My grandfather Frank Gustaf Severin Erickson left home in 1910 at the age of eighteen and headed west seeking warmer climates, adventure and work.

He went west by train to California and lived in Daly City. Over the next seven years between visits back to North Dakota to work on the family farm in Regan, he traveled to Phoenix, Port Huron, Michigan, Armstead and Polaris, Montana. In the Spring of 1915 he was cutting timber in British Columbia.

Over the years he worked as a hunter, logger, a miner and in a metal shop. Frank loved to camp and went deer hunting when he had no work.

By 1917 Frank and his older brother Ernest Julius Alfred Erickson traveled by train from Wilton to Bismarck to Baker, Oregon. Besides working for various lumber mills they became deputies for the Oregon Railroad out of La Grande, Oregon. Both would join the American Expeditionary Force in the Summer of 1917 and in 1918 would serve in France with the 308th and 361st Infantry respectively.

Frank wrote home regularly to his parents Christine Brita (Olson) and Anders Alfred Erickson and here is his August 3rd 1916 letter when he was living in Polaris, Montana.

Translated from Swedish:

Polaris, Montana

August 3rd 1916

Dear Parents,
I am writing a few lines to let you know that I am alive and got my health, Wish you the same.

I am now working for the Pines Brothers, close to the ghost town of Bannack and have just started work again and won’t be finished until the 10th of September.

It has been warm here for about a month and was a late spring.
Been snowing off and on in June and July, starting the 22nd.
How is the crop there, will it be a good harvest?
Well, I will now end my short letter.

From you son Frank


Polaris
Montana