This last week, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Laura McMullin (Fletcher). We had a great time reminiscing old times, looking at pictures of her family and the homestead she grew up on. Also, to my great surprise, Laura remembers meeting my mom (Henrietta Baxter) when she became a LPN and worked in the old hospital.

McMullin was born one mile north of Dore, N.D., in Sam Stubbs house, June 5, 1929, to Joe and Sarah Fletcher. The family then moved to the hill farm four miles northwest of Dore in the spring of 1932. McMullin, being the youngest of three other siblings, Sam, Tom, and Geneva, loved the outdoors and enjoyed helping her mom with the outside chores. She would bring in the milk cows for milking. The milk was separated, put in the cellar, taken to the Dore depot and shipped on the “Goose” to the Creamery. Three days later a check would arrive in the mail.

During the depression years, the farm did not yield much profit. McMullin grew up hearing “we can’t afford it” and “don’t waste that.” Gardening was a life sustaining factor and not easy with very little water. Water was carried up the hill from a well that had a rope tied to a bucket which was lowered on a horizontal pole, using a handle on one end to turn it. A stock dam was built, but the first year it broke open and in later years had an underground leak and not enough rain or water run off sustained it. McMullin did not go to school the first three years and studied at home.

Her fourth year of school she rode her bay horse, “Dandy” to a one-room school about four miles through the hills. During the winter, she stayed with the teacher. It was known as the Church School near the Four-Mile Church.

In her fifth fifth and sixth year, McMullin went to school in Dore, finishing out high school in Fairview.

One of the high lights of my visit was viewing the antiques in the famous “Red Cupboard.” This cupboard was built for Sam and Maria Fletcher in the early 1880s, when they had their new house built on the farm at Roger in Dakota Territory. A finished carpenter came to their house and put in the partitions, hung doors and performed other finishing touches. As he was walking out of the house, Maria stated she did not have a cupboard, and could he build her one. He picked up some scrap lumber and with square nails, hammered together this cupboard.

They gave it to their son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Sarah Fletcher, in 1917. The cupboard and two rocking chairs came by rail to Dore, where the Fletchers picked it up with a team and wagon and was hauled to the homestead northeast of Dore. It was named “The Red Cupboard” by the family. In 1929, it was moved to the Sam Stubbs place, then to the log house in the hills in 1932. After the wooden floor was laid in 1934, “the red cupboard” was too tall so the six-foot legs were sawed off. In 1964, it was given to McMullin. She refinished it, and the cupboard now holds antiques of her past along with keepsakes she has collected over time. Only one glass in the cupboard has been replaced.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Information compiled from Courage Enough II and Laura McMullin