Stacy Bang 1st daughter of Harriet Whelan (Horsager)
Because of growing up in a loving home, I will always cherish my childhood memories. I am truly blessed and thankful to have such wonderful parents and siblings.
I am going to ramble on about several things I remember while growing up and spending time with the Horsager relatives, so please bear with me.

Memories from visiting Hazel and Buddy in Montana:
*Hiking, fishing and climbing a Look-Out Tower in the beautiful Montana mountains near Superior
*Michael broke his collar bone as we were playing with tire inner tubes at their family reunion.
*Floating down the Clarks-Fork River
Memories from visiting Miles and Ruby in Minnesota:
*Being in the country with a real barn!
*Someone playing “Monster Mash” and “On the Good Ship Lollipop” on a record player.
*Climbing trees
Memories from visiting Helen and Elmer in North Dakota:
*Boating on Lake Sakakawea at the family reunion and some of the older cousins drinking beer (Yes, I really do remember that, but I won’t mention names)
*I loved looking through Uncle Elmer’s collections (caps, pens, etc.)
*Going to the State Capital Building and the museum
Memories from visiting Brian in Libby, Montana:
*I saw my first bear.
*Walking across a scary, treacherous swinging bridge (or so it seemed at the time) HIGH above the Kootenai River!
Memories with Harley:
*Magic tricks!
*Harley used to tell us lots of stories when we were little…
*I think it was Harley who had the gray sock monkey and the snake that popped out of a can.
Memories at Blaine and Audrey’s:
*Audrey’s excellent cooking
*Going with Blaine to a Hutterite colony
*Drinking my first bottle of Coke and Watkins Nectar-Yummy!
*Roller skating in their basement for hours
Memories from the Grand Rapid’s reunions:
*Huge monster green frogs which I am still afraid of today
*Trying to walk across the spillway
*Fishing for bullheads below the spillway

Memories with Grandma Adele:
Grandma’s date-filled and tea cookies (we still make them every Christmas Eve, but we call them Grandma’s cookies), visiting grandma at the post office in Berlin and pretending that I worked there, watering all her pots and beds of flowers, no running water/ using a basin, scared of grandma’s basement because it had a dirt floor, taking grandma on vacation with us to Hazel’s and Buddy’s, going into the big closet by her bedroom and then coming out into the bathroom, chamber pot underneath her bed, grandma and me talking to Tillie across the fence in her backyard, Grandma and I slept in the same room at Glen and Clara’s and we got the giggles and couldn’t stop; people from the other room told us to “hush”, which caused us to giggle even harder; we laughed so hard that we cried and ended up with stomach aches, visiting Grandpa Pete, Grandma making matching gingham/embroidered dresses for the girl cousins.

Other memories:
1st family reunion in Bowman in 1961, playing on top of railroad cars in Berlin (wasn’t that dangerous?), Matt’s store for fudgesicles, Twila’s for Christmas cookies, Harley telling me to be careful when I went to the outhouse because there was a cougar hanging around the yard ( he had me listen to certain noises outside and told me that they were indeed cougar sounds. I found out later they were the sounds of Mourning Doves), making mud pies on the cement slab at Maureen and Ricky’s, cleaning and reorganizing Esther’s house along the river, Brian telling me that he was the best speller in the whole world ( he told me to ask him any word and he would be able to spell it, and he was right; any word I asked him, he knew how to spell! I thought that was amazing, but of course, how many words do you know when you are eight years old. I guess I wouldn’t have known the difference if he had spelled them wrong! I sure was impressed with how smart he was)!

I wish I could have known my aunt, Joann Serene (I named my first daughter Heidi Serene) and my grandfather, John Horsager.
My mom has shared many stories about her father, so I do know many things about this wonderful man.

I think it is awesome that the aunts and uncles have been able to keep the family letter going forever, along with keeping in touch through the many family reunions throughout the years. I am so happy to be a part of the Horsager family and I’m looking forward to reading the other “Memories” and stories from my cousins.
Stacy Whelan Bang