Uncle Milton

Next on the list of my grandmother’s offspring is uncle Milton. When I became aware of uncle Milton as a person in my mother’s background was when he was teaching at the Augustana Seminary in Rock Island. This was I think the second step in his career, the first (directly after ordination) having been a pastorate at Anoka, Minnesota.



Milton as a young man

Unlike his two brothers in he ministry he was very capable intellectually and his discourses tended to command attention, though perhaps not agreement. While he was at Augustana Seminary I sense that there had developed some sort of dissension between my uncle and the prevailing powers and/or thinking at the seminary and he moved onto a large city church in St. Paul, Minnesota. The dissension may have had to do with uncle Milton’s somewhat liberal ideas about the character of some part of the Old Testament, which were at odds with the more fundamentalistic attitude of older members of the faculty. This difference in outlook surfaced again subsequently in his last career position which was as a teacher in a seminary of the Norwegian Lutheran church, also in St. Paul.

The evidence I have of this is a copy of a discussion he gave which presented some mildly liberal interpretations of some Old Testament occurrences. As earlier this brought him into some conflict with the old-guard conservative elements of the church. I became aware of this discussion through Howard Nelson who received it from our mutual cousin John Milton. It surfaced apparently during a reunion of the Milton children.

The impression I have of uncle Milton is that his thinking was the first step in the thinking about Judaism and Christianity which if carried to its logical and inevitable end would be a complete demolishing of the traditional tenets of the two religions. In his case the process had hardly more than just begun, impeded doubtless by the still potent influence of the religious outlook of the Peterson household. Initially uncle Milton had selected law as a potential career and had actually spent a year at Yale. But in the end he succumbed to the home influences and ended up in the ministry (in my opinion to his and society’s loss).

As far as actual personal contact I had very little with uncle Milton. As a rule the Milton family would come to Gowrie sometime each summer as a part of their vacation. They would actually stay with aunt Faye’s parents, but there would be some meals and visits to my grandmother’s to which we were also guests. Thus I had contact with my cousins but never developed any real rapport with them. Mostly they seemed to live and play in a world apart from us socially and economically.



Uncle Milton and Aunt Faye, in an undated photo

I recall one brief conversation that I had with uncle Milton on the occasion of one of his periodic visits to Gowrie. We were standing on the front lawn of the farm, beneath the six pine trees that stood in front of the house (I think these pines were planted by my grandfather — in a very early picture of the farmstead in which perhaps three or so of the oldest children appeared along with their parents, the trees can be seen in the foreground, protected by some crude enclosures probably against farm animals).



Peterson farmhouse, circa 1883. From left to right: Carl, Jonas, George, Emma, Esther. Note the five small pine trees in enclosures.

To the south was the pleasant vista either of the alfalfa field, or perhaps flax. Either field in bloom is a particularly attractive farm scene. Uncle Milton mentioned that during the summers when he came back from his schooling he would participate in the farm work such as plowing — which at the time would probably be with horses.

I suppose the last contact I personally had with uncle Milton was the time we came to Gowrie via Minneapolis because of a United Airlines strike. They (he and Aunt Faye) unexpectedly showed up at the airport on our arrival and we stayed overnight with them on the way back to California.

Farming — What MIght Have Been

I have indicated that Iowa farmland, particularly in the general area of Webster county, has about as productive a potential as any land elsewhere in the state, the country or the world. I don’t know whether it is because of the association with land and the growing of things (whether crops, garden produce, flowers, trees or what have you) that has been integral with my past, but I have an attachment for land and growing things that is almost transcendent in nature. This has manifested itself in various ways.

Early in my career at Shell (say in the middle 1940s) I considered, superficially at least, the possibility of moving back to Iowa, purchasing 40 acres (which I had sufficient savings at the time for doing) and living sort of a Thoreau-like existence. I didn’t of course do it, perhaps it would not have worked out at all. Certainly I would have been at odds with the religious climate of my family.

At the end of the war, I did put in for a transfer within Shell to the Wood River refinery but it never came through — perhaps my potential was evaluated by my superiors and it was decided that I had more value to Shell in research and design than in a manufacturing engineering position. One reason behind my request was of course that I would have been closer to agriculture and land with which I was familiar and could have pursued this bent as an auxiliary activity.

This affinity of mine for the possession of land has been satisfied for the most part by the events that have transpired since — first the purchase of the old Joe Johnson farm and later on acquiring half of my father’s farm. Although I decided against purchasing Vincent’s half of the Strand farm when he sold out, I still have a vestigial regret that we did not go ahead and acquire it also.

If we had been younger in years I suspect that we would have. As I’ve said in the past, and perhaps I’ve set this down in what I have written in this project, I would have been equally happy in work as a farmer or as an accountant as I was as an engineer — at least that is my opinion at this point. Farming had I drifted into it would have been a very satisfying way to spend my working years.

Cousin Eugene

I might as well include a few comments about my cousin Eugene at this point. As a child he was a loquacious, interesting individual and I certainly enjoyed his company; I suppose I was a bit envious of him. On their visits to Gowrie (I suppose during the time uncle Serenus was attending the seminary) they typically would stay at the home of Ellen Stenholm (aunt Edith’s sister who was the widow of Pete Stenholm who had been the International Harvester farm implement dealer in Gowrie). Her home was about a block from the little brown house, rather an imposing structure made of sort of pink-colored stone of cement blocks.

I think Eugene went to college at Fresno State and I believe he was assisted in his expenses by my uncle Carl. Following WWII, in which I believe he was in the service, he entered the field of advertising. On one occasion he was involved with the account of some beer company and was in San Francisco in connection with it; he looked us up while we were living in El Cerrito. This must have been not long after Jean and I were married and before Eugene and “Dode” were married.

The last time I saw Eugene was in Chicago when Jean and I and our three daughters came through Chicago on a drive in a rented car from Kansas City to Des Moines. On that trip we did such things as visit the Field Museum and we also had dinner one evening with Eugene and Dode. They lived in a high-rise apartment building in the downtown section of Chicago. It was a rather imposing, sophisticated place of residence. “Dode” (a nickname for Dorothy I think) was a very short lady quite a bit older than my cousin. Where or how they got together I have no inkling. They seemed quite compatible but I always thought it a rather odd marriage. Coming from uncle Serenus’ family I suppose I should not have been surprised.

Several years ago I wrote a letter to my cousin, I don’t recollect now what I wrote about. I sent the letter to the last address I had for him, in Canada. When he retired from the advertising business he and Dode moved to Canada where she was from originally. She died and my cousin stayed in Canada. The letter came back with the notation on the outside either that he was no longer at the address or that he had died. Subsequently in connection with a family reunion that he was setting up, my brother tracked him down and found out that he had indeed died and a lawyer friend wound up his affairs.

To the end of her life he had maintained his mother in some institution in the Twin Cities and he had I think willed his estate to that institution in gratitude. According to the lawyer he had developed a drinking problem (perhaps because of Dode’s death) and had given the lawyer control of his funds. He had always been a rather heavy smoker and I surmise that he had health problems with that habit also. At one time he had considered retiring to some location in the Carolinas and I have the impression that such a move was abandoned because of his health.

For many years while he was still working he used his vacations for trips around the world. Perhaps he met his wife on one of these trips. His Christmas cards would reflect these excursions. At one time our daughter Palma was in Chicago for some reason and, remembering that our family had once visited him and Dode in a downtown apartment tried to contact them but they had retired for the night.

Although I had my uncle Carl as a namesake, I always had the feeling that he had a closer relationship with Eugene than he had with me. Perhaps it was due to the years when he and Serenus were on the Peterson farm together. My last comment about my cousin Eugene, and it is a feeling that developed and strengthened with the passage of time was that, like his father he was sort of an odd person.

A Bit More about Uncle Serenus

Two more points about uncle Serenus. His birth was apparently a difficult one for my grandmother, and it was the only one of her children for whom I heard such a comment. I think it was my mother who wrote that my grandfather went driving off to Callender to try to get a doctor to come, but I don’t know if he was successful or not. The second point was that aunt Edith grew up on a farm about a mile east of the Peterson farm. My mother wrote, or told the story, of riding along to Gowrie for some such meeting as Luther League with uncle Serenus and aunt Edith. Any courting would have had to wait for the stretch of road between the two farms after they had left my mother off at the Peterson farm.