Paulina Pudwill Magstadt was born in 1888 in a sod house on a farm, which was Dakota Territory at that time and now is Bon Homme County between the towns of Tripp and Avon. She was a pioneer and one of the Germans from Russia children.

Their mattresses were made of straw, their pillows were filled with chicken feathers and their comforters were filled with duck or goose down. They used cow chips and what wood that could be found for heat and cooking. They went barefoot most of the time and she used to tell me she had one pair of shoes and only put them on as they entered the church.

Since they spoke German and she got very little schooling, she had a hard time reading and writing the English language. She did get to go to school 13 days when she was 13. I am ashamed of myself for ridiculing her when my brother and I found her grocery list and she had "ornies and beanies" written down (meaning oranges and bananas). We never ever got to see her grocery list after that.

She did get to go to live with a seamstress in town and learned how to sew, and sew she did. She made all of my clothes and sewed for her sister and mother and others. She made some of the most beautiful clothes for me out of other people's garments and my aunt and grandmother bought and gave her material.

Her patterns were of newspaper or wrapping paper, and instead of pins, she used table knives to hold down the pattern while she cut out the garment. One time, she was

given coats and I ended up with two wine-colored coats that I had to wear for years and years. To this day, I shy away from that color. From the leftover scraps of material, she made beautiful quilts. …

Besides her quilts and clothes that she made, she liked to crochet, and whenever she would just be sitting with her hands in her lap, my brother would say, "Momma, heckla," which in German meant for her to crochet. She wasn't one to just sit and relax! She made beautiful doilies and edges on pillowcases. Her hands were never idle.

She also learned to play the pump organ and later the piano. She was the pianist for the Baptist church we went to. On Sunday evenings when we were home, she played the piano accompanied by my brother on the violin and my dad and I sang hymns and then Dad would read the Bible in German. In the evening while we were waiting for my dad to come home for supper, she would play the piano. Two of my favorites were "Listen to the Mockingbird" and "My Blue Heaven."

She was a great cook and gardener, too. She always had chickens and sometimes pigeons and ducks. I know we had chicken in some form or another every day. If it wasn't fried or baked, the eggs were used for her super especially good noodles, for soup, casseroles, French toast or whatever. The whites of the eggs were used for the lightest angel food cakes (our special cake for our birthdays).

The chickens we get now just don't compare with her chickens. Her chickens were corn-fed. My dad worked in a grain elevator and brought home corn and other grains. She used the other grains in her bread baking and also soaked certain grains overnight and cooked them for breakfast the next morning as cereal. Um, um! Was that ever good. As I was approaching home after school, I could smell that wonderful aroma of fresh-baked bread.

On Good Friday, my Grandfather Magstadt plowed up the garden and the potatoes were planted, which supplied us until the next season. Sometimes she had such a big crop of potatoes she couldn't give them away, so she made starch for her clothes. She always had beautiful flowers in her garden. She also planted corn, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, squash, melons and garlic, which we used not only for seasoning, but also for medicinal purposes. We always wore a belt with a pouch with a clove of garlic in it. I don't know what it was with the garlic. Anyhow, we stayed pretty healthy.

Of course, all of the good natural vegetables she grew and the unrefined foods she served and the exercise and fresh air kept us healthy. A lot of the watermelons were small but ripe. These melons she placed in a salt brine in big barrels and served them on a cold wintry day. They not only were colorful, but also delicious.

Not only did she put out a big garden, she helped my dad shuck grain and helped other friends cook for thrashers in the fall to earn a little money.

She did have problems with dust storms, droughts, grasshoppers, etc. I remember her putting wet clothes on the windowsills to keep out some of the dust and scrubbing the floors after every dust storm. And Mom was always getting my brother and me out of bed in the middle of the night when a big storm would be raging outside and take us in the basement against the southwest wall.

One day, one of these terrible thunderstorms came up. She and I were in the house alone and a big lightning crash sent every color of the rainbow through the house. I turned white as a sheet and Mom remarked: "Wow, that one was a close one." We didn't realize how close it was until my folks got in the car and were driving out of the driveway and saw shingles on the ground. Checking the roof, they saw the big hole next to the chimney. Our house had metal strips on the roof next to the chimney that went to the eave troughs and drainpipe and to a metal rain pipe wired onto a metal rain barrel and then was grounded; therefore, I am alive to tell this story.

I don't know how she accomplished so much and had time to sit and play the piano and take care of all our needs. We didn't have electricity or running water or an indoor bathroom until after I was out of high school and we moved to Hot Springs. We depended on rains to fill our cistern. I am so fortunate and thankful to have had such a wonder mother who truly fulfilled her role as a mother and a homemaker, and gave so much to her family and friends with so little formal education and facing the struggles of life. She lived to 92.

- Daughter Meta Brady, Rapid City