Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August 22, 2021

Friends to the End: Delmer Roseen and Curtis Johnson

  Delmer and Curtis: Friends to the End      From where he was buried on Saturday April 11th, 1992, the tin roofs of his buildings could be seen through the trees. Across the fence, at the foot of his grave, were the fields he farmed. Between them, Mikinaak Creek--so much a part of Delmer Roseen’s life and sadly, his death--still winds through willow slough, over beaver dams below the Palmville Cemetery, and past his door to the South Fork of the Roseau River, only a few yards to the southeast.         Delmer lived northeast of us in Palmville Township. If I looked just right, I could see his yard light through the woods between his place and mine. Either of us could hear the soft ‘clung’ of the rope and pulley against the flag pole in the cemetery at the corner of our two farms. Red willows, popple islands, and slough grass; green mossy fence posts; the often submerged patchwork of woven wire, and the depth of water in the creek vaguely separated us.      Delmer had live