Serenus Peterson

I guess uncle Serenus is next in line of the Peterson children. In my opinion he was the least capable, the least intelligent and the least physically attractive of all the children. Even uncle George had a certain class to himself, uncle Serenus had none. I believe that his birth was the most difficult of those that my grandmother had. As I wrote about my grandfather he tried to get the doctor in Callender to come but he wouldn’t and the experience turned off my grandfather from doctors thereafter, not that he had much use for them even before.


Serenus, Edith, and Eugene

Doubtless his early years were the usual ones in the Peterson household. He probably finished the eight grades in country school but unlike his siblings (most of them at least) did not continue at Gustavus. Amongst the letters my uncle Carl received while at business school in Des Moines there is one or two from Serenus, then quite young.

After my grandfather died and the family moved into Gowrie, he stayed on the farm and perhaps in conjunction with my uncle Carl farmed the Peterson acres. By then he had married Edith Anderson, who was about his age and grew up on a farm about a mile east of the Peterson farm. I recall my mother telling of riding home from Gowrie after a Luther League meeting with him and Edith, she being left off at the farm and Serenus continuing on with Edith as a part of his courtship.

As a farmer he had dreams of becoming a breeder of purebred hogs. In line with this he had the hoghouse constructed and also a sort of sales pavilion next to it. The whole operation was underfunded and amateurish and my impression is that it soon collapsed. He then got the idea that he was destined for the Lutheran ministry like his brothers. He had no high school or college education so was unqualified on that basis but I surmise that this was overlooked by the synod by the intercession of uncle Laurence and uncle Milton.

After leaving the farm he went to Texas for a couple of years. What he did there is rather unclear. Did he work on the farmland that my uncle Carl had in Texas? Did he attend SMU in order to make up for his lack of education? At any rate he appeared to soon thereafter begin his seminary training in Rock Island. Our family visited them during this period. We drove in the Essex from Gowrie and I suppose spent several days with them. I have two recollections of the visit. I slept with my cousin Eugene and I remember lying in bed before I went to sleep listening to the unfamiliar noises of the city. The other recollection was our being taken to some sort of exhibit funded by a Palmer chiropractic firm, the details of which are now very vague to me.

After my uncle’s ordination and because it was during the Depression he had some difficulty receiving a “call” to serve a congregation. He finally received a call under somewhat peculiar circumstances in Fargo, North Dakota. The previous pastor thought that the call was not legitimate and declined to leave the post. Very messy and I think typical of my uncle Serenus. Maybe when the congregation saw what they were getting they wanted to back out. I don’t know how the imbroglio was resolved. Later on he was minister at congregations in Fresno, California; Denver, Colorado; and Mason City, Iowa (his last congregation). I would say that he functioned in a manner consistent with Lutheran practices, but that he was an uninspiring leader.

When uncle Serenus’ family visited Gowrie (rather rarely) they would not stay at my grandmother’s house but rather in the pink brick Stenholm house where one of Edith’s sisters lived. The sister was married to Pete Stenholm, the International Harvester farm implement dealer, until he was drowned in an accident at an Anderson family) Edith was an Anderson before her marriage to uncle Serenus) picnic in Dolliver park. The accident took the lives of three members of the Anderson family. One of those drowned was Constant Anderson who was at the time farming the home farm a mile east of the Peterson farm. He was and up and coming farmer and had built a new barn and corn crib, the next building project being the replacement of the substandard house. After his death the farming operation was taken over by his brother Ernest who had none of the capability of his brother Constant. During my experience in the annual threshing crew I observed the lackluster character of his farming. Ernest too died a tragic death in an encounter with a bull he had.

After the last time he visited Gowrie I saw my uncle only three times. Once was the time our family visited him in Rock Island, the next time was when my sister Vivian and my aunt Laurine came to California shortly after the end of WWII. I accompanied them on the train back to the Midwest and we stopped in Denver to see uncle Serenus and aunt Edith. The last time was when Jean and I took Laurel to Ames to go to school. All I can remember of that visit was how loud my aunt and uncle spoke, I guess they were both getting quite deaf.

There was only one child in my uncle Serenus’ family, namely my cousin Eugene. As a child I envied him, he was an extrovert with a volatile personality. He went to Fresno State College, probably when my uncle was pastor at Fresno. I think his college was subsidized by my uncle Carl, either directly or by a loan. I always had the feeling that my uncle Carl favored my cousin Eugene over me even though I was his namesake.

After childhood I saw Eugene just twice. He was in the advertising business and he visited the Bay Area in regard to a campaign for one of the large beer companies. He came to our house in El Cerrito, maybe we had a meal with him, I do not recollect.

The second time was when our family was in Chicago on a sightseeing trip. We called him up and he invited out family to dinner. He was married by then and living in a high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago. We met his wife, a very short and hunched figure (quite a bit older than Eugene) who I think he met on one of his travels to various parts of the world. After she died he moved to Windsor, Ontario (actually it was earlier after he retired from the advertising business) where his wife had roots. I wrote to him once after his wife died with a question on his past but the letter came back with a note on it that he had died.

When Vincent organized a get-together of the Peterson cousins in this mid-’90s he was able to track down information on Eugene’s death. He had been a heavy smoker and I guess suffered from emphysema and heart trouble and apparently in his last days his affairs were managed by a lawyer acquaintance. At one time he entertained the idea of retiring to North Carolina somewhere but his physical debility caused him to cancel those plans. He continued to support his aging mother till she died and on her and his death bequeathed his estate to the facility that had taken care of her. I think he retained at least the outward appearance of his Lutheran faith to his death, what he actually believed I hesitate to say.

One time our daughter Palma was in Chicago and she called my cousin but it was late in the evening and she was not invited up to their apartment for a visit.