Letters to Sweden

[At this point, my father diverged from the contents of his handwritten notebook. For the next 24 pages, he inserted new material before picking up the narrative from the notebook. —LS]

I have been transcribing the first notebook which I wrote detailing the events of my life. At this point instead of continuing I shall digress. Up to this point I have pretty much limited myself to my father’s side of my family. I will next consider my mother’s side of our family. I have mentioned the relative dearth of material about my father’s life, especially his early life. The situation regarding my mother’s life is quite different. There are a lot of written records dealing with the doings of the Peterson family.

First of all there is the account that my mother wrote about the life of my grandmother. Although this account was directed at my grandmother it contained much general material about the whole family.

My brother Verner on a trip to Sweden visited some of the Peterson and Seashore relatives and he learned of the existence of letters written by my grandparents to relatives in Sweden dating from the 1870s and 1880s. Included in these was the first letter my grandmother wrote to Sweden after arrival in the United States. I wrote to the relative that Verner had visited and he very generously furnished me with copies of quite a few of these letters — not the originals but his recasting of them in more modern Swedish.

My aunt Laurine who was at that time living in retirement in Friendship Haven in Fort Dodge translated the letters I received from my Swedish relative into English. Although she did most of the translating she received some help from my aunt Dagmar (my uncle Lawrence’s wife) who was also at that time residing at Friendship Haven. I think one or two letters were translated by Ruth Strand (the wife of my father’s cousin Olger Strand).

Clarence, Later in Life

Back to my father. He continued working at the county treasurer’s office during the war. In 1947 my parents moved back to the little brown house. About the same time he left the treasurer’s office and started to work full-time at the Johnson Lumber Company (his long-time second job). I happened to be back in Iowa at the time and I was out in the barnyard and my uncle Carl stopped to chat with me. I told him that my father had quit at the treasurer’s office. He scowled as if to say “What’s next?” I then told him that my father would be working full-time at the lumber company. I think he grunted. He did not have a very high opinion of my father and I don’t think that he realized that my father was more highly regarded in the community than he himself was. My uncle had many good traits but he was not introspective enough to examine himself and notice his deficiencies.

Although business was good in the early post-war years for the Johnson Lumber Company I think the reason my father was given a full-time job was so that his Social Security payment would be higher after he retired. Which he did after a few years. He ten spent him time gardening around the little brown house and growing field corn in what used to be the pasture for our cow. He developed Parkinson’s disease and in the later 1950s was pretty much housebound. Though he and my mother did make a trip out to California to visit me in my Seaview house. He was still fairly active at the time and used his time to grub out some berry vines on my lot. I still have the spade he (or I) bought for him to use. It was the longest trip away from the state of Iowa that he made during his lifetime. During the visit I drove down to San Diego for them to see Marold and Jeanne — Marold was then in the Navy.

Roosters and Eggs

When I was first composing this account of my life, Jean and I soon left on a trip to the Bay Area and Sacramento over a Thanksgiving holiday. We left Ashland and the Saturday preceding the holiday and spent the first night of our trip with Jean’s longtime friends, Milton and Tillie Peterson in Petaluma. When we woke up on Sunday morning we heard some roosters at the house across Magnolia Avenue from the Petersons’ house and the roosters were crowing away.

I remarked to Jean that it reminded me of the roosters I would hear crowing as I lay in bed early on a summer morning in the house on the Peterson farmstead. The roosters in Petaluma were only at the house across the street from the Petersons’ but in the farm they would be not only at our home, but also at the neighboring farms that were close enough so that a rooster call could be heard. First a rooster at our home would crow, then at the old Woodard place adjacent to us, then at the Will and Annie place just across the road, then at the Vic Telleen farm a quarter of a mile to the ear, then perhaps at some more distant farmstead. Then the sequence in the same order would be repeated.

The crows we heard at Petaluma were apparent by bantam roosters (we learned later) and they seemed like the crowing of young roosters and not like the full-bodied cock-a-doodle-doo of a full-grown rooster. As I lay reminiscing with Jean I recalled also how the hens we had were not cooped up during the day but were allowed to run loose around the farm buildings and the adjacent areas. They would on occasion find out-of-the-way places to lay eggs (rather than in the nest in the chicken house). It was the duty of my younger brothers, Marold and Verner, to try to hunt out these nests and to garner the eggs from them. Usually as I recall to the less than complete satisfaction of my mother.

Milton Peterson, like his father before him, was in the business of egg production. He housed his hens in several large henhouses and the hens laid the eggs in nests in the henhouses. On the visits Jean and I made to the Peterson farm I would accompany Milton on his chores attending to the chickens and see him “candling” the eggs before putting them in the cases in which they were marketed. Later on when the practice developed to keeping the hens in individual cages, Milton left the egg business — he couldn’t stand to have the hens cooped up that way.

To provide income for his family, he bought into the junk business and there he spent the rest of his working career. As a junk dealer he became a collector of the various devices for candling eggs and also of small gasoline engines. He stored the gasoline engines (and there were a lot of them) in one of the buildings that used to house his hens. I think he intended at one time to spend his retirement years in repairing the engines and to get them running again. He never did. He developed Alzheimer’s disease and died before he ever started. According to Tillie, his wife, the last time I inquired about them they were still sitting in the henhouse. Somewhat their two children will have to dispose of them; Tillie is of no mind to do so. The egg-candlers he stored in the basement of their home — I don’t know what has happened to them. Milton was a tall rangy fellow; Tillie was rather short and stout. Jean had known her from college days at UCB [Berkeley]. Milton had been in the South Pacific in WWII but he never talked about it.

"Sick Headaches"

My father suffered from what he called “sick headaches.” These might come on at any time and I think either slowly or abruptly. Usually they developed in the latter part of the day. The headache could be accompanied by an upset stomach and vomiting. His remedy for the headaches was first of all absolute quiet and the having his head bound with some sort of towel or wrapping, after the application of Musterole to his forehead. He would then want to rest with no disturbance. The headaches would not persist overnight.



Musterole

I have been subject to somewhat the same kind of headache but not as severely as my father was and I have never resorted to the head wrapping and the Musterole. My father would also take several aspirins and this latter plus a period of quiet was my personal remedy when I had this kind of headache. My experience was that I could usually detect the possibility of a headache occurring, and if I caught it soon enough by a couple of aspirins it might be avoided. Any relaxing of tension would also aid in the avoidance.

The occurrence of these headaches has become less frequent as I have become older, and I think this was the pattern with my father also. In fact, I can recall only once when I had this kind of headaches since we retired to Oregon. It occurred when Vincent and Jean visited us and we were driving down to leave them with Marold and Jeanne. Somewhere around Atascadero it reached the point that they left me to spend the night at a motel and Jean drove on with Vincent and Jean to Marold’s, She picked me up the next morning and I was all right by then. Occasionally I still feel the early symptoms but a couple of aspirins handles the situation. This may occur 3 or 4 times a year.

In later years my father decided that his headaches were somehow connected with having oatmeal for breakfast (oatmeal up to then being one of his favorite breakfasts). From that time on he eschewed it. Whether this was just a coincidence or a real cause/effect relationship I have no idea.

Our daughter Palma is subject to what is termed migraine headaches. Perhaps that is what afflicted my father and then me. I am aware of no other of my offspring having this difficulty. Palma has connected her getting these headaches with her eating chocolate, either as such or in food. I don’t know for sure but perhaps she avoids other foods also.

Of Roll-Top Desks

As I have mentioned earlier my father had a toll-top desk which he had acquired before his marriage. In the little brown house it first stood in sort of a nook at the west end of the sun room. Later when the formers for the two upstairs bedrooms were completed it was moved into the boys’ bedroom where it stood until the move to the farm. On the farm it was in a small room off the living room, which I understand was the bedroom for my grandparents. After my mother died and my father’s estate was settled my brother Vincent acquired the desk and it has followed him in the various [moves] he has made since he moved off the farm property he owned.

I have always had a hankering for a roll-top desk but it is one aspiration that will never materialize. While I was working in San Francisco after the transfer from Wilmington there was on the ground floor of the Shell building where I worked an office supply place called Gunderson’s Office Supply. There I bought an office-size desk and it has followed me ever since. By the time we were here in Ashland the desk had become sort of shop-worn and I refinished it. Will it stay with me when or if we leave Mountain View? Who knows?

Food Preferences

One of my father’s likings in the way of food was the pancakes my mother made for him for breakfast. I’m sure it was a carryover from what my grandmother had served to him in his youth. He liked to have them with sugar and cream and it is the only time I have ever encountered this way of serving pancakes. It is because of this idiosyncratic habit that I think it was a carryover from his childhood. He also like molasses, not corn syrup, with his pancakes.

Popcorn was another thing he liked and occasionally we would have popcorn at home on a Sunday afternoon. I can still see in my mind the corn popper we used — sort of a black sheet metal box with a top that would slide open and a long handle. The popcorn would be popped on the top of the kitchen range, the popper being moved back and forth across the top of the stove during the process.

Generally my father was a meat and potatoes man. He ate whatever my mother prepared but I think he tolerated vegetables rather than liking them. He liked bread. Somewhere in his earlier life he developed a liking for oysters, and oyster soup was one of his favorites. Seafood was not a very important part of the family diet. My mother did use canned salmon and to this day salmon loaf (at least the way she prepared it) is one of my favorite dishes. I like fresh salmon but I think I prefer a good salmon loaf.

My mother could not abide the oysters. At one time during her school days at Gustavus she was at banquet where raw oysters were served as an appetizer. That turned her off oysters for life. We never had such items as clam chowder, which is one of my favorite soups (particularly the chowder at McGrath’s over in Medford). When we were still living in El Cerrito before the move to Houston, Jean’s brother-in-law, Ray Rosel, would periodically go on a clamming expedition to Stinson Beach or to Tomales Bay (both in Marin County) and he would invite me along. These were very pleasant excursions and I recall with delight early in the morning when the tide was low digging for horseneck clams. Ray would “clean” them by feeding them a diet of cornmeal for a short while and the clam meat he gave us was used by Jean in some tasty clam dishes.

So in my later life I have become acquainted with various kinds of seafood which I have come to like.

When we were living in El Cerrito one of the favorite restaurants for the whole family was Gonzalez down on San Pablo Avenue. And when I spent time in Houston after I retired as a “consultant” I became acquainted with a Mexican restaurant with the improbable name of Bertha Robinson’s. It was the best Mexican restaurant that I ever encountered.

My father also like bread and no meal for him was complete without it.

School and Church Obligations

My father liked to tell stories. I don’t remember any of these stories specifically but I do remember feeling vaguely ill at ease while he was recounting one of his stock of stories in a public situation. Probably during his Tobin College days he received instruction in public speaking. At any rate within the church membership he was called on from time to time to address a church function in some way, for example a “toast” to the sons at the annual father-son banquet. His training appeared to be mainly elocution — characteristically he had to wrote out his material carefully and he spoke from notes he probably had pretty well memorized what he intended to say. As a consequence his delivery was somewhat stilted. Characteristically for a child I usually felt a vague unease when my father was delivering one of his public speeches.

During my childhood — certainly while we were living in the little brown house and quite likely after we moved to the farm — my father was the Sunday school superintendent. In this function he presided at the opening part of the Sunday school session, at which all of the children were assembled together. At least I think all, it may have been that the very young children were not included, particularly after the new church was constructed in the early ’30s. I believe that the oldest children, those of confirmation age, were present in this general assembly. During this session there was some singing and scripture reading but beyond that I have no recollection. I recall one my father was ill or otherwise involved and my uncle Carl acted as the presiding individual. My impression of my uncle in this role was of a stern, implacable mentor, quite devoid of any sense of understanding or warmth.

My father was also involved from time to time on the boards of deacons or trustees. The former related to matter of the church services, teaching, ministry, etc.; the trustees served on matters of the church finances. He was also a member of the men’s group known as the Lutheran Brotherhood. They had monthly (evening) meetings and I seem to recall him going to these at least before the move to the farm. I think his attendance dwindled or ceased after that. It was in connection with this group that the annual father-son banquet was held. The cooking for this event was of course done by the ladies of the church. I don’t recall these from the old church building, only after the new structure was built.

As to my father’s service on the school board I don’t remember much except his going off to attend the meetings. Occasionally when new teachers were being hired they would come around to our house to introduce themselves to the school board members, trying to influence them to vote for them in the selection process. My most vivid recollection in this regard was one Archie Gerber who became the athletic coach during my high school days. He also taught algebra and geometry — not very well. I remember him coming into the classroom and opening up the test as if to familiarize himself with what needed to be covered that day. This was during the Depression and teaching positions were hard to come by, so potential hirees tried to make use of every avenue of influence they could. When Gerber came to call on my father he had gotten stuck somewhere in his car, and my father joked afterward about his muddy shoes and pant legs. It is strange that these little almost forgotten snippets of memory keep coming back to me as I write on.

A Little Bit About Clarence Strand

My father must have lived in his parental home during his bachelor days. While he was engaged as a teacher he may have been at home only during the summers. Somewhere I have a picture of a man cultivating corn and I wonder if it might have been my father during one of the summer breaks from teaching.

After my grandparents retired from the farm I speculate that my father lived with his parents in the house they had in Gowrie. While he was attending Tobin College I believe that he roomed with a family somewhere on the north side of the Des Moines [River] as it flowed through Fort Dodge. I have a vague recollection of being by the place at one time, perhaps on one of the occasional family trips there. There was a time in the mid-’30s when he was working at the county treasurer’s office and the several blizzard what we experienced for a couple of years that he stated in Fort Dodge because he couldn’t get hone. For a short time he again roomed at the same house that he had roomed at during his Tobin College days.

My father was 35 years old at the time of his marriage. He would have liked to marry my mother sooner, but though he courted her she would not accept his suit. It was only after she had gone to school at Gustavus Adolphus academy and college that, on her return to Gowrie, his continued suit prevailed.



Program page from Gustavus Adolphus College graduation event, May 30, 1916


They set up housekeeping in a rented house located on the same street as my grandfather[s house but four or five houses to the west. Both my sister Clarice and I were born in that house. Somewhere there is a picture of several [children] sitting on the steps to the front porch of a house and I believe that my sister is one of them. However it was not long after that my parents purchased the little brown house. The previous owner was the Albert Blomgren who later resided to the north of my grandfather Strand and through whose lot we children would walk when we went from the little brown house to my grandfather’s.



Clarice (left) and friends on the front porch of Clarence and Naomi’s rental house, circa 1919

One of my father’s dreams was to be “his own boss.” This dream was never realized. I guess he chafed all the years he spent working for someone else. I think this could be interpreted as a desire to be back in the work relationship on the farm in his early years. He certainly exhibited over the years they lived in the little brown house (both before and after the time the family spent on the Peterson farmstead) a liking for gardening activities, In this he was perhaps responding to my mother’s interest in gardening. My father had a particular interest in trees. Along the south side of the little brown house he planted three basswood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilia trees. At other places in the yard there were various fruit trees. In his later years he became interested in oak trees and on trips to Dolliver Park he would pick up acorns that he would take home and plant. I attribute my own liking for trees (both bonsai and in their natural state) to the example my father set.

How well he would have succeeded as a farmer I can only guess. He would certainly have worked diligently and pursued a more responsible and practical financial course that his brother Reuben. On the other hand he was quite inept mechanically and farming entails a certain exposure to various kinds of mechanical equipment. At the little brown house he did some carpentry jobs (for example he constructed a workshop table for himself in the barn). But the workmanship on it was rather crude and not nearly up to what my grandfather would have turned out. He was simply not very good with tools. He also was not very good with mechanical devices. This ineptitude was shown by his approach to driving a car. His concept of shifting gears was to move the gear shift lever in the general direction required in a forceful manner, ignoring the resultant clashing of the gears.

Reading Material

I would tend to describe my father as somewhat of a dreamer, constrained by the circumstances of his upbringing and later by the demands of marriage and parenthood to a life of diligent labor. He liked to sing although as he sang tenor, his ability to master the high notes was a limitation. In this he exhibited a liking for music, as also evidenced by his acquiring a Victrola during his bachelor days. Probably also during this period of bachelorhood he acquired a set of encyclopedias and a multi-volume set of books called Ridpath’s History of the World. These were during my childhood housed in the two lower shelves of the bookcases on the north side of the partition between the dining room and the parlor of the little brown house. As children we used the encyclopedias in our school studies and on occasion looked through the volumes of Ridpath’s History. The latter was noteworthy for some particularly gruesome scenes as I recall.

My father was also intrigued by faraway places and had he been able to do so, would have been delighted to travel. To take place of this yen he was a long-time subscriber to the National Geographic magazine and I believe he kept up his subscription even during the darkest days of the Depression in the 1930s. My earliest recollection of this file of National Geographics was in a bookcase adjacent his roll-top desk (also dating from his bachelor days) which stood in a corner of the bedroom that Vincent and I used in the little brown house. As children we were permitted to look at these magazines — my favorites were a couple of issues which were pictorial compendiums of both wild and domesticated animals. While these magazines were in the bookcase they were neatly arranged. Later on I recall seeing them in a small cupboard in the bedroom shared by my sisters in the little brown house (after my parents moved back to Gowrie from the Peterson farmstead and during a visit by me back to Gowrie) in a state of random disorder.

After the death of my father the file of magazines was donated to the library of the Gowrie school — a fitting end for them after his many years of service on the local school board.

I think that my mother was acquiescent in my father’s subscribing to the National Geographic during the Depression days. However, my father also subscribed to a church publication, detailing I think what transpired at the periodic meetings of the Augustana Synod. I believe the latter was a quarterly publication. My mother was somewhat acerbic as to the value of this subscription thinking, probably correctly, that my father didn’t read them and never would. Though he did religiously keep and preserve them. Where these were kept I don’t remember.

Clarence Strand's Education and Vocation

I turn now to a consideration of what I know about the life that my father lived. In comparison to what I know about the life in my mother’s parents household and farm (in part because of the account my mother wrote of my grandmother Peterson’s life history) but also because of the contacts I had with my grandmother and my aunts and uncles on the Peterson side of my family, who related occasional bits and pieces about what transpired in the early times on the Peterson farm, I know very little about my father’s life up to the time of his marriage. I have the vague impression that my grandmother tended to be somewhat protective and possessive of her two children and this may have restricted my father’s breaking away from the family household — although apparently he ventured further afield than did his brother Reuben.

In the 1910 census record he is listed as a schoolteacher (Reuben was listed as a farm hand) and this may have been the period when he taught in the country schoolhouse in the vicinity of my grandfather’s farm. The vague impression I have is that this schoolhouse was located to the south and west of the farm. It may have been called the Bliss school district. I also have the vague feeling that when my father attended the country school he went to for eight years that there was a teacher who inspired him to continue his schooling.

At any rate he decided to attend Tobin College in Fort Dodge — what the character of this school was I don’t know precisely but it probably included what would be considered high school at that time but might also have included college level instruction.


Tobin College

It must have been at Tobin College that he learned the art of bookkeeping — I don’t know where else he would have learned bookkeeping. He also may have received instruction in teaching practices since in addition to teaching in country school he was apparently the superintendent of schools in the little town of Otho in Webster Country (located south and east of Fort Dodge in the vicinity of the Des Moines River) at one time. I suppose that there might be some possibility of finding out when he did his teaching from records in Fort Dodge but I have not pursued this possibility.

Some time in his early years he was bookkeeper, and perhaps he had other duties, at the Farmers Elevator Co. in Gowrie. I don’t know when he made this change but it may have been lose to the time of his marriage. The rationale for the change is not clear since my impression us that he earned $175 per month at the elevator whereas the pay at the bank was $125 per month. My brother Vincent says that my father left the elevator because his disliked the favoritism shown at the elevator to some of the supervisory personnel.

Four Generations

During the Depression times were hard for farmers in the Gowrie area so certainly Uncle Reuben had reason to complain. However, his various in-laws on the Telleen side of his family (Aunt Agnes as I have mentioned was one of the Telleen clan) included at least six local farmers who apparently rode out the Depression without taking advantage of their parents or their siblings the way Uncle Reuben did.

So my grandfather died on a rather unhappy note. At 18 years of age I was perhaps only beginning to appreciate him but in retrospect I have come to regard him as a gentle, jovial man caught in the end in a web of circumstance not of his own making.

In the 1910 census (I think it was the census for that year) my great-grandfather is listed as a member of the household of my grandfather. He must have been well along in years at the time. Somewhere I have a photograph of four generations of Strands – my great-grandfather, my grandfather, Uncle Reuben and my cousin Leonard. So my great-grandfather was still living when my oldest Strand cousin was a young boy.


Leonard, Reuben, John Emil, and Anders Peter