The Minot Daily News ran a big interview with my grandpa from my birth-fathers side of the family. They keep referring to him as Chester but I never heard him called that once, he’s always been Chet. My fondest memories of Chet and the farm were of winter and riding on a real, honest-to-goodness sleigh that he had restored behind a magnificent pair of horses. I also remember building a snowman in the entryway of the farmstead (I figured it was too cold outside), chasing chickens around in the summer and staring at the goat herds with the dogs. It’s amazing how stuff like that still sits deep in your heart and head so many years later.

This interview is one of a number of pieces I’ve read in recent months about the part of the country I spent some of my earliest years in. An entire way of life is disappearing in front of us, and a lot of people probably don’t even know it. All of the stereotypes of rural North Dakota are essentially true. It’s bitterly cold and nothing for scenery. But the people are amazing and the roots run very deep. I remember on a regular basis going to the cafe with my other Grandpa, Ardell, in Lignite, ND (I am completely stunned to find that Lignite has a web page, wow! To give you an idea of the size of the town, this is the whole phone book.) and sitting at the counter with the other men. There is nothing like that in the cities that the majority of us live in.

I hope that I will have the opportunity to bring my children, and even their children, back to this part of the world and tell them about it.

Columbus man talks of decades of farming

By MARVIN BAKER, Staff Writer mbaker@ndweb.com

COLUMBUS - Chester Ringwall has a lot of stories to tell. There’s a lot of information stored in his memory since the 1920s. But the 80-year-old Ringwall doesn’t like to reminisce with crowds of people. He’d prefer telling you about the past one-on-one.

Time has certainly slowed him down, however, Ringwall keeps going day to day by taking care of some livestock.

Back in the day, Ringwall raised as many as 15 flocks of turkeys because business was good in Minot and Williston after World War II.

His son Charlie and wife Roberta now raise chickens in the same brooder house that kept a roof over the turkeys for so many years. Chester Ringwall believes chickens are more difficult than turkeys even after watching his son’s work the past seven years.

Ringwall also raised as many as 250 sheep at one time, but that number has dwindled to just 16 ewes. He can no longer protect that many animals from the predators.

“These are basically here to keep the grass down,” Ringwall said. “Twenty-eight coyotes were taken by the state on the soil banks south of Columbus.”

He also cares for four ponies, which are his pride and joy. And he tinkers in the vintage 1916 barn that still stands on the Burke County homestead just a couple of miles east of Columbus.

Some of his handiwork includes renovating buggies and sleighs, but as he describes it, parts are so hard to get hold of these days. Still, Ringwall drives on as much as he can because if the sheep and ponies don’t keep him going, the nostalgia certainly will.

“It would sure be fun to go back to the old days. I would like to go to Amish country and see it all again,” Ringwall said. “Farming with horses was kind of peaceful in those days. You could hear the dirt turning and the leather squeaking.”

Farming has indeed changed a great deal over the years, he admits. Ringwall has seen farms grow by leaps and bounds and has seen the community of Columbus shrink by the same ratio.

As a result, he believes farming is its own worst enemy.

“I can’t say that I quit farming. I don’t know if I ever quit,” Ringwall said. “This bigness has sure gotten the best of the country, but this farm has been good to us.”

And when he needed parts for his machinery, a dealer was nearby, even though many people in North Dakota think Columbus and northern Burke County are so isolated, with Minot 99 miles to the southeast and Williston 93 miles southwest.

A short 12-mile trip, however, to southeastern Saskatchewan’s principal city, Estevan, alleviated any broken down machinery problems and while there, Ringwall usually picked up other supplies. He doesn’t get to Estevan much anymore, but can still see Canadian progress from his farm in two power plants just across the border toward the northwest.

Ringwall said that to this day, he can’t imagine how his parents raised a family in a 10-foot by 14-foot shack. His father, Hjalmer, was a Swedish immigrant who arrived in Columbus via Cooperstown with four horses and a buggy in 1903.

The elder Ringwall was fond of growing trees, according to Chester, and it shows today. The farm on the high prairie has an abundant variety of evergreen and deciduous trees, a great shrine to show his effort from a century ago on the treeless plains.

Ringwall, who walks with a diamond willow cane, said there are plenty of willow trees around but he doesn’t know where to locate diamond willow. The species, which is native to North Dakota, typically grows in river bottom land and has become somewhat of a rare species.

When Ringwall got married in 1948, he said he built a new house for $3,600 but it didn’t have electricity. He recalls his head carpenter worked for $1 per hour.

He can also remember in the late ’40s hauling coal from a mine south of Columbus back to the farm six miles away.

“It took 20 tons of coal a year and at one time, coal cost 65 cents a ton,” he said. “So in 1948-49, it cost us less than a $20 bill for heat.”

And back when property lines became established, fences were put in to keep the cattle and sheep on the homesteader’s property. Nowadays, those fence lines are being yanked out of the ground to make more room for tillage and planting of grain. Often times, original landowners would bury items or leave old machinery along those section lines.

“They’re pulling them up and finding what you call artifacts,” Ringwall said. “But I remember what some of those things actually are.”

And growing up just six miles south of the international boundary, he also has food memories of the Prohibition days, even though he was a young boy. Ringwall has heard plenty of stories about the liquor runs between North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

“Liquor was certainly available during Prohibition days,” he said. “They used to call this road right out here ‘whiskey run.’”

That road today is Burke County Road 7, which is a gravel road running north and south from the Canadian border and past the Ringwalls on the east side of the farmstead.

He added at one time there was a coulee along the border northwest of Columbus where someone lived. There was also someone living near the coulee on the Saskatchewan side.

“I think there was a tunnel across the line and they were bringing booze back and forth,” he said.

Another story related to the border involved Ringwall’s own commerce. He recalls having taken five Shetland ponies to a market in Prince Albert, Sask. When he came back, he came through the port of entry at nearby Portal and was questioned. He was asked what he was hauling. He told the border patrol agent that he had sold some ponies in Prince Albert, but apparently, the agent didn’t believe him.

“The young fellow was giving me trouble,” Ringwall said. “The chief came out and said ‘Hi Chet!’ That ended that.”

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or Managing Editor Kent Olson at 857-1939. Either can be reached at 1-800-735-3229. You also can send e-mail suggestions to (mdnews@ndweb.com).