Photographs of Sugar Beet Farming, near Sidney, MT in early 1930s
Last Updated: 6 Oct. 2001
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Weighing the beets at the Holly Sugar Factory, Sidney, MT.
Man's name unknown
One of the the hired workers on the Hein Ranch was Lawrence Welk who with his brothers worked the beets fields during the week and on the weekends played their music on Saturday nights around the area.
Lawrence Welk with his baton stick ready to start his band into playing.
My mother recalls the Welk boys and some of the other local musicians practicing songs in her brothers' bedroom which was a huge rectangle room that had once been the barracks for the troopers when their home had been the Lone Tree Fort.
As time pasted, Welk's music became more and more in demand and he played to larger audiences throughout the mid-west. In time, he had his own television show and was known for his music that ranged from polkas to modern songs that were so popular before "Rock and Roll" took over the world in the late 1950s and 1960s to the present time. I can see hear him as he started his music with a German accent saying: One anda Two anda Three." His family were, also, German-Russians who had migrated to South Dakota just as Ludwig Hein and his family had migrated to North Dakota..
Aunt Bertha , nee Hein, Strobel always reminds the family that it was Lawrence Welk who played the music for her Wedding Shivery, which is an old custom that is rarely used in the twenty-second century. It occurs the night before the wedding with the coming together ("Polteraben"] of the group of friends and musicians at the home of the bride's. Back in Russia, the "shivaree" ["charivari"] could be even more boisterous with guns shooting in the air and banging of tin lids with large wooden spoons. Even pottery was often thrown against walls. Pranks, also, occur. such as the attempted kidnapping of the groom by his friends which was halted by the bride's friends. All was done in good fun. The rest of the evening was spent growing more and more loud by all which ended at midnight.
Another famous musician who was German-Russian was John Denver who died a few years ago in a plane crash off the coast here in California. Garry and I had just seen him a few weeks earlier as he preformed at the Wente Wine Show.
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