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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

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Turns out many people do know these men

By DELYNN HOWARD

Staff Writer

We were asked to run this photo of the N.P. Car Shop employees taken Sept. 12, 1940, to see if any of our readers could identify those in the photo. The response was great.

I received several e-mails and phone calls regarding this photo that captured just a small part of Brainerd's railroad history.

Brian Ray, employee of the BN Credit Union, has his own collection of old photographs from different eras of the railroad days that he donated to the credit union. I visited with him and he took me on a "tour" and shared some of his knowledge of the photos that hang in the credit union's hallway.

As we sat in his office, he showed me what I thought was the exact photo we ran in the April 12 Neighbors section. But he told me otherwise.

"There's something different about this photo," Ray said.

I looked closer at the photo. The details were all the same. The date across the bottom was there. The photographer's signature was there. It appeared to be the same photo.

As my eyes continued to scan the photo, I realized he was right. It wasn't exactly the same. An addition had been made to his copy of the photo.

Jim Buley, an employee of the car shops, said he apparently had better things to do when the group gathered during their lunch hour to take the photo.

"I was just a 17-year-old kid," Buley said with a chuckle during a phone interview.

Later, Buley said he took a photo of himself and positioned the cutout to the right of his father, Al Buley, who is in the back row, ninth man from the left. Jim Buley then made a print from that photo so he would be included in the group shot.

Jim Buley, a Brainerd resident, retired from the railroad in 1984.

The following is information we received regarding the railroad photo:

This is a picture of all the employees in the car shops. They built and repaired all the box cars.

My brother, George Vierzba, is in the front row, third from the right. Others include Red Bosley, second row, seventh from the left; Bill Brockman, front row, seventh from the left; Kermit Kunde, front row, second from the right; Art Kunde, front row, 12th from the right; Willard Kerbin, third row, eighth from the right; Herman Kunde, third row, fourth from the right; and Lewis Kunde, second row, ninth from the right.

I knew quite a few of the people because it was the biggest industry in Brainerd for years.

My husband worked in the machine shop but I gave the picture to one of my sons.

Also, my father-in-law, Mike Vierzba, was an engineer. The locomotive he drove is in Lum Park. - Lorraine Vierzba Peterson, Brainerd.

The gentleman in the second row, third from the right, is Howard Benton Brooks, who lived in the home he and his son and my father built at 824 10th Ave. N.E., Brainerd. His wife was Elvira Carlsson who came here from Sweden. They raised my mother, Charlotte Fremling, and William Brooks, Raymond Brooks and Ella Swanson, who are all deceased, and Floyd Brooks, who lives in Pontiac, Mich., with Doris (Watson) Brooks.

Howard was a boiler welder at the shops and eventually died of lung cancer.

He was also an alderman elected for the Third Ward of Brainerd but I'm not sure if he was at the time of the picture. - John Fremling, Aitkin.

I saw the picture in the paper. I believe my father is shown here in the back row, right-hand side, three men together. The one in the middle with arms folded is my father, William Sheridan Potter. His nickname was Sherd. He worked in the car shops store department. - Vivian (Babe) Potter Engholm.

Mervin Larson of Brainerd phoned in and said his uncle, Arne Dybvik, is in the third row, fourth from the left.

Regarding the railroad picture, my dad, Ernest Loya, is in the front row, first one on the left and in the same row last one on the right is my wife's dad, Eino Marttila.

I showed the picture to my dad, who lives in Brainerd, and he recognized a lot of the men in the photo.

We enjoyed the photo and we now call our dads the bookends. - Gene and Patty Loya, Lake Shore.

The fifth man in from the right in the front row is my dad, William "Fat" Fox. He was 29 at the time.

I live three blocks from where my mom's childhood home is. I'm sure there are uncles of mine in that picture. - Marlos Bahma, Brainerd.

My dad, Thomas Conlin, was 33 years old when he worked in the N.P. Car Shops in Brainerd in 1940. He is in the front row, fifth man on the left in the picture.

After nine years of trying to eke out a living in the '30s, I remember how happy my parents were to finally have a steady paycheck, even though it meant a daily drive "all the way to Brainerd." Several men from Staples worked in the Brainerd shops and carpooled daily. I recognize my dad's friends, John Hartman (front row, 14th on the left) and Otto German (front row, 16th on the left). My dad later transferred to the N.P. Shops in Staples and I have an employee picture similar to the one in the Dispatch which was taken at the Staples Shops in 1945. - Doreen Scott, Staples.

Lawrence J. Bourassa is in the second row, 16th from the left; Earl Bourassa is in the back row, 12th from the left; Jim Roscoe is in the second row, 15th from the right; and Red Bosley is in the second row, seventh from the left.

My husband, Lawrence M. Bourassa (Mick), was born and raised in Brainerd. He and his brothers, Jerry and Tom, were the ones who went through the picture in the Dispatch. We have seen that picture before. Lots of memories of his dad and uncle working there.

Jim Roscoe lived across the street from the Bourassas on 12th Street Southeast and they were good friends.

It was pretty hot and hard work being a welder. They were hardworking men. Love having the pictures of "times" ago. Good memories. - Patricia A. Bourassa, Crosslake.

Arnie Johnson of Crosby identified three men in the front row. From the left, the 12th man was his father, Herman F. Johnson; the 11th man was Arnie's uncle, George T. Johnson; and the ninth man was Vern Hoeft.

My father-in-law, Adolph Sorsveen, is located in the back row, fifth man from the right. He worked for the railroad for 48 years, retiring in 1970. He passed away in 1982. - Shirley Sorsveen, Baxter.

Dianne Fenton, Mounds View, formerly of Brainerd, said the man in the back row, fourth from the left, is her father, Irving Brusseau.

Regarding the N.P. Shops picture, I believe the man in the second row, third from the right, is my grandfather, Howard Brooks, or "HB" as he was known by his co-workers. He belonged to the Boilermakers Union. As far as I can figure he was 58 years old in the picture. He retired at 70 years old and threw his lunch pail in the Mississippi River from the Mill Avenue bridge, which was a tradition at the time. If anyone else claims him, I may be wrong, but it sure looks like other pictures of him. - Carla Dean, Pillager.

Margie Puetz of the Pillager area identified her uncle, Denzil Collett, as the sixth man from the left in the front row. She said Denzil died in 1963, but has grandchildren who live in Brainerd.

Beverly Ferris, Brainerd, stopped at the Dispatch and identified a few people in the photo. Her uncle, Aksel Johnson, whom she called Dukka, is in the third row, 14th man from the left. Viking Hedin, who was a neighbor, is in the back row, 16th man from the left. Next to Viking Hedin is Nordahl Johnson, Aksel Johnson's 22-year-old son and Beverly's cousin.

Ferris also told me she thought D.E. Whitney, which was the maker of the frame the photo was in, was the D.E. of Whitney Funeral Home on Front Street in Brainerd.

DeLYNN HOWARD, staff writer, can be reached at delynn.howard@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5850.

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