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NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
July 13, 2000
You wonder what your kids learn when they go off to college, and I can tell you, it's a lot, only not much of it has to do with the formal curriculum. Lately I've asked some North Dakota State University students for stories from their own communities--home town legends--and they have a few, you bet. Every one of them is true, of course.
"I am from Fordville, N.D., and I live near Pisek," one scholar writes. "There is a road near Pisek called Lover's Lane. There are trees all along both sides of the road, and they go over the road so it looks like you are going through a cave.
"I can't remember the whole story, but if you go there at night, lock your doors, and shut the car off, a little boy comes and knocks on your door. There is something about a couple of people hanging themselves there, too, but I can't remember what that was all about."
OK, that one's a little vague, so maybe someone can supply me the details. In the meantime, consider the story of Fredonia's Grim Reaper: "I am from Fredonia, N.D., and went to school in Ashley," it starts out. "I live on a farm by this old church known as the Berlin Baptist Church.
"For many years it has been thought to have a resident known as the Grim Reaper. I know you have all probably heard of him or her, but legend has it that he lives in this area. It has gone on to say that if you see him, death will soon follow. One Halloween a man was driving home and claims the Reaper jumped out from behind a hay bale in front of his car. He claims he saw and he lives. I don't really know if I believe in the legend of my own community since for the first 18 years of my life I lived a mere mile from the church and on the federal aid road No. 9. I drove the road for many years, late at night, and I'm still alive."
Another correspondent writes, "My friend was telling me about this legend in Sawyer, N.D. There is this hill called ‘Skinner Hill,’ and when my friend was younger she asked her mother why it was called this name. Her mom told her that two people were buried at the bottom, Old Man Skinner and his wife. Her mother took her to the hill and showed her the grave sites. No one can read the names on the tombstones. They apparently died in a car accident at the bottom and from that day on the hill was named after them. On the day after Halloween, the heavy gravestones are found to be tipped over and no one knows how that could happen."
Still another teller is from Rosholt, S.D., and relates that "there was a family called the Bilbens from there. They have an old, and now abandoned, farm site just south of town. Rumor has it that the Great-Grandma Bilben hung herself in the upstairs hallway. There was also a couple of murders that occurred in the upstairs bedroom.
"Supposedly when you go upstairs and into the bedroom on certain nights you can see the blood all over the walls. Friends of mine have also said that they have heard a woman screaming. I don't know if any of it is true or not. I have been out there but always too scared to go upstairs."
A haunted house, that's to be expected, but a haunted stump? "I am from Belfield, N.D. There is a legend about an old tree stump in the Lutheran cemetery which is up the road from my house called the ‘devil's chair.’ In the early '80s people would party out in the cemetery. One night three guys all sat in this tree stump. Within a month they all died strange deaths. All were in their early 20s. One died in a car accident, one had a heart attack and the other died in a skiing accident. If you look at the tree stump it looks like a chair or a wicked throne. So they say if you sit in the chair you will die very soon. None of my friends or myself have ever sat in the thing."
Well, get that guy from Fredonia to sit in it. He sounds pretty fearless.
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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
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