Frank Henry Trygg, born on April 3, 1891, was the youngest child of August and Augusta Trygg. Anna Amelia Anderson, born Oct. 6, 1891, was the youngest living child of John and Clara Anderson. After their older siblings, Charlie Trygg and Minnie Anderson married in 1901 and homesteaded in what became Trygg township, Frank and Anna frequently found themselves visiting in the same home at the same time. They could quarrel as adolescents did even then (and still do) and sometimes had to be sent home.

Home for Frank was in Gibbs township in a structure where August kept adding a room at a time as he felt the need for more space (now the George Anderson home). According to a favorite family joke, one time he forgot to arrange for heating, so when winter came the new addition was not usable. In his retirement years, August liked to travel and between times lived in Bismarck. Frank thoroughly enjoyed farming. He took a course in mechanics in Kansas City, something at which he was particularly apt, but he preferred to live in North Dakota. When his father was traveling, Frank's invalid mother and a cousin who cared for her, Hilda Askaboom, usually stayed with him.

But Frank kept an eye on that vivacious young girl he used to spat with. She had had the gumption to work her way through high school and college, and he admired her spunk. When she came back to teach school in Baldwin, he courted her and convinced her to become his wife on July 20, 1920. Their farm was on sections 8 and 17 in Gibbs township. The old house was infested with bedbugs which tormented Anna at night. The newlyweds moved into the granary while they fumigated with sulfur candles for 3 days, opened the house for 10 days to allow the nits to hatch. then fumigated again. It worked downstairs, but the unplastered second floor continued to be a haven for the bedbugs until Frank remodeled it.

Anna taught one term in Gibbs before their oldest child was born. Later she helped drive the "school bus" (family car) to transport her own and neighbor youngsters to the consolidated school. Frank was both township and school board clerk for many years. Both were active in community activities.

Crops were off and on during the 20's, but even when they were good it was difficult to get ahead financially because prices were so low. Wheat sometimes sold for 25 cents a bushel, and rye for 7 cents a bushel, less than the price of a loaf of rye bread. During the 30's wheat often made less than 2 bushels to the acre-if at all. Anna augmented the family income by selling cream and poultry and eggs to private customers in Bismarck. Because she sterilized the separator so meticulously, her cream kept better than most, so she became known as the "cream lady." She also cared for her invalid brother, Charlie, for 7 years.

Frank gleaned whatever crops there were and mowed prairie hay to feed the cattle he tried to hang on to. Eventually, when water and feed became too scarce, he had to do as most other farmers and sell 4-year-old steers for the premium price of $20. But then he started hauling coal and doing other odd jobs to keep his family off "relief." Since their children turned out to be girls, Frank and Anna gave each one a male as well as female name (Tommy, Jimmy, and Jackie), allowed them to wear overalls, and taught them to milk cows. haul hay, and run and repair farm machinery.

Frank was very innovative. Every spare minute was spent improving the farm. He taught himself carpentering and cabinet making. remodeled the kitchen and the rest of the house, and built a large new barn after the old one burned. He figured out how to put in a running water system long before such were common in rural areas, doing all the plumbing himself. He built a large water storage tank on a mound of earth so it worked by gravity and insulated it with a second box filled with straw. What excitement the first time a faucet was turned on and it worked! He experimented with new farming methods and planted a tree belt around the house.

In 1951 Frank had the best crop he had ever raised. Then it rained for nearly six weeks during harvest. Faithfully he turned the crops he had put into windrows, but as he watched the grain deteriorate the tension became too great and he died of a heart at on September 27th. The day after his funeral dawned bright and sunny. The neighbors converged on Frank's farm to finish his harvest before doing their own. "That is what Frank Trygg would have done for us," they explained. But it also indicated the kind of men Burleigh county is made of. The Herman Sterns now own the Frank Trygg farm.

Anna continued to work for others in hospitals and other activities until her death in 1964. Ruth Ann, the oldest daughter, is married to Paul Wenzel, a physician, in Englewood, CO. They have 3 children. Aldyth Roberts, a widow, is finishing her dissertation in Child Development and teaching at AndrewsUniversity at Berrien Springs, MI. Ethyl Trygg is working on her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Oregon in Eugene.