Arthur Carl Melford Kuhn and Aurora Cecelia Lundquist

Arthur M. Kuhn.; and Aurora C. Lundquist.; were married married April 22, 1913, in Red Wing, Minnesota.  The ceremony was performed at 2:30 P.M. in the parlor of Central Hotel, owned by the bride’s parents.  The couple was unattended and only relatives were present.  Following the ceremony, a sumptuous seven course wedding dinner was served in the hotel dining room.  They enjoyed a short honeymoon in Sparta, Wisconsin where Arthur's brother, William, and wife Katherine resided. 

Art and Ora, as they were then called, settled in their new home at 743 West Avenue after June 15, 1913.  As an example of food prices during that period, a statement from a butcher shop in 1914 revealed that Art and Ora had paid fifteen cents for two steaks and fifteen cents for two pork chops.   

On July 23, 1915, Art, Ora, and daughter Mildred, moved to their new bungalow home at 1009 Central Avenue.  It was a bungalow consisting of two bedrooms, bath, living room, dining room, kitchen, and a pantry. When I was about six years old (1923), a second floor was added to the house. A crew of men proceeded with this major project by cutting off the roof and jacking It up sufficiently high to add a second story. The front bedroom was made into a front entry and stairway. The front entry door was moved from the center to the right so you entered in what used to be the front bedroom. The front entrance hall had an open banistered stairway leading to the second story. The second story consisted of four bedrooms, a bath, and a large storage room at the rear. A rear stairway was built from the storage room to the kitchen.  

There was a large porch across the front of the house and a slightly smaller porch on the back of the house. The icebox was located on the back porch over a hole in the floor for the water runoff from the melting Ice. There was a large expandable table on the back porch. Long benches were along both sides of the table, with chairs available for the ends of the table. The front porch had a couch on both ends for seating and sleeping. The couches had drop-sides that could be raised, enabling two people to sleep on each couch. On warm nights, some of us would sleep out on the porch. Both front and back porches were screened-in.  

There was a stairway from the kitchen to a full basement. About four steps down there was a landing and a doorway to the outside. There was a coal bin on the driveway side of the basement. A truck would deliver the coal; the driver would remove the window to the coal bin; and place a chute from the truck through the window opening to the coal bin. He would then shovel the coal onto the chute where It would slide down into the coal bin. In the center of the basement was a large hot-air furnace that burned both wood and coal. Burning coal always formed clinkers that had to be removed from the furnace. They were removed with a long Iron rod that was bent on the far end to remove the clinkers.  

Beyond the furnace, my father had a workbench and a trunk filled with his tools. Wood was needed to start the fire in the furnace. My father would order a cord or more of wood in the fall. The wood, when delivered, would be about four feet in length and would be piled along side the driveway. A farmer would come with a saw on a flatbed and cut the pieces into three sections. He would then toss them next to the house. When my brothers and I came home from school we would remove two basement windows and toss the wood into the basement. Then we would go into the basement and stack the wood against the wall in one or two rows, depending upon the quantity of wood. In the basement there was also a chopping block and axe to split some of the wood into smaller pieces.  

On the far end of the basement was shelving to store various items. Clotheslines were strung on the other side of the basement to hang the washing. Laundry facilities included a Maytag washing machine that had a wringer to remove water from the clothes. Hot water for the washing machine was heated in a large copper boiler on a two-burner gas plate. There was also a tub for rinsing the clothes. On nice days clothes were hung on clotheslines in the back yard.  

In the 1920s and 1930s when our family was growing up we had milk delivery every day. The milkman also had cream, whipping cream, and butter available. Deliveries were usually made very early in the morning by our milkman using a horse-drawn wagon. On sub-zero mornings the milk or cream would expand after freezing, pushing the paper cap an inch or more above the bottle opening. During snowy periods of the winter, the milk wagon had runners instead of wheels. One Saturday we heard a terrible noise and ran to the front door. Coming down the street was a run-away horse pulling an overturned milk wagon equipped with runners for winter use. In later years small trucks replaced the milk wagons. During those years we also enjoyed twice a day mail delivery; morning and afternoon. 

In August, 1915, one month after buying their new house, Art and Ora boarded the packet steamboat “Morning Star” and enjoyed a several-day round trip cruise on the Mississippi River to Davenport, Iowa. 

In the early years of their marriage, Art was the proud owner of a large launch.  He stored it in his own boathouse at the Red Wing Bay marina.  Each dock at the marina had wooden boat houses anchored on either side of the dock.  The docks and boat houses floated on large drums.  These were held in position by long tree poles imbedded in the bottom of the bay.  Large metal rings fastened to the docks and boathouses encircled the poles.  This enabled the docks and boathouses to rise and fall with the level of the river.  Art and Ora enjoyed many outings on the Mississippi River with their friends.

My father was an outdoor enthusiast and enjoyed hunting and fishing in addition to the outings on the river.  He fished for trout in creeks and small streams mostly in Wisconsin, not far from Red Wing.  When he desired larger game fish, he would fish in nearby lakes.   

He enjoyed hunting ducks, pheasants, squirrels, rabbits, and other small game.  One of his thrills while hunting occurred in 1919 when he shot a pure white snow goose.  My father had a chilly experience on February 22, 1923, when he went ice fishing at Clear Lake.  He fell through the ice and was drenched to the skin.  He made it to shore and built a big fire.  He cuddled up to the fire and gradually dried his clothes.  He then ventured out on the ice again, chopping a hole in the ice and before long had caught a nice string of sunfish. 

My parents had many friends and entertained at card parties and costume parties.  Their favorite card game was duplicate whist.  They enjoyed playing the game with Charlie and Anna Johnson and sometimes with Charlie and Frieda Barnhart.  At the costume parties, my father would masquerade as a woman wearing a wig, a large hat, and a long dress. 

My father was very interested in wild flowers.  Over a period of several years, he developed a beautiful and interesting wild flower garden on the north side of the house.  Dad and a close friend, Dr. A. W. Jones, were interested in identifying plant life.  When one of them brought in a specimen from an outing, they would meet in rear of the drug store and attempt to identify it.  My father had a three-volume set of "Illustrated Flora of the United States and Canada" which proved very valuable to them. 

My father compounded and packaged several preparations to sell to the store customers.  One of the favorites was a hand lotion "Kuhn's Witch Hazel Cream".  Another was Kuhn's "Carbolic Salve." 

Many prescriptions in those days required compounding, cough syrups, liniments, ointments, and lotions.  Drug powders sometimes required mixing and were dispensed in folded papers.  Empty gelatin capsules were filled with drug powders.  On occasion, a drug was dispensed in suppository form.  Cocoa butter would be used to make the suppository and forming them in molds. 

In the summer, our family would vacation with the Johnson's-Charlie, Anna and their two boys, Kenny and Don.  A week or two would be spent at Butternut Lodge near Balsam Lake, Wisconsin.  The clean, sandy beaches were an invitation for us to go wading.  Unfortunately, none of us could swim; the fishing was good so everyone enjoyed our fish dinner once or twice a week.  We had fun on a swing which was suspended with a heavy rope from a high limb of a very tall tree. The swing seat was a grain sack partially filled with sand.  With someone giving us a good push, we could swing quite high. We were quite concerned on day when Mildred fell from the swing but was not seriously injured.  Balsam Lake was only about 80 miles form Red Wing, Minnesota.  However, it was a long trip in those days, because vehicles did not go fast.