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.