Grandfather Peterson, Husband and Father

My grandfather Peterson made a return trip to Sweden in the middle 1870s and on his return he was accompanied by several relatives, including my grandmother. She was a step-niece by marriage but not a blood relative. They were married not long after the end of the trip to this country. After a brief period in which my grandfather returned to Montana to work (maybe he needed the money to set himself up as a farmer) the 80 acres comprising the nucleus of the Peterson farm was purchase and the farmstead was established.

During the time my grandfather was back in Montana on his second stay there, my grandmother was in Andover, Illinois, with relatives and it was there that my uncle Carl, the oldest of the Peterson children, was born. My grandfather wanted to move to Montana but my grandmother was strongly opposed to the idea and she prevailed. We have been through Phillipsburg, Montana, where my grandfather worked as a miner (in the late summer of when we took Laurel to enroll at ISU in Ames, and later on another trip) and it is indeed beautiful countryside in the foothills of one of the ranges of the Rocky Mountains. I speculate that it appealed to my grandfather because it resembled the rocky forest/farmland combination of his homeland in Sweden.

In a way the marriage between my grandparents was a mismatch between a young girl, hardly more than an adolescent and certainly naive in sexual matters and a man who was more than twice her age who had lived the rough life of the Montana frontier and was much more worldly wise. I mention at this point the letters written from this country back to Sweden by my grandfather, grandmother and as I recall some other relatives. These came to light when Verner and Marlys visited Sweden and in visiting with relatives were told of and received in whole or in part a few selected letters.



Emma Sophia Sjostrand and Jonas Peterson, wedding day

Among these was the first letter my grandmother wrote back to Sweden after arriving in this country,. I wrote to the relative and he sent me [photocopied] copies of quite a few items, covering the period 1875–1885 approximately. Some of these letters which my grandfather wrote show an attitude toward my grandmother which was certainly respectful of her and indicating a genuine love and affection for her. On the other hand he appears to have been a man of strong sexual urges and this aspect of his personality probably came as a considerable surprise and disillusionment to my grandmother.

At any rate I have been told by my sister Vivian (who doubtless got it from my mother) that my grandmother did not enjoy sexual relations at all. My sister Vivian graphically comments on the picture of my grandmother being chased by my grandfather around the bridal bed, he with a large erect sexual organ.

The picture I have of my grandfather from my mother and other relatives was of a stern, rather unforgiving person in a way, who was respected and almost feared, but not really liked or loved. I really think this was his exterior and that beneath this facade he had a genuine feeling and concern for his wife and children. Doubtless life as a farmer was not easy in those days — hard physical toil with income modest and uncertain at times because of drought, etc. These factors may have contributed to his outward personality.

His regard for his children and his wife showed up in such matters as his giving each of his children a watch when they came of age (or at some such time), the features of his last will and testament and the picture of him sitting playing with aunt Laurine as a child out on the lawn east of the farmhouse. By that time he had I suppose largely ceased from farm labor except for the well-pumping chore he had taken on. On the other hand he could be brusque as when he haphazardly stepped on the head of my mother’s treasured doll which she had left in a precarious place, and offered no compassion to her. One of her brothers apparently tried to mend it for her.

I have also heard that on one occasion in order to meet the required dues for church membership he earned the money by hauling a load of coal from the coal mines near Lehigh to Gowrie. Such a trip with a wagon and a team or horses would have been a long arduous journey. Such an effort would scarcely have been made by an unfeeling person.