Mary (Boma) North
1885 – 1938

Mary was the youngest child of Caroline and Jacob born in December of 1885. She was married to Emil North who was born in 1880.

Emil managed the stone quarry on grandad’s Bluff. They mined and broke the rocks on top of the bluff and lowered the rocks down on cable cars. Mary and Emil lived on 28th St. under Grand Dad’s Bluff. At that time there were only three houses there and a tavern. One was a boarding house for the workers. The tram track ran by the side of North’s house, which is where they crushed the rock. (The tavern is still there. The third house from the tavern was Emil and Mary’s, and the fifth house was the boarding house.)

Three children were born to the North’s; Andy in 1909, Marie in 1911, and Gladys in 1913.

“In those days, every Sunday families got together.’ Andy said. Ben Mader remembers going to North’s with the Boma’s in a horse drawn wagon.

Andy’s mother and dad told the following story:

“They were going up to Bliss Road to a party up the hill in horse and wagon. It was just a wagon road in those days and every so often a ditch ran across the road to drain the water. Theodore Mader sat on the tail of the wagon and in the back was a keg of beer. When they bound over the ditch the keg of beer rolled, knocking Theodore off with it, unknown to Emil and Mary until some distance further.”

Emil had a horse and buggy with a fringe on top. Andy said you had to be careful because when the last person stepped on the step of the buggy, the horse would take off!

At a homemaker meeting in 1938 at Sand Lake Coulee, Mary had just finished eating and sat down to play the organ or piano when she said, “My arm feels funny.” She died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 52. Emil passed away seven years later.