Clarence and Naomi

My parents were married in 1917 — my mother just shy of her 27th birthday, my father just past his 34th. My father had courted her earlier but she had demurred then, whether she just wanted to “stretch her wings a bit longer” I don’t know. The marriage was a happy one despite the rather different personalities of the two.



Clarence and Naomi Peterson Strand

My father was, to me, a dreamer, constrained by upbringing and circumstance to a life in which work and duties occupied most of his time and thinking. My mother was a more pragmatic practical person and in a way was the dominant person in the union. There were occasional disagreements between them but these related largely to tactics, not principles. For the most part these differences were not evidenced in the presence of the children, though somehow or other I came to be aware of them.

One disagreement between them was over a life insurance policy that my father had bought from Fred Magnusson who was the agent for some company. My mother was opposed to the whole idea, somewhat impractically stating that she wanted my father not some money in place of him. Later on, because of the Depression, the insurance company issuing the policy encountered financial difficulties and my father lost at least part of the funds he had invested in the policy (it was sort of an endowment policy). I don’t know if it was this second-hand encounter with insurance companies of some other factor that resulted in my general feeling of antipathy to life insurance companies. As a married man I have had a couple of life insurance policies but they have not been a major investment vehicle.

My mother’s life from the time of her marriage until the time of the Depression was I think of happy and fulfilling years for her. One potential trauma early after her marriage was when my father was due to be called up for military service in WWI. My mother was pregnant with Clarice at the time. Happily the war ended before my father had to appear for induction. The years were however years of household toil certainly beyond what is the norm nowadays.

The years were also child-bearing years with Marold, the last child born in 1929. My mother used to remark that 1929 was a year of unusual expense. Marold was born at the Mercy hospital in Fort Dodge, the only one of the children not born at home. Mercy hospital, the only facility in Fort Dodge at the time, was supported by the Catholic church. I recall one of the trips made to see my mother when she was there but we children, though along, weren’t allowed to go in to see her or the newborn Marold.

There was also the purchase of the Essex and the radio. The Essex was the first car my father actually owned himself — the Chevrolet which had been the family car up to that time had really belonged to my grandfather. I remember the circumstances associated with the purchase of the radio. Several were tried out (one developed some sort of electrical trouble during the trial period and emitted an acrid odor). The final selection was a floor model Majestic. This radio served the family all during the Depression years and was the only radio all the years I was at home.

My mother had had trouble when Verner was born, perhaps it was for this reason that the decision was made for Marold to be born at the hospital. I believe that there was some related surgery following the birth of Marold but I have no knowledge of the extent or character.

Naomi at Gustavus Adolphus

I find that I have sort of an odd reluctance to start writing about my mother but I shall do so anyway. Perhaps it is more difficult to assess a person with whom one has been so close in the past — the emotional feelings can be in conflict with what one sees or realizes to be true particularly in retrospect.

By the time she was born in 1890, the conditions on the Peterson farm must have been considerably improved from the rigors of the first years. But life was still one of toil and rather limited outlook. Like her siblings, except perhaps for the younger ones, she attended country school for the first eight grades and in the summer months went to Swedish school. I think the latter was held in the same country school house as the public school — I wonder what the present day reaction would be to the use of public property for what was religious instruction to a considerable degree.

At any rate her early schooling led to her literacy in both English and Swedish. I think her high school training didn’t start immediately after her completing eighth grade and when it did occur it was in the “academy” which accompanied the college at Gustavus Adolphus. I suppose at that time (1905–1910) the utility of providing a high school program was a real one since many rural students would not have had access to further education other than by leaving school for a boarding situation. She completed high school but had only one or two years of college.


Naomi as a young woman, in an undated photo

By her own account, the years of schooling at St. Peter were an eye-opener to her, suggesting for example the kind of social activities that were so foreign to her earlier life growing up on the farm. Evidence of that can be seen in the photo and memento scrapbook she kept for that period in her life. Many of the persons or events are meaningless to me as I view them, but to my mother they were doubtless a big part of her recollection.

(Following are several photos from Naomi’s scrapbook, with her captions —LRS)


Aurora Picnic, N.P Chief cook and her assistants [Naomi at far right]


Our Bunch [Naomi, front row, far right]


Who are we?


Sleepy? No, indeed! [Naomi, third from left; Dagmar, third from right]

I seem to recall that among her favorite subjects was math, perhaps she encountered algebra and geometry, I don’t know. Following her schooling at St. Peter, even I suppose before it and/or during it she taught country school. During the early years of WWI she was even a high school teacher. I remember her telling of teaching general science at some school somewhere in Minnesota. She said she just managed to keep one step ahead of her students. Perhaps under the wartime conditions, teachers for smaller high schools were hard to find. It was at St. Peter she met my aunt Dagmar whom she introduced to my uncle Lawrence. Aunt Dagmar was younger than my mother and I think completed the college at Gustavus.

Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Dagmar

In the past I have known the order by age of the children that my grandmother had but right this moment I’m not sure whether my uncle Lawrence or my mother comes after uncle George. I will however choose uncle Lawrence to write about next.

He of course never resided permanently in my grandmother’s house though he was a periodic visitor during his annual vacation, which was characteristically in July or August. I think my uncle Lawrence started out to be a farmer but he never operated independently from the Peterson farm. However, early on he decided to enter the ministry and when I was aware of him he was already in that field of work.



Lawrence as a young man

Aunt Dagmar had been an acquaintance of my mother’s when they were attending school at Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, Minnesota, and it was through her that uncle Lawrence met aunt Dagmar. Aunt Dagmar was an only child, or at least the only surviving child of her parents. She was from Minnesota and as long as her parents, or parent still lived, aunt Dagmar and uncle Lawrence would spend part of their vacation with them.

Aunt Dagmar was truly a delightful person, gracious and dignified in manner, appearance and speech. They were childless. When I was first aware of uncle Lawrence he was the pastor at Braham (Brainerd?), Minnesota, and in succession he was at a city congregation in Minneapolis, at Albert City, Iowa, and lastly at Storm Lake, Iowa.



Dagmar as a young woman

I was never impressed with uncle Lawrence’s intellectual capacity and his sermons, what I remember of them, were predictably dull and uninspiring to me. He was however kindly person and he was well liked by the members of the congregations he served, particularly those who were similar to him in age and religious outlook. I once remarked to my mother that I thought it was a mistake for him to have ever entered the ministry, to which she replied that his preaching may have been less than desirable but that the personal aspects of his ministry had been very good.

Uncle Lawrence was somewhat overweight, with the excess mostly in his stomach. He was one of those men who, when they wore a belt, had it above their level of greatest girth rather than below it (the latter is quite a bit more common). He stood quite erect, thus because of the protuberance of his abdomen he gave the impression that he was trying to counterbalance it, and that he might have overcorrected and was in some danger of falling backward.

His hair was always white when I knew him — even early on his hair was no longer tinged with gray. Thus he exhibited the Peterson trait of graying early to an exceptional degree. He had a rather unusual mannerism, a lifting of his chin as if trying to pull the loose flesh of his neck from the constraint of his shirt collar as if it were too tight. He exhibited this mannerism at almost all times, but perhaps more frequently when conducting a devotional reading after a meal or when preaching.

Since uncle Lawrence and aunt Dagmar had no children they showed more attention to their nieces and nephews than they might have done otherwise. In particular they showed their generosity at the time of confirmation, which they preferred to stress rather than graduation from high school or college. In my case it was a check for $15, which at the time was quite a substantial gift, and certainly enough for a new suit of clothes to use during the confirmation rite. I can still remember uncle Lawrence giving me the check. I was out in the yard at the farm, probably going about the late afternoon chores on a cool cloudy day in late winter or early spring. I suppose they did the same for my brothers and sisters but I was never aware of it for them.

I visited uncle Lawrence and aunt Dagmar when they were living in Minneapolis. I don’t know what prompted the visit and I have no specific recollection of how I made the trip north, but I have the v ague feeling that I rode along in their car after one of their periodic visits to Gowrie. I suppose I was about ten years old — certainly it was before we moved to the farm. The only recollection from the time in Minneapolis was the time uncle Lawrence had me do some hand-watering of a section of the yard. He finally came out and said he thought that I had watered long enough.

I believe it was on this trip that I then visited with aunt Lillian and uncle Verner who were then living in Isanti, Minnesota, some distance (say 20 to 30 miles) north of the Twin Cities. This part of the visit was over the weekend and I went along with uncle Verner to both of the two services he conducted on a Sunday. He had charge of a small congregation out in a rural area as well as the larger congregation in Isanti.

Uncle Carl was along during the visit and accompanied us to both of the services. How or when he arrived I have no recollection. I do remember the trip back with uncle Carl — it was on the M and St L at least from Minneapolis to Gowrie. I suppose uncle Verner took us to the station in Minneapolis. At that time the passenger service no longer used a steam locomotive. The first unit of the train was a combination diesel engine, baggage and mail car, the second car was for the passengers.

I remember eating lunch on the train with uncle Carl which aunt Lillian had prepared for us. The sandwiches were roast beef and at first before trying them, I thought I wouldn’t be interested in them. I suppose sandwiches to me at that time were something with peanut butter in them. But my uncle convinced me to eat them. I demurred when my uncle brought them out but he pressed me to eat them so I did, dutifully at first and then finding them unexpectedly tasty, with relish. The cookies aunt Lillian had sent along were peanut butter cookies I seem to recall so I had my peanut butter after all.

The visit to Minneapolis was the first of the four times I have been in the city, or in the state of Minnesota for that matter. The second time was after WWII when I was back in Iowa from California, I suppose on vacation and Vincent, uncle Carl and I drove north to attend my cousin John Milton’s wedding. The third time was on a trip as a family back to see my parents. United was on strike so we flew Northwest to Minneapolis, rented a car and drove to Gowrie.

Unexpectedly uncle Milton and aunt Faye met us at the airport; I suppose my mother had written that we were coming through. We couldn’t visit with them then as we had plans to stay that night with aunt Laurine who at the time was living in St. Peter and teaching at Gustavus college. But we did stay overnight with uncle Milton’s on the way back to California.

The fourth time was on the trip Jean and I took around the perimeter of the country, after we took Laurel to college at Ames. On that trip we also visited uncle Serenus and aunt Edith — what I remember about that visit was that both of them were quite deaf so that communication between them was at a high decibel level.

Jean and I, and I think Muriel visited uncle Lawrence’s when they were in Albert City — at least once, perhaps twice. Maybe Palma and Laurel were along the second time. The first time I borrowed Vincent’s Studebaker for the drive over from Gowrie. That was the car he purchased after finishing college and starting to work for John Deere. It was on that drive to Albert City that we stopped along the road for met to point out an Iowa “hill” to Jean. We also drove over to see them on some trip to Iowa while they were at Storm Lake.

After uncle Lawrence died (they had continued to live on in Storm Lake after my uncle’s retirement from the ministry), aunt Dagmar moved first to one of the small apartments at the eastern outskirts of Gowrie and we saw her there several times. Eventually she moved to Friendship Haven near Fort Dodge and later on to a nursing facility near Gowrie where she died, having outlived uncle Lawrence by perhaps ten years. I have no specific recollection of uncle Lawrence’s death although I’m sure that my mother must have written me about it.