Remembering a good life and dancing
By ALLAN TINKER
Russian settlers brought thriftiness and hard work ethics with them when they came to the United States as immigrants. Violet (Bovkoon) Okerson was the youngest of 12 in the Lohven and Bessie Bovkoon family.
Violet’s parents arrived together, with the oldest two children with them and one “on the way.” They settled on their land eight miles south of Benedict and “proved up” on their land in Great Stone Township by working the soil for crops and living there. The sod was broken up with spades until they later purchased horses and equipment.
They built a two-story home with one bedroom for the children, which wasn’t much of hardship, said Violet, as they didn’t all live there at the same time. She had a brother who had a daughter who was two years younger and her playmate. They even shared the same birthday.
She recalled her earliest memories of Christmas were when they hung up cotton stockings and their mother filled them with “bought” candy and “maybe” a small toy.
They didn’t attend church as they lived about eight miles from the church and is was too much to take the horses that far. The church she and her husband attended later, Bethel Lutheran, is now in Buckstop Junction, and their family photos are still in there. She joined that church when she and Ervin Okerson got married.
She met Ervin in Turtle Lake High School from which she graduated in 1945. They went dancing “all over,” Underwood, Turtle Lake, Butte and Garrison. If they had dances, we were there.
