Lula's Story: Part Two

To read Part One of Grandma Lula's story, please click  HERE

Lula's Story

Part Two

But Lula came and rescued those four children from their motherless state, and their father from his widowed one. 

And respecting the mother she herself would never biologically be, she folded those four children of another's womb into her own heart and soul and became more than a mother to them.

She learned the ways of their father's people, learning even to prepare delicacies of a different culture. 

Her husband told his children, after the marriage, that they should start calling her "Mother", and they obeyed and did. For awhile, at least. But soon "Mother" gave way to "Lula", which is how it ought to be. For "Lula" is as she came to them, and she remained "Lula" to all four of them until her dying day. 

There have been a lot of great women out here on the prairie over the generations, and there are still some great women out here: but there has never been another woman on the prairie quite like Lula, and I do not believe that there shall ever be. 

There is only one "Lula". No one else could have raised her husband's four children quite in the same manner as she did.

And no one else could have become grandmother and great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother to their children, their grandchildren, and their great grandchildren in quite the same manner as she.

The story of Lula is a tale of almost Biblical proportions, filled with delicious details about angel food cake with whipped cream; kluckenmus; scalloped potatoes made with cream and butter; cream, vinegar, and sugar on fresh garden lettuce; eggs, greasy bacon, sausage, and homemade buns dripping with fresh butter; and filled with presents...new pajamas for the grandkids every Christmas; and games, Bingo and pinochle (she was good at the game, even shooting the moon now and then, perhaps; and on occasion she couldn't help "peeking" if either of those on either side of her got too involved in the social aspect of the game and failed to properly conceal their hands.)

She came to the farm up by Crocus from her home in Rugby with nothing much except a suitcase full of clothes, and one or two other precious possessions, just short of her 31st birthday...and last Wednesday morning she walked over to the other side of life as rich as that Hebrew mother who was paid wages to nurse her own child in the royal palace. 

It is a remarkable story, Biblical almost, the stuff of which legends are made.

Some people might look at a story like hers and think its just another story. Such people are to be pitied. 

For it seems to me that the two main characters in this story are not Lula and her husband, or Lula and the children, or Lula and her friends. 

It seems to me that the tow main characters in this story are Lula and God. 

Who else could have given shape to such a gracious Lula, a woman with beauty beyond wind and dust, and a heart bigger than the sprawling Devil's Lake?

Today I thank God I have had the privilege of knowing at least a piece of that story, the privilege of being a marginal character in the heart of one of its main ones. 

I love this story, you see. 

It is one of the best Dakota stories I have ever seen. And the wonder of it all is this: every on of you who are here is a part of it.

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Unfortunately, I did not get to know Grandma Lula as well as my father went to engineering school and moved to the plains of Kansas where jobs were more plentiful.  I do recall a few trips up north; of loving, welcoming arms; of homemade sausage, mashed potatoes and sour kraut; and I do believe I recall that sugared lettuce as well! 

It is my hope that when my time comes I will have made an indelible mark on this world such as Grandma Lula had done. 

Tuesday's Truth: Lula's Story Part One

Several years back my Grandma Lula passed away. I was unable to attend the funeral. However, my older sisters were able to go and sent me a copy of the eulogy the pastor had written on her behalf. It is truly phenomenal. I would like to share with you the story of Grandma Lula and the quiet heroic life she had led.

Lula's Story

Part One

From the Book of Exodus:

Now a man from he house of Levi went and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 


And she conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him there three months And when she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with pitch; and she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds at the river's brink.


And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him.


Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to t bathe at the river; se saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it.


She she opened it she saw the child; and lo, the babe was crying.


She took pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrew's children."


Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call you a nurse from among the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?"


And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go".


So she went and called the girl's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you wages."


"So the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharoah's daughter, and he became her son.


May the curious wonder of the human family, with all its surprises, continue to guide and sustain you on your meandering journey down the coulees of life. Amen.

Back before I got into this pastor business, while I was yet a young dreamer, I fancied that I should become a writer, for I was hopelessly drawn to the wonder and mystery of stories.

Life had different ideas for me, though, and instead of witing stories of my own, I have been given to reporting the wonders of the everyday ones I am privileged to see.

Some of those stories are so common that they scarcely stand out one above the other.

But occasionally one rises to biblical proportions, taking its plae alongside the wonderful story of the rescue of baby Moses from the river of death, for instance.

The story of Lula is on of those.

It is not that Lula's story is more spectacular than, say, yours, or any of the other stories of Towner County people I am given to tell during occasions like this.

Her story is rugged and common, a female piece of prairie history that any history of the prairie would be incomplete without.

Lula found a family adrift on the wide Dakota prairie sea, and she rescued them. Abandoned by the untimely death of their young mother, four prairie children, two brothers, two sisters, needed a sure and loving hand not to replace the mother who had died, but to complete the work of raising the children that had sprung from her womb.

It is a marvelous story.

A common prairie woman of Norwegian heritage, at the urging of a friend who was leaving her job to go away to opportunities in a large city, comes to a farm near small town not far from where she herself was raised, to become nanny and housekeeper for four motherless children and their grieving widowed father.

She was no longer young according to the social standards of the day. She was about to cross over the line that separates being a potential mother and wife from being an old maid.

But Lula came and rescued those four children from their motherless state, and their father from his widowed one.

To be continued....