Lost Letters

One time when I was up in the attic, this must have been after I had left the Midwest for California — indeed after my mother had moved to the house — and I can’t picture why I was up there, I saw boxes of old letters that family members, principally my grandmother had saved over the years. These had been kept in the envelopes they came in and as I was interested in the stamps I asked my mother if I could detach the stamps. She assented.

Now that I have disposed of all my stamp collection (as of March 2005) they are now all gone. I regret now that I did not save the letters, as I recall I left them in a disorderly pile in the attic. The letters would be of much more interest to me at this stage of my life. But now they are all gone (though I still have those from a collection that uncle Carl left behind when he moved to Madrid which I still have to peruse in detail). When will I ever get around to that project?

Christmas

Back to the dining room at my grandmother’s. It would also be the site of the evening meal on Christmas eve. This would feature such traditional dishes as lutefisk, a rice dish with a geometric sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar on its surface, and sylta (sort of a jellied meat dish that I didn’t particularly like). Sometimes the latter would be made in a pie dish, with slices of hard-boiled egg placed in the dish when it was served, and of course balaksar at the end of the meal.



Sylta

After supper was over the table had to be cleared, and all the dishes washed and put away before it was time for the eagerly anticipated distribution of Christmas gifts. This took place in the parlor with everyone present arranged in chairs around the periphery of the room. The process was a very deliberate one, with each unwrapping of a present watched by everyone.

Following the opening of the gifts and a period of picking up the wrapping paper for use next Christmas, there would be a reading of the Christmas story (always the version in Luke), a prayer and then the singing of some of the traditional Christmas songs in the music room. Aunt Ruth would of course play the piano — I guess I was off in California by the time she was no longer on the scene to fulfill this function. The singing would include one of two of the Swedish carols such as “Glad a Yul aften” (sp?). The melody of the latter still has a festive and Christmasy air to me.

Three Swedish Dishes

I don’t think I have mentioned elsewhere two Swedish dishes that were a regular item on the menu not only at my grandmother’s house and at our house, but also elsewhere in the Swedish community. They were greda-kaka and ost-kaka [see here and here for two different ost-kaka recipes], literally translated they were cream pudding and cheese pudding. Vincent’s Jean has made greda-kaka I know. Greda-kaka is made largely from whole milk, eggs and sugar; rennet is use in the making to curdle the milk. When properly made it is a sweet firm custardly-like pudding, but firmer in consistency than the typical custard. Often time it would be served with thickened grape juice poured over it with a further topping of whipped cream. I always liked greda-kaka particularly in the latter form. Jean has attempted it as I recall but without much success.

Ost-kaka I didn’t like. Its texture is more granular and it doesn’t have the smooth creaminess of greda-kaka. Often the pudding is given a further treatment in which pieces of the original pudding are put in a pan, along with milk and some additional spices sprinkled on top, and the mixture reheated. An additional reason I did not like ost-kaka was that the spice cardamom was used in making it and this is a spice, fairly often used in Swedish cooking that I have never liked.

Another Swedish dish that I really like very much is gryn — literally barley. The ingredients are pearl barley and ground-up pork liver and pork steak. It jells after the initial cooking and then it is sliced and fried. Jean had made it quite successfully using various livers such as lamb or beef liver, but the real flavor comes when pork liver is used. The older of the Strand children liked gryn, I don’t think Verner or Marold did. Jean used the recipe she got from aunt Dagmar when she made it. As I recall she served it to the Rev. Flowers on one occasion and he at least tolerated it. Most people turn up their noses at the smell and taste of it.

Sunday Dinner at Grandmother's House

Grandmother’s house evokes many memories. Int he kitchen where my grandmother even in her most advanced years was the dominating figure, I can still see her washing the dishes while others took over the dish-wiping function. She almost always would have on hand a supply of her chocolate cookies, with the chocolate icing on top, and would often parcel them out to us children when we happened to be in the kitchen at other than mealtimes.

Aside from these chocolate cookies and the Christmas bakalsar (sp?) I recall only one other kind of cookie she ever made. These were a cookie that was baked over a curved surface (such as a rolling pin) and thus were not flat. I preferred the chocolate cookies. She may have made the garden-variety sugar cookie but I’m uncertain as to that. She made pies, notably apple pie and her pie-crust–making ability was unsurpassed — her crusts were always light and flaky. Cake making was more in my aunt Ruth’s realm and her specialty was sort of a brown sugar of caramel cake with like frosting.

The kitchen was the source of the Sunday dinners which we often had at my grandmother’s house. Typically they would feature some sort of pot roast and invariable mashed potatoes and gravy. On rare occasions the mashed potatoes and gravy would be supplanted with fresh boiled potatoes with fresh peas all in a cream sauce. This would occur when the first small potatoes were available from the early planted potatoes from the garden, if at the same time the first peas were ready for picking.

Sunday dinners were always later than the usual noonday time as a good part of the cooking was done after my grandmother returned from attendance at the morning church service. The service would be at 11:00 o’clock so it would be at least 12:30 before she had returned, changed her clothes and began in the kitchen. Actually I suppose the pot roast had been simmering all during the church service.

The Sunday dinners were always served in the dining room. I only remember eating at the kitchen table a few times and that was not at a Sunday dinner. At quite of few of these Sunday dinners in addition to our family and those in my grandmother’s menage, there would be “uncle” Albert and “aunt” Marie also. “Aunt Marie” was actually a cousin of my grandmother’s and “uncle Albert” was her husband. When there were vacation visitors such as uncle Lawrence and aunt Dagmar or uncle Milton’s family were in town they too would be at the Sunday dinner table.

Preceding and following the dinner there would be visiting in the parlor, with uncle Carl ensconced typically in “his” chair in the northwest corner of the room. It was here he would relate his little story of “pinch me” and “tickle me” while holding one of us on his lap so he could appropriately pinch to tickle us at the conclusion of the story.

One of uncle Albert’s oft-repeated comments would be about uncle Carl’s hands as being “real working hands.” Uncle Carl’s hands, like my mother’s were sturdy, short-fingered and admirably suited to toil. Uncle Carl’s hands were calloused and hard — he never used gloves when he was working. I always used cotton gloves when I was using a pitchfork for example as during threshing.

During the summer months such visiting would likely be on the screened front porch, particularly after the noontime meal. Late in the afternoon there would be almost inevitably an early supper — bread, cheese, perhaps some rice dish, jello, with cooked fruit for dessert. Following the supper there would be the ubiquitous devotions, perhaps a Bible or devotional reading with a prayer being read followed by the Lord’s prayer.

Uncle Carl and His Cars

Uncle Carl had a series of blue Essex sedans during the time we were on the farm. I think he acquired them second-hand in Fort Dodge and why he favored them I have no idea. I have a vague recollection that when I was quite young he had an open (canvas top) Dodge touring car and I seem to recall getting out of it alongside the east door at my grandmother’s after having arrived from somewhere. It was after dark.

During the time we were on the farm he also bought a second-hand Chevrolet sedan as a second car — again why I don’t know. He and I and Vincent drove to Ames one of the times we attended the agronomy day there, using this car. I drove. On the way back to the farm I was driving along at a moderate speed and a car passed me traveling at a much faster speed. The driver had to cut in maybe because of oncoming traffic and as he did so he clipped the bumper of the Chevrolet. I could hear the click but that was all.

I have sometimes wondered why he took Vincent and me along on these trips to Ames. Was he envisioning a future for the two of us as farmers, possible taking over someday the operation of the Peterson acres? He never said. Vincent of course deserted John Deere for being a farmer, but I guess it was despite uncle Carl than because of him. I recall that when he was discharged from the army he worked for our uncle for awhile but he could not stand the way he farmed and went back to school at ISU and got his degree in agricultural engineering.

After I had left the farm for California, my uncle purchased a small truck to transport grain to market in Gowrie. After all, the horses were all dead by then. It was on one of the trips with the truck hauling shell corn to the elevator in Gowrie that the corncrib burned down. I guess he was informed at the elevator and he drove back at a furious speed. Not that there was anything he could do about it.

He himself was really responsible for the fire. He had been shelling corn and had elected to dispose of some corn husks from the shelling by burning them up. He didn’t adequately ensure that the embers were all out and they were apparently too near the crib. They flared up and the crib caught fire. My mother and the persons in the house (Vivian was on the scene) were unaware that the crib was on fire until the neighbor to the east noticed the blaze and called them. I believe the corn had all been shelled but the two bins upstairs contained oats I believe. I believe he sold them for hog feed.

Early in WWII he bought a new Pontiac (a two-door I think) and it was the only new car he ever bought in my recollection. As a farmer he must have been allotted the purchase of one of the few remaining new autos still remaining at the time. To my knowledge it was the last car he ever owned.

Typically my uncle’s cars were stained and characterized by grease, dirt and debris. On the rare occasions when he wanted to transport some family member (such as my grandmother) somewhere he would clean out the car more or less and cover the seat where the riders would sit with a clean tarpaulin or some such piece of fabric. I can still see my grandmother on such an occasion seated placidly in the front seat of the car alongside him. I think that on at least one occasion I was detailed to clean out the car for such an excursion.

I don’t know how he treated the Pontiac but his Essexes always got secondary treatment to his tractors. For example when he changed the oil in his Farmall he would use it in his Essex.

The large Hart-Parrs which he used for threshing were originally equipped with a magneto to generate the spark for the combustion in the cylinders. When we were on the farm this form of ignition had ceased to be used and instead he used a storage battery and an old Ford coil for the purpose. At the end of each threshing day he would disconnect the battery from the tractor and install it in the circuit of the Essex to have it recharged on his trip back and to his overnight sleep at my grandmother’s.

Uncle Carl was a master at adapting to meet his mechanical problems with such materials as he had at hand. He was great at using wire for making makeshift and often permanent repairs. The wire he used for these purposes was old check wire from early corn-planting methods. I find in a way that I have adopted this technique for fixing things and the use of wire is one of the first solutions I turn to. For example, I like to mow the grass in the lawns as high as I can so I set the mower at the extreme adjustment possible with my current mower (Sears’ lowest-priced hand-pushed model). The design of the mower is somewhat deficient in that the force transmitted along the handle to move the mower will sometimes cause the mower wheels to lift off the ground and the mower will slide or roll on the back of the mower where the roller is. This can be rectified by wiring the handle to the roller attachment, which I have done.

This is not the way that Jean’s machinist father would have attacked the problem.

In a way I think I resemble my uncle Carl in that the means are never overemphasized in pursuit of an end — except perhaps in the case with Uncle Carl and his famous potato planter. I think I may have written about the project elsewhere.

Grandmother's House, Part 3

Diagram of lot, drawn from memory

I’ve written a little about the yard around my grandmother’s house. The lot was quite deep and about 100 feet wide. There was perhaps one-third to half an acre. Behind the house to the west was the vegetable garden. I can recall driving the spring wagon into town from the farm behind Barney and Birdie bringing the walking plow in. Uncle Carl came in and plowed up the garden area where the vegetables were grown. Because of the size of the garden I’m sure that a substantial part was in potatoes and sweet corn.
My grandmother liked spinach so I’m sure there was that grown.

Along the east side of the lot was a gravel driveway leading to the southeast corner of the lot where there was a small barn. On the east side of the barn at the front was where my uncle garaged his car. Beside the garage on the west was an indeterminate area — perhaps it housed horses or a carriage at some time. To the rear of the barn was the chicken house and yard. I vaguely remember loading up the accumulated manure for transport for the farm. Why it wasn’t just put on the garden I’ve no idea. Perhaps one reason for remembering this was that while I was engaged in my task the preacher’s wife came looking for one or more of her small children. I hadn’t seen them.

Along the east side of the lot, beginning at about the back edge of the garden were various fruit trees. And along the west side of the house were the Concord grape vines. Among them were pie cherry trees — that was the only kind of cherry I knew as a child.

My grandmother liked flowers and there was a bed of tulips at the east end of the large front porch. She also had flowers (potted) in the bay window of the dining room. There was a large tree, species unknown to me in the northwest corner of the lot, and a birch tree along the walk leading from the street to the front porch. The latter expired for some reason in the late ’30s or early ’40s and was never replaced at least to my recollection.

On the back porch of my grandmother’s house was a pump and well. I’d guess that when the house was new that this was the source of water for cooking and drinking in the house. When I first became aware of it it was no longer operable. I remember trying to pump some water and was unsuccessful.

Grandmother's House, Part 2

Diagram of second floor, drawn from memory

As long as my grandmother lived and thereafter as uncle Carl and aunt Esther continued to occupy the house, the old-fashioned range was the cooking facility. It was stoked largely with corncobs (I suppose with coal or other combustibles at times) and it served not only for cooking but as a source of warmth in the kitchen during the winter months. The pails containing the cobs, etc. sat alongside the stove to the east. I can still see my grandmother taking off one of the round iron plates from the top of the range and putting in some more cobs. In the winter months I wonder if the kitchen wasn’t the place where most members of the family spent a good deal of the daytime. Probably being cooped up so close for such a long period contributed to the “winter-sickness” that the household seemed to encounter at that time of the year. The stove also served as the heat source for the hot water tank connected to it.

I believe that when my mother moved into the house after uncle Carl and aunt Esther went to Madrid, that she replaced the old range with a modern gas stove. That would seem the logical thing to do as I do know that gas service was introduced to the house (to supply the new gas furnace that replaced the old one).

Grandmother’s house was extremely well constructed, though probably lacking in the insulation in present-day houses. I don’t remember the layout of the basement — I was never in it to any significant extent. I’ve shown what I remember of the ground and upstairs floor plans in the accompanying sketches. The attic was one large undivided room. The water head tank (it had the appearance of a typical rectangular stock tank) was located close to the stairs leading to the attic. The attic was lighted by windows at the north and south ends, at the gable ends of the house.

The woodwork in the downstairs floor was all oak, stained dark. The upstairs was pine or fit, including I think the floors. There were a considerable number of built-in cupboards in the kitchen and the dining room. When the house was first built these had solid oak doors (not paneled) and apparently they warped or the component boards separated. Anyway they were subsequently replaced by paneled doors. I recall uncle Carl commenting many years later unfavorably on what he regarded as unsatisfactory workmanship. And I recall seeing the doors that had been replaced lying up in the attic. What happened to them eventually I don’t know but I’m sure they would have been good material for woodworking at school.

The doors were probably the product of John Hoff who worked at the lumberyard where my father was the part-time bookkeeper. My impression was that he always worked in the shop at the lumberyard rather than as a carpenter out building barns, houses, etc. Perhaps he was a cut above the other carpenters in ability. I think he was an immigrant from Sweden, perhaps his wife was also. Their oldest child Mary Jane, a plump happy sort of individual, was in my class all through grade and high school.

Grandmother's House, Part 1

Diagram of first floor, drawn from memory

I’ve written some before about how my grandmother’s house was designed by my uncle Carl. And how it was built on some lots that my grandfather had bought. The lots had some corn storage facilities on them. The corn could be hauled in from the farm at a convenient time (as in the winter when the ground was frozen so that the ungraveled roads were passable). The corn would thus be available for sale when the price was right. The fact that these lots were available and had been used for corn storage is I think [representative] of the business acumen of my grandfather. An acumen that was largely lacking in all of his sons. My uncle Carl was an entrepreneur of a sort with his threshing and corn shelling operations but I suspect that the investment would have been better made in Iowa farmland.

I shall now turn to a discussion of my grandmother’s house. The house was basically a rectangle in floor plan, indeed almost a square. There was a full basement, first and second stories and a full attic. The latter had restricted headroom at the eaves. In front of the house was the front porch, extending the full width of the house and perhaps 8 to 10 feet deep.

In the summertime screens were put up to keep the flies out. During the summer there were always two rockers or chairs out on the porch, painted sort of a light aqua-green color. One of these, to the left of the front door (which was in the center of the porch, looking directly at the house from the front), was typically the chair used by my uncle Carl whenever he was on the porch. It was here I can recall seeing him reading the newspaper or the Wallace’s Farmer, his lips silently forming each word, not a single one being missed. I also remember him sitting in his chair morosely viewing the assembled people who had gathered at the house for refreshments and visiting after the funerals of uncle George and aunt Ruth.

Beneath the acerbic and non-social exterior of my uncle Carl there was a sentimental nature that was affected by evidences of the transitory nature of life. Typically after a funeral there would be a later afternoon period of active visiting as relatives would be seeing each other for the first time after a considerable period had elapsed (say since the last funeral in the family). Uncle Carl would not participate in this visiting, nursing instead his private sense of grief and loss.

The house at the time it was constructed was up-to-date as to the household conveniences available at the time, but few if any changes were made over the years to update it, until my mother took over the house when uncle Carl and aunt Esther moved to Madrid. About the only change that I can recall was the addition of a refrigerator perhaps in the 1940s sometime. The refrigerator was acquired through some sort of arrangement by relatives of uncle Verner, perhaps a special purchase price etc. I recall there was some difficulty with the initial operation of the unit and uncle Carl, acerbic as always was disposed to making an issue of the difficulty. Aunt Laurine who was on the scene tried to soft-pedal any evidence of dissension, doubtless for keeping family feelings amiable. I don’t know how the situation was finally resolved.

The heating system in the house was hot-water (natural convection) with radiators in most rooms except the kitchen and the upstairs sleeping porch. As I recall the upstairs hall was also unheated and was characteristically cool in the wintertime (the doors to the bedrooms being carefully closed as a rule). I suppose the furnace was stoked with coal in part, but when uncle Carl was feeding it (at least in later years) he used corncobs as the sole source of fuel. This involved fairly frequent trips to the furnace as corncobs, though they burn quite hot, are consumed rather rapidly. For overnight periods he developed a stoking technique that involved banking a large pile of cobs at one side of the firebox, through which the fire burned more slowly. After my mother moved into the house, the furnace was replaced with gas heat, doubtless on some sort of automatic control. I think she also replaced the old kitchen range with a gas stove but of that I am not certain.

Though the house was connected to the municipal water system at least in later years, it may not have been when first constructed. The house had a cistern for collecting rainwater and this was used for such purposed as laundry and baths. There was a well on the back porch and this supplied I suppose water for cooking and drinking. Unlike the little brown house which has a pressure tank for providing the flow of soft rainwater, grandmother’s house had gravity flow, the head being provided by a holding tank up in the attic. How this was charged from the cistern I don’t know.

In later years the little brown house had used city water for all purposes with a water softener to make the water suitable for laundry, etc. My mother, on the move back to town from the farm, acquired a Maytag washing machine to take the place of the old wooden-tub washer of pre-farm days and the Hart-Parr machine out on the farm. I suspect that my grandmother and aunt Esther continued to use their outdated wood tub washer until aunt Esther stopped doing laundry altogether.

Hot water in pre-farm days at the little brown house, on the farm and at my grandmother’s was provided by a unit in the kitchen range. I suppose in later years it was provided by a gas-heated hot water heater, at least after the folks moved back to the little brown house and after my mother occupied by grandmother’s house.