Richard Bostwick Reminiscences

Home Page

Welfare Office Stories
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Cab Driving Stories
Introduction
The Way It Was - 1930
The Gambler And His Gal 1927
The Last One To Know 1926
Just A Couple Of Hustlers 1925
Cash On Delivery 1923
One Born Every Minute 1923
Fun Is Where You Find It 1923
An Ace In The Hole 1922
And A Little Child Shall…
Gold Tooth Murphy
Aiding And Abetting 1929
Buried Treasure 1927
The Good Samaritan
Just A Country Trip
The Prodigal Son
Occupational Hazard
Four Bags Full
Overtime Pay
Above And Beyond The Call
Fourth Down And Ten
Let There Be Light
Take It Or Leave It
Double Or Nothing
Bandit
The Champ
Three Of A Kind
My Silent Big Spender
N.P.R.R. (Northern Pacific Railroad) Mr. Moody

Extras

Prohibition Stories
A Little Competition
Some Did Burn
Last Words

A Journey into Memory

Reminiscences allow the present generation to take a journey into memory, whether our own memories or those of someone else in a different time and place. Richard Bostwick's reminiscences do just that. They take a reader back to an era we only read about in history books or hear about from our parents or grandparents. Bostwick's reminiscences gave his family, according to granddaughter Angie Weber-Morris, “a sense of getting to know Grandpa all over again. There are so many things that now made sense, so much I did not know before.”

The 1934 Fargo City Directory listed the Bostwick family as living at this house, 623 7th Ave. N., Fargo, N.D. (FH 153-05)

That Richard Bostwick was a very perceptive person is very evident in his writings. He seemed to be keenly aware of his surroundings and the events that transpired, together with the ability to write them down in great detail. His reminiscences make for good history, providing rich, personal detail at the human level. In short, he was a good story teller. Today, you the reader are the beneficiary of his memory journey.

In conclusion, we can only offer the advice of his granddaughter, “So please, take this and read them, share them, enjoy them. If you've already read them, then read them again. Pass them on to anyone you can think of that would enjoy them. I set out to give a gift, but actually got one myself—the gift of knowing that Grandpa is still with me, and that if I can just remember that when I need comfort, I have truly been blessed.”

Further Reading
To learn more about Fargo and North Dakota during the 1930s Depression, may we suggest the following:

Danbom, David B. Going It Alone: Fargo Grapples with the Great Depression. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, c2005.

This 1930s Depression history focuses on how the City of Fargo struggled to survive problems it could not solve itself and how federal policies and programs played out in a community of people who's culture was self-sufficiency and independence.

Danbom, David B. Nostalgia isn't What We Used to Be: the Great Depression in Fargo in Memory and Reality. [Bismarck, N.D.]: North Dakota Humanities Council, 1999.

Hudson, Lois Phillips. Reapers of the Dust: a Prairie Chronicle. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984.

Low, Ann Marie. Dust Bowl Diary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

Stock, Catherine McNicol. Main Street in Crisis: the Great Depression and the Old Middle Class on the Northern Plains. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

Tweton, D. Jerome and Daniel F. Rylance. The Years of Despair: North Dakota in the Depression. Grand Forks, N.D.: The Oxcart Press, 1973, [1974]