At any rate, to get back to my brothers Marold and Verner and their egg hunting duties after our move to the farm. Vincent and I were soon involved with chores that were consistent with our older age. My parents had always had a cow and chickens at the little brown house (at least as far back in time as I can recall) and these activities were increased after our move to the country.
Eventually there were four cows (or more) and these provided enough milk for the family plus cream for selling to the local creamery. My father did some of the milking but it also devolved on me, and later Vincent, to handle this chore in part. Later I think Marold and Verner were involved but this was largely after I had left more or less the farm for good.
During his older years my maternal grandfather, having stopped most of his participation in the physical labor on the farm, did keep up one physical activity, namely pumping water for the stock. The farm had two wells, the lower well being for the stock and the upper, on the back porch of the house, for domestic use. The lower well was deeper and never ran dry even during the drought years — the upper one would on occasion run dry. The pumping of the lower well was a pretty strenuous task — I can recall hardly being able to do it for very long even as a high-schooler. So as long as he did it my grandfather would have had a good bodily workout. Probably the stock in those days, with a full complement of horses for the farm work, would require quite a bit of water.
At the time of my grandfather Peterson’s death, the Peterson farm was really in excellent shape, with a modern house (indoor plumbing and electricity) and good outbuildings. For quite some years my grandfather had actually worked only a little at the farm operations, these being taken over by my uncles — particularly my uncle Carl, though uncles Lawrence and Serenus also figured significantly. Uncle George worked some despite his infirmity, but uncle Milton was really too young by the time he had departed for his schooling.
The family move to Gowrie into the house across from the parsonage after its construction was completed about 1916. This was directly after my grandfather died. The house was largely designed by my uncle Carl and generally it was a comfortable house to live in. The outside was architecturally rather unattractive. The house was built on a lot that my grandfather had bought to store the corn crop on so that it could be readily delivered to the elevator. After the move to town the buildings on the farm suffered from neglect. For a time the house was occupied by my uncle Serenus, his wife Edith and their only child Eugene or at times by renters (who perhaps at times worked for my uncle Carl).
But uncle Carl intended to devote his time and his efforts to his mechanical operations (his threshing and corn shelling projects) and later on after he got the mounted corn-picker for the Farmall tractor, his custom corn-picking. He tended to ignore the upkeep of the buildings. After our move to the farm somewhat more attention was paid to the upkeep and the farm recovered some of its attractiveness. But after my parents move back to the little brown house at the end of WWII, it again suffered from neglect and rapidly deteriorated.
At the time we move to the farm the buildings consisted of the house, the “shanty” behind it (the “summer kitchen” of bygone days), the outhouse (though the house had indoor plumbing, extensive use was made of the outdoor facility), the barn, the granary (the oldest building on the farm), the chicken house, two machine sheds, the pig house, the corn crib, and a structure to keep the rain off the threshing machine.
The pig house and one of the machine sheds were structures dating from the time uncle Serenus was on the farm and interested in raising purebred hogs. The lasted until he decided to forsake farming for the ministry. The farm buildings other than the house had been painted not long before we came on the farm, but the house was sorely in need of paint. Perhaps a couple of years later it was painted — I helped with part of the job, doing the windows.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Carl and Clarence
My uncle Carl was not a particularly congenial person though he had the interests of the family at heart I am sure. He was unmarried and had for quite some time lived in the house built for the family in Gowrie after my maternal grandfather died about 1918, driving out to the farm for his farming work each day (and actually driving back to Gowrie for lunch) until our move to the farm when he took his lunch with our family.
He was mechanically talented and physically handy and adept, both of which qualities my father lacked so there was a tension between uncle Carl and my father while my father worked for him.
During my uncle’s heyday he had three threshing rigs in operation during the summer oats harvest season. This had dwindled to just one when we moved to the farm. Uncle Carl was abrupt and critical in his remarks about the work performance of those under his guidance and this exacerbated my father’s reaction to him. The reactions of my brothers and me to uncle Carl was somewhat similar but as we had not the pride my father had and since we had the resilience of youth we reacted with discontent but less overtly.
He was mechanically talented and physically handy and adept, both of which qualities my father lacked so there was a tension between uncle Carl and my father while my father worked for him.
During my uncle’s heyday he had three threshing rigs in operation during the summer oats harvest season. This had dwindled to just one when we moved to the farm. Uncle Carl was abrupt and critical in his remarks about the work performance of those under his guidance and this exacerbated my father’s reaction to him. The reactions of my brothers and me to uncle Carl was somewhat similar but as we had not the pride my father had and since we had the resilience of youth we reacted with discontent but less overtly.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Clarence's Employment
I digressed back on page 30 [midway through the posting of April 25, 2010—LS] from transcribing what I had written about my life to a discussion of my mother’s family. I shall now return to that activity. But first I want to comment that I think the Petersons, though intelligent and diligent people, were psychologically disturbed because of the extreme religious tenor of their lives. This was I think the result of the influence of my grandmother, sweet person that she was but like steel below the surface. I think she warped the lives of at least half her offspring and colored the personalities of the rest of them.
I continue: My recollections of Verner and Marold as hunters of eggs stems of course from a time shortly after our move out to the Peterson farm, when they were quite young. The move to the farm was in response to the economic condition our family found itself in as a result of the Depression of the 1930s, and took place in the early summer of 1933. Although the Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929, it didn’t affect us in the bank where my father was employed (although doubtless the fundamentals for the local bank’s difficulty was already existing).
At any rate, my father’s salary was reduced stepwise from the $125/month he had been receiving to $50/month and finally he was let go entirely. I guess his duties as bookkeeper were taken over by the two brothers Art and Frank Lindquist who owned and also worked in the bank. Frank, the elder, was president of the bank and Art functioned as the teller. They had inherited the bank from their father Nils Lindquist, a pioneer banker in Gowrie. The bank, known at the time as the First National Bank of Gowrie, survived the Depressions (after the injection of some new capital by one of the better-off farmers in the area — one Warner Larson who actually resided about a mile north and a little west of the Peterson farmstead).
The second bank in Gowrie, known as the State bank, failed. The father of one of my boyhood pals in Gowrie worked in the other bank and he of course lost his job also.
To meet the economic difficulty of the family the decision was made to move the family to the house on the Peterson farm — the house being vacant at the time but still in usable condition. Here the family lived rent-free (the house in Gowrie being rented out to one of the local high school teachers for $15/month). Prior to the move my father worked for a time in one or another of the emergency work programs of the early FDR years and after the move to the farm he worked several summers for my uncle Carl, who at that time was farming the Peterson acres. He also spent some time working for the nearby farmers and I recall his picking corn for Carl Telleen one fall.
The money my father made picking corn for Carl Telleen during those depression years was just sufficient to pay the yearly contribution that my parents made to the church we attended. I think this was a mark of the commitment my parents had to the church and the Christian religion. Doubtless there would have been many places the money could have been used for family expenses during those lean years. One way or another the family made it through the Depression — we were never hungry or without shelter or in need of clothes. There was little or nothing for non-essentials but the basic needs were met.
Within a few years my father secured work during a few months of the year during the car licensing period at the county treasurer’s office (generally from December through February or March) and this developed fairly soon to full-time employment (certainly by the middle of 1936 and perhaps somewhat sooner). These years of the mid-thirties were pretty stressful years for my parents, but the family, in one way or another, was always clothed, housed and fed which was more than for some families during the period.
I continue: My recollections of Verner and Marold as hunters of eggs stems of course from a time shortly after our move out to the Peterson farm, when they were quite young. The move to the farm was in response to the economic condition our family found itself in as a result of the Depression of the 1930s, and took place in the early summer of 1933. Although the Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929, it didn’t affect us in the bank where my father was employed (although doubtless the fundamentals for the local bank’s difficulty was already existing).
At any rate, my father’s salary was reduced stepwise from the $125/month he had been receiving to $50/month and finally he was let go entirely. I guess his duties as bookkeeper were taken over by the two brothers Art and Frank Lindquist who owned and also worked in the bank. Frank, the elder, was president of the bank and Art functioned as the teller. They had inherited the bank from their father Nils Lindquist, a pioneer banker in Gowrie. The bank, known at the time as the First National Bank of Gowrie, survived the Depressions (after the injection of some new capital by one of the better-off farmers in the area — one Warner Larson who actually resided about a mile north and a little west of the Peterson farmstead).
The second bank in Gowrie, known as the State bank, failed. The father of one of my boyhood pals in Gowrie worked in the other bank and he of course lost his job also.
To meet the economic difficulty of the family the decision was made to move the family to the house on the Peterson farm — the house being vacant at the time but still in usable condition. Here the family lived rent-free (the house in Gowrie being rented out to one of the local high school teachers for $15/month). Prior to the move my father worked for a time in one or another of the emergency work programs of the early FDR years and after the move to the farm he worked several summers for my uncle Carl, who at that time was farming the Peterson acres. He also spent some time working for the nearby farmers and I recall his picking corn for Carl Telleen one fall.
The money my father made picking corn for Carl Telleen during those depression years was just sufficient to pay the yearly contribution that my parents made to the church we attended. I think this was a mark of the commitment my parents had to the church and the Christian religion. Doubtless there would have been many places the money could have been used for family expenses during those lean years. One way or another the family made it through the Depression — we were never hungry or without shelter or in need of clothes. There was little or nothing for non-essentials but the basic needs were met.
Within a few years my father secured work during a few months of the year during the car licensing period at the county treasurer’s office (generally from December through February or March) and this developed fairly soon to full-time employment (certainly by the middle of 1936 and perhaps somewhat sooner). These years of the mid-thirties were pretty stressful years for my parents, but the family, in one way or another, was always clothed, housed and fed which was more than for some families during the period.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Aunt Laurine
I come at last to the youngest of the Peterson children, my aunt Laurine. Again I know nothing of her early life. She was born in 1904 and the family moved from the farm to the house in Gowrie about 1915. Did she start in country school? Did she have most of her elementary schooling and her high school in the Gowrie school? Her college training was for being a teacher in the elementary grades and she taught at at least one school before ending up in the Dubuque schools.
I have the impression that she was a very competent teacher. During the years she taught in Dubuque she provided housing for my sisters Clarice and Vivian while the attended the University of Dubuque. I can recall driving the 1938 Plymouth that my father bought to replaces the old Essex along Highway 20 between Fort Dodge and Dubuque conveying Clarice and Vivian to aunt Laurine’s apartment.
Aunt Laurine was to me a person who was gone most of the year at her teaching job, coming back to Gowrie at the holidays at the end of the year and during the summer. I believe that she taught in the Bible school that was held each summer. Eventually she ended her career as an elementary teacher and became an instructor at Gustavus Adolphus as a teacher of future teachers. She bought a home in St. Peter and our family spent one night in it on our way from the Twin Cities to Gowrie. Maybe she used her inheritance from the Peterson estate when it was finally settled to buy her home in St. Peter.
Aunt Laurine was the only one of the Peterson daughters to learn to drive a car. I think it was necessary in her teaching at Gustavus. I never rode with her but I have heard from relatives who did that she was not a very good driver. However she did not have any accidents that I recall.
My mother on one occasion attempted to drive. I think my father was with her assisting her in the learning process. The account I have heard is that she ran into a cow that was occupying the roadway and that was the end of her driving career. Was the cow hurt? I don’t know. Was the car damaged? Again I don’t know.
Aunt Laurine spent her last years at Friendship Haven, a Methodist home in Fort Dodge. There may have been a buy-in fee, I don’t know. There was a monthly charge and I remember Vincent saying (he took care I think of her funds in her declining years) that she worried that her money would run out. Actually according to Vincent they were depleted just as she died at the age of about 82.
While at Friendship Haven she did for me the translation from Swedish into English the letters we got from some relative in Sweden. The relative had saved letters to Sweden written in the late 1870s and early 1880s by my grandparents. I am including these letters as an appendix to this account that I am typing.
I have the impression that she was a very competent teacher. During the years she taught in Dubuque she provided housing for my sisters Clarice and Vivian while the attended the University of Dubuque. I can recall driving the 1938 Plymouth that my father bought to replaces the old Essex along Highway 20 between Fort Dodge and Dubuque conveying Clarice and Vivian to aunt Laurine’s apartment.
Aunt Laurine was to me a person who was gone most of the year at her teaching job, coming back to Gowrie at the holidays at the end of the year and during the summer. I believe that she taught in the Bible school that was held each summer. Eventually she ended her career as an elementary teacher and became an instructor at Gustavus Adolphus as a teacher of future teachers. She bought a home in St. Peter and our family spent one night in it on our way from the Twin Cities to Gowrie. Maybe she used her inheritance from the Peterson estate when it was finally settled to buy her home in St. Peter.
Aunt Laurine was the only one of the Peterson daughters to learn to drive a car. I think it was necessary in her teaching at Gustavus. I never rode with her but I have heard from relatives who did that she was not a very good driver. However she did not have any accidents that I recall.
My mother on one occasion attempted to drive. I think my father was with her assisting her in the learning process. The account I have heard is that she ran into a cow that was occupying the roadway and that was the end of her driving career. Was the cow hurt? I don’t know. Was the car damaged? Again I don’t know.
Aunt Laurine spent her last years at Friendship Haven, a Methodist home in Fort Dodge. There may have been a buy-in fee, I don’t know. There was a monthly charge and I remember Vincent saying (he took care I think of her funds in her declining years) that she worried that her money would run out. Actually according to Vincent they were depleted just as she died at the age of about 82.
While at Friendship Haven she did for me the translation from Swedish into English the letters we got from some relative in Sweden. The relative had saved letters to Sweden written in the late 1870s and early 1880s by my grandparents. I am including these letters as an appendix to this account that I am typing.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Lillian Peterson Granquist
I come next to my aunt Lillian. Again I don’t know of her early life. Her college training qualified her as a teacher in the elementary grades. It was in this capacity that she spent some time in China as the teacher for the children of Augustana Synod missionaries. I think she returned to the U.S. because of unsettled conditions in China and she became a teacher in the nearby town of Dayton.
She used to come back to Gowrie on weekends and I remember riding along with my father after he had left work at the bank to give her a ride back. This may have lasted a year or two when she spent a year teaching sixth grade in Gowrie. My friend Howard Nelson was in that grade the year she taught. Following that she was married to Verner Granquist. I cannot remember seeing the wedding ceremony but I can recall the wedding supper afterward. The children were relegated to eating on the front porch and we could see the adults seated around the dining room table, through the wide open parlor window.
The first pastorate that uncle Verner had was a home mission congregation in southern Florida. The family used to make a trip to Iowa every two years. Later he was in charge of a congregation in Isanti, Minnesota, with the added responsibility of a small rural church. By then their three children had been born — Phoebe, the eldest and only daughter, David, and Luther, the youngest.
Lillian, Verner, and Phoebe
Phoebe, a delightful, gracious person married Arne Peterson who was in the Lutheran ministry. After raising her family Phoebe made a late career as a public school teacher.
David became a Lutheran minister and Jean and I visited his family several times. This was when he was the pastor at the historic initial first church of the Augustana synod. The church was in a semi-rural area and was having a difficult time of it with declining membership.
Luther became a lawyer and spent his career working to help welfare individuals with their legal problems. There was some sort of disagreement between him and his parents over the split between him and his wife (I believe there was some possibility of divorce) and the split may have extended to Luther’s attitude to the Christian faith. The only time I saw Luther as an adult was at the time of my mother’s funeral. He seemed to find the contact with the relatives congenial and his wife was with him so apparently any rift had been resolved.
I have mentioned that I visited my uncle Lawrence once when he was in Minneapolis. On that trip I continued on the spend a few days in Isanti with the Granquist family. Luther as I recall was quite young. Uncle Carl also came up for a visit at the same time and I remember riding on the M and St. L passenger car with him back to Gowrie. Aunt Lillian had made a lunch for us and it included a roast beef sandwich. I was not used to sandwiches of that type and was hesitant about trying them. Uncle Carl urged me to eat them and I found them quite tasty.
Aunt Lillian developed some sort of cancerous condition, maybe a deficiency of the red blood cells and died a relatively early death. She was perhaps 50years old at the time. She was born in the year 1900 and by 1948 I was in California so I have no recollection of the funeral. She is I think buried in the Gowrie cemetery.
Uncle Verner was thus left as a pastor without a wife. A wife is a needed asset for a pastor and he presently married for the second time. I believe she was some sort of worker in the Lutheran organization. I think he died before his second wife did.
Uncle Verner was a man with an engaging personality and as children he was a favorite with us. However he was a minister of rather conventional beliefs and I would say that when I grew to be an adult I would not have found him as interesting as I had as a child. The two time I heard him deliver a sermon (during my visit to Isanti) left no imprint of my mind and I suspect that the sermons were pedestrian in nature and content.
I have one recollection of uncle Verner which I shall mention. On one of the trips to Iowa while he was a home mission pastor in Florida he was delegated to give accounts of the work there to a number of congregations along the way. One of these was at the town of Boxholm not far from Gowrie. The talks were accomplished with a slide presentation and he asked me to go along with him and run the projector. What was said I have no recollection but I was there that night. We got home at about 11 o’clock which was a pretty late hour for me at the time.
She used to come back to Gowrie on weekends and I remember riding along with my father after he had left work at the bank to give her a ride back. This may have lasted a year or two when she spent a year teaching sixth grade in Gowrie. My friend Howard Nelson was in that grade the year she taught. Following that she was married to Verner Granquist. I cannot remember seeing the wedding ceremony but I can recall the wedding supper afterward. The children were relegated to eating on the front porch and we could see the adults seated around the dining room table, through the wide open parlor window.
The first pastorate that uncle Verner had was a home mission congregation in southern Florida. The family used to make a trip to Iowa every two years. Later he was in charge of a congregation in Isanti, Minnesota, with the added responsibility of a small rural church. By then their three children had been born — Phoebe, the eldest and only daughter, David, and Luther, the youngest.
Lillian, Verner, and Phoebe
Phoebe, a delightful, gracious person married Arne Peterson who was in the Lutheran ministry. After raising her family Phoebe made a late career as a public school teacher.
David became a Lutheran minister and Jean and I visited his family several times. This was when he was the pastor at the historic initial first church of the Augustana synod. The church was in a semi-rural area and was having a difficult time of it with declining membership.
Luther became a lawyer and spent his career working to help welfare individuals with their legal problems. There was some sort of disagreement between him and his parents over the split between him and his wife (I believe there was some possibility of divorce) and the split may have extended to Luther’s attitude to the Christian faith. The only time I saw Luther as an adult was at the time of my mother’s funeral. He seemed to find the contact with the relatives congenial and his wife was with him so apparently any rift had been resolved.
I have mentioned that I visited my uncle Lawrence once when he was in Minneapolis. On that trip I continued on the spend a few days in Isanti with the Granquist family. Luther as I recall was quite young. Uncle Carl also came up for a visit at the same time and I remember riding on the M and St. L passenger car with him back to Gowrie. Aunt Lillian had made a lunch for us and it included a roast beef sandwich. I was not used to sandwiches of that type and was hesitant about trying them. Uncle Carl urged me to eat them and I found them quite tasty.
Aunt Lillian developed some sort of cancerous condition, maybe a deficiency of the red blood cells and died a relatively early death. She was perhaps 50years old at the time. She was born in the year 1900 and by 1948 I was in California so I have no recollection of the funeral. She is I think buried in the Gowrie cemetery.
Uncle Verner was thus left as a pastor without a wife. A wife is a needed asset for a pastor and he presently married for the second time. I believe she was some sort of worker in the Lutheran organization. I think he died before his second wife did.
Uncle Verner was a man with an engaging personality and as children he was a favorite with us. However he was a minister of rather conventional beliefs and I would say that when I grew to be an adult I would not have found him as interesting as I had as a child. The two time I heard him deliver a sermon (during my visit to Isanti) left no imprint of my mind and I suspect that the sermons were pedestrian in nature and content.
I have one recollection of uncle Verner which I shall mention. On one of the trips to Iowa while he was a home mission pastor in Florida he was delegated to give accounts of the work there to a number of congregations along the way. One of these was at the town of Boxholm not far from Gowrie. The talks were accomplished with a slide presentation and he asked me to go along with him and run the projector. What was said I have no recollection but I was there that night. We got home at about 11 o’clock which was a pretty late hour for me at the time.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Milton family
My uncle Milton comes next in the Peterson family. He alone of the five male children attained a relatively normal life. Uncle Carl was a socially inept, psychologically disturbed individual who should have gone to Iowa state college and studied engineering. Uncle Lawrence was childless (was he sterile or was aunt Dagmar?). Or was the sexually repressed atmosphere in which he grew up the reason for their not having any children? Uncle George as I have written was a recluse for an undisclosed reason. Uncle Serenus suffered from a lack of capability as well as his obsession to be a “minister of the gospel.” Was my uncle Milton as one of the younger children in a situation to be more open to influences outside the confines of the Peterson household? He was doubtless one of the more intellectually capable children, along with uncle Carl and my mother (perhaps I should include my aunt Laurine).
Uncle Milton
Again of his early life I know little. Where did he go to school for his elementary grades, his high school, his college years? His initial goal was to study law and he went to Yale for one year. But the religious atmosphere in the Peterson household was too much for him and he was directed to ministerial training.
After a period as a pastor in Anoka, Minnesota, he returned to Augustana Seminary as a professor whose specialty was the Old Testament. I believe he had some additional schooling at a divinity school in Chicago but I am not sure. At any rate he left the seminary, I have the vague feeling that he held some moderately modernistic views that clashed with Lutheran orthodoxy and he went to a large urban congregation in the Twin Cities. Later on he returned to teaching at a Norwegian Lutheran seminary in St. Paul. Late in his career as a teacher he gave a lecture (of which I have a copy) in which in rather guarded terms he indicated that he had thoughts as to the authorship of the books of the Old Testment that was at variance with official Lutheran teaching. I speculate that he was just at the beginning of a far reaching change in his Christian beliefs. The change never occurred because he was too old and enmeshed in traditional doctrine. With his intellect it was inevitable that this would happen, given time.
He volunteered for duty as a soldier in WWI but I am quite sure that he never saw action. I recall seeing a picture of him in uniform.
He married Euphemia Swanson. She was a sister of the mother of my long time friend and acquaintance Howard Nelson. She was the youngest of the Swanson children, a late child and from what I have heard a rather pampered child. Howard’s mother was involved in this doting process. As a result she became a sort of petulant, whining sort of adult. She was the mother of five children.
John, the eldest, served in WWII, went on to get a doctorate in English and became a professor at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. His wife I believe was a high school teacher. They had one child, who according to my friend Howard led sort of a haphazard existence in the San Francisco bay area. Howard kept up with our mutual cousin over the years and the two families exchanged visits. I never saw John after the time that uncle Carl, Vincent and I drove up to St, Paul at the time of his wedding. When Jean and I took Laurel to college at Iowa state college we drove through Vermillion but for some reason did not make contact with John.
John wrote several books of short stories, based I think on his memories of the Peterson clan, particularly my uncles Carl and George. It was his interest and inquires about uncle George that I think sparked the resistance in the Peterson family to disclose the story of uncle George. The resistance first appeared in my aunt Laurine, but soon spread to other members of the family. Somewhere I think I have some of the books that John wrote.
He was a heavy smoker and perhaps this caused he relatively early death. He was the second of the Peterson cousins to die, my sister Clarice being the first.
The second of the Milton children was David. (The family surname had been changed from Peterson to Milton by my uncle so that his identity would not get lost in all the Petersons in the Lutheran ministry.) My uncle Lawrence had also changed his surname, from Peterson to Lawrence.
David was a naval officer in the 1940s, went to law school at the University of Minnesota and entered the employ of the Shell Oil Company. He rose through various assignments in the U.S., Canada, and London to become Vice-president-Tax. Shell had at the time a policy of not employing relatives but the matter never came up, perhaps because of our different surnames. In practice I think the policy was not strictly followed. I have seen David quite a few times over the years. Our family visited them when David was working in the Los Angeles area, later on we saw him while we were in Houston and on visits to see our daughter Palma in Arlington.
He had two children. The daughter led an erratic career as a teacher I believe and was supported in part at least by her parents. David was sort of semi-estranged from his son but I sense this rift has healed. David chose a town in Pennsylvania to retire to but I think his attempts to fit into the local milieu were unsuccessful and he moved back to Texas (to Austin where his son is employed).
I think that I am probably as intelligent an individual as David but I did not have that drive to control his fellow employees or the ability to take a hard line in dealing with them. Those characteristics are I think essential to succeeding in a managerial position and I think David had them. I am reminded of a conversation that I heard between a group of his siblings and in-laws. David had described how he had fired a lawyer under him for lack of performance. Roy’s wife Beverly thought the way David had done the firing was inappropriate and said so. Perhaps the firing was a correct act, I don’t know. But it was a job that I could never do. I just don’t have the mental capacity to do it.
When I was first working for Shell at Wilmington during the war, the individual who had been in charge of the lab work went to work on the Manhattan project. I was given the job. I could handle the scheduling and technical aspects of the position all right. But I could not ride “herd” as it were on the persons doing the actual work. They were young chemical engineers, just like I was, and I am sure that they thought that the work was beneath them as to their education and capabilities. Probably in a way it was. But for me with the work ethic instilled in me by the years working for my uncle Carl, one did the best one could and “toed” the line. When the work was done in what was a sloppy manner or not done at all, I was not able to exert the kind of discipline that was required. I almost quit my job at that point, taking my chances with the military but was persuaded to stay on doing other work. In a way the incident colored my future with the company. Up to that point I was probably considered management material but not afterwards. David I am sure would have been able to handle the situation. I couldn’t.
After I left chemical engineering research and began to work in Licensing and Design Engineering as a process engineer, the department head I was under at one time offered to make me a supervisor to replace an individual who was retiring. The department head was a man I had known since early days in the San Francisco office so he was well aware of my technical capabilities but I am sure he did not know about my experience at the Wilmington lab. He told me that if I took the job I would have to get some startup experience. I thought the situation over and told him that I did not want to disrupt the tenor of my life with the absence that the startup experience would entail. But in the back of my mind was the realization that I was not really capable of managing people.
Alice was the third child in the Milton family. She was a charming person. Physically she resembled he mother a lot but her disposition was always congenial and happy as contrasted with her mother. She married a Lutheran minister and she doubtless made an excellent minister’s wife. Although her husband was a success as a pastor, the few times I was with him he did not impress me.
I think I have only seen her a couple of times since childhood. These were times when we were visiting Palma. Once we were invited to Alice’s house for dinner. Her husband was trying out doing watercolors in sort of an amateurish way. I suppose that is the way I started but I at least took some classes at the college to develop the technique.
Roy was the fourth child and I think he was considered the smartest of the Milton children. After a stint as a naval officer (like his brother David) he got a PhD in Mathematics and went to work for NIH doing statistical studies. In connection with his work he has traveled rather widely, mostly to Japan but also to India. During his career he and his wife Beverly have lived for some time in Japan and Beverly has developed a talent in paper design. We have one of her works, she is quite talented. Beverly worked while they lived in Washington D.C. as an executive secretary. They have two adopted children, both girls. Beverly is a very committed Lutheran and quite conservative in her beliefs (she may have been a Missouri Lutheran in her upbringing). I’m not sure about Roy. As an intelligent individual he has probably modified his childhood beliefs. I think though the process has been slowed by the influence of Beverly. When one of the adopted daughters (perhaps both) married men of Jewish background and converted to that faith there developed a schism in the family because of Beverly’s strong Christian stance but I believe time has more or less healed the breach.
Jean and I have had contact with Roy and Beverly both when Roy was in the navy and stationed on the west coast and when he have been in Washington. We stayed overnight with them in 1977 when we made our trip around the periphery of the U.S. One of the memorable events of that visit was when they took us to see the bonsai exhibit (a gift from Japan at the time of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the country). We have revisited the exhibit on one of our visits to see Palma.
I would say that I find Roy and Beverly more appealing in their personality than David and his wife. David because of his air of having made a mark in the world of business, his wife because she has what I would term a “brittle” characteristic. Not that she is not outwardly congenial but I just feel uncomfortable in her presence. She was the daughter of a professor at the University of Minnesota. I suppose David met her during the time he was in law school there.
The youngest of the Milton children is Donald. I know least about him but I have the feeling that I would find him the most compatible of all my Milton cousins. I have only seen him once as an adult, I don’t remember him as a child at all. He came to our home on Bonnie drive at one time, perhaps in company with Roy and Beverly. Perhaps we shared a meal with him. So I don’t think I would even recognize him if I were to see him again.
He obtained a PhD in the field of philosophy (which is one reason why I think he would be more compatible than his siblings) and was an instructor in that area for a time. Then he opted out of teaching and went to work in the furniture-making business. First I believe simply as a workman, but later on progressing into management. So he likes to make things with his hands which also appeals to me. I suspect that he became disenchanted with philosophy after awhile, as I have since much of historical philosophy was developed at a time when the state of knowledge of the real world was very incomplete. As to the state of his religious beliefs I know nothing but I speculate with his background in philosophy that he has discarded much if not all of his Lutheran upbringing.
When I was a child growing up in Gowrie, the Milton family would come down from St. Paul to visit both of the grandparent families. They did not stay at my grandmother’s house however, instead they went to the Swanson grandparent’s house which was on the road at the east end of the town. So I would have contact with my Milton cousins when they happened to be at my grandmother’s house for a meal. I can’t say that I missed playing with them, they were in a different cultural and economic milieu from the Strand children.
My friend Howard Nelson remembers them visiting the Swanson house. He has written about the visits. By that time the Nelson family was living in the Swanson house, grandfather Swanson having died, and Howard’s mother keeping house for her father. Howard remembers the Milton boys as being a noisy intrusion, disturbing the tenor of his life. I can well imagine his reaction to their presence.
Once when we were visiting the Midwest we had to come via the Twin Cities because of some airline strike. Uncle Milton and aunt Faye met us on our arrival at the airport. At the time we were all set up to rent a car and drive south, stopping in St. Peter to spend a night with aunt Laurine. So we arranged to visit the Milton house on the way back. It was a congenial visit as I recall. The most vivid memory I have of our stay though was when my wallet dropped out of my shirt pocket as I was saying goodnight to Palma. It didn’t turn up until the next morning and I had spent the intervening time wondering where I had lost it and the need to replace the contents.
When Jean and I took Laurel to college in Ames, we drove north from Gowrie and after we had seen uncle Serenus and aunt Edith we stopped to see aunt Faye (by then uncle Milton had died). By then it was late in the day and thought she asked up to stay the night, I got the impression that she thought that we were imposing on her hospitality. I wished at the time that he had just excused ourselves and found a motel. I think it was just another example of her self-centeredness.
Uncle Milton
Again of his early life I know little. Where did he go to school for his elementary grades, his high school, his college years? His initial goal was to study law and he went to Yale for one year. But the religious atmosphere in the Peterson household was too much for him and he was directed to ministerial training.
After a period as a pastor in Anoka, Minnesota, he returned to Augustana Seminary as a professor whose specialty was the Old Testament. I believe he had some additional schooling at a divinity school in Chicago but I am not sure. At any rate he left the seminary, I have the vague feeling that he held some moderately modernistic views that clashed with Lutheran orthodoxy and he went to a large urban congregation in the Twin Cities. Later on he returned to teaching at a Norwegian Lutheran seminary in St. Paul. Late in his career as a teacher he gave a lecture (of which I have a copy) in which in rather guarded terms he indicated that he had thoughts as to the authorship of the books of the Old Testment that was at variance with official Lutheran teaching. I speculate that he was just at the beginning of a far reaching change in his Christian beliefs. The change never occurred because he was too old and enmeshed in traditional doctrine. With his intellect it was inevitable that this would happen, given time.
He volunteered for duty as a soldier in WWI but I am quite sure that he never saw action. I recall seeing a picture of him in uniform.
He married Euphemia Swanson. She was a sister of the mother of my long time friend and acquaintance Howard Nelson. She was the youngest of the Swanson children, a late child and from what I have heard a rather pampered child. Howard’s mother was involved in this doting process. As a result she became a sort of petulant, whining sort of adult. She was the mother of five children.
John, the eldest, served in WWII, went on to get a doctorate in English and became a professor at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. His wife I believe was a high school teacher. They had one child, who according to my friend Howard led sort of a haphazard existence in the San Francisco bay area. Howard kept up with our mutual cousin over the years and the two families exchanged visits. I never saw John after the time that uncle Carl, Vincent and I drove up to St, Paul at the time of his wedding. When Jean and I took Laurel to college at Iowa state college we drove through Vermillion but for some reason did not make contact with John.
John wrote several books of short stories, based I think on his memories of the Peterson clan, particularly my uncles Carl and George. It was his interest and inquires about uncle George that I think sparked the resistance in the Peterson family to disclose the story of uncle George. The resistance first appeared in my aunt Laurine, but soon spread to other members of the family. Somewhere I think I have some of the books that John wrote.
He was a heavy smoker and perhaps this caused he relatively early death. He was the second of the Peterson cousins to die, my sister Clarice being the first.
The second of the Milton children was David. (The family surname had been changed from Peterson to Milton by my uncle so that his identity would not get lost in all the Petersons in the Lutheran ministry.) My uncle Lawrence had also changed his surname, from Peterson to Lawrence.
David was a naval officer in the 1940s, went to law school at the University of Minnesota and entered the employ of the Shell Oil Company. He rose through various assignments in the U.S., Canada, and London to become Vice-president-Tax. Shell had at the time a policy of not employing relatives but the matter never came up, perhaps because of our different surnames. In practice I think the policy was not strictly followed. I have seen David quite a few times over the years. Our family visited them when David was working in the Los Angeles area, later on we saw him while we were in Houston and on visits to see our daughter Palma in Arlington.
He had two children. The daughter led an erratic career as a teacher I believe and was supported in part at least by her parents. David was sort of semi-estranged from his son but I sense this rift has healed. David chose a town in Pennsylvania to retire to but I think his attempts to fit into the local milieu were unsuccessful and he moved back to Texas (to Austin where his son is employed).
I think that I am probably as intelligent an individual as David but I did not have that drive to control his fellow employees or the ability to take a hard line in dealing with them. Those characteristics are I think essential to succeeding in a managerial position and I think David had them. I am reminded of a conversation that I heard between a group of his siblings and in-laws. David had described how he had fired a lawyer under him for lack of performance. Roy’s wife Beverly thought the way David had done the firing was inappropriate and said so. Perhaps the firing was a correct act, I don’t know. But it was a job that I could never do. I just don’t have the mental capacity to do it.
When I was first working for Shell at Wilmington during the war, the individual who had been in charge of the lab work went to work on the Manhattan project. I was given the job. I could handle the scheduling and technical aspects of the position all right. But I could not ride “herd” as it were on the persons doing the actual work. They were young chemical engineers, just like I was, and I am sure that they thought that the work was beneath them as to their education and capabilities. Probably in a way it was. But for me with the work ethic instilled in me by the years working for my uncle Carl, one did the best one could and “toed” the line. When the work was done in what was a sloppy manner or not done at all, I was not able to exert the kind of discipline that was required. I almost quit my job at that point, taking my chances with the military but was persuaded to stay on doing other work. In a way the incident colored my future with the company. Up to that point I was probably considered management material but not afterwards. David I am sure would have been able to handle the situation. I couldn’t.
After I left chemical engineering research and began to work in Licensing and Design Engineering as a process engineer, the department head I was under at one time offered to make me a supervisor to replace an individual who was retiring. The department head was a man I had known since early days in the San Francisco office so he was well aware of my technical capabilities but I am sure he did not know about my experience at the Wilmington lab. He told me that if I took the job I would have to get some startup experience. I thought the situation over and told him that I did not want to disrupt the tenor of my life with the absence that the startup experience would entail. But in the back of my mind was the realization that I was not really capable of managing people.
Alice was the third child in the Milton family. She was a charming person. Physically she resembled he mother a lot but her disposition was always congenial and happy as contrasted with her mother. She married a Lutheran minister and she doubtless made an excellent minister’s wife. Although her husband was a success as a pastor, the few times I was with him he did not impress me.
I think I have only seen her a couple of times since childhood. These were times when we were visiting Palma. Once we were invited to Alice’s house for dinner. Her husband was trying out doing watercolors in sort of an amateurish way. I suppose that is the way I started but I at least took some classes at the college to develop the technique.
Roy was the fourth child and I think he was considered the smartest of the Milton children. After a stint as a naval officer (like his brother David) he got a PhD in Mathematics and went to work for NIH doing statistical studies. In connection with his work he has traveled rather widely, mostly to Japan but also to India. During his career he and his wife Beverly have lived for some time in Japan and Beverly has developed a talent in paper design. We have one of her works, she is quite talented. Beverly worked while they lived in Washington D.C. as an executive secretary. They have two adopted children, both girls. Beverly is a very committed Lutheran and quite conservative in her beliefs (she may have been a Missouri Lutheran in her upbringing). I’m not sure about Roy. As an intelligent individual he has probably modified his childhood beliefs. I think though the process has been slowed by the influence of Beverly. When one of the adopted daughters (perhaps both) married men of Jewish background and converted to that faith there developed a schism in the family because of Beverly’s strong Christian stance but I believe time has more or less healed the breach.
Jean and I have had contact with Roy and Beverly both when Roy was in the navy and stationed on the west coast and when he have been in Washington. We stayed overnight with them in 1977 when we made our trip around the periphery of the U.S. One of the memorable events of that visit was when they took us to see the bonsai exhibit (a gift from Japan at the time of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the country). We have revisited the exhibit on one of our visits to see Palma.
I would say that I find Roy and Beverly more appealing in their personality than David and his wife. David because of his air of having made a mark in the world of business, his wife because she has what I would term a “brittle” characteristic. Not that she is not outwardly congenial but I just feel uncomfortable in her presence. She was the daughter of a professor at the University of Minnesota. I suppose David met her during the time he was in law school there.
The youngest of the Milton children is Donald. I know least about him but I have the feeling that I would find him the most compatible of all my Milton cousins. I have only seen him once as an adult, I don’t remember him as a child at all. He came to our home on Bonnie drive at one time, perhaps in company with Roy and Beverly. Perhaps we shared a meal with him. So I don’t think I would even recognize him if I were to see him again.
He obtained a PhD in the field of philosophy (which is one reason why I think he would be more compatible than his siblings) and was an instructor in that area for a time. Then he opted out of teaching and went to work in the furniture-making business. First I believe simply as a workman, but later on progressing into management. So he likes to make things with his hands which also appeals to me. I suspect that he became disenchanted with philosophy after awhile, as I have since much of historical philosophy was developed at a time when the state of knowledge of the real world was very incomplete. As to the state of his religious beliefs I know nothing but I speculate with his background in philosophy that he has discarded much if not all of his Lutheran upbringing.
When I was a child growing up in Gowrie, the Milton family would come down from St. Paul to visit both of the grandparent families. They did not stay at my grandmother’s house however, instead they went to the Swanson grandparent’s house which was on the road at the east end of the town. So I would have contact with my Milton cousins when they happened to be at my grandmother’s house for a meal. I can’t say that I missed playing with them, they were in a different cultural and economic milieu from the Strand children.
My friend Howard Nelson remembers them visiting the Swanson house. He has written about the visits. By that time the Nelson family was living in the Swanson house, grandfather Swanson having died, and Howard’s mother keeping house for her father. Howard remembers the Milton boys as being a noisy intrusion, disturbing the tenor of his life. I can well imagine his reaction to their presence.
Once when we were visiting the Midwest we had to come via the Twin Cities because of some airline strike. Uncle Milton and aunt Faye met us on our arrival at the airport. At the time we were all set up to rent a car and drive south, stopping in St. Peter to spend a night with aunt Laurine. So we arranged to visit the Milton house on the way back. It was a congenial visit as I recall. The most vivid memory I have of our stay though was when my wallet dropped out of my shirt pocket as I was saying goodnight to Palma. It didn’t turn up until the next morning and I had spent the intervening time wondering where I had lost it and the need to replace the contents.
When Jean and I took Laurel to college in Ames, we drove north from Gowrie and after we had seen uncle Serenus and aunt Edith we stopped to see aunt Faye (by then uncle Milton had died). By then it was late in the day and thought she asked up to stay the night, I got the impression that she thought that we were imposing on her hospitality. I wished at the time that he had just excused ourselves and found a motel. I think it was just another example of her self-centeredness.
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