The Moen-Kongslie Connection by Cora Lee Wolfe
Written for Lester and Clarice Kongslie Moen's 50th Wedding Celebration
The thirties were desperate times for North Dakota farmers. No matter what they planted they seldom raised more than dirt. Gone with the Wind was more than just a movie title; it was an apt description of what happened to most folks’ crops. Despite the best efforts of the depression, however, some people just wouldn’t get depressed.!
One such person was Clarice Kongslie. One fine evening in her exuberance over a card game called "Svart Per," she jumped for joy and landed right on Lester Moen’s tummy, thus disturbing his tranquillity for all time. Although they had known each other since childhood, it took this rather abrupt encounter to make Lester sit up and take notice of her. I suppose it could be said that she leapt into his heart, or maybe just into his solar plexus.
Love was about the only thing that grew on the prairie in the early thirties, and Lester courted and resisted for the next three years, and then, in a weak moment, wakened further by the spell cast in a darkened theatre during a romantic movie, he finally submitted to Clarice’s charms. He soon realized the enormity of what he had done and immediately sat down to write the only letter he ever wrote to her, or to anyone else for that matter. He warned her that he had no prospects. She was not deterred. He warned her that he was already $5,000 in debt. She was not deterred. Then Clarice delivered the ultimatum: if Lester would not marry her, she would jump on him again. The wedding date was quickly agreed upon.
In those days the emphasis was put on the marriage, not on the ceremony. No rented tuxedos, no catered banquets or hired bands playing waltzes off-key. Lester and Clarice invited the preacher over to Grandpa Kongslie’s house and they were married in the living room. Lunch was a simple affair, sandwiches and potato salad prepared by Grandma and enjoyed by all. There wasn’t even an engagement ring. Lester had bought one, but Clarice thought it an extravagance and knew that she would look foolish wearing a diamond ring but no shoes. She suggested that the money could be spent on something more practical. Lester saw the wisdom of this and sent away for a new gun.
For their honeymoon, the newlyweds did not choose Niagara Falls. They went instead to the teeming metropolis of Bottineau, twenty miles away. Lester’s mother went along, riding in the front seat. She did not want to miss anything. Clarice sat in the back wondering what she had gotten herself into. It is not recorded whether Lester brought his gun.
Their first home was the Jevne place which was no longer the Jevne place, but the Moen place, but they continue to call it the Jevne place for reasons too complex to explain. Tradition often defies logic. Their furnishings were fit for a king, an impoverished 10th century king. They had a cook stove, a cupboard, a table, and a couple of benches that Lester had made from an old door. Their front door was ingeniously carved from a Louis XIV chair.
After about two months at the Jevne place, Lester came home one mid-morning and said, "We’re moving." Clarice said, "Could I finish my coffee firsts?" Before evening they were comfortably settled in at the Becker place (which of course no longer belonged to the Beckers, but….) From then on their life together was marked by a series of moves: from the Becker place to the Miller place, to the Arne Moen place, to the Rice place…ad infinitum, and by a series of babies.
Juanita was the first Moen of her generation as well as the first Kongslie, and Clarice was determined that she would be the first in everything for life. Juanita’s first act of defiance was her refusal to cut teeth until she was nine months old, long after her cousin Emily was flaunting a whole set of beautiful pearly ones. No one knows what Clarice did to Juanita, but the record is clear. Juanita has never dragged her feet about anything since.
Tillman arrived next. Although he was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck in the thick of one of North Dakota’s most severe winters, ( six solid weeks of below zero weather is uncommon even in North Dakota) on the coldest night of the year (52 degrees below zero), he was healthy and Clarice and Lester were content. They thought two children, a boy and a girl, made a perfect family and that that would be quite enough. God had other plans, however, but when she and David barely survived a serious case of erysipelas, Clarice resolved to count her blessings. Solveig and Cora Lee followed quickly, if uneventfully, on David’s heels. The three of them resented Lester and Clarice’s telling secrets in Norwegian so they made up a language of their own. They loved it when Clarice, confounded, would say, "Juanita, what in the world of they saying?"
When farms were producing more dust and rust that wheat and corn, it was difficult for a farmer to make ends meet, but Lester was a versatile and enterprising soul. He supplemented his meager income by shepherding, well digging, house moving, sheep shearing, trapping, hunting, guiding, cement finishing, house building. He even tried gold mining.
All that activity probably explains why Diane wasn’t born until four years after Cora Lee. Lester was gone so much of the time, as a matter of fact, that when he finally managed a weekend back at the farm he scarcely recognized it. There were, of course, mitigating circumstances. For one thing, the children were in the process of tearing down the house, carefully stacking all the lumber and straightening all the nails. They were planning on building a new one on the river bank. So, each weekend when Lester came home another room would be gone. This in turn caused Lester to come home less and less frequently, so it was not until 8 years later that Monica was born. Practice was paying off, however. All would agree that a cuter sweeter baby was never born. The family was fast outgrowing their one bedroom house and David tried to salvage things by remodeling and adding on a room, but things were still pretty tight and besides everybody missed Lester, so they all moved to Minot to join him. Lester
had picked a house that was the absolute answer to everyone’s dreams. Running water, electricity, four bedrooms, and, get this, two bathrooms. For several weeks no one recognized Tillman, he was so clean.
With his family comfortably ensconced in Minot, Lester quickly changed jobs and went to work in the Tioga oil fields. That didn’t put an end to things, however. At Sunday dinner one day Clarice said, "We have a surprise for you." Needless to say, no one was surprised. Born many, many months later Layne was evidence that maybe practice wasn’t everything. Like good cheese and exquisite wine, however, he has improved with age.
There was too much room in that big house and Clarice felt compelled to fill it up. She knew, though, that there had to be an easier way to have children so she began to advertise. She added Eleanor Gessner because she was such a trooper about putting large snakes through meat grinders, and Kathleen Kongslie because no one else would sleep with the bedbugs. She added Shirley Jevne because when we talked to her we were always quiet and even Clarice could use some peace.
Vonnie was the cheerleader she had always wanted but never got. She added Myrna Hammond because someone had to teach Diane more piano. She added Takashi Watanabe because his sitting cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen floor polishing his shoes, always underfoot, made Clarice feel a little less lonely for her beloved dog Pat. And she added Ardis Trius because, well, just because.
Lester and Clarice had moved fifteen or twenty times by now, but those moves had never really satisfied their itchy feet, so they loaded their car to the axle limit, sold or gave away everything else, including Clarice’s Steinway piano, the symbol of her one real act of defiance ("If you get an airplane, I get a piano!") and headed south.
The trip was a pleasant one despite the fact that Clarice wept for Jody all the way to Marble Canyon where they spent their first night in Arizona, camped out on the black top over the Colorado River. And then Cora Lee, posing elegantly for a camera, sat on the first cactus she saw. They started south from Cordes Junction at about 3:00 in the afternoon of August 27, 1960. The temperature was 117 degrees. Tiny wheezed and groaned and wheezed and moaned. They all said, "Oh Diane don’t be silly. Chihuahua’s love the heat. They’re bred for it. He’s just being weird." And they all said, as much to convince themselves as to assure the rest of the group, "Oh don’t you just love it?" "Feel that heat. Isn’t it wonderful?" "Don’t you just love it?" What they were really thinking was, "Oooooohhhh my GOD! What have we done!" But it was five years before any of them would admit it.
Phoenix wasn’t the answer though, so from there they were "On the Road Again." At Page Lester worked graveyard shift as a dam carpenter. They bought an 8x35 foot trailer with three beds. The beds were always warm because the family members, who worked in shifts, slept in shifts. Then it was off to Tuba City, to Tohachee, to Many Farms, to Ganado, ad infinitum.
Their years on the reservation were a million miniature lessons in life. Layne and Monica, the only Honky kids in an all Navajo school, learned what it meant to be on the other side of a prejudicial situation. Diane learned that Clarice had absolutely no sense of direction. She and Diane drove all the way back to Gallup four times looking for the road to Ganado. "Oh, I’m sure we’ve gone too far. Turn around." "No this is wrong, I’m sure. It must be back there." Diane says, "If you go someplace with Mom in the lead you’re sure to get lost, but once you’re lost, she’s great moral support."
They all learned that they could find happiness anywhere as long as they had one another. They learned to love their new home in the Arizona desert a half a life time away from North Dakota.
Over the years, the children managed somehow to grow up, complete their education, and embark on their various careers. Those who did not remain in Arizona were scattered across the United States. But the local Indians are right. Some powerful spirits abide in these mountains and once these spirits have captured you heart, you can never get away from their grip.
In Flagstaff the family continued to grow. Grandpa Thorvald and Grandma Anna Kongslie had joined them during their reservation years, and then Cora Lee came home with her two girls to mend her broken wings. There too the Moens added one more son. Joe Guay . Lester and Clarice appeared to be satisfied now. In Joe Clarice had finally found someone who truly appreciates her pancakes. Flagstaff is an ideal place for Clarice and Lester because no matter where you’re coming from or no matter where you’re going Flagstaff is on the way, so that the Children who by now had established families of their own could occasionally light at the foot of the mountain and lick their wounds and remember their routes.
All of us, family and friends who lives they touched throughout the years are gathered here today to recognize Lester and Clarice as the best friends, the best parents, the best neighbors, the best grandparents and even the best inlays that God every placed on this green earth. God’s in his heaven, Clarice and Lester are here, and all’s well with the world. Amen.
