Chapter 8: Our Dreams — Our Lives

As each one of us reached the age of decision, various dreams and visions came to us. Some grew into reality in our lives, some did not. Carl, being the oldest, was the first to try his wings, when at the age of 19 he decided to accompany Gottfried Callerstrom and enroll at Gustavus Adolphus College at St. Peter, Minnesota. Gottfried had completed High School at Gowrie, while Carl had only finished eighth grade of rural school. Still they entered the same class, III Academy, and Carl was able to carry a heavy load of studies, which included Civics, Physics, Second Year Latin, Greek, Algebra, Geometry, English and Swedish. In April he even was able to take final examinations early, so he could go back home and help with the farm work. He did not return to G. A., not because he found the studies too hard, but he dreaded what might lie ahead as a career. Gottfried continued his studies and entered the medical profession. Incidentally, comparing costs with those of today, Carl’s total expenses for one year then were $169. 

With modern speeds we think nothing now of making the round trip by car to St. Peter in one day. In 1898 it was felt that it was too far for the boys to go home even for the Christmas holidays. A box from home was sent to them to break their lonesomeness. Christmas Eve was brightened for those who had not gone home, when Dr. Wahlstrom, the President, thoughtfully invited them all to his home for the evening.

Carl spent some years helping on the farm. Later he taught country school. Then he decided to again go off to school, this time to Highland Park College in Des Moines, where he studied Shorthand and Typewriting. The job he got in Des Moines was not hard, but rather unsatisfactory, so he went to St. Paul hoping for better success there. When nothing turned up, he got work as carpenter up in Minnesota for the summer. That fall he was asked to again teach school in District No. 8 so came back home. After this, his work varied — running the several threshing rigs and for many years renting the Woodard farm, while helping the younger boys with the management of the home farm.

In 1903 Esther dissatisfied with her work as town seamstress at the low pay of 50 cents a day, decided to study as Carl had done at home and get a teacher’s certificate and so better her condition, both as to work and salary. For a rural teacher received $30 or better each month, depending on what grade of certificate one had.

She kept on with her teaching until after Laurine was born. Then I was fourteen and old enough to help Mother and she felt she was not needed at home. She left home in 1904 to enter Deaconess training at Immanuel Deaconess Institute. Since she was a young girl she had felt the call of the Diaconate, and it was indeed a crushing blow to her hopes and dreams of service as a Deaconess, when after five years she suffered a nervous breakdown caused by over-work.

After her recovery from this illness she never felt that she was strong enough to resume work as a Deaconess, and her life has been filled with more ordinary work. Wherever she has been, she had been a most wonderful efficient helper; at times as house maid in Des Moines homes, but also at the Old Folk’s Home in Madrid, Children’s Home in Stanton, at Bethphage, and also for some periods of time at Immanuel. When needed she would come home and help out. Truly she helped me so much while the children were small, I feel I can never fully repay her.

In later years her once so skillful and capable hands have been badly crippled by severe arthritis, which has also affected other parts of the body. With an indomitable will and purpose to not give up and become an invalid, she has kept active in spite of pain and handicaps. Now, after Mother’s death, she has been able to do the necessary house work for Carl and herself in the old home.

Although George never enjoyed the good health and strength that the rest of us did, he was an able pupil in school and later he even wanted to try to go to school and take up a business course. However, after only one term at G. A. he had to give it up. Incidentally it is interesting to note that all of us, except Serenus and Esther, studied at Gustavus at some time.

Of a nervous and timid nature George did not like to do any work that involved taking responsibility. It bothered him even to have to drive a team of horses; but he could and did do other labor on the farm, even digging tile ditches at times. In later years he became moody and depressed and after moving to town he was a semi-invalid for many years. It took much Mother-love to try to give the help and understanding needed in those later years of his life until his death at the age of 56.

After completing the eighth grade in District No. 9, Lawrence was happy to stay and work on the farm until at the age of 20, he felt the call to study for the ministry. In 1908 he enrolled at Minnesota College in Minneapolis, then an academy of the Augustana Synod, but later discontinued. While there he received valuable training in congregational work as assistant to the Rev. August Seashore, pastor at Grace Lutheran. He worked at the building up of Home Mission work at both Lebanon and Bethany, now large congregations in Minneapolis.

Not having had a high school training, those years at Minnesota College added to later college and seminary study, seemed a long, long road to travel, and he faced a very difficult decision. He had always liked work on the farm and as he looked ahead to those many years of study before he could reach his goal, he was very much tempted to give up his dreams and go back to farming. Many were the discussions he had with Mother as she was finishing her evening’s work in the hot little summer kitchen after the rest of the family had gone into the more comfortable rooms of the house. In the end, his pathway lay straight ahead toward his early goal and in 1912 he enrolled at Gustavus to continue his schooling.

In 1919 he was ordained and in June that year he and Dagmar Paterson of Little Falls, Minnesota, were married. Their home has not been blessed by any children, but he has often said, “All the children of our church are our children.” Also the nephews and nieces have been close to their hearts. He has served in parishes in Milaca and Bock, Braham, and Ebenezer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and for the last twelve years in Albert City, Iowa, Mow nearing retirement age, he has been active in the planning and building of a beautiful church unit which was dedicated last spring. Their hopes are for a little home in Gowrie upon retirement, and we all are for that!

What of my own dreams? Since early years I had always loved to read, more than doing beautiful fancy work as did Mother, Esther, and Ruth. Next to that I loved to plant garden and flowers, and to see things grow. My earliest ambition was to be a Seeds woman like Emma V. White, who ran advertisement in our papers of that day.

But after my period at home as Mother’s helper it seemed the natural course for me to get a certificate and teach country school as Carl and Esther had done. I loved teaching, but after two years I felt the need of better schooling if I should continue that work. So in 1913, at the age of 23 years, I enrolled at the Academy at Gustavus. It was not easy to be classed with those youngsters of first class in Academy after being a school teacher, but I have felt that those years at Gustavus have been of great value to me. Carl Knock was then at the head of the Academy. Years before he had been my favorite teacher in country school. With his assistance in planning my work, I was able in three years to complete the Academy work, and most of the freshman work in college.

Lawrence had succeeded in getting for me as a room-mate that first year a senior girl, Dagmar Peterson. Some years later she became my very dear sister-in-law, Lawrence’s wife. Although she and her friends were near the top rung of the ladder of learning, and I, thought older than most of them, was at the very foot, they welcomed me as one of their group. They taught one something not offered in the school curriculum; I learned how to play. In other words, the hikes into the lovely Minnesota River woods, the picnics, the little dormitory parties, when some one got a box from home all opened me to a wonderland I’d never dreamed of.

Those were wonderful years, but now other plans came into my life. I came back home for one more year of teaching in the home school, but my heart was not fully in my work any more. Even before I went to Gustavus our mutual interest in church and school work had made Clarence and myself very good friends. I may be true that “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Our friendship ripened into love and so it was that in March 1918, I came back from Hector, Minnesota, where I had supplied as teacher for some time, and we were married.

We bought a little home, enlarged it several times to make room for our growing family. We had it all paid for and the future looked bright for us. Then came the depression. In 1933 Clarence lost his job at the bank. No other jobs were to be had. With eight mouths to feed and no income at all, it was Mother and Carl who came to our help, suggesting that we move out to the old farm home. We rented out our lovely town home for the big (?) sum of $15 a month. That gave some income regularly, but not enough. Clarence even worked at W.P.A for some months to eke out our income. Those were hard times, but we didn’t starve on the farm. For fifteen years we lived there in the old home, Clarence commuted to Ft. Dodge and helped many of the young folks of the neighborhood get a start in Junior College by providing free rides.

In turn help came to our own children in various ways, so all were able to get a college degree and are now engaged in useful work and in homes of their own. Being more or less shut-ins these last three years we enjoy our home in town and the homecomings of our loved ones.

It had almost been taken for granted that brother Serenus was the farmer of the family. What further schooling he had had was agricultural in nature. When he and Edythe, a neighbor girl, were married in 1917, he took over the farm. Serenus embarked on quite a different kind of farming than when Father was at the helm. He was interested in scientific farming and pioneered in raising pedigreed hogs, even to erecting a heated sales pavilion for special sales. Seemingly he was ahead of the times. Farmers liked good hogs, but were not educated as to what they were worth, and at times his efforts were discouraging.

In the spring of 1926 Serenus decided to quit farming. Their only son, Eugene, was six years old when they moved to Texas, partly to seek a warmer climate; but after living in Ft. Worth for about two years, that which may have been the underlying reason for leaving the farm, crystallized into action. In January 1928 he enrolled at Augustana for a shortened course in preparation for the ministry and in 1932 Mother had the joy of seeing her third son ordained as pastor. He has served faithfully and well in parishes in Evansville, Minnesota; Fresno, California; and Denver, Colorado; and at present is pastor at Mason City, Iowa.

After Serenus quit farming Carl took over the farm and now for 30 years has continued farming, driving out from home in town daily when the farming season is on. During the fifteen years that we lived on the farm, our boys worked for him during vacations. Now at 77 years of age, Carl still does not feel that he is old enough to retire, as we often have suggested that he should. Frugal in his own wants it has been his joy to help others, and especially to give generously to Home and Foreign Mission work.

From early childhood Ruth had a love for music. She learned to play the piano from learning the notes in her public school music which was just at that time being introduced into the school curriculum, and which a rural teacher of eight grades had not much time to stress in her teaching. Very nimble with her hands, Ruth did lovely fancy work and sewing, but music was her very life.

Thus it was only natural that she should go to Gustavus and study music, especially pipe organ. In 1920 she got her certificate in pipe organ, but since at that time the church in Gowrie had an organist, she looked else where for a position, and served in Bernadotte, Minnesota, for some time. Then she studied at L.B.I. for one year before she came home to Gowrie in 1922, to take up the work she loved and so faithfully performed as organist of Zion until her illness and death in 1941 at the age of 46 years.

It may be of interest to hot here that her salary never exceeded $300 a year. Had she been money minded she might have rebelled at this pittance. Since she lived at home and helped Mother she had enough for her personal needed and so got along on the $25 a month. She was happy and content to serve the Lord with her music, while also faithfully taking an active part in every organization of the church.

As a boy we used to call brother Milton a book-worm, for he was never happier than when his nose was buried in a book, and then he was oblivious of anything that went on around him. Unlike the other boys he never cared for farm work, though he did what was required of him when he was at home. In fact, one summer when on vacation, he tended one of Carl’s Hart Parr engines on one of the threshing rigs, and did it well. But he never learned to milk a cow! Lawrence relates of how when he and Serenus were doing the milking, Milton would perch in the manger and read aloud to them.

Times had changed. Milton was the first one of us to have the opportunity of attending the High School in Gowrie after completing eighth grade in District No. 9. There was no consolidation as yet, so Milton, and later Lillian, both enrolled as tuition students. When it was not possible for them to drive back and forth to the farm, they boarded at Albert and Marie Renquist’s home. In the fall of 1914 Milton enrolled at Gustavus, where then both Lawrence and I were attending. When he graduated from college it was his ambition to study law, which he did for one year. Mother was not happy over his decision for in her concept of things, “A lawyer was certain to be a liar.” Maybe it was an answer to her wishes and prayers when after that one year of law study he changed courses and decided to study for the ministry.

As a pastor, as teacher and as an author, he has contributed much to the work of the church. His published books are: People Are Asking and More People Are Asking which are compilations of answers to many questions which were first printed in a column in our church paper. Other books are: Holy Garments, The Psalms, and Studies in Isaiah.

After his ordination in 1923 he served as pastor at Anoka, Minnesota, for three years, then from 1926–1928 he did graduate study at Princeton Seminary and Chicago University Divinity School; From 1928–1931 he was instructor in Old Testament at Augustana Seminary; then again took up work as pastor, serving First Church, St. Paul, Minnesota, until he began teaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul in 1941.

Much is being discussed these days about Lutheran Unity. Milton’s life presents a rather unique experience in this important sphere. While still pastor at First Church (Augustana Synod) he taught one class in Dogmatics at Luther Seminary (E.L.C.) and a class in Old Testament at Augsburg Seminary in Minneapolis (Lutheran Free Church). At the same time he served on the Board of Directors for Augustana College and Theological Seminary. Since 1941 he has been Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and has now affiliated with the E.L.C. Synod.

In June 1923 he was married to Euphemia Swanson of Gowrie. Their youngest son Donald is still studying at Gustavus. The other four are now grown and in homes of their own. They have four grand children.

We do not know when the dream first came to Lillian that she should be a Missionary. After graduating from Gowrie High, and two years study at I.S.T.C. in Cedar Falls, she taught grade school for three years, before enrolling at L.B.I. where she studied for two years. From there she came to Gustavus to complete her college work.

r

After graduation from college, at the age of 25 years, she was sent to China as a Missionary Teacher. However, she was there less than two years, as all missionaries were then called back home because of the unrest and anti-foreign sentiment that arose in China at that time.

After several years of teaching Junior High in Dayton and in Gowrie, God guided her into another field of service, for when missionaries were again allowed in China, she felt she was too old to learn the Chinese language. During her stay in China she taught in the school for the missionaries’ children, and had to opportunity to study the Chinese language. So it was that in June 1931, she was married to the Rev. Verner A. Granquist and she began her real life work as pastor’s wife, a mission she so ably fulfilled, as helper in the church work and as the mother of three children.

God’s ways are not our ways. It is hard to understand, but the light of eternity will reveal to us why she should be called to lay down her life work at the age of only 51 years, leaving her husband and children to carry on alone. After five years it is wonderful to see her children all dedicated to special work in God’s Kingdom: Phoebe as the wife of a Seminary student, and Ted and Luther both preparing for the ministry.

When Laurine graduated from High School in 1921, she did not at once enter college. Instead she stayed home for a year to take her turn as Mother’s helper until Ruth came home in 1922 to take up her work as organist and also help Mother. Then Laurine went to L.B.I. for one year, and in 1923 Esther prevailed on her to be her assistant at the Children’s Home n Stanton, Iowa, for a year.

So it was not until the fall of 1924 when Lillian was a senior at G.A. that Laurine enrolled as a freshman there. In her sophomore year she took ill with a bad attack of the flu, and had to give up school for a while. However, the next fall she entered I.S.T.C. in Cedar Falls for the two year normal course.

After two years of teaching at Newhall, Iowa, she went back to I.S.T.C. and in 1931 received her B.A. degree, ten years after finishing High School. Then followed three years of teaching at Algona, and two years at Gowrie. In the fall of 1936, out of the blue sky, as it were, came the offer of a teaching position in the public schools of Dubuque, Iowa. In Dubuque she embarked on a long and successful career as primary teacher, serving there for 16½ years. During these years she helped our girls, both Clarice and Vivian, by offering them a home with her while they studied at the University of Dubuque.

With this background of teaching experience, she was urged to apply for the position at Luther College as “teacher of teachers-to-be,” and since January 1953 has served as Director of Teacher Education and Placement there. She bought a nice little home which she shared with a dear friend and fellow-teacher, Anne Blanchard. However, this fall (1956) she lives alone, as Anne accepted a position out in New York. In August 1956, after three years of summer school work, she received her Master’s degree in Education, from the University of Nebraska.

As I have tried to relate our various life stories in sequence, it has been like piecing together a jog-saw puzzle, and perhaps a rather confusing picture has been the result. It has not been my purpose to go into all the details, but rather to sketch the out reach of Mother’s influence in our lives. For as a heartline she encouraged us all by her prayers, her admonition and any help that we needed, that each of her children might find his or her place of usefulness in God’s Kingdom.