Hawley man sings for love of God, flag, country
By Vivian (Makela) Sazama
For August Frisk of Hawley (Augie, as he’s affectionately known), singing has been something he’s done since he was six years old.
“My parents knew a country school teacher in another school that asked them if I could come sing at their Christmas program. The song was Mary Had a Little Lamb,” he said. “I guess she thought I could sing, but boy was I scared!”
It would be the first in many public performances for Augie in his lifetime. More on that later.
Augie was born July 21, 1933, the youngest of four boys to Albert and Wilhelmina (Minnie) Frisk, on a farm near Hawley, where his father Albert was born.
“All four of my grandparents immigrated here from Sweden,” said Augie. “My grandfather August Frisk first farmed by Sanborn, N.D., west of Valley City, but their crops were hailed out 10 of the 11 years they were there. He and my grandmother then came here to Dale, Minn., which was east of Hawley, by oxcart and a team of oxen. My oldest aunt was born in Sweden and there were seven children total. My dad was born in 1893.”
Augie’s parents stayed on the farm where they raised their four sons.
“I remember watching my dad planting corn with a two-row planter pulled by a team of horses,” he said. “His rows were as straight as what the new tractors with their GPS can do!”
Living during the 1930s, the Dirty Thirties, was a terrible time, according to what Augie’s father told him.
“But by the grace of God we didn’t lose the land,” said Augie. “My grandmother was a Godly, praying woman. She prayed for my parents, who were going to parties and drinking. My brother Marvin died of spinal meningitis on Feb. 1, 1933, when he was 12 years old, and my parents got saved after that. I was born that July and I am so grateful that I had Godly parents.”
Augie went to country school at District 51, east of Hawley about three miles.
“We walked up hill both ways,” joked Augie. After eighth grade, he then went on to high school in Hawley where he graduated in 1951. “Bus service to school started in 1947,” he said.
He continued living and working at the farm with milk cows, hogs and chickens.
In August, 1961, Augie was sent to the train station to pick up a young lady, Thelma Riggleman, who had come from Cumberland, Maryland. to visit her former pastor, Russell Crosby and his family. Crosby was now Augie’s pastor.
“He picked me up from the train station and wouldn’t say a word all the way to Pastor’s house,” said Thelma. “He was really quiet and shy! Not anymore!”
Thelma grew up in Cumberland, called “Queen City,” which had been a military fort and is the original point of America’s first highway. Her father worked at a Celanese Corporation, which manufactured silk that was used for parachutes. “The building where he worked is a prison now,” she said.
“My parents had 14 children, I was the eighth,” said Thelma. “We were poor, but we didn’t know it! Mother made it go. I had a happy childhood. We played games like Kick the Can and Run Sheepy Run, and we never locked our doors.” All seven of her brothers served in branches of the military, three brothers fought in WWII. “We had a flag with three stars on it in our window for our brothers serving overseas.”
Of the 14 children, only Thelma and her youngest brother are left.
Before coming to Minnesota, Thelma worked in a bank in Washington, D.C. After arriving in Minnesota, she stayed with her pastor’s family helping with the children until Augie’s mother became ill, at which time she then stayed at the Frisk’s to care for her. After Augie’s mother passed, she returned to her pastor’s home. Somehow, along the way, Augie worked up the courage to begin talking with the young lady from the East Coast and on June 1, 1963, the couple were married.
“It was a hot day!” said Thelma.
The young couple lived at the farm for several years until the cows contracted Bang’s Disease.
“It caused the cows not to carry their calves to full term,” said Augie.
They then moved to Augie’s aunt and uncle’s farm nearby. Augie went to work in Fargo for Sioux Land Dressed Beef for a short time until a custodial position in the Hawley School opened up.
“I applied and they hired me,” he said. He began his work there on June 1, 1965, at age 32, and stayed there for 33 years, retiring on August 28, 1998.
After Augie’s mother passed, his father bought a trailer and moved it onto the yard of the farm. He asked Augie to return to the farm, which they did and where they raised their three children, Ron, Debra (Swenson) and Don. His father continued to live there with the help of Augie and Thelma until 1974 when his doctor told him that he needed more care. He moved into Sunnyside Nursing Home near Audubon where he lived another seven years.
“Dad had saved $60,000 over the years and was able to pay for his care there, until the last 11 months when he had to be assisted by the state. I think that’s probably what killed him,” said Augie.
After Augie retired from the school he went to work for the Beet Piler in Felton, Minn., for a few years, then went to work at the Hitterdal Beet Piler
“One Monday morning I got a call from East Grand Forks and was told, ‘We don’t need your services anymore, you don’t need to come back to work.’ Boy, that rubbed my skin the other way, but that was the way it was.”
Throughout Augie’s life changes he has continued with his singing.
“I have sung at many weddings and funerals,” he said.
He also sang many solos for the church services at their old church.
“My sister-in-law was a very accomplished pianist/organist.”
For a period of time Augie was part of a quartet.
“Pastor Crosby sang baritone, Roger and David Quam sang bass and high tenor and I sang lead,” he said. “We sang at Sunday School conventions and different churches in the area. Then the Quam boys went off to college and Pastor Crosby moved to Texas and so our quartet ended.”
Augie has sung the national anthem at three or four Red Hawk baseball games, and since 2006 he has sung both the national and Canadian anthems at the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion at Rollag, Minn.
“The head announcer asked me one year if I would do it and it’s become an annual tradition,” he said. “I sing two times a day for all four days. It gets a little taxing on my voice, but I get through it.”
Over the years Augie has been asked to sing at the Hi-Mileage events held monthly in Detroit Lakes at the Community Alliance Church. In July this year Augie was asked to sing the national anthem while several retired military members held up the American flag behind him.
“That was really special,” he said. “I love my flag and I love my America.”
Augie and Thelma now have seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Their grandson eventually bought the farm, which is now in the family for three generations. Augie continues to plant a few things in the garden at the farm.
“He wanted to plant 24 tomato plants this year,” said Thelma. “I wouldn’t let him. I can’t can anything anymore!”
Augie is 91 and Thelma will turn 91 in November.
“I love my wife and I love Jesus more than anything. Jesus said to love our neighbor more than yourself, and that’s what I want to do,” he said.