Watford City, ND - McKenzie Electric Cooperative, Inc.

Lest we forget...
McKenzie Electric Cooperative (MEC) is excited
about all the growth in our area and we are enthusiastic
about what the future holds for our co-op and its
members. But with all there is to look forward to, we
feel it is also important to remember our roots — how
we came to be a co-op, who started the co-op, and what
life was like before the wonder of rural electricity.
With each generation, we become further removed
from the reality of what it took to establish MEC. So
“Lest we forget,” will be a feature every month for the
next year. If you have memories of what it was like in
those early days, please contact Brenda Berquist or
Myra Anderson at the MEC office in Watford City.
We want to hear and share your stories.
The beginning
For thousands of years, the hills, buttes and prairies of
western North Dakota changed little through the seasons
and years. The land flowered in the spring and summer
and grew brown and was hidden by the snow of fall and winter.
Only the animals and the wandering Native Americans moved
across the landscape.
As the western migration swept America’s growing population
over the North Dakota prairies, the land began to
change its appearance. Farms and ranches dotted hard-earned
quarters of land, and small towns gradually took form. It was ‘
a change which evaporated with the night, for after dark
the land once again looked large and lonely with only an
occasional kerosene lamp in a farmhouse window to indicate
an inhabited farm.
As the comforts of industrialization became common in the
C2—McKENZIE ELECTRIC NEWS • SEPTEMBER 2010
cities and small towns, the farms and ranches continued to
operate mainly on the strong backs and arms of the farmers
and their families. The gulf widened the cultural and social
differences of the two lifestyles.
Farmers rose with the sun, pumped water for their livestock
and themselves by hand or using a windmill, heated their
homes and cooked with wood or oil, and after
a long day of work, went to bed early to preserve their strength
and the kerosene in the lamps.
The life of the farmwife was no easier. Her everyday tasks
of cleaning, cooking and washing clothes involved heavy labor.
The washing was done by hand on a scrub board or in a
washing machine which was powered by the farm wife or
children turning the handle. The clothes were wrung by hand
and hung to dry in the summer on the clothesline. In the