Aunt Ruth

The next of my mother’s siblings would be either my aunt Ruth or my uncle Serenus, again I forget the exact order in age. I shall choose aunt Ruth to write about first.

Aunt Ruth when I first became aware of her as an individual was a member of my grandmother’s household, was the organist at the church and the person who came periodically to help my mother on washdays. This picture of her never really changed for me, except for the last item. This aspect of her gradually phased out and ceased entirely when we moved to the farm.

She was of reasonably height but always sort of a spare person similar in this respect to uncles Carl and George and aunts Esther and Lillian. She tended to be shy and retiring as far as any social contacts outside of family and church. I wonder if there was ever any attraction to a member of the opposite sex in all her life or if any male was ever attracted to her but was deterred by her family characteristic of unusual piety. I don’t recall whether she had any schooling at Gustavus. I do seem to remember that she had musical instruction, perhaps in both piano and organ in the Twin Cities area, but this was before my time.

She was quite a competent organist, and vocalists who used her as an accompanist regarded her highly in this respect. The congregation really paid her a pittance for her work, which was actually more extensive than merely filling the role of organist. I seem to recall the figure of $30 per month; of course at the time in the 1930s $30 was much more in what it could buy but even so the pay was too low. She did have her board and room at my grandmother’s house, I suspect she never paid anything there and perhaps she received distribution from the farm as my mother did but that was irregular in character.

I think she gave piano lessons over the years; I seem to recall specifically that she gave lessons to Brynolf Lundholm, one of the four sons of one of the pastors of the Gowrie congregation who was actually the pastor during my younger years) who later went on to a rather significant career in the musical world.

She gave lessons on the piano to Clarice, me and Vivian. I don’t think the three younger brothers were ever her pupils. I certainly recall her lessons with me, going through and practicing the various scales and arpeggios. And I remember such pieces I liked to play like “The Happy Farmer” by Robert Schumann. I never became very proficient with the instrument but I think this exposure to the piano was what led to my lifelong liking for the piano as a musical instrument.

During the time I lived in San Pedro I stated to take piano lessons but these were interrupted by my transfer to the Bay Area and I never resumed them. Though I did rent a piano for a time and played on my own for a while when while living in Berkeley.

The instruction by aunt Ruth ended for me when we moved to the farm, but Vivian kept on and this doubtless led to her later interest and activity in this field. Clarice I think sort of stopped lessons when I did.

Sometime in the mid-1930s after our move to the farm, my aunt Ruth developed some odd illness, which resulted in further emaciation from her already slight figure, but which at the same time results in a distention of her abdomen. Was it a kind of cancer that was never properly diagnosed? The term of diagnosis I recall was “tropical sprue” whatever that might signify. [Actually, it may have been celiac sprue. —LS] She had as her doctor either Dr. Waddell in the nearby town of Paton or a Dr. Shafer in Fort Dodge. I remember driving her to appointments with both of these doctors, driving uncle Carl’s old blue Essex for the trips.

Whatever treatment was administered was eventually ineffective and she died during the time I was away at school at Iowa City. I came home for the funeral at the urging of my mother — I remember as in the case of uncle George seeing her lying in the casket at my grandmother’s. Unlike in the case of uncle George however the mortician had prepared the dead body in a less than normal or attractive aspect. He had been told that her hair was wavy (which it was with a very slight waviness — she wore her hair with a bun in the back, as did also my aunt Esther, my mother and my aunt Lillian all their days). The mortician had interpreted this as rather fuzzy curls. I recall that aunt Laurine was rather incensed at what had been done.

So my aunt Ruth passed out of my life. She left me with an appreciation of music that I might not had had otherwise.