Between Brush Creek church and Ole’s farm stands a one-room hand-hewn log cabin (location #3 on map), reputedly built around 1850.
Olaf's cabin
It is intact from the floor level up, but the lowest logs are rotten, and the stone foundation and cellar are quite deteriorated. Here is all that is left of the cellar entrance.
cellar door
This is the structure where my great-uncle Olaf Larson (1896-1972) raised his family in the 1920’s and 30’s. More remarkably, it is where cousins Aline and Clarice were born, in 1925 and 1928 respectively. Keep in mind that that was before the Depression began. Like my mother’s family, it seems that the Larson’s were already acquainted with hard times.
Olaf was the second-youngest of Ole Larson’s children. He rented farm land along with the cabin, and owned farm animals and equipment. Thanks to Clarice for clarifying that.
Today, the cabin has a working woodstove inside, and is currently used for a workshop and storage.
Cabin interior
The cousins said that the loft area is smaller now than in their childhood, but the interior is otherwise much as they remember it. With the exception of the toy truck visible in the above photo, most of the items in storage or on display are also quite old. There is some antique furniture being refinished, old steel traps, and these snowshoes and hay-rake(?)
cabin "decor"
The current property owners showed us an old snapshot of the cabin, which appears to be from the pre-tractor, pre-automobile era.
old snapshot
Several noteworthy details: [4] laundry on the line, [3] team and driver at far right, [2] elaborate cellar entrance, [1] man and woman(?) in foreground. Could they be relatives of ours? No telling. This photo might actually predate Olaf’s residence there.
Before departing, we got this shot of our entire party at the cabin door.
Sam, Clarice, Thiel, Aline, George
Some trick of perspective here. I’m not a giant 🙂
Next: Coon Prairie.
