My mother and father started married life in 1916 in Poplar, Montana. My father was in the banking business with his brother Olaf. This was all part of the boom created by the railroads' Western expansion. They were creating towns and land holdings to populate the great prairie by incentives, some real, some not. The harsh facts hit these new landowners when they found there was a limit to the bonanza of the prairie. Droughts and killing winters could occur; 1919 was a very bad year. With foreclosures and nonpayments the banks suffered as well. Lots of money was lost!

My mother was sick that terrible first winter of my life and unable to nurse me. Goat's milk saved me according to the story first told to me by my father. Now my mother, with her college education, was insulted that my uncle Olaf should be the one to recognize the signs of rickets in her infant. He was just a horse trader! But nutritional starvation was all too common in those days before vitamins became a watchword.The effect rickets had on me was a lopsided shape to my skull as seen in my early photos. You know the lowered left ear story etc. I'm sure. But I'm convinced that the early malnutrition created an appetite that none of my brothers had.

This whole scene was a painful memory in our family. My father fortunately, was well qualified to teach. So we landed back in Minneapolis in my grandparents' West River Road house, a block north of the Lake St. Bridge. This, I always say, is where my earliest memory begins. When my father got his job with Humboldt High School we moved across the bridge to St.Paul; a house on Hague Ave. From here, Dean made his appearance in 1923. Paul and I were both born in Minneapolis though we were originally Montanans! Only Phil can say he was born in St. Paul.  

I don't think Peter Pan was my first movie. It came out in 1924 so I was four, almost five, when these drawings were done (although I'd been in love with drawing since I was three). I have vague memories of going downtown Minneapolis with my mother and grandmother when I was three or four and being in one of the movie "palaces"! Remember, there were no 'talkies' until 1926, so dialogue had to be read to a child. Thus, there were few movies in those days that I imagine were attractive to a preschooler, or his parents. Here I am, back to closed captioning again at this stage of my life! Did I believe in the magic of Peter Pan? Of course I did! I doubt if Paul did. He could explain why it was impossible for people to fly!