Ida Hoge

Ida Hoge, 96, Baldwin, died January 6, 2009. Services will be held at 10:30 am Saturday at First Lutheran Church, Bismarck, with Rev. Allen Wagner officiating. Burial will be held in Sunset Memorial Gardens, Bismarck.Visitation will be held from 3:00 pm until 9:00 pm Friday at Eastgate Funeral Service, with a prayer service beginning at 5:00 pm. Visitation will also be held from 1:30 pm until 2:30 pm Friday at St.Vincent’s Care Center, Bismarck. Visitation will continue one hour prior to services at the church. When we think of our Mom, we see her working and yet graceful hands. We think of her strength, her love, her sense of history, and her faith. We think of our Mother’s hands as a 9 year old child holding the horse reins as she picked up the neighbor kids and drove them to school along with her sister and brother in a horse drawn buggy. She also loved to ride and gallop her horse, Topsy.Driving a car was a favorite for Mom. When her Grandmother was ill, Mom was in the car with her dad who stopped the car, asked Mom to get behind the wheel and so she learned to drive. This important skill placed Mom in the position of the family driver when doctor visits were needed, grocery shopping, or visiting the neighbors.We can see Mother’s hands as a young woman as she loved to dance. On Saturday nights, Mom danced with my brother, sister, and I on the newly cleaned and waxed kitchen floor to the music of the Grand Ole Opry. I can feel her hands as a young mother as she touched our faces. Mother cooked, cleaned, gardened, canned our food, washed our clothes in a gas powered wringer washing machine. Mom milked cows, tended to her chickens, and raised a huge garden.In later years, Mom couldn’t wait to pack the suitcases for trips she and Dad would take. Mother’s joy in life was watching over our Dad, her family, her grand-children, and her great grand-children. I don’t know a single person who worked harder without complaining than our mother whose small, ‘once’ straight fingers were always busy working. I believe that my Mother, in her own unique way created a legacy which you could see in her hands.Our Mom’s strength came through in the strength of her hands because of the very hard life that farming in North Dakota has been for the past 10 decades. North Dakota is referred to by some as “The State That Works”, a “working man’s state”, and Mother was no exception. Physically & mentally, her strength also come through in her fulfillment of ideas for moving forward on the farm. She led her life as a positive thinker. Mother knew that saying you wanted to be a farmer and being a farmer were two very different things. “It sounds better than it is” she would sometimes say. She realized later in life that there would probably be a better life for any of her grand-children than farming. As an act of love, Mother would always impose her will, encouraging her grand children to do better than herself. I believe Mother truly wanted better for others and more for others than she herself had accomplished in her own great life. My Mother’s family is made up of 4 adult kids, ten grandchildren, and 18 great grandchildren. All of the family can thank our Mother and Father for the infamous phrase “the farm” located north of Bismarck North Dakota. All have used “the farm” with embellishing stories of pride. Why? Of course, the farm has always been something to be proud of for its grandeur and beautiful rolling hills near the great Missouri River, but more, because key figures in the family all lived in the area. Family, and family history, meant something important to our mother as it did with our father. My Mother’s family history is something that will be treasured for generations and generations to come. She worked and watched and encouraged as the farm grew from 300 acres to over 16,000 acres at one time and a cattle number of 12 that grew to a herd of over 2300. She often said, “Farming is like a team of horses. We must pull together or we’ll have nothing.” In Mom’s later years the Dairy Queen Strawberry Sundae, The Wilton Leader, Highway 36 News on Thursdays became important, but the activity on the farm was always first on her mind. We are all proud of Mother as a model of faith. All farmers and farm families are you know. Who more than Farm families depend more directly on rain, sunshine and climate, and things out of their control to support their family? They plant seeds, pray for good harvests, and repeat the process year after year after year after year after year all because of their faith. Survivors include: sons: Donald Hoge of Baldwin, Richard Hoge of Baldwin; daughters, Helen Richard Hubbard of Sundance WY, Jeanne Dennis Bergren of Park Rapids MN; ten grandchildren in various places in the United States; 18 great grandchildren; her sister Myrtle Olson of Moorhead MN; her brother Helmer Magnuson of Bismarck. Preceding her in death, her husband of 46 years, Paul; her mother and father, Oscar and Anna Magnuson; her brother, George Magnuson and her great grandson, Eric Bergren.

Ida Hoge

March 18, 1912 - January 6, 2009