My uncle Ernest Julius Erickson’s compelling story surprised me, as he stretches his life with his brother, my grandfather Frank across the pages of multiple diaries he wrote in the 2nd decade of the 20th century. He was a prolific diarist and wrote in good and difficult times, lonely and dangerous times. Fortunate enough that my father, Ernest Anders Erickson kept them safe through the years.

Now in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century, my cousin Mark Henninger of Bismarck, North Dakota transcribed the diaries of Ernest Julius. Mark’s grandfather is Andy Sebran Erickson, Ernest Julius and Frank’s younger brother and it was fitting that he would join in on the diary project. To put the diaries in order for the light of day became my destined obligation to the family and to these men. I am hoping that the diaries will be read and appreciated by anyone interested in history and in a good adventure story.

After 100 years these diary entries come to view, showing two lives originally from Sundsvall, Sweden and both since having immigrated to the Dakotas at the turn of the 20th Century. The two young men obviously had “Cowboy Dreams" growing up, as they certainly lived that life back then.

The journal books have been a family secret, held by just a few. Kept in old cigar boxes on the top shelf of my father’s closet and mixed in with other family treasures. My father had read them and felt like me, an inclination to write about them. The diaries, wrapped in cloth, caught my attention in 2014 along with the hundreds of photographs and letters of the family going back to the late 1800s in my father's archives.

It took time to deal with the content of Ernest’s writings. It was real, it was as if a ghost was talking to me. His words were direct and often sweet, almost innocent at times. He truly was a likable guy. I began to know him and then life and work got in the way, so I put them aside until recently in the late months of 2016. That is when Mark Henninger attacked the transcription duties. I now can read them in full with this final piece of the written trilogy complete. Ernest’s words have become alive in my mind.

This diary referred to as “The Oregon Diary,” is a year long tale of the two brothers. Their 1917 adventure from the Dakota’s to Oregon and soon enough to the battlefields of France in 1918, as members of the American Expeditionary Force is a compelling narrative of a century passed.

Ernest scribed the passages in small towns in the West bares the truth of their lives, however unusual from most anyones life today. It is a testament to an era long gone in America, where the west was still an adventure to be followed. The writings begin? at the train station near his home of Regan, a town called Wilton, North Dakota.

Trains and train tracks become an important part of their story as he lays out an account that reads like a short story. For now, their story through his words, can be read here.

Both Ernest and Frank left the family farm in Painted Woods, along the Missouri River years earlier and had traveled out west to California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Mexico. The lure of the West was always drawing them out here.

By 1916 it was time to hit the road and Ernest heads to Bismarck by train, the only way to fly in those days. The train takes him to Glendive and Butte, Montana, where short bursts of story telling begins. A dinner here, a wait at a train station and onto Dillon, Montana where Frank awaits him and they are reunited. From there they continue through the Great Plains to the train towns of Pocatello, Idaho, Astoria, Pendleton, Ontario, Huntington, Vale, Baker, Weatherby, and finally Le Grande, Oregon.

All these places he writes about. Sometimes short but sweet, but in the long run something passes through all these daily entries, something intriguing. Heading westward on the dead of Winter with his younger brother Frank seemed like a promising idea with thoughts of warmer climates.

The intent was to look at land for themselves, start something of their own and then the daily life of work or seeking work, the various jobs, the multiple boarding houses and camp sites out in the woods come into factor. Destiny hits when they both sign up as Deputies on the Oregon Railroad. The war in Europe was hot and the two mull over a decision to join the army or the navy. They await to be called up for duty.

By joining the army, the two brothers headed on a course that would eventually take them straight to the trenches of the Western Front in France, the most dangerous place to be in the entire world at that point in time. It's a solemn reality when you look at this year of their lives. 1918 would culminate in a momentous change for both men.

I talked to my grandfather about the war and he often answered uncomfortably on the subject. He knew I was interested, so he obliged. But many of the stories from 1917 and 1918 were forever unspoken. Frank gave me certain possessions over the years from that time, his hunting rifle, his camping compass, a Lugar he took from a German prisoner, his service revolver. Even though my father took some of these items away from me, for good reasons, I had a connection to that era growing up.

Quite a few of the photographs on this site were taken in Oregon and in the Dakotas that year along with shots taken in France during the war. The diaries are golden glimpses at these two brothers lives, as they head from the Dakotas to the West and ultimately into combat in France. To finally unravel the unknown about these two in that year before the war, and see into their lives unfold is quite an unique experience. Legends are born out of certain stories to a young boy and the three 1917 diaries* hold the attention of Ernest Julius’s life quite well to me now. I am getting to know my uncle better after so many years of him being a mystery.

*A spreader is a type of maintenance equipment designed to spread or shape ballast profiles. The spreader spreads gravel along the railroad ties. The various ploughs, wings and blades of specific spreaders allow them to remove snow, build banks, clean and dig ditches, evenly distribute gravel, as well as trim embankments of brush along the side of the track.The operation of the wings was once performed by compressed air, and later hydraulics.