| |
It’s a hazard of the trade, being a student of the
culture of the plains, that you have to eat a lot. It’s amazing,
for instance, how many tiny towns have become destination places by virtue
of having great restaurants.
Fullerton, North Dakota, is one of them. Up the street north from the
elevator, in an old brick business block, is the Ranch House. It has the
standard bar & grill & steakhouse format of country towns, bar
in front, dining room in back. Most of the dinners served are, surprise,
beef, but the menu is varied enough, and the clientele is loyal. People
drive in from considerable distance.
In fact, some of them must dine out fairly regularly, because after having
supper at the Ranch House in Fullerton on Saturday night, we attended
the St. Helena’s fall dinner in Ellendale on Sunday, and we saw some
of the same people there.
The fall dinner at St. Helena’s Catholic Church is typical and traditional
in basic ways. It’s a turkey dinner, standard trimmings, served in
the church basement, tickets sold at the door. There are a couple of distinctive
wrinkles, however. The obvious one is that there is a salad bar where
people serve themselves before sitting down to be brought their turkey
family style. That’s pretty unusual for the fall supper circuit.
The other funny thing is the watchful and helpful guys who are stationed
at the entry steps. You come into the St. Helena’s basement from
an outside door, and the ticket table is at the bottom of the stairs.
I guess some of the older folks were getting a little too eager and taking
tumbles, or nearly doing do, coming down to eat. So the sturdy guys at
the foot of the stairs are called “the catchers.”
So, we sat down right next to a mature couple we had seen the night before
in Fullerton, got to talking, and they told us the story of their courtship.
In that part of the country it’s mostly Norwegians east of Highway
281, and mostly Germans from Russia west of 281. The old guy telling the
story, his name was Ulmer, but that doesn’t mean much, since about
half the people around there are named Ulmer. His family was German-Russian,
but they lived over by Fullerton, on the wrong side of 281.
When this fellow came of age, then, his father handed him twenty bucks
and said, “You go over west of 281, over around Forbes, and find
yourself a good German girl.” He came back, however, with the only
Norwegian girl in Forbes. It must have worked out all right, though.
Back in Fullerton for the night, we got a lovely room at the Carroll House,
which is worth checking out when you’re in the area. Like most prairie
towns, Fullerton has more history than present population, and so it’s
heartening when local people pitch in and preserve their historic buildings
for the community good.
The Carroll House was built in 1889, just after the founding of Fullerton,
by a fellow named Edwin Forrest Sweet, from Michigan. The third floor
of the hotel, immediately under the distinctive mansard roof, was a ballroom.
The building had something of a checkered history after the early boom
days of Fullerton were over. During the 1970s it was owned by some businessmen
from Minneapolis who used it as their own hunting lodge.
In 1982 they sold it for a dollar to an organization called the Fullerton
Community Betterment Association, which did the restoration, and they
did a nice job of it. I like it that while the place is furnished with
good period pieces, it’s not over-decorated E-Bay style, if you know
what I mean.
It’s tasteful, quiet, and comfortable, and the Ranch House is just
up the street. Shh, don’t tell everyone how sweet life can be in
our prairie towns.
This text and audio may not be copied without securing
prior permission from Plains Folk.
|
