Harold William Schmitke
Birth: March 10, 2027 Death: January 27, 2018
Harold was born in the Otto Stegman house in Neche, ND. They moved to the Stephen area after Agnes was born. Harold’s earliest memory occurred on the Donaldson farm when he was three years old. Some Native Americans were walking by the front of the farmhouse. They were going from Warroad to North Dakota. As a group came by, they motioned to him and he began to follow them. Alvina came out of the house and ran after him quite frantically to bring him back to the farmhouse.
When he was 13, Harold entered a drawing at the fair for a new bike. He was so confident that he would to win that he was up front before they even read his name.” The bike would later be used by his siblings while he was in the navy. Harold remembered the one and two-room schoolhouses they attended. When Harold started school, he spoke only German. He would get rapped on the head with the pointer when he did not understand the teacher. From that year on, Alvina and Carl began speaking mostly English at home, so Harold remembered very little German as an adult. In 1939, Harold had earned 35 cents and bought gifts for the 7 youngest children for Christmas.
In 1944, Harold would drop out of school at age 17 to join the navy. He served from 1944-1946 on the USS Colonial LSD-18. His rank was MM2C. He experienced a hurricane in the Atlantic and two typhoons in the Pacific. After the navy, he would return home, get his GED, learn how to fly, and become a crop-duster. He would spend his summers crop-dusting and then go to Illinois to work during the winter. In Illinois, he lived at least one winter with Freda and John who had moved there, and a couple more winters in Rockford, IL where Bill Smith and family lived.
On May 12, 1950, while living/working in Rockford, Illinois, Harold went Roller Skating in Rollo, IL. A young teacher, E. Doris Floyd, was there with her class. On June 10, 1951 they were married in Hoopeston, IL (Doris’ hometown). Otto would be Harold’s best man, but Carl Sr., Freda and family, and Arnold would also attend the wedding. After their marriage, Harold would attend Huntington College in Huntington, IL to become a Biology teacher. From then until 1971, they would spend school years where he was teaching and summers in Stephen, MN crop-dusting. Harold and Doris would go on to have three children, William ‘Bill’, Thomas ‘Tom’, and Beth.
Doris would pass away on November 20, 2007 from complications of dementia. Harold passed away January 27, 2018 from a heart attack. They are buried in Virginia, MN
