The railroad companies were the ever-present employers on the prairie for awhile, and the Thorsons moved into town and obtained jobs with the railroad as the managers of the railroad mess hall in Mead. The railroad workers ate a main meal at noon in the European tradition. Mead is a typical little agricultural town in the Midwest with a population of about 400. It was a shipping center for the crops raised on the farms and for importing the tools, machinery and supplies needed by the farmers. The whole town is probably not more than ten blocks wide.
Downtown is a couple of blocks of stores, grain elevators and churches.
In World War II a big ordnance plant was built in Mead, completely changing the economy for a few years, but it went right back to the way it had always been after the war. The Andrew Thorsons remained in Mead until their deaths and raised two sons there. They had four sons, but Thore and George both died as young boys, Thore in infancy and George at 4 from diphtheria. Dorothy recalls many visits to her grandparents in Mead. She remembers that it was her grandmother, Ingri, who really ran the beanery with her grandfather running errands as directed.