Early Memories

I find that I have very few recollections that I can attach to the time in my life before I was six years old and starting school. In a way I attribute this to the rather routine tenor of my parents’ home and marriage — largely centered on the same work pattern, home and church activities, and contact with relatives from one week to the next throughout the year. Our nearest neighbor was Nellie Scott, a spinster of uncertain age, who lived on the other side of a vacant lot to the south of us. Clarice and I were allowed to visit Nellie in her home and it was from her that Clarice and I first picked up English and later supplanted our rudimentary Swedish with the English language.

I think that my parents must have used Swedish a lot in their home conversation early in their marriage and it was doubtless the first language that Clarice and I were exposed to. Clarice, being 18 months older than I, had a longer exposure to the Swedish language than I did at this early age, and consequently could understand it better later on. I was too young and retained only a very little understanding of the language.

Usually my mother would speak in Swedish with her mother, all during my grandmother’s life. My grandmother could of course speak English, and wrote a little, but she was more “at home” in the Swedish language. When Swedish was spoken I could sort of sense the tenor of the conversation and certain phrases such as “thank you” and “you are welcome” are still well known to me.

I have one recollection which was certainly from a pre-school age. It involved Vincent who is four years younger than I. He was sitting in a high chair — this also seems to be connected with the kitchen before the sunroom was added which would be inconsistent with my impression as to when the sunroom was built or simply incorrect. It must have been in the spring of the year as there were baby chicks in the back yard (whether nursery chicks or from a setting hen I don’t remember) and the rest of the family including my mother and father were outside inspecting them. I had been instructed to stay with Vincent to see that he was all right but intrigued by what was going on outside I went to see the new chicks also. Well the upshot was that Vincent fell out of the high chair. I don’t recall to what extent I was reprimanded or punished. Apparently Vincent was not injured.