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 (Written by Family and Submitted by Darrell R. Fransen) Charles McGinnis finished grade school about one mile south of their place in Onida Township. Miss Livingston from Onida was the teacher. Her brother had a shoe store in Onida at the time. Charles' half-brother, Frank, also had the hardware store in Onida in 1919. Previous to that, he had a ranch southwest of Onida. The McGinnis family moved to Stanley, Wisconsin, in 1919, where another sister, Blanche, lived. There, belatedly, Charles entered high school. They left Stanley during the big depression in 1939, looking for a more substantial and dependable living. The search ended in Plano, Illinois. Shortly after moving to Plano, Charles secured a job at Barber Greene Company in Aurora, about 15 miles away. The company made heavy machinery, asphalt mixing and paving equipment, ditchers, conveyors, rock crushers, etc. Charles retired from Barber Greene in 1968, at which time he purchased a 42 acre place contiguous to Plano. Charles recalls several names, such as Veise, Borden, Chamberlain Pierce, Persson, and, of course, Blaisdell. Also the Rumrill Hotel, the Gropengieser bank and pool hall, and Dr. Hart, who improved the hospital facilities in a room in a building on Main Street, to handle the flu epidemic during the war. He also had a relationship with Earnel Olson. As kids, they drove cattle from Onida to a ranch at Little Bend, and he recalls getting caught in late spring blizzard on the way home. He states his years in Sully County were very enjoyable, as a middle teenager, with World War I thrown in for tension and excitement. He was in Pierre when the soldiers returned from France at the end of the war. Ernest Floyd Blaisdell was among that group of men. Native American Graphics by  |