church is the same road where Webb's 1930's Chevy kicked up snow as he put the pedal to the metal (literally) the last mile to the church. Top speed for the vehicle was about 45 miles per hour the entire 350 miles from Billings.

I'm sure the church itself has been remodeled over time, but when I zoomed in I could still see a tall steeple so typical of other Lutheran churches in North Dakota.  I have a photo of the small, white wooden church in which Dorothy was confirmed, she and Webb were married, and where on that day in 1939, her funeral service was held. This aerial view shows the same church 77 years later.

March 10, 1939 was a sad day. Dorothy was only 26 years old. She would have been 27 on August 8, 1939. The novel I'm writing, Cat Skinner, A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930's is not only a story about Webb and Dorothy, but about the other women in his life: his mother Dena, sister Blanche, his three year old daughter LaReta, and another woman - my mother, Julia. It's on the road to Dunn Center and to the church, that the stories of these women unfold in surprising ways.

Carbide Lantern

In 1928 at the age of seventeen, my dad, Webster Warren Bateman, went to work in a coal mine in New Salem, North Dakota. The historical fiction novel I’m writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s will include this experience and many others during his youth.

I was talking to my husband, Scott, about dad’s experience in the mine. This led to a Google search of Carbide Lantern.  What I found gave me a whole new appreciation for Dad’s own written description about the experience. The lantern, so small it could be held in a man's hand, had two chambers. The bottom was for the solid carbide chips. It screwed into a top chamber that held water. A drip system allowed water droplets to reach the carbide creating acetylene gas. A lever on top of the lantern regulated the length of the flame which came straight out the front, brightened by a round, metal reflector plate behind the flame. Once lit by a spark from a striker wheel on the reflector plate or a match, the lamp gave off a bright, warm light. Still, I can't imagine that as a miner's only source of light 300 feet into the earth. Webb's own words follow: 

One of my next jobs was for a coal mine in New Salem, North Dakota (1928). My earnings were the mainstay for the family that winter.

I worked for a few days for free with another miner to learn how to mine coal. We dug coal rooms working in about 5 inches of water most of the time. We wore the same dirty, crusty long-handled under-wear, overalls and rubber boots every day. Each man had to get out 10 – 1 ton car loads of coal and a car of slack (fine powder) each day or you got no bottom cut by a machine that night.

You had to lay a short length of rail-track and bore the shot holes with a hand auger, make your black powder shots and load the coal. The mule-skinner brought empty cars to the entrance and pulled out the loaded cars. The mules lived in the mines until they had to be changed.

I was only 17 years old, the youngest miner ever there and maybe the poorest because of lack of experience. I would almost always be last to ring for the pump-man to lower the cage 300 ft. to haul me up to the shower room but I’d have my cut out.

We were paid .50 a ton for the coal mined. The car of slack was free. We furnished the black powder, dynamite and fuse. Our only light was a carbide lamp fastened to the cap on your head. It put out about a 2 inch flame. Sometimes it would go out. No one but an old miner knows what darkness is. You had to make your lamp work again in total blackness. From then on you know no fear of anything.