The Knock Family

I should mention before I proceed further that there were two families with whom I had continuing though not frequent contact after I came to the Bay Area. One family was that of Mabel and Fritz Udden. Mabel had been one of the girls in the Knock family whom my mother had known in childhood. The Knock farmstead was located a milewest and perhaps ¼ mile south of the Peterson farmstead, on the usual route to Gowrie. My mother had often related how her early interest in flowers and gardening was fostered by Mabel who apparently at an early age was involved in this pastime.

There were perhaps half a dozen Knock children when the father of the family died suddenly. The family continued for awhile on the farm but eventually to facilitate the education of the children, Mrs. Knock sold the farm and bought a house in St. Peter, Minnesota, the site of Gustavus Adolphus College and Academy. Here her brood of children ended their way through high school and college.

At least a couple of her sons became Lutheran ministers, one of them being Gust Knock. He became the head pastor at one of the largest bellwether congregationss sof the Augustana Synod. He retired from that post in the late 1940s or early 1950s. A several of his childen were living in California he moved in retirement to the San Francisco area with his wife and for a time was the manager at a home fo the aged in Oakland. Later he left the job for complete retirement and they purchased a house in Oakland. While at the home for the aged, housing had been provided for them.

He and his wife were delightful people and I had occasional visits and meals with them, both when he was manager at the home for the aged and later on after he left there. I recall hearing him preach as a “fill-in” pastor at Bethany in Berkeley where I was then a member. His sermons were not intellectual but simply inspiring homilies.

After Jean and I were married (he was basically the pastor who married us, though the pastor of the church where the ceremony was held participated), we continued to see him and his wife occasionally, typically for some sort of supper meal.

Mabel and Fritz Udden also had moved to the Bay Area, probably after WWII and when I knew them they were living in the Hayward area. I recall being at their home for a supper meal not long after I had transferred north from Wilmington. As with the Gust Knocks I would see them occasionally and this contact continued after Jean and I were married. They also were congenial people though not perhaps as likable as the Gust Knocks.

Both families were dyed-in-the-wool adherents of the Christian faith as represented by the Lutherans. Though my beliefs were in transition and waning, I consequently had some twinges of conscience on the impresion I left with them that I was still of the same opinions and beliefs that they had. I still however found their simplistic view of life appealing. They were certainly untroubled by any deep-seated inspection of Christian dogma.

The Gust Knocks had four children, one of whom lived in the Bay Area. We got to know her also and still keep up a Christmas card contact with her; she now lives in Fresno. I haven’t seen her I believe since before we moved to Houston. A late insertion as I retype my original account of my life, she died a couple of years ago. She was close to ninety years of age and had been in poor health.