Dropouts A Problem

HELLO FOLKS — Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, h o p e t h all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. —Corinthians, Ch. 13.

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I HAD PLANNED for the next few columns another topic. Then it occurred to me that there is a much more important subject that needs to be taken care of before I delve into this other.

The one that I am going to dwell on now is the subject of school dropouts.

In every one of our communities there are young citizens who get discouraged with school, then by quitting it doom themselves, for the most part, to a life of mediocrity and low income.

By quitting at that age they often become discouraged with themselves. They they get a poor outlook on life in general. This affects the community and eventually the nation as a whole.

We cannot afford such an attitude. The very reason we have people on relief rolls and on unemployment is because we haven't developed the attitude of continuous education and re-evaluation.

There is a lot of talk about the Gross National Product and how we can increase it. Here is the only sure way: Get every boy and girl back into school, get them to realize the value of proper attitudes and training. Get them to realize that there are millions of people depending on them to direct the future of society. There are a lot of things each of can do to contribute to solving this problem. Parents are of course most directly concerned and too often we do not give the problem the attention it deserves. As parents we should be constantly on the alert to see that our children are working up to their capacity; that their attitudes toward learning are good and that they respect their teachers and school.

For each one of us we can take an interest in the youth of our community by getting better acquainted with them, by encouraging them to better deeds and let them know that we are expecting great things from them.

We have a lot of senior citizens who could help out with loans to students at low interest rates. The satisfaction derived from such projects would give more real joy than a lot of things the money could be used for. This could give a number of young people the courage to go on to higher learning.

Next week I am going to tell you about three young fellows who could have ended with the ranks of discouraged youth but who by their own efforts practically lifted themselves out of the ruts and are on the way to being real successes.

I am inviting others of you who know of someone in your community, who has picked himself up from mediocrity and gone on to success, to tell about it in this column.

Do We Owe People Living?

HELLO FOLKS — I think we will all agree that we live in a pretty topsy-turvy world. At least it seems that way at times.

Take the case of employment. I think we will all agree that we as a nation owe everyone the opportunity to make a living. I think we also will agree that it is destructive of everything good to hand out a living to anyone and everyone just because he or she doesn't have quite as full a stomach as the rest of us. And while some of us have more work than we can readily do there are many who want to work and can't find jobs.

We have plenty of work to do. Things that need to be done and aren't being done. Take the case of the Albert Lea lake. It is a pity that it has not been cleaned up, or is not being cleaned up. I believe there are people on relief rolls who can work for what they get, who could be given jobs now and create an atmosphere for future employment growth in the future, such as the tourist trade.

Certainly the welfare officials are to be complimented for their conscientious work in giving such people the opportunity to be self-sustaining. But the job is much bigger than for one organization to do alone. It takes the cooperation of all.

What we need is a reserve of funds to use when such a project is needed and a list of jobs that need to be done whenever there is anyone in need of a job.

There are of course many contributing factors that lead to unemployment. We can price ourselves out of jobs, such as has been done in the auto and other industries. Sometimes it is the need of capital.

Whatever the cause we need to get to the root of it and create a better world, one that gives all the chance, plus the impetus, to become respectable self-sustaining citizens.

Speaking again of this topsy-turvy world, we are putting out millions of dollars to retire land and bolster prices. Then we spend millions (or I should say billions) more to feed people on relief. Many of these people on relief could be given land to put in a garden and the supervision to do it right so they in turn could almost feed themselves. And in this garden spot of the U.S. there is much food going to waste that could be gleaned to feed practically all the needy.

In biblical days the farmers were commanded to leave the edges and corners of the fields that the needy could glean for themselves. Thus all the citizens could be self sustaining, except of course the indigent.

A closer attention to such a program would make better citizens out of many who need the aid.

We go astray in this free world of ours but we gradually seeem to find the way back sooner or later and I think we will someday consider it a major error to dole food and clothing and just as great an error to not have plenty of projects to take care of all the unemployed and the where with all to do it.

Boiling it down to simple terms we owe everyone the right to earn an honest living, but we owe no able bodied man the living itself.

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Easy but glamorous: serve vanilla ice cream with green creme de menthe, chocolate ice cream with white creme de menthe.

Humor Ends The Tension

HELLO FOLKS — We were traveling over one of the roads near the Mississippi river in the eastern part of the state. It had been a constant suspense of up hill, down hill, around sharp curves, through canyons, along streams and over ridges. Some of us were car sick and most of us were getting a bit tired of it all.

As we came around one of the last sharp turns staring us in the face was a sign, crudely printed and nailed to a tree. It made us us all laugh. It read: "SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE".

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WE HAVE all heard the expressions, "You have to have the bitter to enjoy the better." and "It has to be dark before you can see the stars" and quotations of such nature. At the Petersen home we have found the truth of such sentiments.

We had our share of problems the past summer. Problems that I am sure we have profited by. We had a sweet, new daughter in August, and about six weeks later our queen (meaning my wife) developed a severe infection and was confined to the hospital. That and an operation kept her there three weeks, with another couple weeks for convalescence at home.

With a large family and lots of special problems we were hard put to fund the answers to them. This is where we saw the "stars" or should we say the "better"?

All of a sudden the neighbors started bringing in food. Relatives came to clean, cook, bake and wash and friends took care of the baby, along with the relatives. Without even asking if they could neighbors came into the fields to pick corn.

One lady who had just retired from 40 years of teaching and had raised a family of nine, besides, called and said that she wanted to keep house for us while Vera was unable to. She did a magnificent job of management and we are so grateful to her and all the friends, neighbors and relatives who did so much to show their kindness.

Things are pretty well back to normal and we are convinced that there is really a lot of good in the world, and I am convinced that there is no lack of charity.

A Chance to Keep Part of Heritage

–BY Edwin B. Petersen


HELLO FOLKS – It has been said that those who fail to revere the past have little regard for the future. If this is true, then we all had better take stock and see where our attitudes are leading us.


As we all have been observing there is a real opportunity for each of us to do our bit for the past and thereby leave a grand memorial for the future.


I am of course referring to the Historical Society's plans for the erection of a museum on the fair grounds. It is pretty definite that there will be one built there. It will be a monument to the pioneers who did so much for us.


So far there has been collected about 20 thousand dollars toward the goal of $70,000. This has been in the form of large amounts from families who are interested in such a movement.


With a big kick-off siated to take place Monday, March 18th, at Interstate Hall there will be a concentrated effort to visit every family in the county giving them the opportunity to contribue to this worthy cause.


We of course hope that everyone will want to contribute generously. I know as well as anyone how pressed, financially, many of us are. However, here is a cause to which we have one chance in a lifetime to contribute to. It will not break up the poorest of us to contribute, say, about ten dollars for each of three years to the cause. By doing that we can have our names inscribed on a permanent plaque in the museum, which will be there long after we are gone, for our descendants to be reminded that we were part of the grand plan.


Each contribution, however, small, will be appreciated. We are in hopes that there are a number of families who have been residents of Freeborn County for 50 or more years who will want to make a real substantial contribution. It would certainly be to a very worthy cause.


Why not talk it over with members of the family and decide to do it as a family group? You can mail it to the Freeborn County Historical Society, Albert Lea, or wait until you are called on by the "Pioneer Sodbusters".

Current:

Freeborn County Museum

I decided it would be interesting to see if I could do some research on the content of Grandpa's article. I contacted the director of the museum to get a picture of the plaque Grandpa referred to. This was his response


Trevor,


My name is Pat Mulso and I am the Director here at the museum.  Unfortunately to my knowledge, there is no permanent plaque.  When they were raising money for the first building project they sold life memberships to the museum for $20.00 per person.  The records indicate that in 1966, Ed. B. Peterson, Oakland, MN 56076 purchased a life membership.  Best of luck on your project.  We sincerely appreciate the work your grandfather did back in the 1960's to help with establishment of a building for the Freeborn County Historical Society.


Sincerely,

Pat Mulso

Executive Director

Freeborn County Historical Museum, Library & Village

1031 Bridge Avenue

Albert Lea, MN 56007

pmulso@smig.net

http://fchm.smig.net