Hope Minnesota in the 1930s 1940s

In 1936 we moved from 3 miles west of Geneva Minnesota to two miles south of Hope Minnesota.  Hope was a small village of about 80 people.  Hope was on the Rock Island railroad and had a depot agent names, Rhodes.  There were two grocery stores in Hope.  One was run by the Wesley bros and the other by Joe Slezak who also sold farm machinery.  Joe's store also had a beer counter in it. There was a creamery located in Hope and it is still in operation to this day and Hope butter has its own label and they also sell to Land O Lakes.  

There was also a large elevator and in the south edge of town was a business that bought cattle and hogs and sold to  Hormel in Austin.  The post office was located in the Slezak grocery store.
At that time people would bring their eggs and ducks and chickens into the grocery stores and would trade them out for groceries.  Wesley's store also had some thread and some sewing material and the best was the ice cream.  Here's an article reminiscing about mom and pop grocery stores, Slezak being included..

Don and I started school which was located a mile and a half from our farmhouse.  I started in 3rd grad and Don was in 8th grade.  We walked to school every day and on the 5th of May we could go barefoot to school and we looked forward to that. Our teacher was Elaine Eggers and Don gave her fits.  A new school and he tried out the teacher quite well. It was not much fun changing schools but both of us got along all right.

Dale Wilker first attended the Hope School 60 years ago in protest after his family moved to the small community south of Owatonna. Today, Wilker is still in protest over the school, though this time it is hopes of keeping it open to the public. (Annie Granlund/People’s Press)

In the summertime, the biggest thing was going to the free movies.  The industrial arts teacher in Ellendale High School had a movie projector and movies and cartoons and he made a round of all the little towns every week in the summertime to show the movies.  He hit Clarks Grove and Geneva and Ellendale and Hope and I think another place close to Highway south of Owatonna.  Tuesday night he was at Hope.  Our seat was outdoors and they were telephone poles set on top of either other poles or wood.  Anyhow they would roll a little bit.  All the farmers came into Hope on Tuesday night.  Oh yes, there were two taverns in Hope and there were slot machines in them.

Slezak grocery store had a popcorn machine and it cost a nickel for a bag of popcorn.  Times were a little better and I always got a nickel and usually spent it on ice cream which was sold at Wesley's store.  When the kids got a little older they would go behind one of the stores and smoke.  The young people would sit next to each other and do some smooching I really looked forward to the movie and that is when I learned there were 168 hours in a week and I would count the hours until the next Tuesday in Hope.

Most of the farmers were dairy farmers and they raised hogs for market and had chickens so they could sell eggs.  We also sold ducks but most of the farm produce was for feeding the cattle.

I do not remember my dad selling oats and think he used it for feed for the hogs and cattle and chickens.
The farm we rented was sandy and one year we raised a lot of watermelons.  

There was a small creek running through our farm and it connected up with the Straight River.  One day I was down at the creek and I saw 2 big fish.  I ran to the house and told my Dad and he went down and speared them.  Mother cleaned them and we had them for dinner.

Back in the 30's we had fish in the winter as they would come from up north and would be frozen.  When we lived close to Geneva we could get ice in the summer.  They had a machine that cut the ice in blocks and they took it to the ice house and packed it in sawdust and when my Dad went to the creamery he would sometimes bring home ice. 

Geneva also had a small mill and we would take the corn in to be ground and used that in making cornbread.  Usually, we ate cornbread for breakfast.  You will not believe it but we put gravy and butter and syrup on our cornbread,

Hope also had a car repair shop called Kleckers.  30 years ago he was still alive and had two or three Model A fords that he was renovating.  Do not think he ever got them finished.

The school at Hope was north of town just a little bit south of the Noske farm and my brother Richard went to that school for a while.  Later the school was moved into Hope and is still there.  My nephew Dale has a  store in the old Wesley building and thinks it is called Hopeful Treasurers.  He has lots of books and good stuff to buy. 

Hope is still there and is still a nice clean village and probably about 90 people live in Hope now.No grocery store an elevator and a creamery and stockyard and two taverns the last time I was there.  Also, a bank and my sister Daisy worked there and was bank manager for many years.