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By MICHELLE MCLEAN

In a North Dakota state of mind.

Larry Aasen hasn’t lived in North Dakota for more than 45 years — but his heart just won’t leave.

The public relations man-turned-author has written another book about his beloved homestate. North Dakota 100 Years Ago is a tribute, Aasen says, “to honor the pioneers.”

“They did an impossible thing,” noted Aasen, 85, himself the grandson of immigrant homesteaders who “broke the sod and stayed.” 

Aasen’s latest book is the seventh in a series — of sorts. The common thread in all of them is “North Dakota.” From his boyhood tale of My Friend the Pig to a visual love letter Images of America: North Dakota, it’s obvious where Aasen heart lives.

Much of what Aasen shares in his books are the personal, and very emotional, ties he has to the state. His rich resources include 42 diaries his mother Clara wrote.

Clara Brenden Aasen’s lifetime spanned from 1880 to 1953. ‘They are a stark record of what really happened on a farm in the early days,” he son noted.

Her diaries logged family tidbits — “My brother Oliver Brenden left from Camp Dodge, Iowa for somewhere in France.” (April 12, 1918);  local happenings — “People’s State Bank in Hillsboro closed its doors today. The whole town is in a terrible stir.”  (April 12, 1932); and national news — “Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the United States.” (November 12, 1932)

Aasen, like his mother, reveals the  significance in the history of the “everyday.”

To tell the story of North Dakota’s pioneers, he also relied on his memories of childhood and those his 90-year-old brother Tilford. They grew up in the company of all four of their grandparents — living history. They told “interesting and lively stories,” Aasen recalled.

“When they got to the really colorful parts, they would switch to Norwegian so I wouldn’t be corrupted. So I learned some Norwegian so I would be corrupted.”

Aasen, who now lives in Westport, Connecticut, also turned to his well-stocked personal library — 107 books on North Dakota he has collected over  six decades.

North Dakota 100 Years Ago is not a history book in the traditional sense. Certainly, it contains facts and figures, dates and data but is also “attempts to show and explain what the people at the time were really like.”

Visually, the book is bursting with colorful old postcards and classic old photos. There’s room for  a little bit of everything.  The table of contents lists 25 chapters in the 116-page book and runs the gamut from “News of the Day” to “How They Spoke” to “Love and Romance.” There’s even two pages devoted to oft-told Ole and Lena jokes.

Aasen reminds readers that “Life in the Nineties” — the 1890s — was governed by a different set of rules: There was no such thing as sliced bread. No bathrooms, no running water, no electricity, no radio, no television, no daily newspaper, no telephone.

Aasen’s depiction of North Dakota sheds new light on some interesting history, including the life story of Sakakawea as told by her grandson Bull Eye. First published in 1925 in a North Dakota newspaper, it challenges some of the conventionally held history of the Hidatsa Indian who is perhaps North Dakota’s most famous Native American woman.

Of course, Aasen can’t ignore the obvious attributes of early North Dakota — farming and ranching. He provides insight into the workings of windwills and coal stoves. He touches on the institutions that gave North Dakota its foundation — schools, churches, banks, transportation, medicine, communication.

He found room for lutefisk and lefse recipes as well as “words of wisdom” — Prosperity makes friends; adversity tries them.

To check his facts, Aasen turned to friends back home — Hillsboro residents Jerry and Aagot Nysveen, Pat and Bob Woods and Harry Eisenbeis. He welcomed their opinions on his writing.

Perhaps the most appealling thing about Aasen’s book is it reads like he’s telling the story in person. It’s just a pleasant conversation with a fellow North Dakotan.