The following is taken from a document produced by Vi (Flatau) Johnson:  Vi asked her mom, Elsie Flatau, many questions in January of 1988 when she was visiting Port Angeles.  The account was compiled by Vi in March 1988.  Minnie (Beckman) Heilman read it over in February 1988 to add a note or two.

Elsie Minnie Caroline Beckman 

Elsie was born in Perham (which is now the 200 block of 3rd Street Southwest). The family then moved in a house (about where Esser Plumbing now stands at 500 block of West Main Street).  This house burned about 3 a.m. in January 1903 from a neighbor (Schornack) setting his barn afire nearby.  A neighbor took Elsie clad only in night clothes as everyone else was in from the cold and Elsie's grandmother, Anna, wanted to go into the burning house thinking she was still in there.  The family stayed with Burelbach’s (who lived across the street) until they found another place to live.  Very little was saved from the house.  It is possible the family rented a house nearby where they were planning to build (which is now 600 block of 4th Avenue Southwest near the Wagon Factory -  an old Perham landmark). 

Elsie remembers seeing her first car when she was about 4 years old and it belonged to Dr. Schumaker.  

Elsie started school in Perham until the fall of 1911 when the family moved into a house on a farm in Edna Township, the Beckman Place.  While the house was being built the workers lived in tents and the rest of the family stayed in Perham. The house wasn't entirely finished when the family moved in and it was a very cold winter. 

Elsie went to the same school that Albert attended.  She remembers him to be very bashful and thought someone by the name of Lenius ( relative of those living nearby) wasn't so bashful.  Minnie attended school there for a short time as well as Emil.  Elsie attended through the spring of 1913 and in the fall went to school in Linton, North Dakota staying with Marie and Clara who worked there and then with Louise until the spring of 1914.  She went home to the farm and helped at home.  

Emil was also living at home.  There were fishermen who bordered there and all laundry was done on a washboard.   

Elsie started going to dances with her brother Emil and Albert was his very good friend.  Elsie had a girlfriend by the name of Sylvia Schroeder.  She went out at times with Albert to dances, box socials, and picnics when about 17 years of age.  Elsie and her mother took a trip to Linton, North Dakota by train to visit Louise in the winter of 1918.  While there Elsie became very sick with diphtheria.  In the meantime, Emil was batching and had as his sidekick Albert.  Emil was “coaching” Albert on how to get Elsie interested. At this time Albert was farming (which is now Raymond Ziegler place) and he started courting Elsie in earnest after her return from Linton. 

His dad was a Reo car (Ransom Eli Olds-REO, founder of Oldsmobile) and sometimes used it on dates with Elsie.  In summer Albert had a horse and buggy and in winter had a beautiful cutter and horse.  This cutter had a foot warmer which all helped to overwhelm Elsie. One time after a return from a show Albert proposed!!! He had received a notice from the draft to be inducted into service in World War I about September 1918.  They then had their pictures taken in October 1918.  Albert did not leave for the service as the war ended in November 1918.  Albert was invited to the Beckman’s for Thanksgiving dinner and became sick with the flu and was too ill to return to his home.  Soon Emil and Grandma Marie were also sick and Elsie tended to all of them and was fortunate in not getting it too. 

Albert and Elsie were married at approximately 2 p.m. January 15th, 1919 by Reverend Eitell at her mother's home (the Beckman place in Edna Township).  Elsie was 18 and Albert was 20. Attendants at the wedding were Clara and Emil Beckman (Elsie's sister and brother).  Louis Flatau (Albert's brother) and Minnie Woessner (Louie’s girlfriend).  Some of those attending were Emil (cousin of Grandma Marie) and Anna Husen, their children Bill and Clara.  Also Theodore and Emma (father and stepmother of Albert).  Amanda and Carl Flatau (sister and brother-in-law of Albert);  Louise Schriner and Minnie Plowman (sisters of Elsie) and more all to a sit-down dinner and social festivities which included a shivaree by the full moon that evening. (a shivaree is a mock serenade and a roast of the newlyweds).   It was a beautiful sunny cold day.  They spent the night there and the next day went in Albert's cutter over the ice on Devils Lake to a farm he was renting. 

Albert had a Ford car but did not use it in the winter. The farm Albert was renting was sold and they then moved to the Beckman place and decided to buy it.  They had gone to Perham to make arrangements but the place had not been probated and it would take some time to have this done.  Unbeknownst to them John, Elsie's brother, talked Grandma Marie into selling to him with the provision of her always having a place to live.  Albert and Elsie had two daughters and then had to move about February into a granary on a farm they were also renting (located north of the present John Krueger place).  They lived there in this cold drafty building until summer when they moved into the Husen Farm (later the Runge Farm) which they rented.  

Two sons were born while on this farm.  John decided he was no farmer and found a job in South Milwaukee and asked Anna to come there.  Grandma Marie was told she must find herself a place to live.  She came to Albert and Elsie's in the summer of 1924 and stayed for 30 years until her death. 

Albert’s sister, Ida, of Portland, Oregon wanted the family to come West.  Albert could work with her husband Walt Locke and the family could live in their garage.  September 19, 1926, Albert, Elsie, Grandma Marie, Violet,  Rhoda, Vernon, and Rodney drove West in a new 1926 Model T Ford 4 door with glass (windows)!!   Albert made a narrow bed across from the back window to dash and he and Elsie slept there.  The passenger seat was removed and Grandma Marie slept alongside that side.  Vernon slept behind the steering wheel and Violet, Rhoda and Rodney slept alongside Grandma Marie.  

Albert worked as a hod carrier for Walt Locke.  He didn't like the weather and persuaded Elsie and family to return to Minnesota.  In August 1927 they made the return trip back to Minnesota and stayed approximately one month with Amanda and Carl (Albert's sister and brother-in-law).  Amanda and Carl were living on a farm which is now part of Gary Flatau farm. 

The following is taken from a booklet that was written for Albert and Elsie’s 65th Wedding Anniversary celebrated August 14, 1983.  Their actual 65th anniversary was January 15, 1984.  The booklet was written by Vi Johnson and Kristin Peterson from information supplied by relatives.  Susan Flatau provided much of the information from the great records that she keeps.  The majority of the information from the booklet has not been modified, but more photos (and some text) has been added. 

Elsie Minnie Caroline Beckman - Growing up 

Elsie was born November 16, 1900, in Perham, Otter Tail County, Minnesota.  She is the twelfth child of John "August" Beckman II and Henrietta "Marie" Sophie Husen.  Elsie was born in Perham on West Main Street. 

​When Elsie was four years old (1904) a fire destroyed the house where she was born.  Her father, being a shipbuilder and carpenter by trade, then built a house near the Smith Bros.' wagon factory in Perham.  It still stands today (1983).  They occupied this house until Elsie's father, August, retired in 1910 and he built another house on the south shore of Devils Lake.

When Elsie was 5 years old, in 1905, she remembers seeing her first car.  The car belonged to Dr. Schumaker and as it rumbled down the street, it scared her cat as they strolled down the sidewalk.  Not so unusual, except the cat was dressed in doll clothes and was lying in the doll buggy!

She also remembers how everyone was asked to stay off the streets of Perham when men brought in herds of wild horses that were rounded up from the countryside.

Elsie attended school in Perham through the third grade and the start of the fourth.  Then she attended school at District #233 through the seventh grade.  Only the three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic) were taught – no tests and very few books. 

For the eighth grade, she attended school in Linton, ND.  She took some classes in the seventh grade, too, that were not available to her at District #233.  She stayed with sisters Marie and Clara, who were employed in Linton and later she stayed with Pete and Louise Schriner (her sister).

After Elsie’s family moved to the country in 1910, she lived only three miles from Albert’s family.  Albert and Elsie met at the “Flatau School” in Hobart Township. 

The following is a narrative that has been shared on social media.  I modified it a little to fit with Grandma Elsie's life story.

When Elsie is fourteen, World War I starts, and ends on her eighteenth birthday.  Twenty-two million people perish in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until Elsie's 20th birthday. Fifty million people die from it in those two years.  Her sister's husband, died from the flu, leaving her sister Minnie without her husband and their young child, Johnny Plowman, without his father.   Elsie's boyfriend and future husband, Albert, became very ill with the flu and Elsie nursed him back to health.
When Elsie is twenty-nine, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until Elsie turns thirty-three. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy.
When Elsie turns thirty-nine, World War II starts.  On her forty-first birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between her thirty-ninth and forty-fifth birthdays, seventy-five million people perish in the war.  Smallpox was epidemic until Elsie was in her forty's.  It killed three-hundred-million people during her lifetime.
At fifty, the Korean War starts. Five million perish. From her birth, until she was fifty-five, she dealt with the fear of polio epidemics each summer. She experienced friends and family contracting polio and being paralyzed and/or dying.
At fifty-five the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. Four million people perish in that conflict. During the Cold War, she lived with the fear of nuclear annihilation. On her sixty-second birthday she had the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, almost ended. When she turned seventy-five, the Vietnam War finally ends.
Elsie continues to live through the wonders and everyday turmoil throughout the world until she passes at age ninety-one.

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1980s

See below to continue with the BECKMAN FAMILY photos and stories.

See below to continue with the FLATAU FAMILY photos and stories.

Beckman Family (home)  -  Kinstories (home)  -  Johnson Family  -  Susag Family  -  Flatau Family  - 
Granquist Family  -  Anderson Family  -  Stout Family  -  Walker Family  - Peterson Family  -  Morris Family  - Cauble Family