Uncle George

George, circa 1905

Next in line in the family was I think my uncle George, maybe Lawrence was next, I am not sure at this point. Uncle George carries with him an air of mystery. From what I heard from my mother and other relatives he was afflicted in his early years by epilepsy, and he had what was termed “convulsions” as a baby. What the term really signified I don’t know. This facet of his life was well known and talked about. But there was some other secret of which my mother, my aunt Laurine, [and] my sister Vivian knew that was never discussed. Doubtless other members of the family also knew. What this secret was is forever hidden, all the persons who knew are now dead.

I speculate that it might have been something of which the family was concerned that it mot be known to members of the Swedish community. Was it connected with the one term he spent at Gustavus, a disastrous affair romantically, an overt expression of homosexuality? Was it possibly that he was not the child of Emma and Jonas at all but of relatives and illegitimate? Was he perhaps the child of my grandfather but not my grandmother? The Peterson family were a group of persons who developed gray hair, even white hair early in their years. Uncle George didn’t. In life he was an unkempt, often unshaven shambling figure with a shrunken face and rather claw-like hands. He died sometime in his 50s and I was amazed when I viewed him in his coffin as it stood in the parlor at my grandmother’s house. His dark hair was neatly combed and facially he was much better looking than his brothers Lawrence, Serenus and Milton, who ranged in appearance from really odd in the case of Serenus to mundane in the case of the other two. He didn’t look like a Peterson male at all.

During his early life on the farm he was sickly but he did at times participate in the farm labor. I suppose he finished the eight years in country school and as I mentioned he did attend Gustavus briefly. He accompanied the rest of the family when they moved off the farm and lived the rest of his life as more or less a recluse in my grandmother’s house. He did the gardening around the house, mowing the lawn and tending to some chickens in the barn at the rear of the lot. Toward the end of his life I think he stopped mowing the lawn, uncle Carl took over; I have a vague recollection of being assigned the task of mowing the lawn by uncle Carl.

As I have written uncle George spent a good share of each day in his bedroom adjacent the sleeping porch in the upstairs of my grandmother’s house. At mealtimes he would not join the rest of the family at the kitchen table (or the dining room table when guests were present). Instead he would come down to the kitchen, pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot that was always on the stovetop and have a crust of bread. He was very thin and I suspect suffered from malnutrition. Maybe that was what eventually caused his death in his mid-50s. There are some pictures of large family gatherings in which he appears, but as a rule he shunned the company of anyone even close relatives. Occasionally when one of his minister brothers visited they would spend some time with him. Counseling? My sister Vivian has said that my uncle Carl treated him without compassion. Typical of the brusque manner oftentimes of my namesake uncle.

I can recall the day my uncle George died. It was during the summer and for some forgotten reason I wan on the scene at my grandmother’s house. Uncle Carl had left the house to go to the post office. Why was he not off doing his farm tasks? I don’t know. Maybe the family realized that my uncle George was in extremis and uncle Carl had stayed in Gowrie. Anyway I was standing outside the side door to the house and my aunt Laurine came out of the door quite distraught and conveyed the news that uncle George had died. How she knew I am not sure. She asked me in a peremptory way to go and find my uncle Carl. I was minded not to go, after all he had only gone to the post office and would doubtless be back shortly. Which he was as I made the first steps toward downtown. What transpired after that I don’t recall. After the funeral as the relatives and family friends were having the inevitable coffee hour after the cemetery service, my uncle Carl sat in the chair he habitually occupied on the wide front porch of my grandmother’s house in morose solitary silence. Maybe ruing how he had treated his brother in life and was not feeling pangs of remorse.

As a young boy I recall being at my grandmother’s house along with my mother (as perhaps after a meeting of the missionary society when I had been required to attend the junior missionary group) and I would be gently asked to go and play checkers with my uncle. Which I invariably did. I must have played a lot of games with him over the years. He typically won. I recall vaguely that the set of checkers had one piece missing which had been replaced by a button. Where did we play? I cannot remember. Was it on a table in the bedroom? It was in the bedroom that I first saw a pair of nail clippers. My uncle George used them on one of his misshapen fingernails. In the household of my parents, the implement used was always a pair of scissors. I recall having my father ask me to cut his fingernails. He was not at all dextrous with his hands and could not do the job himself. Vincent says that he took played checkers with my uncle George. At a certain age I no longer did. I can recall being told that my uncle George had told my mother that I had stopped playing the game his him. In a wistful way.

What is my reaction now to my uncle? His life was a tragedy in part because of his physical history and disability but also because of the whole milieu of the Peterson household. Did he have the fervent Lutheranism of his siblings? He never showed evidence of it as did his brothers and sisters. In any psychological study of the Peterson family he would play a significant part because of the mystery that surrounds him.