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.