Mr . Sigurdson, the Janitor

While I am on some of the ancillary aspects of the Gowrie school, I must mention the janitor. Mr. Gunnar Sigurdson filled the post and he and his family lived in a house on the school grounds, actually right adjacent to the school building. The house was of distinctly older vintage than the school building and I suppose it was on the site when the school was built and was perhaps retained intact with the object in mind of having it for the janitor’s use.

I suppose having someone on the premises was a safety measure in protecting the school buildings from possible vandalism, although such activities in the community were rare at the time. About the only time vandalism would occur was at Halloween. Then there would be a spate of upended outhouses.

Mr. Sigurdson was I think a Scandinavian immigrant, probably Swedish although I am not sure of that. The Sigurdson family did belong to the Lutheran church which had few if any Scandinavians other than Swedish as members.

There were two sons in the family, Morris and Arthur. Maintaining the school building was quite a task for just one janitor, and Mr. Sigurdson used Morris and Arthur (both somewhat younger than I) to do some of the janitor work. On occasion he also employed other help and I think Mrs. Sigurdson was pressed into duty sometimes.

Mr. Sigurdson was the groundskeeper as well, though that involved little more than mowing the lawn in front of the school building periodically and perhaps in the winter shoveling snow from the walks when it snowed.

Sweeping the floors and the halls was one of the more apparent janitorial activities and I can still see Mr. Sigurdson scatting the sweeping compound around and than sweeping after it. Usually this took place right after school let out, at least in the classrooms themselves.

Summertime activities included painting and varnishing and repair of the schoolroom desks. In the winter keeping the furnace going was quite a chore — originally the furnace was fired with coal and I don’t think there was a mechanical stoker. So Mr. Sigurdson had to “bank” the coal in the firebox overnight and even so had to get up during the night to replenish the fuel.

The furnace room was on the west end of the building beyond the gymnasium. I recall a large door near the furnace where the coal was delivered. Natural gas came to Gowrie about 1930 and I suppose the building was soon after converted to gas heat which would certainly have been a boon to Mr. Sigurdson. I can remember how I watched with interest when the gas pipes were being laid around town. Service was extended to the little brown house and my mother had a two- or three-burner gas plate installed. But she continued to use the old range, fired either with cobs or coal as the principal cooking stove.

After the new Lutheran church was constructed, Mr. Sigurdson and his family also took over the janitorial duties there for awhile. Later old Charlie Youngquist was the janitor at the church. My most vivid memory of Charlie was when he was fulfilling one of his custodial duties. Several minutes prior to the start of the Sunday morning service he would come in from the minister’s study and light the two candles on the altar. He would open the door to the study, walk over to the altar, take a match from his pocket, light the math either by scraping it on the sole of one of his shoes (or perhaps drawing it rapidly over his pants leg) and then light the candles. His procedure, earthy and mundane in character, was visually at odds with the elegance of the altar area and symbolically at odds with the reverence that this part of the church was regularly accorded. It was a far cry from the candle lighting by an acolyte that has developed over the years since.