Growing up, the farm next to ours--the only one in view from my family's home--was the Hartstrom farm. To me, the house had a grandness about it. My Mom's mother (a foster daughter of the Hartstrom's) was raised here for eighteen years. The original part of it was built in 1906 by Albert Hartstrom and his friend Gus Mattson--a two-story house with a cellar. This was enlargened in later years. It still stands, quite straight although in the past several years the porch area ha

This whimsical rock pile was built by Billy Hartstrom, who homesteaded in Sikes Township in 1905. The prairie had a lot of rocks to remove before they could break up the sod with plowing. Loaded by hand onto a stoneboat--a flat "raft" of planks dragged by horses or oxen--the rocks ended up in piles in each field. Billy must have had an artistic flair. He used flat limestone for the border, and round rocks behind. This looks over Billy Hartstrom's homestead site. Sadly, like s