My Life in the Little Brown House, part 9; Piano lessons, Bathroom

After the northwest room ceased to be a bedroom (I never figured out what happened to the bed and dresser that were in it — sort of a cedarwood construction) the family used it as a sort of play and general purpose room. I suppose I included it in my morning sweeping shore. The piano had been moved there from its previous place in the parlor and there it was that the older children practiced on it and were given lessons by our Aunt Ruth. I know that Clarice, Vivian and I had lessons but I’m pretty sure that Vincent never started. After the move to the farm Vivian continues with the instruction from Aunt Ruth, but it stopped for me, and I think Clarice also. I can see myself now seated on the piano bench with Aunt Ruth beside me, going through the scales and arpeggios in the various combinations of flats and sharps. She also assigned simple compositions such as “The Happy Farmer” by Robert Schumann which was a favorite of mine — indeed it is the only specific piece I recall.

I never acquired much skill but this early introduction to the piano did two things for me. First it later on led to an attempt at developing some facility on the instrument, though without any substantial success. This happened while I was living in San Pedro and I took lessons for awhile with a lady who was the organist at the second Lutheran church in the town. I continued the activity (but not any lessons) after the move to the San Francisco are and I actually rented a piano for awhile. But the activity gradually dwindled and though I’ve sat down at the piano occasionally over the years, even such occasions have become rarer and rarer. More important was the second effect and that was to engender in me a liking for piano music, indeed for other keyboard instruments also such as the organ. And in a general way for music of whatever kind. I date my liking, even preference for Bach’s music to the influence of the piano teacher I had in San Pedro.

Adjacent to the northwest room of the little brown house was the bathroom. As in most, if not all, houses in Gowrie at the time it was the one and only bathroom in the building. The bathtub was the old-fashioned kind with the claw feet and it was tucked into a nook on the east side of the room, below the staircase going to the upstairs. The headroom as a consequence was a little limited at one end. Midway on the west side was the wash basin with a little cabinet above it, having a small mirror. Here it was that my father shaved every morning, using an old shaving mug (with the soap in the bottom of it) and an old-fashioned straight razor. I remember the device he had for honing the razor. It wasn’t the usual kind of strop where the user holds the razor and moves it over the strop (as the barbers at the barber shop in Gowrie did). Rather it was a little device that he would hook onto the door knob; the razor was inserted and the stop was pulled alternately one way and then back through it. The action was such that the razor would be honed on one side when the strop was being pulled on way and on the other side when the alternate pulling step was being completed. Vaguely I recall doing the stropping under my father’s supervision. In later years he changed to a safety razor and that is what he was using when I started to shave. This was after we had moved to the farm and when I started I just used his equipment when I wanted to shave. When my grandfather Strand died his personal belongings were dispersed and I acquired the safety razor that he had used in his later years. It was a Keen Kutter brand razor of rather different design and used a special kind of blade that could be re-sharpened with a little stropping device; I used it pretty regularly for quite awhile until it was superseded by a more conventional safety razor, and later on by a series of electric razors. I still have my grandfather’s razor as about the only relic I have of his.






















Keen Kutter razor and hone

During most of the year the bathtub was used only for the Saturday evening baths. The series of baths started with the youngest of the children and progressed age-wise through the family, with my father and mother having theirs later in the evening — when most of the children if not all of them were already abed. In the summer the evening baths took place oftener, perhaps being a daily occurrence. To conserve the soft water which was used for laundry and bathing, etc., the bath water was re-used by later bathers, with perhaps some additions. I think in the years after the family moved back to town that the use of the soft water and the cistern was abandoned and the water from the town system was used. This city water came from a well, or wells, and was relatively “hard” so there was a water softener unit in the basement. I suspect also that the furnace had been converted to natural gas; with my father being incapacitated with Parkinson’s disease in his later years he would not have been able to stoke the furnace with coal and cobs.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 8: Drum and Bugle Corps

One of the times I was disciplined as a child, that I recall, was at a mealtime. I was sent to the back bedroom (which by then had been converted into sort of a playroom) until my behavior was judged acceptable. What my offense had been I don’t remember, but I remember returning to the table and continuing the meal.

Adjacent to the kitchen, in the northwest corner of the house was the room that was initially a bedroom, and I have vague memories of sleeping in the large, double bed in the room. There was no separate closet but along the east wall of the room there was a large tall cabinet, with doors on the front, that was used for storage of clothes. When I was about ten years old I played a drum and marched in the junior drum and bugle corps sponsored by the local post of the American Legion. On one occasion for some reason I had taken one of the drums home with me (to practice?) and I kept it on top of this clothes cabinet. As I lay in the bed I heard the drum make little stress-induced noises (the tension on the head was adjusted by a number of screws along the periphery of the drum and any unevenness in the tightening of the screws would lead to slow expansion or contraction of parts of the drum). The noises perturbed me as I considered myself responsible for the drum while it was in my care and I wondered if I would be judged remiss by the individual in charge of the junior corps.

I was not in the junior drum and bugle corps at its inception but I have the feeling it had not been in existence long when I joined. There were two boys living relatively close to the little brown house who belonged to the group and it may have been through them that I joined.l Both of these friends, Harris Magnuson and Robert Blomgren, were in the bugle section. Generally, the drum section was more popular, both for the initial members and for new recruits; I don’t know how I got into it.

Practices were held on summer evenings on what was then the community golf course and involved both instruction on playing and marching; I do remember however some practices at other times of the year in the upstairs of one of the downtown store buildings. We marched and played on such occasions as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day (both of which at the time had parades and a ritual of observance) and on a few occasions on events in Fort Dodge (I don’t recall the character of these, but on one of them I came down with one of the sick headaches that I would have periodically even that early in life). The Fourth of July celebration in the Gowrie park was organized and sponsored by the local American Legion post as a money-raising activity and the men’s corps marched in the parade then and on Memorial Day. I think they used the money to fund their participating in the Iowa state competition for the best drum and bugle corps. I think they were best in the state several times.

The junior corps went on “booster” trips to nearby towns prior to the Fourth of July celebration to publicize it. We would march up and down the business section of these small towns. These trips would take place in the late afternoon, some of them before the school term ended for the spring. On one of these trips several of us were riding in the Model A Ford and the driver got up to 60 mph — quite a thrill for us and the fastest I had ever experienced up to that time. The attire for the junior corps was white shirt and pants, a white sailor cap and a red sash around the waist, long enough so that the ends hung down quite a ways. Somewhere I have a photo of me with my drum and Robert Blomgren with his bugle. I suppose my mother took it.









[Note: The handwritten caption underneath identifies the two boys as Carl and Harris, thus indicating that the second boy is Harris Magnuson, not Robert Blomgren.]

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 7: Brother Vincent, Remington typewriter

There are several incidents, unrelated to each other and not necessarily related to the kitchen and the sun room as to the place where they occurred, that I remember. Two involve my brother Vincent. The first of these happened when he was less than a year old, so I was about 5 or so. It was the spring of the year and there were some newly hatched chicks out in the chicken house (either newly hatched by a setting hen, or purchased from the local Dixon hatchery, I’m not sure which). Vincent was sitting in the high chair and I had been delegated to watch him while everyone else was out viewing the chicks. I guess I tolerated this for awhile until I could not contain my interest and I too went out to view the chicks. While all the family was outside, Vincent fell out of the high chair. I have no recollection however of being punished or reprimanded.

The second incident occurred when we were both in elementary school. One noon Vincent and I were sitting on the kitchen floor in the book where the telephone was; Vincent was telling me an “off-color” story or whatever that had been told to him at school and my mother overheard what was being said. She told Vincent that what he was doing was inappropriate. In retrospect this incident illustrates a side of my character that I have observed all my life and that is that events and understandings have tended to happen later for me than my siblings and associates. Vincent was four years younger than I but he had encountered and reached a schoolboy experience with sexual knowledge that I had not. I do recall some incidents in school of this nature which I didn’t understand at the time but all at an age when I was older than Vincent at the time of the incident I’ve just written about.

Sometime or other my father had purchased a portable Remington typewriter — I’m sure it was after he married as the design was more modern than earlier, before-his-marriage, machines. Maybe he was motivated in the purchase by the thought that it would add to his bookkeeping capability, though I’m not sure just how. Once in awhile he would get it out, as on a Sunday afternoon when he had some of the few leisure times he had, and peck away at the keys. But he never acquired a usable typing skill. When he had it out, some of us older children were allowed to try our fingers at typing — that is, hitting the keys in a hunt and peck manner. It wasn’t used until he had typing class in high school that any of us learned really to type. Eventually, Clarice took it off to school with her when she was at the University of Dubuque and I don’t know what happened to it; perhaps she acquired it by default. In my case my parents gave me a used stand-up Remington as a high school graduation present, in lieu of a class ring. I recall my going to a store on Central Avenue in Fort Dodge and purchasing it.

Another memory I have of Sunday afternoons was the occasional times that we popped corn. The corn popper was a shallow, rectangular, black, thin metal contained with a long handle and a top that would slide open. The procedure was to fire up the kitchen stove and move the popper across its surface in a way to keep the kernels inside moving. The lid of the popper had a number of small round holes in it. My father like popcorn and I recall him joining us in the treat.











Old-style corn popper

The older children had household tasks that were allotted to them. These were to be carried out satisfactorily if the weekly allowance was to be given. My duty was to sweep the kitchen and sunroom floors. I don’t remember how old I was when I started or when I stopped. It was a task that did not carry over the move out to the farm, but by then such chores as milking replaced it. I didn’t learn how to milk the cow until he had moved to the farm, or to tend to feeding it, etc. I remember once when my father had one of his “sick” headaches of being asked to try my hand at milking the cow, but I wasn’t very successful — not surprising as it takes a little practice to get the knack of it. I think I did tend the chickens we had, but my recollection there is pretty weak.

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.

Intermission

Hi! This is Laurel writing now, Carl’s daughter. It has been suggested that I elaborate on my reasons for starting this blog, which isn’t a blog in the usual sense of the word.

My dad left several notebooks that he wrote during his retirement years detailing his recollections of growing up in a small Iowa town called Gowrie during the Depression. I started with two shorter essays, “Barney and Birdie” and “The Barn.” The entries that comprise “My Life in the Little Brown House” will be many greater in number. The original handwritten manuscript is 60 pages long, and each post covers 2 to 4 pages.

After “My Life in the Little Brown House” will come “Recollections of My Life” which fills up 4 notebooks, plus 5 pages of a fifth. Then there is “Education” which runs about 77 or 78 handwritten pages (there is a page 76a written between pages 76 and 77 — C.P. generally wrote on only the right hand page).

Then, if I want to continue, I have family letters going back to the 1970s that he sent to his brothers and sisters, as well as some letters he wrote to his parents in the 1940s after he moved to California. There are also other family letters, some written in Swedish that were translated by one of my grandmother’s sisters.

My motivation for launching on this project is twofold. First, I think his surviving siblings may like to read these reminiscences for the memories they bring back, and their children (my cousins) may find them of interest as well, for the family lore. Second, I can’t help but wonder that some academic might find them useful as original source material, kind of like an oral history only written, not spoken. I figure that by posting this material, over time it will percolate through the interwebs to find interested readers.

A couple of additional notes: First, the images included in the posts are, with few exceptions, not original source material. They are images I found on the web that, I hope, illustrate with some degree of accuracy items mentioned in the posts. Second, posts after October 18, 2009, include more paragraph breaks, at my sister Palma’s suggestion.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 4: Sun Room

The sun room, as its name implies, was a light airy room. It had one or two windows on the east and west ends of the room and the side facing south was lined virtually its entire length with windows. Along the bottom of the windows on the east and south sides was a ledge for potted plants. Here my mother had her geraniums — I suppose there were other flowers also but I only recall the geraniums. My mother was quite protective of her geraniums, from the hands and fingers of her offspring. Once or twice when there was an unusually cold night in the offing I seem to recall their being removed to a less exposed part of the house.





















Geranium

To the right as one entered the room from the kitchen there was a large closet (actually there was a west window in it) which was used for outdoor wraps etc. In addition to the hooks for wraps there were low drawers at the west end with a shelf above them. Beyond the closet there was sort of an ell, in which for a time my father had his roll-top desk. At a later time the desk was moved to a place in the boys’ bedroom where it stood the rest of the time we were in the little brown house. I think the desk was acquired by my father before his marriage. Alongside the desk was a stand in which he kept his file of National Geographic magazines. These extended back to the middle 1910s and most issues were included. This collection was moved up to the boys’ bedroom when the desk was moved. As children we were allowed to look at the magazines, and I at least spent numerous times leafing through them. My favorite issues were several that were sort of compendiums of fauna in various parts of the world. The collection went along with the family moved to the Peterson farm in the Depression; all during the Depression years my father continued his subscription, one of the few “luxuries” that he allowed himself during that period. The last time I saw them was on one of my vacation visits after I was working in California. At that time, they were in a cupboard in the southeast corner of the girls’ bedroom and were in a state of jumbled disarray. After my dad’s death they were disposed of by being donated to the high school library — a fitting end for them in light of his years of service as a school board member. Some of the earlier issues were fairly valuable. I think it was in Powell’s bookstore in Portland [Oregon] I saw their stock of these old National Geographics for upwards of $5 per copy. Most of the stock at Powell’s was on open shelves but I seem to recall that some of the older copies they had were under lock and key.
























National Geographic, January 1915