Stan's Grandfather Nils Rolfsrud was sort of a Horse Whisperer, we were always told. An excellent horse trainer, he put together working teams and was able to gently manage and calm skittish horses that others could not approach, Dad would say.
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Nils Rolfsrud
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Nils had been crippled in a cave-in at a nearby cliffside coal seam and spent his later years in a built-up shoe driving a buggy around western North Dakota, locating land that had been made available for new immigrants from Europe. Those farms now have oil rigs on them.
But until we recently turned up this photo of the Johnsrud neighbors with its explanatory headline, we didn't realize that he also trained steers (castrated bulls) for farm work.
This photo was taken in 1910. When Stan and his brothers worked on the North Dakota family farm in the 1960s, the neighbors across the road were still Johnsruds.
They all had really big tractors to work the farms by then, so the steers didn't have to work, they just walked around and put on weight.
