I was honored to be asked to speak at the 150th anniversary of Fort Seward in Jamestown, ND. I was even more honored to be speaking about my grandmother Mary Young. What follows is the prepared notes and slides for the speech I gave. I ended up going off script quit a bit in the actual speech. A full recording of the speech is also linked.
Mary Young
Today I am here to talk a bit about Mary Young (May Faith Olsen). Mary Young had a lifetime of achievements and impact on Jamestown and I really only lived here for ten years of that legacy. I even lived in her house when my family lost our home. A testament to her generosity and her ability to care for everyone who needed it.
She researched history so I got to step into her shoes a bit and dig up some history for this. I hope I do her justice. Today I hope to tell some stories about a woman you may not have known, or warm your heart with memories of a dear friend to any who needed it in Jamestown. I hope to make you laugh with some of my favorite stories of her’s and I hope to make you think a bit too. A lot of what she dealt with during her lifetime and recounting the past we are still dealing with today.
Mary believed that if you talked about a person their legacy lived on. And she was very good about talking about those who came before us and keeping their memory alive.
And Mary was legendary for talking!
Some of my favorite parts of researching through books and stacks of paper in binders was running across the quotes taken from my grandmother.
I can just hear them now. I remember growing up thinking my grandma always said what needed to be said because no one else had the guts to say it. I only know now she was progressive and that is why she spoke up more than others did. Now saying that about someone is an insult in a red state. But I always admired her for what she would say no matter who was in the room.
She also never pretended history was perfect and she believed in learning from the past. That is something I always remembered from my grandmother. She never advocated going backwards as an ideal, but as a way to learn. And she acknowledged the mistakes and wrongs of the past in her teachings and her stories. She never glazed over the mistakes when she talked about history.
She taught history without erasure. She wasn’t afraid to say we can do better now and acknowledge that we can and should do better. And looking back on documents she helped create and on presentations she gave you can see that and hear that in her own words as well.
I cheated a bit from my assignment. I am going to talk about Mary’s life as a whole.
Also, please know in this presentation I will not be naming all organizations she was in and all the awards and honors she received. She was honored by the original keepers of this land Indian tribes, to girls scouts, to governors. This is in no way to dismiss those accomplishments. If you have seen the movie Garden State, there is a scene where he is in an ivy league trained doctor’s office and he has so many awards and certificates on the wall that one had to go on the ceiling. That is exactly how my grandma’s wall of awards was. But her favorite piece on that wall was the caricature her dear friend Mr. Lucht drew of her. She still felt the creativity and thoughtfulness, and time spent by a friend was better than any award. She did things for the right reason not necessarily for the recognition. So today I want to focus on the life she lived and not the boards she was on or the awards she won. Let’s spend time with her memory.
Mary embodied something I have never been good at. She embodied the idea of growing where you are planted. This is something I have never grasped. Her entire life she gave to this community, that is why I am here. She also believed in doing things yourself and throughout her life you will see examples of that. And that do it yourself attitude is why the fort is still here.
While looking up information I tried to align facts with stories I was told and honestly things didn’t line up in so I am going to tell the stories and the truth as I found it print, because there is truth somewhere there. And I think that is how generally history is passed down.
Mary Faith was born in Montana on May 28th, 1920. And I remember being told she was the 10th or 11th child and her family couldn’t support having one more child. According to this document about her birth she was the fourth child, but regardless, the outcome is the same. Her family couldn’t support another child at that time and at 11 months old she was sent to live with her Aunt who was 37 at the time who had no children in Jamestown.
(That is my current age by the way.)
I am proud to say I come from a long line of extremely independent women who were great communicators. Eva was the original keeper of history and passed it down the information and the passion to Mary.
And growing up in the home of an extremely independent woman for the time I believe had a HUGE impact on my grandmother. So she was in essence an only child of an extremely independent working woman making her own income when women barely had won the right to vote. Which for the time was not the experience children had growing up back then. Eva Plunket started her career in Journalism in 1908. And the Century of Stories book has her listed in the dedication.
The acknowledgement of her nontraditional lifestyle towards what she was able to achieve in a book that my grandmother had a hand in is an example of Mary’s continual critical commentary on history. Some people won’t even acknowledge today how women are held back from equality in our country, do to family duties and the load of work that falls on their shoulders when it comes to the home, family, and children as compared to men.
It also talks about how these two didn’t get along. And as a career focused woman I can tell you this is common. Even now another woman in the workspace is often seen as a rival and independent women are often targeted.
You can even see note of Mary also being targeted in these texts. So is the fate of those who are outspoken.
But again in her work you see the acknowledgment of how history can be seen with rose colored glasses and how in truth making history was never easy.
Mary Faith was very much a tom boy and loved growing up in their apartment above the newspaper and she loved to play stickball with the boys. She was class President at St. John’s Academy. She went to college and majored in Home Ec. Talk about a different time. Now many schools won't even teach children a single home ec class and have defunded it. And honestly she failed out. Which is hilarious because she is known for her cooking. And you will see cooking was a way for her to care for people throughout her life.
There are stories of her feeding large groups of people from leftovers in her home and making it work. There is a story of her feeding a group of performers stranded in her home during a blizzard headed to a powwow and all she had was leftover stir fry and some ground beef and she fed the whole troupe of performers. She also would sell fry bread during Buffalo days. Many people probably remember that amazing fry bread.
So she decided to go to Washington DC to help with the War effort. As she told the story to me she was the only unescorted lady on the train. (This is the part of her life I feel the most connected with because I have moved across the country alone multiple times and she is the only other family member to leave the midwest like me) She was the only person on the train with a radio. So she was very popular as everyone crowded around her to hear the news about the war on her radio. She got a job as a maid for her room and board and worked for the department of censorship. And by her moving to Washington DC on her own is how she met her husband. And the story of their meeting was an actual Meet Cute! (like in rom coms)
I was always jealous!
I am going to tell the story of how they met as she had told me. She volunteered at the front desk of the YMCA. The ballroom was on the second floor. The night of the USO Presidential Ball the president and the first lady were going around town to all the birthday balls being thrown around town. Now back then buildings were not ADA accessible. The president could not go to the second floor ball so it was attended by the first lady and the highest ranking officer in the room rolled out the presidential cake. He led the crowd in singing Happy Birthday and he blew out the candles. He then grabbed the top candle from the cake and threw it out into the crowd. Being a tomboy she jumped up and grabbed it. And he said “I want to meet the woman who caught that candle.”
Two weeks later my grandfather proposed and she slapped him and told him to “cool off.” But in the end Mary Faith Olson and Ernest Young were married at St. James Catholic Church, August 21, 1944. So they met on January 30th and were married August 22. Which is only 8 months. Ernest moved to North Dakota from Hawaii, which honestly that has to be true love! They had 3 children, Mary Catherine, David Ernest (my dad), and Rebecca Ann.
My parent’s generation knew Mary Young as their second mother. When Mary and Ernie’s kids were growing up they were very active parents in 4H, Scouts, and more. There is a family story of making a giant paper maché buddha for a prom decoration in her basement. Long story short it was too big to fit up the stairs and had to be beheaded to get the decoration out of the house. But Mary was best known for being part of Teen Canteen. Teen Canteen ran for 30 years from 1945-1975 and the location most knew was when it was in the old Armory on the corner by the old high school (I have a story about that coming up). At Teen Canteen kids could dance and stay out of any real trouble and I just think how many kids in this town she touched through that program.
Mary and Ernie also took in foreign exchange students while their kids were in school. Shigaru Endo from Japan who went on to be a United Nations secretary for Japan and Bea Ortez from Brazil. And though you may not think it, this is one of the ways my grandma appreciated history and yet moved forward by doing better. My grandfather fought in the South Pacific and was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Hostility towards the Japanese was a mindset across America they could have bought into especially considering my grandfather's war experience. And instead they opened their home and made lifelong friends.
In 1969 she led the FIRST Fort Seward Wagon Train.
It was a family affair and she was accompanied by her husband, her children, and eventually her grandchildren, and many friends over the years.
My grandma was into cosplay before cons were trendy…. Just sayin’. From what I can find she ran the wagon train for 11 years. She was the head cook of course.
And my favorite pictures are from when Louis L’Amour joined them to celebrate the 100th anniversary and rededication of Fort Seward.
Mary kept in personal correspondence with Mr L’Amoure and helped him do research for his books.
She told me that the building wasn’t unsound, it just needed to be cleaned up so people could see its true beauty. So she went over there with a group of people (the 1883 project) and they got to cleaning. When she came back the next day the found the courthouse had been locked up to stop them. And as she told the story “I banged on the door and yelled ‘RELEASE MY VACUUM!’”
My generation all knew Mary Young as their grandmother. She took every single 4th grade student on a history tour of Jamestown for decades. It was the best day of the entire school year. She taught us about Doc Wink and local history that wasn’t in our history books. She taught us that stories of Jamestown, our hometown, were as epic as any wild west tale ever told.
And she truly was grandma to everyone. I remember one time I was at our class president’s house and I was working on the senior class float. I was in the kitchen and I looked over at the fridge and there was a family photo on the fridge with his family and MY GRANDMA!!!
And just like my grandma I was there later than everyone else and I was the only one painting the senior class float. My grandma painted floats, made cards, made buddy burners, made paper maché pinata’s, and May Day baskets. She was a lifelong creator on a level I can’t even explain. She was always always busy. There was always a project on her dining room table ALWAYS.
And there was always a friend or even a stranger at her dinner table. Growing up I Don’t remember a holiday meal without a stranger at the table. Not one holiday we didn’t have a guest. My grandma always set an extra setting at the table and she made sure to fill it. I don’t know any other person that truly embodied the work of Christ the way she did with her generosity. People others found to be problems, Mary found them good company. She had more people live with her than anyone I have ever met. There was always someone living upstairs with grandma. Even my family when we lost our home we lived upstairs and I lived upstairs the summer after my senior year when my mother moved out of town.
His prolific works benefitted from her work. And this is just one example, along with this book, this fort, and more oh how she had a far reaching impact with her knowledge keeping history alive for generations to come.
My aunt, uncle, and grandparents also once ran the Chuckwagon restaurant. Mary was the lead cook at the Chuckwagon restaurant of course.
And despite failing out of home ec she was the most amazing cook I have ever met. Cooking for you was how Mary let you know you were welcomed and loved. Her home kitchen was so small only one person could fit in it and yet she was known for feeding groups of people creating meals out of almost nothing. One story I was told was she once fed a troupe of pow wow dancers who got stuck in Jamestown because of a blizzard. She took some leftover stir fry and a pound of hamburger and was able to make a meal to feed them all. They thanked her by playing drums and singing in her front room all evening.
Mary will also always be remembered for helping save the historic courthouse. It even has a room named for her. Many people helped in that endeavor including her good friend Kate Stevenson. I am going to tell the story as she told me about the courthouse.
And lastly if you knew Mary Young you knew she was a talker. She was the most amazing talker you will ever meet. You could stop in for a couple of minutes and she would keep you for hours. I once heard a story that when people would come to get things from her from the State historical society in Bismarck they would leave someone in the car so they could say “I have to be quick, so and so is waiting in the car.” They never got out of there in under an hour. And she remembered facts in a way no one else ever could. She would tell you the soldiers left for battle on this date, it was a tuesday, and it was raining. And you could think she was just blowing smoke… but sure as shit it was a rainy Tuesday over a hundred years ago and it happened just as she said. People would come and just left a voice recorder role and let her talk on a subject and then would go verify after what she said. To say she was a human encyclopedia is actually an understatement of the century. Talking for a full day for every single fourth grade class in town about history was a perfect showcase of my grandma’s talents and how much she cared for everyone.
Mary was the most creative woman I ever knew. She could make something out of nothing. Whether it was food, or a banner, or a buddy burner. And she truly embodied the generosity of christ in how she lived and not in the scripture she could quote to justify opinion. She showcased that admiration of the past doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of it and do better now. She was also the most independent woman I ever met yet her life was completely intertwined with this community. And she showcased how we are all truly connected to the past and to each other. And one of the last honors she received was to be featured in the “Beautiful Women of North Dakota” book. THE BEAUTY OF WISDOM.