Monday, April 14, 1958

April 14, 1958

411 Bonnie Dr

El Cerrito, Calif.

Dear Brothers & Sisters

In between bites of Jean’s cinnamon-raisin bread I will start my contribution to the round robin. The loaf from which my slice came was freshly baked today so it is very tasty. It is almost nine o’clock and I’ve finished the weekly letter to Gowrie and a note to Aunt Hulda so I’ll be about ready to turn in when I get this letter finished.

Today I felt sort of sleepy and lazy perhaps because of my unusual session in the yard over the weekend, so I don’t think I’ll last awake much past 9:30 or so. A week ago today the weather turned sunny after a long rainy spell & since then it has been nice. So on Saturday I really did a lot in the yard and I guess my out-of-shape muscles still feel it.

Altho there were quite a few cases of houses sliding or “subsiding” as the newspapers put it during the rainy weather, we fortunately escaped all of this. The little drainage sump I put in, in the basement, when I was putting in the concrete floor last fall, collected water faster than usual but still required attention only a couple of times a day. From our living room windows we can see a coupe of the slides that occurred on Albany hill a mile or so away. One of these slid into the back yard of a Shell Development employee, altho I didn’t happen to know him. Down at work during a particularly rainy spell the Temescal creek plugged up at a brush guard and sent the creek flowing out into the street so that Shell Dev was about ½ surrounded with water. old-timers said it was the worst they had ever seen it. The creek overflowed about noon and by five the waters had receded slightly but it must have been late at night by the time the Emeryville street dept got the creek unplugged. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Vivian’s little blue house by the river and the times when it has been flooded, or nearly so.

As usual our daily, weekly, & monthly schedule is largely det’d by what stage Muriel & Palma are in. Palma has a pretty good start on being trained and we hope that she will be nearly so when we make our planned trips this year to San Diego & Iowa. Tho still a blonde, she is a little darker-haired now than when she was born. She is a great imitator and picks up the things Muriel does even when she doesn’t know the reason. Muriel is in the “why?” stage now and Palma also has learned to say why (altho she doesn’t know why she is saying it). I’ll be reading to her and come to the end of a Mother Goose rhyme and she’ll say “why” like amen — not really asking about anything but just making the proper (to her) response.

This will be all for now. Hope you are all feeling well & fit.

With love

Carl

May 22, 1946

May 22, 1946

664 W 13th

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home —

Well, what do you know if the sun didn’t come out today after 4 sunless days! It dawned clear and bright today, but it has been sort of half cloudy, half clear the rest of the day. It still isn’t warm yet, this evening it is quite chilly again, but maybe if the sun gets the idea and comes out a little more, it’ll warm up some. So much for the weather — it seems to be getting a little better. The transportation situation doesn’t look so good tho. Perhaps by tomorrow the P.E. workers will be on strike. I hope a last minute settlement is effect so that the strike is averted.

As usual I’m tired tonite after working all day. Perhaps you wonder sometimes if I am ever anything else but tired when I am writing a letter, since I seem to be including that remark quite regularly in them. I guess if I am not tired physically I am tired of being bored here, which make being tired a condition to be expected of me most of the time. This is an inane paragraph, isn’t it? Sort of like chasing a not very good idea around and not getting a very good grip on it so that it sounds odd, logicless, etc etc. I guess I’ll stop the paragraph here.

Tomorrow night the church is going to have a goodbye party for Rev & Mrs. Nyquist. He preached down at church for 3 or 4 months before Roderick Johnson came last summer (or was it afterward, I guess it was at that). They are going back to Kansas for awhile I guess he is going to the Synod. I am supposed to bring some cream for the refreshments but I didn’t find out about it till tonite and I certainly do not know where to get any. I guess I’ll get a couple of cans of canned milk and let them use that. I hadn’t intended to go to the affair, but I guess I’ll have to now.

I have been managing to get a loaf of bread each Saturday, mother so my lunches have been about the same. Even if I couldn’t get bread, I could always get something — if nothing else I could fall back on a soup diet. I could go out to the Shell Cafe and eat, but it is sort of unappetizing out there & I can dream up a better lunch, even without bread, to eat out at work. Moreover, it should be getting warm soon, and lunches sort of disintegrate into very sketchy affairs when you don’t feel like eating much because of the warm weather.

My work continues about as usual.

This is all for now.

With love,

C.P.

May 5, 1946

May 5, 1946

664 W 13th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home,

Sunday evening again. It’s a nice evening — cool with just a little breeze blowing and the sun rather low in the sky. Usually at this time of day the wind goes down and you can listen and hear things just as well as early in the morning. Strange isn’t [it], altho it’s capable of being easily explained on a physical basis, that a truly nice day starts end ends with calm. I suppose you could get started on a metaphysical discussion starting from that point but it is much simpler just to sit back and enjoy it. I wonder how often we don’t get simple physical pleasures like the feel of a breeze against your cheek, like taking off your shoes and putting on your slippers, like sitting down after a hard day and letting the weariness sort of leak out of you become all mixed up and complicated with ideas about what we should do and ought to do both for ourselves and or the world and people in general. We bludgeon ourselves into striving all our lives to do things, to be somebody, to influence others; it’s all wrong and we would to better to look at things a little more contemplatively. Perhaps I’m just getting balmy or something.

This Sunday was spent much like any other Sunday, so it’s banal to repeat what I did. It was breezy enuf this afternoon so I didn’t much feel like taking a walk. I went downtown to dinner about 2:30 and my hair (I washed it last nite as a diversion) blew all over as it does when recently shampooed. I don’t like (tho why should I) to have my hair blowing all over so I postponed taking the usual Sunday afternoon stroll till this evening. I’ll take this letter down to the post office and mail it.

Yesterday I went down to the beach and sat on the ocean side of the breakwater (there is quite an accumulation of sand about the rocks composing it) and read Time. It took more than [an] hour to do so, probably nearer two, and today my face is kind of sunburned altho perhaps it isn’t as much so as it seems to me.

Did you ever know that you could make pickled eggs? Last week a fellow out at work had one in his lunch. He said that his mother used to make them and that he likes them very much. All you do is hardboil the eggs, peel off the shell and soak them in a mixture of beet juice and vinegar, altho I don’t know how long. The white of the egg becomes a nice purple color, but the yolk is hardly effected, probably the diffusional process in it is much slower. Someday I am going to have to try to make some.

My work continues about as usual. Thank you for the clipping, dad. The Shell company also provides fellowships in various institutions, but I don’t know where they are. Usually when they grant them, there are no strings attached in any way so that it is entirely up to the schools to administer them.

This is all for now — I have run out of anything to write about, not of course saying that I have written anything anyway.

With love,

C.P.

June 10,1945

June 10, 1945

949 W 12th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home,

Well, it’s about 9:30 Sunday evening and oddly enough, I feel as tired as I would at the end of any working day altho I certainly haven’t done much. I got up shortly after six this morning since as usual I didn’t feel like sleeping when I could and pasted in my Li’l Abner scrapbook before and after breakfast. Breakfast was the usual Sunday one — three waffles. Three waffles is too much for me but Mrs. Johnson is shocked that I don’t eat more so I eat three to appease her.

I was going to walk down to church this morning but got delayed so that I had to take my car anyway (Mrs. Johnson had a ride with somebody else). Our new student pastor preached this morning. he has one year left in the seminary and has been in charge of several congregations before for short times so he is well experienced. He hails from northern Minn, went to G.A., is (I guess) about 25+ years old and looks like the Swede he is. He is a fairly intelligent fellow and quite likeable. Mrs. Johnson asked him up for dinner and before and afterward we sat and talked, which is why I happen to have learned so much concerning him. The only thing wrong with him is that I am afraid he is too much of a guy who likes to run around and meet people. That of course is o.k. and dandy as long as it doesn’t affect me, but I am afraid it will. It seems every time that I permit myself the indiscretion of trying to improve my personality by mingling with people I get my fingers burned. Perhaps I shall learn eventually to tend strictly to my own affairs, which policy when followed in the past has proved satisfactory.

I really wish now that I hadn’t moved here to the Johnsons, despite the nice room and conveniences I have here. The real reason I moved here was that I thought it wasn’t good to be living alone in the apartment I had. Now, life has become somewhat intolerable in little ways and I would like to move but hesitate to do so for fear of hurting Mrs. Johnson’s feelings. Another thing I don’t like is the associations I have in the church here. I am appalled at the inane characters on which I spend my time in that respect. I should never have allowed myself to become as closely associated with it as I have. It bothers me many times that Christianity is so closely linked with the innate worth of each individual while so many of them are obviously superfluous and of no use either to themselves or humanity.

Well it’s ten o’clock. Not much of a letter for ½ hour’s effort. I guess I’ll woo Morpheus; perhaps I shall be more successful at that.

With love

C.P.

May 6, 1943

May 6, 1943

425 S. Cabrillo

San Pedro, Calif.

Dear father, mother and the folks at home,

It is rather early as I am writing this letter. The sunrise was nice and bright this morning and I guess that that may have had something to do with it — that is with my getting up early on my day off. Usually I like to loaf in bed if I feel that I do not really have to get up. Since it is sunshiny and bright so early in the day it probably will be quite warm this afternoon unless it clouds up around noon. This is a new phase of Calif weather that has occurred a number of times recently.

Your box of cookies arrived, safe and very sound, mama. I don’t think that a single cookie was damaged in the least. And are the scrumptious! Thank you so much for them. One night recently I dreamt that you were making grün (you know what I mean). I guess it was in anticipation of about 3 or 4 months from now. [This recipe for something called “gruetze” is very similar to the recipe for “gryn” that my mom used to make for my dad, from a recipe given her by my dad’s sister-in-law.  —LRS]

My work continues about as usual. However, some new stuff has been going on. 1000 lbs of catalytic-cracking catalyst are being made here. This is sort of interest[ing] since it involves things heretofore not done around here and also a number of new analyses that are fun to do. The work is being done mostly by the operator but the lab does the more involved analyses. As a result, Plant IX is down since it would be difficult to keep both Plants I and IX running and be making the catalyst at the same time.

Today is my day off and I go back to work tomorrow afternoon as operator. The catalyst has been about ½ made now so that by the time after this when I am again operator it should be completed. It really is more fun I think to work in the laboratory that as an operator. Lately some new things have some up in the laboratory and the work there is much less routine than in Plants I and IX. I think that eventually I would rather work in the lab. Zene said that it probably could be arranged sometime in the future.

Last Sunday I went with Pastor & Mrs. Wellington to Los Angeles to a meeting of the Southern District Luther League. We stayed for both the afternoon and evening services. The speaker was Wilton Bergstrand, executive director of the Augustana Synod Luther League and he certainly was a dynamic fellow. I guess he is a very suitable individual for such a position.

I also met some interesting people while I was there. Usually, as you probably realize, I don’t get around to talking to people I don’t know too readily but after lunch after the afternoon session I saw that if I didn’t find somebody to talk to, time would hang rather dull on my hands for awhile. So I started talking to a couple of fellows after some rather diffident hellos. After we got to talking it went fairly easily tho. One of them turned out to be a chemical engineer, who has been working for Shell Chemical Co since last May. The other was a civil engineer working for the U.S. engineer’s office in Los Angeles. It was quite interesting speaking to them.

Afterwards, thru them, I was introduced to several other people, including a geology graduate student at Cal. Tech., a senior in chemistry at the University of Southern Calif and to a number of other people who do I know not exactly what. One of them however was a Liljegren of some sort tho who hails from Arkansas and was a relative of Eleanor Renquist’s. There seemed, all in all, to be quite a number of coincidences coming up during the afternoon. I had a very enjoyable time thru out.

However by the time we got home (10 o’clock) I was pooked out. I had worked graveyards Sunday morning so that by then (at 10 o’clock Sunday night) I had had no sleep for 24 hours and as a result was getting rather sleepy. I slept like the proverbial log that night, altho even when I am not tired I usually do not have too much trouble sleeping.

I am sorry to hear that father has not been getting along so well according to Dr. Borgen. It is a good idea to start taking it easy. Working only in the afternoons should be a good idea I think. Twenty pound of liver seems all right (but an awful lot) and I should think it would perk up the red blood corpuscles considerably.

I received a letter from Vincent which I mean to answer today, but after I have had some breakfast, since when I finish this letter I am going down town and feed my mouth. I guess I will go to the bank too. I haven’t got around to cashing my last paycheck yet. When you are working days it is sometimes rather difficult to do.

I am thinking of trying to buy some sort of a car. I get tired of walking to the P.E. station and I also think I could get a better place to stay farther from the waterfront, and a car would remedy both of these situations. If I feel like it I’ll take a walk down Pacific to the car lots today. If the Ruml tax plan or some pay-as-you-go proposal is enacted I can take the money now being set aside for income tax next year for this purpose. Of course I still must make certain I have plenty to come home on but $100 should be enough for that.

Yesterday morning the P.E. car rain into a car while crossing Anaheim Boulevard. It ripped his back fender off and smashed the glass in his back windows. The jolt was not noticeable at all in the car but I’ll bet he felt it. it was a very silly thing for him to do. There were two trains at the crossing (it is double tracked) one north bound & one south bound. If the south bound had started up as it normally would have in a couple of seconds he would have been hit on both sides and something serious could have occurred.

I guess I will stop now. I shall include Vincent’s letter altho it may contain news you have already heard about.

With love

C.P.

December 3, 1942

Dec. 3, 1942

425 S Cabrillo Ave

San Pedro Calif

Dear father, mother and the folks at home,

According to the newspaper its just 19 shopping days until Christmas (and I have [not] got around to do any Christmas shopping at all). It hardly seems 3½ months since I left home and yet it seems like an awful long time. Iowa weather had undergone a considerable change since I left but here, except for about a 25 or 30°F drop all around the clock from a summer temperature profile, the weather is essentially the same. A little less cloudy on the average in the morning but really foggy when it decides to get foggy.

I don’t hardly think that I will do much Christmas shopping but let you do your own as Uncle Carl does. I had the bright idea once (before gas rationing) of buying 5 gallons of gasoline and sending it home, but I suppose it wouldn’t be allowed. Lately I have found out, via the newspaper, that it violates city ordinance to have more than 2 gallons stored above ground except in a car or approved container. At any rate I didn’t do it.

By the way, how are you coming out in this matter? Will you get extra gasoline? I’m glad that I do not have a car to worry about. I saw in the newspaper this morning that after Christmas, many things are going to be rationed, clothes, milk, eggs, cheese etc etc. All I can say is, its the city dweller that’s getting knocked in most of this stuff. You can have to eat what you want and all you want of it on the farm (except for such things as coffee which probably aren’t necessary).

To me, the farm is the place where you can have the greatest freedom in what you do regardless of what regulations & conventions are extant elsewhere. I’m not exactly unhappy where I am now but I’d rather freeze, sweat, toil, ache in the back, grow blisters on my hands, get all disgusted with cows, wish I’d never seen a potato in my life, grow bunions on my nether portions bouncing over a crossed corn field, chase the pigs when they get out etc etc than be a chemical engineer. Perhaps I’ll change my tune someday because all this doesn’t seem logical, but then many things in life aren’t in the least logical when you think about them. How did [I] get started into this anyway? I’ll guess I’ll leave off and start in on another tack.

I have got some pictures finished, not by me, but by the Thrifty Drug Store. Since we started working six days a week I don’t have very much spare time especially at night when I would have to do the developing. I guess my ventures into photographic chemistry will have to wait awhile. I am enclosing them in this letter. Please send them on to Aunt Laurine. If you don’t mind I’d like to have them back eventually. I hope that you still have the map I once sent you because it will be easier to recognize from where these pictures were taken. The descriptions are written on the back of them.

This month (or, that is, last November) I kept track of all that I spent and it was more than I thought it would be. Altogether it was $90.02 if I forget about the $13.13 which I paid for an electric razor by check. Anyway the $90.02 represents current, ordinary expenditure. This seems like an awful lot but most of it had to be spent, more or less. I spent $29.41 for food or about $1 per day which it would have been if I hadn’t had that Thanksgiving dinner(s) I wrote about. This is about a workable minimum I think.

After work I have breakfast at the Shell Cafe before I get on the P.E. which costs usually 31¢ and consists of two eggs, coffee, toast and potatoes. After I have come home and slept awhile (till two usually or 12:30 like today) I go down to Thrifty’s or Sontag’s and have dinner or supper or whatever you want to call it for 55 to 60¢. This consists usually of soup, salad, potatoes, vegetable, meat (except on Tuesday), milk, rolls, dessert (usually pie). Then I have an apple perhaps when I am walking home. Going to work at 11:15 I usually get something to eat (a bar, etc) at the magazine stand near the P.E. station. And that’s the program 6 days a week now.

On Sunday it is the same except for breakfast which occurs at Sontag’s and includes orange juice in addition to the above breakfast for 40¢. This diet seems to include a reasonable amount of all the essentials, altho perhaps a bit weak on cereals. But you don’t get much bread to eat at restaurant meals anyway so that can’t be helped. In addition to the amount I spent for food, I spent $36.73 for what I call essentials — that is rent, laundry, church dues etc. Then I spent $4.60 to get to and from work on the P.E. which I suppose should be included in the essential column. About $1.64 accumulated in my 1¢, 5¢, and 10¢ coin collections, leaving $17.46 which I spent more or less needlessly on magazines, paper, newspaper, movies etc. I have however a couple of books to show for it. It also includes the $5 Look subscription so perhaps it isn’t too much.

If you have been keeping track so far you find that this amounts to only about $89.44 I don’t know what happened to the difference. I probably lost some and forgot to include some expenditures. On two days I came out ahead of myself — that is, I have more left over than I should. Where it came from is beyond me. My estimated expenditures for Dec are $83.40 because I think that working 6 days a week I will have less time to get wangled into buying things. However, yesterday I wandered into the book-store and bought some books so that I wonder if my budget will contain itself. I had thought originally that I could get along on less than $85 or $90 a month but I sort of think its impossible now — especially if I can’t keep out of the book store. My latest was for two books — the works of Gilbert & Sullivan and the “Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammitt [sic]. This last is a detective story that has almost become a classic so far as detective stories go. Well, what do you think of my spending? Please write and tell me.

I am getting hungry so I guess I will go downtown and have some dinner.

With love

C.P.

P.S. Thank you, mother, father & Vincent your very welcome letters.

P.S. I am enclosing a clipping that was amusing I thought. Also a bond.

Christmas

Christmas was a very special time for the Peterson family. Christmas Eve was always spent in Grandmother Peterson’s home. After the usual meal of lutefisk, sylta, potatoes, assorted goodies and fruit soup, the gifts were distributed. Uncle Carl sat in his big leather Morris chair (the forerunner of the present-day platform rocker). The “height” of the evening was reached when the little white envelopes from Uncle Carl were distributed. During the war years, each of us kids received $18.75 to buy a war bond. The adults received larger amounts.

One year an envelope appeared with the caption “Ego” written on it. We didn’t know what it meant, but soon figured out that it belonged to Uncle Carl. This was one of the only times that I can recall when there was a sign of levity on his part. On Christmas Eve, it was his responsibility to read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke at our family gathering in the Peterson home. I can still hear him reading in a somewhat monotonous tone of voice “And in those days there went out a decree . . .” Following this reading, we sand Christmas carols and a Swedish hymn, “Glada Julafton, Harliga, Klara [Happy Christmas Eve, My friend, Clara”].

Christmas morning the schedule was to go to the early 6:00 a.m. “Julotta” service. In earlier years, this service was preceded by a Swedish service that began at 5:00 a.m. I can remember sitting through that service not understanding a word, and then after that, sitting through the English service. The one thing that stands out in my mind about the English service was that as the first strains of “AllHail to Thee O Blessed Morn” were played on the organ, Uncle Carl, who sat in the front pew of the church, would rise to his feet. In those days most all hymns were sun sitting down, but Uncle Carl rose up to sing this meaningful Christmas hymn.

Eating Out in San Francisco

I mentioned that my friend Jim Cosgrave worked for McGraw-Hill in their San Francisco office. He it was that started the Friday evening habit if three young Shell engineers having dinner together with him at some notable San Francisco restaurant, after which the four of us would take in a move if there was one to our liking. The Shell engineers besides me were Steve Figg and Bob Overcashier. They had been transferred to San Francisco from Wilmington at the same time as I.

Steve is long deceased — he came from a family troubled with congenital heart malfunction. But he had left Shell by the time of his death and was I believe working at Richland, Washington in atomic energy. Bob continued at Shell and has been a life-long friend.

This Friday evening out continued as long as we were still working on San Francisco, but of course stopped when I started to spend most of my time either at Emeryville of the Berkeley lab. And I suppose it was not every Friday evening, though I have no recollection of ho often the evenings out occurred. I suppose we visited most San Francisco restaurants of note but I can’t recall most of them now. The Shadows on Nob Hill, the Blue Fox, Cairo’s, the Cliff House,  the Palace Hotel, Lupo’s Pizzeria (the first place I ever had pizza, long before it became common in the fast food area). And I remember the ornate splendor of the Fox Theater on Market Street now unhappily torn down.

Other work days I would often have my supper at Foster’s, just across the street from the Key terminal. This was sort of an “order at the counter” place which was at the time a chain of shops throughout the Bay Area. Or I might have a hamburger and hot apple pie at the Ground Cow in Berkeley. I don’t know how many hamburger suppers I had there but it was many. The Ground Cow later moved to a different location on Shattuck Square but it never prospered there and sometime after Jean and I were married it went out of business (though I still recall being there with Jean and some of our daughters before its demise).

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.

Coffee and Rusks

I mentioned that uncle George often seemed to subsist on coffee and a rusk. Rusks were a staple at my grandmother’s house and indeed they were widely and commonly used in the Swedish community. Basically a small loaf of white bread was made, sliced and the slices were dried in the over (after having been given a light dusting of sugar — there may have been other treatment but only the sugar am I sure of). Thus after the drying in the oven they were crisp and hard throughout and perhaps slightly browned on the surface, but not like a piece of toast. They were eaten generally along with a cup of coffee and invariably the rusk was dunked in the coffee to make it easier to chew. I certainly ate my share of rusks in my day, although not until the point where I could have coffee. Actually when dunked in coffee they were quite tasty. In cross-section a rusk would be perhaps 2 inches by 4 inches and one-half to one-third inches thick.

Coffee was an important beverage in the Swedish community and at the time of my youth was always simply made by adding the requisite amount of coffee grounds to the water in the coffee pot and allowing it to simmer until the grounds settled. At church functions, such as Ladies Aid or Missionary meetings an egg would be added in the later part of the coffee-making process to aid in the settling of the grounds. Most people would add cream and many would add sugar (always one or two cubes of lump sugar, not a spoonful of granulated sugar). Sugar was not normally used at my grandmother’s or by my parents. Almost no one would drink “black” coffee.

My uncle Carl, not being a coffee drinker would dunk his rusks in the large class of water he invariable had with his meals. The picture in my mind I have of him doing this is incredibly clear.

When I was working on the threshing run, coffee was of course served at meals and I was told by the older men that the best way of cooling off during the sweaty work was to drink hot coffee. I could not really believe this but they claimed it to be true.

I have one amusing incident that I was told about involving coffee. I think it was my cousin Floyd who told me of it — he was always one for a funny story, whether true or not. It seems that one of the grocery stores in Gowrie on one occasion was providing free cups of coffee to its customers. The cost of a cup of coffee at the time was five cents. Old man Franzeen, a neighbor of my cousin Floyd, was offered a cup of coffee. Being well aware of the value of money, the old man said, “I’d rather have the nickel.”

On occasion my grandmother would make toast, but toast to her was a piece of bread that was crisp throughout, much like being a rusk except browner on the surface. Nothing like a piece of toast today that is crisp and brown on the outside but not crisp inside.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 31 the last: Train trips

On one occasion my father took Clarice and me to see the Iowa state fair in Des Moines. We went and returned by the M and St L passenger train that operated through Gowrie by in those days. Of what we saw I have no recollection, all I can remember is that I wasn’t feeling well and my father at one point had to find a toilet facility for me. What prompted the excursion I have no idea, maybe my parents thought it would be a good educational opportunity for Clarice and me. It wasn’t until I was traveling to and from school at Iowa City that I was again in Des Moines, only 80 miles distant from Gowrie.

The only other time I was outside the state of Iowa until I left for work in California after completing college was a trip to Minnesota. This occurred one summer when I was perhaps 10 or 11 years of age. Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Dagmar customarily used part of their annual vacation on a trip to Gowrie to visit my grandmother and on this particular trip I rode back with them to Minneapolis. I stayed a few days with them there — I have virtually to recollection of anything we did or of the parsonage they lived in. They then took me to visit Aunt Lillian, Uncle Verner and family who were living in Isanti at the time — maybe Uncle Verner drove in to get me. Again I stayed a few days. I recall attending both of the two services Uncle Verner conducted the Sunday I was there. In addition to the church in Isanti he also conducted services at a small rural church.

During this visit Uncle Carl rode up on the M and St L and I rode back to Gowrie with him in the same way. Aunt Lillian had made a lunch for us to have on the train — it was more or less an all-day trip and there was no meal service on the train. She had made roast beef sandwiches and I believe peanut butter cookies both of which in my sort of “picky” eating habits I sort of demurred from eating until pressed to eat them by my uncle. I recall finding them unexpectedly tasty and pleasing. I believe by the time I made this trip that the passenger service on the M and St L had been converted from a steam locomotive driven train to one powered by some sort of diesel engine. But I can recall earlier days when a steam engine was used. I don’t recall exactly why I made this trip — I don’t believe it was a particular desire or request on my part. I suppose I enjoyed the trip, but my recollection is of a rather noncommittal relation to the whole excursion. My sister Clarice had I think made a similar trip maybe a year or so earlier.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 23: Vegetable Garden

To the west of the playhouse and south of the barn was the vegetable garden, a rather large area. It was large enough in area to warrant it being plowed by Uncle Carl, using a team of horses and a walking plow. I suppose he would do the plowing on the same trip as when he plowed the garden Grandmother’s house sometime in the spring of the year. After we had moved to the farm I remember a trip into town to Grandmother’s, taking in the walking plow on the spring wagon behind Barney and Birdie. After I had arrived Uncle Carl drove in from his work on the farm to do the plowing. The walking plow, as its name implies, is a plow that is operated by the user walking behind it — he doesn’t ride as on a sulky plow. The plow has two long handles extending back from the plowshare that are grasped by the operator, both for directing the plow and to a lesser degree for keeping it in the ground. The latter is mostly generated by the characteristic of the shape of the plow slade and the moldboard. The reins from the horses loop back and around the user, who will release his grip on the handles to pull on the reins as needed to direct the horses. Plowing, either with the walking plow or with the tractor is something I never did; I believe Vincent did however on occasion. I always had the feeling that Uncle Carl somewhat doubted my capability for doing some work, such as plowing.











Walking plow














Walking plow in use

The two main food items grown in the garden from the standpoint of the area occupied were potatoes and sweet corn. Potatoes were usually planted early, and the “new” succulent potatoes would be available by, say, the end of June. Often they would coincide with the ripening peas, and one of the seasonal delights was creamed new potatoes and peas. The potatoes would be relatively small so they would not be halved, but whole little ellipsoids. Sweet corn was planted later but would also come mid-summer and would last for some time; typically there would be several plantings to stretch out the time of availability. Other vegetables which were grown were radishes, lettuce, carrots, peas, string beans, acorn squash, pumpkins. Perhaps cabbage but I’m not sure. My grandmother included spinach in her garden — it was one of her favorites — but I can’t recall my mother ever growing it. After the sweet corn ears had been harvested my father would cut down the stalks, which were still green and juicy at that stage and feed them to the cow, who ate them with gusto.

The one perennial in the garden was rhubarb which, at least for me, was a favorite fruit (or vegetable, depending on the definition). For awhile my parents had a few gooseberry bushes but I guess they weren’t too productive, or too troublesome to prepare so they disappeared after while. There may also have been strawberries but I’m not at all sure about them.

There were several cherry trees, at various places in the yard west of the house and some apple trees along the north side of the driveway. The cherries were supplemented by those from Grandmother’s garden which seemed to be more productive. I really don’t remember how well the apple trees produced. I remember on at least one occasion the family making a visit to an orchard near Fort Dodge having U-pick apples. Both cherries and apples (at either our home, Grandmother’s, or for that matter, on the Peterson farm after the move there) were never pruned; I think with some attention along that line they might have been more productive. Along the east fence of the pasture there was a volunteer mulberry tree and the berries were picked sometimes; mulberries were never one of my favorites as there is no way of conveniently detaching the stems from them — you either ate them, stems and all, or not at all. There may have been a few blackberry bushes somewhere but they were a minor addition to the fruits at most.



















Mulberries

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 20: Canned food

Beyond the laundry room, in the southeast corner of the basement was a room where various food staples such as potatoes were stored, also where my mother kept the fruits and vegetables she had canned. The Mason jars were arrayed on a number of shelves lining the walls of the room. The potatoes may have been what was grown in the garden in the west end of the lot, or I suppose may have come from Uncle Carl’s crop, although I have no recollection of this activity on his part until we moved to the farm. My mother canned a lot of fruit and vegetables to economize as far as the family food expense was concerned. Fruits included rhubarb, apples, cherries, perhaps very rarely some kind of berries. The cherries were the sour red kind and the pits were always removed before the fruit was canned, so putting up cherries was a time-consuming activity and not as many jars were “put up” as for apples and rhubarb.

I think the preferred apples for canning were what was termed “harvest” apples. These ripened, as the name implies, about the time of oat harvest which normally would by in late June and early July — threshing would be later, in the latter part of July and extending into August. Harvest apples were a soft, somewhat mealy apple, and in flavor (to me at least) when cooked resembled that of Gravensteins. The latter I knew nothing of until days in California, and indeed then only after Jean and I were married. Gravenstein applesauce was something that Jean’s mother made all during her married days — indeed while she was still relatively active she would can a dozen quarts or so and given them to us, say as a Christmas present.

The vegetables my mother canned included sweet corn, string beans, tomatoes. The sweet corn was “blanched” and then the kernels were cut off before being “cold-packed.” I think the string beans similarly were cold-pack but the tomatoes were always open kettle. Tomatoes were the most canned vegetable by her.

On further recollection, I should include peaches in the fruit my mother canned, although in this case it was fruit that was purchased. Iowa winters are too cold for peach trees to survive. We never had apricots — this also was a taste that I acquired after I moved to California (along with persimmons). There are varieties of persimmons, rather small fruit, that are native to the Midwest but we never had them.

Another fruit I neglected to include was Concord grapes. At my grandmother’s house, along the driveway on the east side of the lot was a long row of Concord grape vines, and I believe that the grapes were shared with us. The vines were quite prolific producers as I recall. I have never liked Concord grapes to eat raw, but the grape juice when used in such desserts as grape sago pudding is very much one of my favorites. When my mother made greda kaka (literally “cream pudding”) and served it topped first with thickened Concord grape juice (I suppose with cornstarch) and then with whipped cream, I had another of the desserts I treasure in memory. Jean has tried on occasion to make greda kaka but the result was not was lingers in my memory. Perhaps once difficulty is the lack of a source of unpasteurized and unhomogenized whole milk. The curdling agent, rennet, she did locate after some inquiry but I don’t think the raw milk was to be found.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 19: Laundry

Washing clothes was a major, all-day operation and quite different from the washer and dryer operation of today. It was done on Mondays as I recall, and being a once-a-week operation entailed 8 to 10 “tubs” of wash in the washing machine. Normally the washing itself would be done by noon or shortly thereafter, ending up with using the water in the washing machine to wash down the floor of the laundry room, with the water going down the floor drain in the southwest corner of the room. Almost always the wash was hung outside to dry, even in the winter, I can vaguely recall my mother bringing in the clothes, stiff and frozen from being outside. Further drying may have been done on the clotheslines in the laundry area. The next steo in the process was to dampen or sprinkle the clothes and linen, rolling the pieces of laundry up and stacking them in the wicker baskets. After standing awhile or overnight, the laundry was ready for ironing, either late in the day or on Tuesday.

Washing clothes was such a major household task that often one of my mother’s sisters (either Aunt Ruth or Aunt Esther) would walk across town from Grandmother’s house to ours to spend the day helping my mother. Mostly I think it was Aunt Ruth was early in my days in the little brown house Aunt Esther was off working at the Deaconess Institute in Omaha. It was while she was working there that she suffered her mental breakdown and was institutionalized for awhile at the mental hospital at Cherokee. It was never clear to me the cause of her difficulty, but it may have been the kind of mental instability that I always thought characterized the Seashore side of the family (my grandmother’s side) plus the kind of standard of perfection in work and purpose that was engendered growing up in the Peterson household. So it was only after her return from Cherokee that she would have come to help.

It was on one of Aunt Esther’s visits (I suppose it was for helping with the wash) that for some reason or circumstance, she and I were having lunch together. We were having potatoes and gravy, with not much in the way of potatoes but considerable gravy. Aunt Esther said she would supplement her share of the potatoes with bread and gravy and I thought this peculiar indeed, never having encountered this before. I suppose that Aunt Esther had had bread and gravy in her childhood — perhaps potatoes were scarce in the household at times but there was always bread.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 10: Bathroom and Dining Room

I remember one incident relative to the bathroom that provides some interesting sidelights on the characteristics of my parents. It occurred when Clarice was of an age when she was starting to menstruate and she was attending to her needs in the bathroom, having locked the door. My father needed, or wanted to use the bathroom — perhaps he had an urgent need to do so. Anyway on finding the door locked, and Clarice within preventing his access, he became quite angry and made some threatening remarks. My mother, perhaps aware, or sending the situation, immediately remonstrated, indeed informed my father that he wasn’t to carry out any of his threats. He promptly subsided. What eventually developed in the situation I do not recall. It does however illustrate the characteristic of my father, generally a mild-mannered person, to occasionally “fly off the handle.” I have observed this tendency in myself. The incident also illustrates the relationship between my parents in that my father’s basic regard and appreciation for my mother’s opinion and action would temper him even in one of his rare obstreperous moments.

Generally my parents were pretty much in accord in their thinking and actions. One of the few times when there was substantial disagreement between them was on the subject of an endowment-type life insurance policy. Fred Magnusson (who worked at the second bank in Gowrie — the Savings Bank — in a position similar to that of my father at the First National Bank and who moonlighted as an insurance agent) had convinced my father that he should purchase this $2000 endowment policy. My mother was opposed stating somewhat irrationally that what she wanted was my father, not the proceeds from some life insurance. In the end my father prevailed, but the company failed during the Depression and only part of the money invested was recovered.

Off of the kitchen to the east was the dining room. In the center of the room was, normally, a round oak table. The table could be expanded into a long table by the addition of boards at its center. Accompanying the table were six (eight?) oak chairs; the seats were leather-covered, or at least a leather-like material. When the table was in the round shape, four chairs would be arranged around it with the remainder along the wall at various places. On the west wall stood a sort of buffet, with cupboards for storing my mother’s good dishes and a large drawer at the bottom for tablecloths, napkins, etc. There were also some smaller drawers above the cabinets for storage of her silverware. The upper surface of the buffet was about chest high and along the back was a low mirror that ran the length of the buffet. Sitting on the upper surface, on some doilies, were two cut-glass dishes (maybe they were wedding presents) and in the center between the dishes was a large glass pitcher (and glasses?). I’m not at all sure about the latter, but there was something kept there.

In the southeast corner of the room was a china closet, with a glass door. It was tall rather than wide, perhaps five to six feet tall with several shelves in it. The door could be locked (as could the buffet cupboards and drawers) but I don’t remember the locks ever being used. The china closet contained various of my mother’s fancier dishes, including a cream and sugar set. The latter I distinctly recall as I remember on occasions as a young child sneaking a spoonful of sugar from it. There was a little ornamental spoon with the set for dispensing the sugar. I never gave any thought to leaving the spoon unwashed after I had had it in my mouth. On top of the china cabinet stood a clock, the striking kind, but which to my recollection wasn’t used, maybe it wouldn’t run.

In the northeast corner of the dining room was the cold air register that circulated air to the convection furnace in the house; it was flush with the floor. The floors in the dining room and living rooms, and I think the front bedroom were, I believe, maple, and stained dark. The woodwork was oak in the dining room and parlor.

One incident concerning the dining room that I don’t recall but I heard about secondhand was the time I was discovered (by my mother?) as a young child running around on top of the table. A memory I do have of the dining room was the time when Clarice had something wrong with one of her knees (some broken or damaged cartilage) and she had to be still in bed for some time. A bed or couch was set up in the dining room near the window side and Clarice spent the time for her knee to mend there. She must have been about 10 years old when this occurred — I think it was after Dr. Borgen took over old Dr. Erickson’s practice. Dr. Erickson was pretty much in his dotage in his last years of practice and I doubt he’d have had the insight to detect what was wrong with Clarice’s knee.

I can recall the dining room being the scene of a family meal, with grandmother’s along for the occasion but it’s not related to any particular event. Somehow or other I tie this in with a couple of food items that I didn’t like, and didn’t eat, as a child. One was chicken (a favorite, particularly for the rest of the family, when my mother would fry a young rooster) and another was the scalloped ham and potato dish that she made. I didn’t like the ham. I have the vague feeling that I was a rather “picky” eater as a child, but this is one of the childhood characteristics that I’ve outgrown. I like chicken now and scalloped ham and potatoes is one of my favorite dishes.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 6: Meals

The main meal of the day was at noon and was always called “dinner.” I didn’t encounter use of “dinner” for the evening meal until I had gone to work for Shell in California. While the family lived in the little brown house during my early years, my father always walked home for the noontime meal. Generally it was a meat and potatoes meal. Now I can’t really recall what the cuts or type of meat were, but I’m sure they were not the expensive ones. Meatloaf, wieners, meatballs and such. Occasionally my mother would make vegetable soup, and accompanying this would be the meat from the “soup bone.” Potatoes, carrots, perhaps some cabbage, maybe a little rice were the main components. She would also make navy bean coup and cabbage soup. Fish, except for canned salmon and, rarely, sardines, was not on the menu. My mother would make a salmon loaf, which I still recall I liked. Vegetables if cooked were usually “creamed” — corn, peas, string beans. Tomatoes were often stewed — my mother usually canned tomatoes for use in the winter months. In the summertime there would be corn on the cob and such fresh produce as lettuce and radishes.

I think there was usually a dessert of some kind, if nothing else, canned fruit. But there would also be various puddings — tapioca, chocolate, rhubarb, apple puddings, occasional pies. The most frequent pies were pumpkin (sometimes without a pie shell) and raisin. In season there might be apple or cherry.

The evening meal was called supper and was often a lighter edition of the noon meal, sometimes using leftovers in the form of a potato/meat hash, corn cut off of excess ears and corn and heated in the fry pan, etc. And often there would be an afternoon coffee time with rolls that my mother made, or rusks [a rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread] for those of the adults who were having coffee (coffee generally was not for children); this would be along about 4 o’clock or so.
















Rusks

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 5: Sun Room and Kitchen

At the east end of the sun room along the south wall my mother had her sewing machine. My mother did not particularly like to sew but the exigencies of raising her brood of six children led her to considerable activity along this line. Like virtually all sewing machines in the community at the time it was treadle-operated. Part of her sewing was adaptations of hand-me-downs to a size and shape suitable for one of the children. I remember once she converted a coat from one of her sisters into a winter coat for me. She entered the product in the annual “corn show” and won a prize on it. Somewhere there is a picture of me wearing the prize-winning coat. My mother had this Kodak camera, a gift I believe from my father, and she used it sparingly. So it was indeed a special event for this particular picture.

In the northeast corner of the sun room there was a cupboard. The bottom was used for storage of children’s toys. Above that was a small built-in writing desk — the kind where a board is hinged to come down and form the writing surface. Above that was a taller cabinet where sewing materials were kept. Once of the few relics that my father had from his childhood was a cast iron toy — a little cart with two detachable horses. The horses would move in a sort of trotting motion (actuated by a little cam) as the cart and horses were pushed along the floor. Originally there had also been a little man and woman who would sit in the car, on two little projections. These had hoever been lost. The toy was kept on top of the upper part of the cabinet and occasionally we children were allowed to play with it. I believe that Marold [the youngest of the six children] eventually inherited this toy.

A substantial part of everyday activities was centered for the family in the kitchen and sun room. Meals were served at the table in the sun room and invariably there was breakfast, dinner (at noon) and supper, each at just about the same time each day. Breakfast would be after my father had completed his morning chores, like stoking the furnace in winter and, year-round, milking the cow and tending to it. I suppose breakfast would stat at about 7 a.m. or so, typically with all of the family assembled to start the meal with a table prayer, brief and by rote. I think my father would start work at the bank at 8 o’clock so by beginning the meal at 7 there would be time to finish it, have the morning “devotions” read (this would include a prayer centered I suppose on the nature of the reading for the day) followed by a recitation in unison of the Lord’s Prayer.

I do not recall, oddly enough, any Bible reading in conjunction with the devotional reading. For that matter I do not recall my parents systematically reading the Bible as a personal pursuit, as did the members of Grandmother’s household (at least such as my maiden aunts and my grandmother); probably the press of daily life shunted this activity into abeyance until such time as the lessening of familial duties brought it into play again.

I grew up with the vague impression that the Bible, in the Lutheran church and teaching, had as its main function to provide support for the decreed Lutheran dogma. Certainly for the most part, the use that was made of it was highly selective, with some portions that were difficult to explain, relative to the Lutheran doctrines, being either totally ignored or shunted into a category of things that existed but weren’t talked about. The meal would terminate with a closing prayer — the meal began and ended in common for all of the family.

Prominent on the breakfast menu would be cooked cereal, either oatmeal (which my father preferred) or cream of wheat. At a later date, I’m uncertain just when, oatmeal fell out of favor with my father when he decided it caused his periodic “sick” headaches. After that my mother never made it, which as all right with me as it was not then, nor now, one of my preferred breakfast dishes. It was eaten with an application of sugar (white, not brown) and cream, perhaps somewhat diluted with milk. No raisins, and my mother usually cooked it with more water than normal so that it would be less “lumpy” and more palatable to her children. This lumpiness was not a problem with cream of wheat which had a smooth consistency. Cold cereals were less common, although I remember Puffed Wheat, to a less extent Puffed Rice, and perhaps cornflakes.

Eggs were served but primarily as rather hard-boiled. They would be in a bowl passed around; my father would have two, the children one. The egg would be removed from the shell, and for the children at leas broken up with a fork into a more or less homogeneous state. Fried bread (never termed French toast) and pancakes were also on the breakfast menu. The pancakes were I think a recipe from my father’s upbringing and were typically a rather limp variety compared to those I’ve encountered in later years. They were eaten with Karo syrup (usually the dark variety, although occasionally it would be white Karo which was regarded as a real treat by the children, at least by me), molasses (one of my father’s preferred ways), or with cream and sugar (the best way in my father’s estimation). Pancakes with cream and sugar as my father ate was perhaps a carryover from his childhood; I have never encountered it outside of those early days in the little brown house. I recall trying pancakes this way but they didn’t really appeal to me.

Along with what I’ve described above, there were certain items available at every breakfast, indeed at breakfast, dinner and supper for that matter. These were coffee for my parents, milk for the children and bread for everyone. As far as my father was concerned bread was an indispensable component of every meal.

The coffee was made in a white enamelware coffee-pot. The procedure was simply to add the coffee grounds to the requisite amount of water and apply heat. I don’t know if one started with cold water or hot water from the tea kettle. I guess the grounds settled to the bottom of the coffee-pot after the prepared coffee had sat awhile, and the coffe to drink was decanted off the top. On more special occasions, as when coffee was being prepared at the meetings of the Ladies Aid at church, an egg would be added to the coffee after it was brewed to settle the grounds.

My father’s quota at each meal was two cups, I don’t recall about my mother; he (my father) seldom if ever drank milk. The milk came from the family cow, except when the cow was going “dry” before “freshening”; then for a month or so one of the two local dairies would supply it. The bread my mother made — it was a modified whole wheat recipe that used white flour in part. I’m sure it was the same recipe that my grandmother used.

Occasionally during the winter after my mother had made a batch of the Swedish delicacy known as gryn she would serve this for breakfast. This would be a real treat for me and the older of us children — I don’t think Marold and Verner, perhaps even Vincent had much liking for it. This dish was made from barley, pork liver and other pork meat; the mixture would gel and this would then be sliced and fried. I think it came from my mother’s side of the family; my father I think tolerated it but it certainly wasn’t one of his favorite foods.