Pearl Inger BERGE

  Noted events in her life were:

• Reference: Bluff Country News, 2007, Fillmore County, MN. 5/16/2007
Pearl Lawstuen leads Standstill Parade

Pearl Lawstuen of Lanesboro will be the grand marshal at the Standstill Parade in Whalan Saturday. Here she holds a painting of herself as a child.

By Lisa Brainard


"I hope it will be simple. I hope it will be fun," said Pearl Lawstuen, smiling.

Lawstuen, of Lanesboro, will serve as the grand marshal for the infamous Standstill Parade celebration in Whalan this Saturday, May 19. The parade itself runs from 11 a.m. until noon. Other events will run from 10 a.m. through the afternoon.

The former Pearl Berge knows about as much of Whalan's history as anyone can. "We were the third generation on my mother's side that called Whalan home," she stated.

Her grandparents were born in Norway and came to Peterson and then to Whalan. She went to school in what's now a private home located next to the church. Her father bought the garage in Whalan, which those taking a scenic tour through the town will find restored as Ernie's (Ernie Johnson) Texaco garage today. He went to school at Austin Tech to learn car repair.

The family moved from their home near Lanesboro to Whalan in time for Pearl to complete kindergarten in Whalan. She started in March. "I caught up easily," stated the woman who would go on to be a schoolteacher.

She completed eighth grade in Whalan and then took the big step of attending high school in Lanesboro, where she later graduated as salutatorian in a class of 31 students. Pearl remembers graduating on May 31 and turning 18 the next day, on her June 1 birthday.

She laughed and said that in the Whalan area, "I had the first school bus." There were no school buses provided to transport students to Lanesboro. Her father had a big car. He talked to other parents about having Pearl drive them to school and then splitting expenses. He taught her to drive. She figures she started driving "the bus" around age 13.

She recalls that during her time in grade school work was being done on Highway 16. The workers lived in the big hotel in Whalan. One man, she recalled, drowned when he tried to walk across the ice on the Root River. She said he's buried at the Whalan Cemetery. The construction workers were called "the Russians." Pearl said three of them married local girls.

Tobacco

Whalan is remembered as being an area where a lot of tobacco was grown. Pearl certainly took part in that, a process she estimated took over a year from when the plant seedlings were started indoors to when the tobacco was sold.

Seeds were started in aluminum dishpans and then placed "behind the wood stove," where it was warm. Then they were transferred to wooden beds that were set up so cheesecloth could be placed in a peak around 6 inches high over the plants. The youths would have to lie on a plank between the beds to reach in and weed the plants.

Then they needed to be planted. Pearl remembered a tobacco planter pulled by horses. There was a big, barrel that was flat in the area where the driver sat. It was full of water. There were two seats in the back, close to the ground, from which persons would put the tobacco seedling into the ground.

Pearl laughed and recalled her co-planter, Helen Meyer, was better with her left hand, so they sat accordingly on the two seats. The planter would make a "click" noise and water would come out. Then they'd put the seedlings into the hole.

"There was a lot of work after that," said Pearl of the labor-intensive crop. The youths would pick insects off the plant. Then they would "top it," trimming the plant back, so leaves would grow big. She remembered wearing knickers doing such work.

The plants would be chopped down and left to wilt a little. Then a "tobacco wagon" would come through and the plants would be picked up. A number would be put on something with an arrow at the head, to go through a bunch of plant. These were hung upside down in a tobacco shed.

This building had big doors on hinges, which would be opened to let in outside moisture. Pearl explained the leaves had to keep moisture and not become dried out.

Then, "sometime between Christmas and New Year's, we would get a nice, warm, wet day" and they would strip the leaves from the stem, put them into a tobacco bale and wrap them up.

Pearl stated, "Then a tobacco buyer would come to see how good it was. Of course, we had the railroad then (now the Root River Trail). We would have a big day. There would be an auction." She said the tobacco from Whalan was never good enough quality for cigarettes, but she'd heard it was used for cigars.

Family history

Pearl said her grandparents lived on a farm that's now part of Larry Johnson's Cedar Valley Resort in Whalan. Tobacco grew in fields there.

She was born on the farm where David Gudmundson now lives. Pearl was the oldest. When she was around 2, her mother had the horrible experience of losing both of her younger brothers within six months. Pearl grew up an only child.

Her parents were Aadne Berge, who was born in Forsand, Norway, and Laura Johnson. Her father came to the United States when he was around 18. She could not remember hearing Norwegian being spoken at home. "He wanted desperately to become an American citizen," stated Pearl. But, she laughed and said it so happened she was confirmed in her faith in Norwegian.

She still has cousins in Norway that she's visited. Pearl said around 10 years ago, when she was 80, she took her six children and their four spouses on a trip to Norway, including taking a ship "around the tip."

"It's the best thing I could have done," she smiled.

Pearl recalled meeting and dating her first husband, Conrad Olness.

"It was so different then. We usually got together with a group of friends. We had house parties. We would play games," she stated. They would go with one guy, who had a car, to Lanesboro to see movies at the theater (now called the St. Mane).

Pearl talked about picnics. She pulled out a 1921 photo of the miniature mountain now seemingly called "Whalan Mountain," which she said was known as Mount Saint Jane for more than 100 years. Grazed in those days, it was barren of the trees currently found on its steep slopes. The youths would get permission and go to the top for picnics.

She was on what seemed to be a double date when Conrad, the new boy along, who'd been set up with another girl, asked if he could see her again. Their dating progressed to getting married on "a hot Sunday afternoon in 1940. It was June 30," she stated.

Teaching

After graduating from high school, Pearl earned a two-year certificate at Winona State University. She then taught at the rural O'Hara School from 1937-38. She said that school building has the distinction of now being located at the Fillmore County Fairgrounds in Preston.

From 1938-40 she taught the upper grades at the school in Whalan. Then, she got married. Back in those days married women weren't allowed to teach, so her career was put on hold.

She and Conrad had six children. During the war years, his work included outfitting planes for the war in St. Paul. Pearl felt that his being pinned by a plane at one point caused him to later have a series of convulsions. He died at 37, leaving her to raise their six children, the youngest just 8 months old. The family moved in with her mother, where they lived for 16 years as the children grew up.

Her mom helped as a babysitter. Pearl's work included one year at the knitting mills in Winona on the swing shift. She said that was bad, as she rarely got to see her children.

When Earl Johnson was superintendent at Lanesboro, he asked Pearl if she'd be interested in teaching since there was a third grade opening. Although she'd always taught junior high age children, Pearl decided to try it. She went to summer school and renewed her teaching certificate.

She also decided to earn her degree. A counselor at Winona State urged her to set a graduation date for herself, to give her the motivation to get it done. Pearl's youngest daughter, Wanita, always wanted to teach. She picked a date to coincide with that anticipated graduation date and, indeed, both mother and daughter later graduated together. Pearl took mostly summer and Saturday classes. She taught at Lanesboro from 1946 through 1962, when she took early retirement.

Pearl later met and married Donald Lawstuen. "I'd known him a long time. He'd lost his wife. I'd had his kids in school." They were married Aug. 8, 1971, and celebrated 32 anniversaries before he died of a massive heart attack on Dec. 4, 2003. Their marriage joined her six children with the nine he had for large family gatherings.

Pearl's children are Paul in Quartzsite, Ariz., Nancy in Rochester, Wanita in Wausau, Wis., Laura in Mesa, Ariz., Joyce in Whalan, and Mary in Des Moines. She also has eight stepchildren and 33 grandchildren.

For the Standstill Parade Saturday, Pearl hopes for good weather and plans to have a lot of fun talking with everyone.

• Obituary: Bluff County News, 2009, Fillmore County, MN. 3/25/2009
Pearl Lawstuen, 91, of Lanesboro

Pearl Inger Lawstuen, 91, of Lanesboro, died Saturday, March 14, 2009, at the Chosen Valley Care Center in Chatfield, where she had resided for two weeks. Prior to that she had been in Mayo Hospice Care for six months.

Pearl Berge was born June 1, 1917, in rural Lanesboro. She graduated from Lanesboro High School and Winona State University.

On June 30, 1940, she married L. Conrad Olness in Whalan. He died May 1, 1955. She then married Donald Lawstuen on Aug. 8, 1971; Mr. Lawstuen died Dec. 4, 2003.

She lived in rural Lanesboro, Whalan, and other locations in Minnesota and Arizona. She was a schoolteacher for 19 years, and a member of Whalan Lutheran Church, WELCA, Sons of Norway, and the Retired Teachers Association.

Survivors include a son, Paul (Carol) Olness of Ninilchik, Alaska; five daughters, Nancy (Larry) Nelson of Rochester, Wanita (James) Vigness of Marenisco, Mich., Laura Olness of Apache Junction, Ariz., Joyce (David) Rahn of Whalan and Mary (Manuel) Acevedo of Des Moines, Iowa; seven stepsons, Rodney (Alice) Lawstuen of Alma, Wis., Robert (Cindy) Lawstuen of Preston, James Lawstuen of Casper, Wyo., Joseph Lawstuen of Wykoff, John (Karen) Lawstuen of Lanesboro, Peter Lawstuen of Minneapolis and Paul Lawstuen of Cannon Falls; a stepdaughter, Catherine (William) Allen of Eagan, Minn.; 30 grandchildren; 52 great-grandchildren; and seven great-great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husbands, two brothers and a stepdaughter.

The funeral was held last Saturday at Whalan Lutheran Church, with the Rev. Roger Knudson officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery.

Johnson-Riley Funeral Home in Lanesboro was in charge of arrangements.

Memorials are preferred to Whalan Lutheran Church.

Pearl married Lawrence Conrad OLNESS, son of John L. OLNESS and Bertha HERMANSON, on 30 Jun 1940 in Fillmore County, MN.¹ (Lawrence Conrad OLNESS was born on 12 Aug 1915 in Fillmore County, MN ⁴ and died on 1 May 1955 in Fillmore County, MN ⁵.)

Pearl next married Donald R LAWSTUEN on 8 Aug 1971 in Fillmore County, MN.² (Donald R LAWSTUEN was born on 19 Aug 1921 and died on 4 Dec 2003 in Fillmore County, MN.)