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We have heard of Dorothy (Bossuyt) Swedzinski, from Milroy, whose parents, Irma and Alphonse Bossuyt, emigrated from Belgium; met after their parents moved to farms in Lyon County; and married in January 1930. They welcomed baby Dorothy into the family in November.
Dorothy grew up on a farm northeast of Milroy and attended country school in District 68 of Redwood County.
The Bossuyt family welcomed their last child in 1940 when Doris (Dori) joined Dorothy and her brother, Donnie. Dorothy remembered her mother making dresses for the two girls from food bags.
“Oh yes. My sister, since she was 10 years younger than me, there was always enough (material) left to make her a little dress. That’s how I learned to iron, to iron her little ones. dresses.
Dorothy’s high school and high school years were during World War II. She remembers her parents listening to the war news on the radio and remembers it as a confusing time.
“I remember the radio was on and talking about Pearl Harbor and all that stuff. It was difficult to understand what it was about. I know someone came to pick up some scrap metal. Sugar was rationed and tires were rationed. We weren’t completely sugar free. Mom was still cooking and we had sugar for our cereal.
The Bossuyt family had always traveled to Tracy on Saturday nights to shop for groceries and to socialize with Irma’s Cooreman family. Dorothy explained how this practice changed in the 1940s.
“We ended up going to Marshall on Saturday night. I don’t know why we changed. I was more or less a teenager because I was running around town with other teenage girls. I befriended other girls my age and we ran around all night for fun.
This same period brought major changes to Dorothy’s education.
“I went through 8th grade (in Redwood County District 68) and then I went to Milroy in high school on a bus. I was the first from both sides of the family to go to high school.
Dorothy shared fond memories of her high school years in the late 1940s.
“We put together class pieces. I was a cook in one of them. (Dorothy laughs) There was a stage in the gymnasium and people were sitting on the gymnasium floor to watch the plays. Then we had – we didn’t call it Prom – but we had supper. A special dinner like a ball almost because we wore long dresses and everything. It was in the spring.
Dorothy shared a photo of herself in a formal dress, listed, “Milroy Homecoming Queen 1947.” She explained the story.
“The classes voted for the girls to show up for Homecoming – even the seniors. I was just a junior. [The classes] had to sell tickets to the game. Two girls went out to sell tickets and they came back to see how far we were and they left. They would go to all the businesses in the city center to sell tickets. Our class sold the most tickets and I became queen. (Dorothy laughs) We paraded through town and I rode on a [convertible]. I rode right in the front on the back of the front seat.
Dorothy remembered teachers who seemed particularly concerned about their students, such as Mr. Zwach, Mr. Goblisch and his high school home economics teacher. She graduated as a class member from Milroy High School in 1949.
The 1940s also brought major changes to the Bossuyt house.
“My parents moved when I was sixteen to a place my dad bought two miles north of Milroy and two miles west along the Redwood / Lyon County line on the Redwood side. They immediately put electricity in this house.
For the first time in her life, Dorothy could turn on an electric light in her house at night, rather than having to light a kerosene lamp.
Her parents also installed a party line, rotary dial telephone service, as opposed to the hand crank telephone in their old home. Dorothy explained that the party line meant they shared their phone service with other farming families in the area.
“I remember using the phone or listening to the neighbors. (Dorothy laughs) We had a neighbor who always liked to listen too. When the ladies spoke, they said “Hello” [to her] because they could hear his bird in the background.
Dorothy met her future husband, Casimir “Ron” Swedzinski, at a wedding ball in Ghent while she was in high school.
“I went with my parents to the wedding dances. I was in the middle of a group of girls and he bet a cousin that I wouldn’t dance with him. So he went up; reached in there; and stuffed me in the ribs. I almost said no because I didn’t like getting stuffed in my ribs. (Dorothy laughs) But I danced with him because he was handsome and he was a young man. We dated for two years and three months.
Dorothy and Ron married in the fall of 1949 and moved to a farm between Minneota and Ivanhoe. They cultivated and raised a family of six children. They continued to indulge their love of dance for decades. Dorothy lost Ron to a brain aneurysm in 2006, but continued to live on the farm until 2014 when she moved to Marshall.
I appreciate your participation and your ideas on our exploration of prairie life. You can reach me at prairieview [email protected].
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