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.