My maternal grandparents, Julius Forthun and Goldie Slagle, on their wedding day. They were married on March 18, 1914, in Williston, North Dakota. They met as neighbors and fellow homesteaders in McKenzie County, North Dakota. Julius, the son and grandson of Norwegian immigrants, was born in the Dakota Territory prior to statehood. He wooed Goldie with his good looks, charming personality… and by helping her with her chores on her 320 acre farm. Goldie was born in Missouri to parents who moved westward from Virginia following the Civil War. She had the gift of Southern cooking, and won Julius’s heart (and stomach) with her fried chicken, golden corn bread, and baking powder biscuits. The wedding was a small, quiet affair, held at the home of Goldie’s sister, who lost two young children just two weeks prior to the wedding. Despite the inauspicious start, their marriage was a happy one, and it produced five children, the youngest of which was my mother. Their marriage spanned two World Wars, the Great Depression, and six decades. It ended when they were parted by Goldie’s death in 1970.
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