From Marvin Raaum's book:

Karl Johan (John Carl) Raaum

John Carl Raaum was born July 20, 1886, in Chippewa County, Minnesota. He moved with his parents to Ottertail County, Minnesota, in 1897.

John later worked in partnership with his father and brothers in their sawmill and threshing rigs. When he was about 20 years old he attended the Lutheran Seminary in Minneapolis, for one year, studying for the ministry.

In 1908 John took out a homestead of 160 acres in Divide County, North Dakota, which at that time was known as Williams County. In the fall of1909 he moved his family, his wife the former Hanna M. Christenson, and 4 children, at that time, to the homestead. There he built a house and barn and they lived there that winter. In the summer of 1910 John bought the Jim Hillestead farm and lived there until the fall of 1916, when he purchased the A. O. Stene farm and moved there. Altogether now he had a full section, 640 acres ofland. John with Andrew and grandpa Ingebrigt, had the first threshing rig in that part of the country.

In the spring of 1920, John built a garage in Fortuna and operated an implement dealership there. In 1924 John campaigned for sheriff of Divide County, but was defeated at the polls. For the next two years he ran a well drilling rig and threshed in the fall.

In 1927, after 13 children, John met a traveling evangelist, Georgie Kester Tysonand left with her on a mission to preach to the Indians. First in western Montana, then from there to Arizona. In Arizona he raised his second family with his common law wife, Cora Erickmond Tyson and their four children.

John passed away in Young Arizona May 18, 1953 and was brought back to the Writing Rock Lutheran Church and cemetery for burial.

by: Clarence R. Raaum

Remembrances of My Father

by Hazel Raaum Gizzo 1978

My fIrst recollection of my father John Carl Raaum, as I remember when I grew older, was him holding me up to see my grandfather Ingebrigt A. Raaum, in his coffm. I was only 3 years old. How important I thought I was because any little attention I got from him, I thought it made my world complete. I always idolized him. There were so many of us all the time, that he had to give us "group attention." I guess I would do anything to get this special attention. I would cry, kick him, hang on to him, in fact anything good or bad, just so he would notice me. My father was the type to pay a lot of attention to us all when we were small. I remember when we would see him coming home for supper, there were always 5 or 6 of the smaller kids out running to meet him. He would have to carry a couple, the rest would be hanging on his legs and arms. In the evening, if he sat down, we would all pounce on him. I never remember him chasing us away, or being irritated with us. It seems odd that this is the same father that just pulled up stakes and left us all.

We moved from the farm into Fortuna, when I was about 4 years old. This is when I can remember things more clearly. After we moved, father took over a garage and service station. He still farmed some and also did a lot of thrashing for the farmers. He was one of the fIrst farmers in Divide County to own a thrashing machine. I can still remember how excited we were when thrashing began. He would have to get the cook car ready and stock it with food. The cook car was transported to the farms where they would be thrashing. This would start the later part of August and keep on until the fIrst part of December, depending on the weather and crops. My dad used to pile us all in his car and take us out to the rigs every once in a while. The cooks would feed us and we could sit there and eat with the thrashers. They had better pay attention to us because my dad was very proud of us.

At the same time that he had all of this going, he was also Sheriff of Divide County. I can still see him -- A big handsome man with his leather jacket and his Sheriff s badge pinned on his shirt. Everybody was afraid of him because he was so big and strong. So he did not have too many problems. I think, in those years, everybody was afraid of, and respected, all the Raaum boys. One incident that I remember, was on this very cold winter night. There was snow on the main roads that was fIve feet deep. It was the middle of the night when a knock on the door awoke us. A neighbor of Mr. Legard and Mr. Brediven wanted my father to come and stop a fight, which was out at either Legard or Brediven's farm. This was about 3 or 4 miles from town. They had to hitch up the horses to the sleigh to get there and then I guess it was even too much for the horses to pull because of the deep snow. By the time my father got out to the farm Mr. Legard had bitten off Mr. Brediven's nose and Mr. Brediven had bit off Mr. Legard's ear. I do not mean just the tips. They took each other's nose and ear off until they were just hanging. My dad had to get them to the hospital. They did sew the parts back on but plastic surgery was not that great in those days, so from then on the two looked like circus clowns. I should have said that before my dad became sheriff, he really drank and gambled his money. I remember my mother telling how the Raaum boys would take a tank of grain to the elevator and not come home until they spent all of the money. Good Joe's they were. They bought everybody drinks and gambled the rest. I do not recall which of the Raaum boys were included. Some were worse than others, but my father was the worst and he was always included. Then when he became sheriff he gave up all this drinking and gamboling. Then he turned to religion that was almost as bad.

I remember him setting at his writing desk -- always studying his bible. He knew that Bible inside and out. Everything that related to one thing was marked over in different colors. There was not a verse in the Bible that you would quote, that he did not know what book it came from. He took that Bible with him when he left home. I have heard that it was distroyed in a fIre in his cabin many years later.

Every Sunday he would take us kids with him to Crosby, No. Dak., where they had this big Pentecostal Tabernacle. Then after church we would all go to this family's house. Their name was Brothers. They were very poor. In the summer the house was full of flies, in the winter the house was so cold that you had to keep on your coat. We kids used to love to go because during church there were people flying off the stage, screaming "Hallelujah" and "Praise the Lord." The preacher, Georgie Kester Tyson, the woman my father later ran off with, would preach and scream and run from one end of the stage to the other. I remember, she had a table with a pitcher of water and every once in a while she would have to stop and take a drink. She then preached the fIres of hell and damnation to the people. I really thought that if I took a cookie from my mother's cookie jar that I would bum in hell for the rest of eternity. Then immediately after church, they would have a prayer meeting in the church. They would jump, holler, scream their testimonies, actually roll on the floors. Pearl, Ruth and I were very young so while they were so engrossed, I would step over bodies rolling on the floor, to find my father. I would ask him for money so we could buy candy for all the kids who were waiting for their parents, who were then rolling on the floor. I always found him, sooner or later, and he always reached in his pocket as he was praying and gave me all of his change. We thought that was great. Then after prayer meeting in the church, we would gather anyone who wanted to go to Brothers house. The house with all the flies and apple boxes for chairs and rags on the windows for curtains and dust accumulated from the last many Sundays. We would all wind up there for another prayer meeting -- The same thing went on there as at the church. Then my father,

the big spender, would go to the store and buy plenty of food and the women would prepare it. Not that we were that rich, because my mother at home had to scrounge and save to put enough food on the table. The Pentecostal people had all they wanted to eat at my father's expense. We were too young to realize what was going on, except that we had a real good time, spending money and eating all we wanted.

My mother never forbade my dad to take us kids to that church. This was a ritual every Sunday for a few years. This was where my father met his commonlaw wife.(Mrs. Tyson). She was always in the car with us, but we did not realize then that any hanky panky was happening. It seemed as my whole life at that time revolved around my father. My mother was just there to see that we had the necessary things.

While all this was going on my father still had another profession. He was a salesman for the Hitchcock Hill and Company. I remember that so well, especially in the fall before thrashing. My dad used to take us with him. He would go to all the farms to sell household products and food, like bags of sugar, barrels of pickles, barrels of fish, flour and anything that would keep. The farmers would buy food for the winter and for thrashing. He also sold to stores. They did not have supermarkets like today. So he had a real productive business as farmers would buy and stock up for the winter. That is not the only sales job that he had. He also sold farm machinery.

Just before he left home for good he had an opportunity from Allis Chalmers in Fargo. He there had a chance for a real good job. This was one of the only things that he debated before he left home, this big offer for a tremendous job. When he got the offer he wrote to Mrs. Tyson telling her of the job and he thought that he should take it.

One day a letter came through the mail. My sister, Pearl went to the post office to get the mail. She noticed this letter addressed to my dad. By this time we were a little older and surmised that something was going on. So she brought the letter home and gave it to my mother. We still have the letter. You think that the world today is corrupt with lust! This letter was something else. Maybe I will read it again someday. In the letter she said that he owed it to the Lord to go teach His word and not to his family. The job meant nothing, but their teaching, the two of them together, was going to save the world. I guess this helped him to make up his mind. I remember the day he left. I really did not understand but I knew that my dad was going and that I would not see him for a week, a month, or a year, I did not know. I can still see him with his car all packed full. The cook car had just come home for the season and Lloyd and Clifford were playing out by it. He went out there and came back with them. They were about 2 or 3 years old, each one holding his hand, one on each side. They thought he was going to take them with him as he usually and frequently did. He said good bye and left them standing there, crying their hearts out. I was in the bedroom crying my heart out. I often wonder if he ever thought of that departure, because really he loved all the kids. He spent so much time with us, the little ones especially, telling us stories, singing us songs or just playing with us. So I know he had many lonely hours, but I guess Mrs. Tyson took care of that.

He left my mother without a penny. He left some bills to be collected, if she could get it, but they never paid. They felt that as he had left, it would be a good time to renege on their past due bills. How mother made it, I do not know. The years following were bad years. Now there were no crops, the garage gone and no jobs for the older boys. Earl left and went to Fargo, Clarence and Leonard the next oldest worked odd jobs to help. Then Leonard went to Fargo. Evey to Chicago, where their checks could not go very far. Evey became married, if it were not for her and Hank, heaven knows what would have happened to the family. There is no son-in-law that could be as concerned and helpful. They saw to it that ma had some of the necessary things. Our Christmas's would really have been a nothing if it were not for Hank and Evey. Every year a big box came with candy, nuts, a toy and an article of clothing for each one.

Leonard and Earl in Fargo were barely making ends meet as jobs were very scarce. Clarence was always at home trying to farm, thrash and work odd jobs. I guess he was the real support of the family.

My father and Mrs. Tyson landed in Indian territory around Arizona, preaching, drinking and praying. The years slipped by, when we heard that they had parted. The lust wore off and times were bad.

The law caught up with my dad, probably about in 1934 or 1935. He was given an ultimatum, -- support your family or go to jail. So he chose prison. He was in the jail in Bismarck for sometime.

In 1937, the year that Ruth and I were graduating from high school, he decided to come home for a visit. He wrote a letter and my mother said that it was up to him. So in the spring of 1937 he came home. We were all glad to see him. He was happy and jolly.

Now there comes the payoff. Mrs. Tyson's youngest daughter Cora, lived in Ambrose, The same town that we did. My father went over there to see her. Cora was married and had a little boy, Gary. What happened when he went to see her I never found out, but after he left Ambrose and went back to Arizona, Cora followed. She took her son, but later his grandparents drove to Arizona to take Gary home with them to raise him. Cora never came back. She moved in with my father and Mrs. Tyson, then Cora's mother (Mrs. Tyson) left. I guess that by this time all the lust had gone and Mrs. Tyson was glad to go back to the Indian reservations and preach.

My dad and Mrs. Tyson, after they ftrst left No. Dak., spent many years preaching to the Indians, but eventually they left the reservations and settled around Flagstaff and Tuscon, Arizona. My dad had gone back to his drinking and preaching, so by the time Cora got him he was at his worst. Cora and dad were never married, however they had four children. Hope, Faith, Charity and Johnny.

These children, my father thought, were conceived in some kind of Holy sacred ceremony and these children were going to be like prophets. The chain was broken when Johnny was born before Charity. It was fIrst Hope, then Faith then Johnny and then Charity. So I guess he forgot all about raising them to be special. I guess these years were pretty rough on the four children. They tell of how Dad used to go to town, take all four with him, then proceed to get drunk. He would get so drunk that he could not drive home. Faith and Hope often tell of how he would be put in jail, along with all four kids, to sleep it off. Of course the kids thought this was great because they adored him. They worshipped him as we did when we were small and what ever he said or did was something great.

How he earned money for living, I never thought about it very much. I know that at one time he started up a saw mill somewhere around Flagstaff. This was a trade he knew because he was in the saw mill business with his father and some of his brothers as a real young man. My brother Earl said that if he had tended to business, he could have been very prosperous, because anything he touched or worked at had magnetic results. How many years he had this I do not know, but the person he sold out to wound up very well to do.

My sister Pearl went out there in the early 40's. She stayed with them for a while, in a little shack with a fIre place. Pearl said that it was very clean and cozy. Later this cabin burned and the Bible that everyone wanted as a keep sake burned.

Now Cora is another story. I guess she used to take off and go live with other men at different intervals. When Pearl came out there, Cora was very happy because she packed up and was on her merry way. If Cora ran out of places to stay, she would come home, but the kids often said that it was much better when she was away.

My brother, Earl moved out there around 1950. He had a small house next too my dad's. One night Earl got into a fIght in a tavern. He was knocked down and kicked in the head several times over. He went home and saw my dad before going to bed saying he was OK. The next morning my dad was working outside and Earl came out to see him, but went back to bed. Dad and a friend heard a "thump" and when they went into Earl's house he had fallen out of bed and was dead. This was in 1952.

My father had always been bothered with ulcers. When he was a young man, and we kids were small, he went to Rochester Minn. to the hospital. I heard that they gave him just six months to live, but he fooled them. I remember when he came home from Rochester, he was on a special diet. He was supposed to have eggs. At that time in the winter when chickens were not laying eggs, you did not feed a family of 13 kids eggs. So my dad used to be standing at the stove frying his eggs while 5 or 6 noses were half way in the frying pan smelling the beautiful aroma. Then he would pretend to spit on them so we would not want any. It helped curb the appetite of the rest, but I thought if my dad could eat them he would be proud of me if I did not lose my appetite. So he would let me dunk a piece of bread in the yolk or take a piece of bread and scrape the plate. He also liked molasses on his bread so I liked molasses on my bread too although I could not stand molasses. Also when we had oyster stew he would take and cut an oyster into parts. Have you ever seen an oyster when it's opened? The kids would sell him their oysters but not me. If I had to choke them down I pretended I loved them.

This is leading up to all the years he really suffered from ulcers. In the later years with all of his drinking he was more sick then well. So if he died from ulcers or his heart I guess that we will never know. He died in front of all four children. This really left a lasting impression on them. Cora was not around. I guess she had left them all a long time ago. She was living with another man at this time.

When we heard about my father's death my mother was very concerned about the children who were ages 13, 12, 10 and 8. Here was a person worried about her husbands' children left alone. Lloyd and Clifford, my two younger brothers, flew down there and after interviews with social workers and courts the four came to live in Chicago. I took Johnny, Evey and Hank took Charity, Lillian took Faith and Hope lived with both Ruth and Mildred. In about a year Hope moved back to Arizona and married. John stayed with me until he finished school and was married. Faith stayed with Lillian until she also was married and lived around us. Charity stayed at Evey and Hanks for about two years then she moved back to Arizona with Hope.

As far as I was concerned I only saw my father once after he left but my mind failed to recognize him as the father I loved so completely. I never saw him again or mentioned his name. Some of the family did visit him in later years but he hurt me too much so I had to forget he ever existed.

His body was sent to the Lutheran Church near Fortuna, No. Dak. He was buried in the cemetery by the church. This was the first and only church they ever joined from the time that they left Minnesota and took up homesteading.

Hazel Raaum Gizzo