by Elsie Mooers
Coffee time at Hulda’s was always cozy. We would sit at the kitchen table, next to the beautiful black and nickel Monarch cook stove she had, smell the egg coffee cooking, nibble on a dish of Pinoche perhaps or her good coffee bread, and talk. Last night’s Prizeword Pete’s Crossword puzzle got it’s share of attention, we talked of the Bittersweet vines growing on her oak tree and admired a branch of it in a vase on the table. There was an pretty rock on the table; Hulda was interested in eveyrthing and everybody.
We drove up to Lake Vermillion many times to see my bachelor uncle Fritz. We would start early in the morning, stop several times along the way to explore abandoned old houses and barns. My mother refused to into those places; she was afraid she would fall through the floor. But Hulda and I had no such qualms; we loved seeing what the former owners had left behind. And sometimes we hit the jack-pot and found a treasure! Old dumps were also our delight.
Sometimes we would drive to Duluth for the day. Aunt Hulda had worked in Duluth for a time as a young girl and she would point out places where she had worked. The Russell Creamery Company was one. She also always told of witnessing the hanging of three black men who had been accused of murder, an event that had a great impact in the area at the time. She loved walking along the North Shore picking up rocks and driftwood.
Yes, everyone should have had an Aunt Hulda. What enriching experiences we had; there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and my mother and of the good times we had, the very best of times.