Elvira

It was at about the middle of the Peterson children that my grandmother had Elvira(?) who died at about the age of one. Vivian told me that grandmother had told her that Elvira was the prettiest of all her babies.

Serenus Peterson

I guess uncle Serenus is next in line of the Peterson children. In my opinion he was the least capable, the least intelligent and the least physically attractive of all the children. Even uncle George had a certain class to himself, uncle Serenus had none. I believe that his birth was the most difficult of those that my grandmother had. As I wrote about my grandfather he tried to get the doctor in Callender to come but he wouldn’t and the experience turned off my grandfather from doctors thereafter, not that he had much use for them even before.


Serenus, Edith, and Eugene

Doubtless his early years were the usual ones in the Peterson household. He probably finished the eight grades in country school but unlike his siblings (most of them at least) did not continue at Gustavus. Amongst the letters my uncle Carl received while at business school in Des Moines there is one or two from Serenus, then quite young.

After my grandfather died and the family moved into Gowrie, he stayed on the farm and perhaps in conjunction with my uncle Carl farmed the Peterson acres. By then he had married Edith Anderson, who was about his age and grew up on a farm about a mile east of the Peterson farm. I recall my mother telling of riding home from Gowrie after a Luther League meeting with him and Edith, she being left off at the farm and Serenus continuing on with Edith as a part of his courtship.

As a farmer he had dreams of becoming a breeder of purebred hogs. In line with this he had the hoghouse constructed and also a sort of sales pavilion next to it. The whole operation was underfunded and amateurish and my impression is that it soon collapsed. He then got the idea that he was destined for the Lutheran ministry like his brothers. He had no high school or college education so was unqualified on that basis but I surmise that this was overlooked by the synod by the intercession of uncle Laurence and uncle Milton.

After leaving the farm he went to Texas for a couple of years. What he did there is rather unclear. Did he work on the farmland that my uncle Carl had in Texas? Did he attend SMU in order to make up for his lack of education? At any rate he appeared to soon thereafter begin his seminary training in Rock Island. Our family visited them during this period. We drove in the Essex from Gowrie and I suppose spent several days with them. I have two recollections of the visit. I slept with my cousin Eugene and I remember lying in bed before I went to sleep listening to the unfamiliar noises of the city. The other recollection was our being taken to some sort of exhibit funded by a Palmer chiropractic firm, the details of which are now very vague to me.

After my uncle’s ordination and because it was during the Depression he had some difficulty receiving a “call” to serve a congregation. He finally received a call under somewhat peculiar circumstances in Fargo, North Dakota. The previous pastor thought that the call was not legitimate and declined to leave the post. Very messy and I think typical of my uncle Serenus. Maybe when the congregation saw what they were getting they wanted to back out. I don’t know how the imbroglio was resolved. Later on he was minister at congregations in Fresno, California; Denver, Colorado; and Mason City, Iowa (his last congregation). I would say that he functioned in a manner consistent with Lutheran practices, but that he was an uninspiring leader.

When uncle Serenus’ family visited Gowrie (rather rarely) they would not stay at my grandmother’s house but rather in the pink brick Stenholm house where one of Edith’s sisters lived. The sister was married to Pete Stenholm, the International Harvester farm implement dealer, until he was drowned in an accident at an Anderson family) Edith was an Anderson before her marriage to uncle Serenus) picnic in Dolliver park. The accident took the lives of three members of the Anderson family. One of those drowned was Constant Anderson who was at the time farming the home farm a mile east of the Peterson farm. He was and up and coming farmer and had built a new barn and corn crib, the next building project being the replacement of the substandard house. After his death the farming operation was taken over by his brother Ernest who had none of the capability of his brother Constant. During my experience in the annual threshing crew I observed the lackluster character of his farming. Ernest too died a tragic death in an encounter with a bull he had.

After the last time he visited Gowrie I saw my uncle only three times. Once was the time our family visited him in Rock Island, the next time was when my sister Vivian and my aunt Laurine came to California shortly after the end of WWII. I accompanied them on the train back to the Midwest and we stopped in Denver to see uncle Serenus and aunt Edith. The last time was when Jean and I took Laurel to Ames to go to school. All I can remember of that visit was how loud my aunt and uncle spoke, I guess they were both getting quite deaf.

There was only one child in my uncle Serenus’ family, namely my cousin Eugene. As a child I envied him, he was an extrovert with a volatile personality. He went to Fresno State College, probably when my uncle was pastor at Fresno. I think his college was subsidized by my uncle Carl, either directly or by a loan. I always had the feeling that my uncle Carl favored my cousin Eugene over me even though I was his namesake.

After childhood I saw Eugene just twice. He was in the advertising business and he visited the Bay Area in regard to a campaign for one of the large beer companies. He came to our house in El Cerrito, maybe we had a meal with him, I do not recollect.

The second time was when our family was in Chicago on a sightseeing trip. We called him up and he invited out family to dinner. He was married by then and living in a high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago. We met his wife, a very short and hunched figure (quite a bit older than Eugene) who I think he met on one of his travels to various parts of the world. After she died he moved to Windsor, Ontario (actually it was earlier after he retired from the advertising business) where his wife had roots. I wrote to him once after his wife died with a question on his past but the letter came back with a note on it that he had died.

When Vincent organized a get-together of the Peterson cousins in this mid-’90s he was able to track down information on Eugene’s death. He had been a heavy smoker and I guess suffered from emphysema and heart trouble and apparently in his last days his affairs were managed by a lawyer acquaintance. At one time he entertained the idea of retiring to North Carolina somewhere but his physical debility caused him to cancel those plans. He continued to support his aging mother till she died and on her and his death bequeathed his estate to the facility that had taken care of her. I think he retained at least the outward appearance of his Lutheran faith to his death, what he actually believed I hesitate to say.

One time our daughter Palma was in Chicago and she called my cousin but it was late in the evening and she was not invited up to their apartment for a visit.

Naomi

I believe that my mother was the next in line of the eleven births in the Peterson family. Of her early years I know nothing. Doubtless she was the usual child in the Peterson household, required to perform certain duties at quite an early age. I’m quite sure she went through the eight grades of the country school. I believe I have related on incident in her schooling when my uncle Carl was her teacher. She certainly did not go directly from country school to her schooling (equivalent to present day high school) at the academy at Gustavus Adolphus. Her academy days were I think spread over several years with interruptions of a year or two to help with household duties. She had some college schooling but not enough to earn a degree.

Her years at Gustavus Adolphus were I think an eye-opened to her that there was a different life than existed in the work-emphasized regime in the Peterson household. Because it was work-dominated with the need to care for the expanding household with each new birth — eleven by the time my mother was in her mid-teens. And there was always the need to pay off the additional land purchase that my grandfather was making. I can recall my grandmother being happy when the last of the indebtedness was retired. I wasn’t on the scene of course, but I heard of her relief from family members. There was a social life at Gustavus that never existed in the Peterson household. That it meant a lot to her is evidence by the album she kept of those days with mementoes of picnics, banquets and other social affairs. I have this album but of course I do not recognize many of the persons in it.


Naomi Peterson (center front) and classmates, Gustavus Adolphus, class of 1916

My mother taught in the country school and at the outbreak of WWI she was actually teaching at the high school level somewhere up in the state of Minnesota. I recall her describing hor she had to study every night the next day’s assignment in order to keep up with the class. That was I think just before her marriage.

My impression of my mother’s married life was one of diligent toil interspersed with a few interludes of true enjoyment such as the picnics the family would have in Dolliver Park. Cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, tending her growing brood of children, occasionally doing some gardening work (an activity she really enjoyed). The occasional family picture (with the camera my farther bought as a gift for her) seemed to show to me at least a mother weighed down with the cares of her family.

And of course there was the religion of the Lutheran church that governed her outlook on most aspects of her life. To the end of her days she persevered in the beliefs that she had learned in childhood and she worried when her offspring strayed too far from it. For example, she was unhappy when I married a Christian Scientist, although she came to accept Jean for what she was. But I think being married caused her to adjust her beliefs somewhat from the rigid orthodoxy of the unmarried members of the Peterson clan. It also helped I think that she was one of the more intelligent children of my grandparents.

She was a devoted and loving wife to my father all his days. During the difficult days of the Depressions, during the years she cared for him after he developed Parkinson’s disease. He was often the dreamer, she was the more pragmatic one. When my father bought an endowment life insurance policy from Fred Magnusson (the father of my boyhood pal Harris) she disagreed with the purchase saying that she was not interested in the policy, she was interested in him. So there were mild disagreements in the years they spent together. But generally they were of one mind at all times.

I shall related one incident involving my mother during our days on the farm. One day she broke her glasses and it seemed to her that that was the last straw. Money was tight. Where would the funds come from to get a new pair? She cried. It must have been during my sophomore year in high school. That year I had submitted an essay put on the Des Moines Register newspaper and I placed third in the competition. I was awarded $5 which I had not spent. I went to her and offered my $5 to her to defray the cost of a new pair of glasses. She said no but she did I think stop crying.

After my father died she continued living in the little brown house, providing help as needed to my uncle Carl and aunt Esther who were still in my grandmother’s house which they had taken as their share when my grandfather Peterson’s estate was finally divided in 1960. When they left to live out their days at the home in Madrid, they deeded to my mother the house and she moved there. It was there she had a heart attack and I can remember her saying that she sat in a chair in the parlor worrying at her fate in the fearsome judgment of the God of the Lutheran faith.

Later on I thought of her remark at the time of her funeral. The six children were in the funeral home for a testimonial session and each of my siblings talked briefly of my mother’s Christian faith. I couldn’t, I kept silent. I had in my mind the picture of my mother in her moment of travail with her heart attach and I thought of how her faith had failed her at the very time she needed it most. A pox on all the preachers who had engendered in this good woman the fear of eternal damnation. It was another event that served to destroy any shred of belief I had in the Christian faith. What my siblings thought when I didn’t participate I don’t know. The session eventually ended and no one said anything.

She moved to Friendship Haven, where aunt Laurine and aunt Dagmar were living but she was there only a few weeks when she was hospitalized with her heart condition. One day she had been given a bath in her room and the nurse or attendant left. When they came back she had expired. So ended her days.

She had six children, the first five born at home, doubtless without the benefit of any anesthesia. Verner the fifth child was a difficult birth and Dr. Studebaker was called from Fort Dodge to assist. It was necessary to break one of the legs for the birth to occur. Although Verner seemed to be normal as to his leg thereafter, it must have been a weak spot in his anatomy. When he was old (after his retirement from the ministry) he fell on one occasion and broke the same leg that was injured at his birth. As I recall the leg had to be reset once and his convalescence was lengthy. Marold the youngest was born in Mercy hospital in Fort Dodge, perhaps because of the experience my mother had had with Verner. I recall waiting out in the car when various adults went into the hospital to see my mother.

I also recall Dr. Studebaker’s car parked in our driveway at the little brown house when Verner was born. It looked like a rather grand car to my young eyes. Dr. Studebaker was also the surgeon when I had my ruptured appendix, and for the operations my mother had for her goiter and for her gall bladder.

There were two doctors in Gowrie when I was young, neither of them very competent. Dr. Lundvick, who was I think the doctor in some of my mother’s pregnancies, was not very highly regarded by my mother. I believe he had a problem with alcohol. Dr. Erickson was older and had simply become incompetent with age. When my grandmother had her gall bladder condition the family called in Dr. Erickson. The family became concerned that he was misdiagnosing her condition and called in the doctor from nearby Paton. He immediately sent her to the hospital. Eventually Dr. Erickson sold his “practice” to Dr. Borgen, a young and competent doctor and he stayed in Gowrie the rest of my parents’ lifetime. He was also the doctor that came to the farm and sent me to the hospital with my ruptured appendix.

Uncle Laurence and Aunt Dagmar

Next to my uncle Lawrence. Of his early life I know actually little. I assume that he had the usual eight years in the country schoolhouse and the Swedish school in the summer time (which in addition to instruction in the language had considerable religious instruction). Then he must have had college and seminary years. I do know that it was through my mother that he met my aunt Dagmar. She spurned his at first but then had second thoughts in the matter. My aunt Dagmar was really a lovely person, very gracious and kindly. My mother knew her from her days at Gustavus. Aunt Dagmar was I think in the college whereas my mother was in the academy (like high school).


Dagmar

As a pastor my uncle Lawrence served congregations in Brainerd and Minneapolis in Minnesota and at the end of his ministry at Albert City, Iowa. I would class him as run-of-the-mill in his capability as a minister. He certainly served the elderly Swedish Americans well in the congregations he was called to, and I am sure he did not stray far from the orthodox Lutheran position but as to his intellectual ability he would have been better off as a simple farmer than a minister.

As a minister he would typically have the month of August as a vacation month and he and aunt Dagmar would spend two weeks with Dagmar’s parents in Little Falls, Minnesota, and two weeks in Gowrie visiting my grandmother. So I could observe him during a short period each year. The couple had no children so there were no cousins to play with. As children we would receive a small monetary gift at every birthday and at confirmation we would get $15. This was in lieu of a high school graduation gift – my uncle considered the confirmation rite of more significance than high school graduation. I can remember clearly him giving me the gift. I was coming from the barn where I had been attending to some of the evening chores and he met me at the lower gate to the house yard. He said a few words emphasizing the importance of confirmation. Even then the first doubts of the Lutheran faith had risen in my mind but of course I said nothing beyond taking him for the gift.

I visited them once in their home in Minneapolis, riding back with them on one of their vacation trips to Gowrie. The only thing I can recall of the trip was that my uncle one day asked me to hand water some of the lawn. I kept on watering until he came back to me and commented that I had watered enough as though I should have stopped sooner. On that trip he took me to visit my aunt Lillian and uncle Verner in Isanti, Minnesota. I spent a few days there (I will comment later on the visit when I write of aunt Lillian) and then returned to Gowrie on the M and St. L, which at that time was still providing passenger service. My uncle Carl had come up to see the family of my aunt Lillian and he rode back on the train with me.

I was in their Albert City home once. It was after my marriage and on one of our visits to the Midwest Jean and I borrowed Vincent’s Studebaker and with Muriel drove to Albert City.

I must confess that in his later years my uncle Lawrence struck me as sort of a comic figure physically. He had developed somewhat of a paunch and he wore his belt above the paunch. Usually men with that figure wear the belt below the paunch. I have always found wearing the belt above the paunch somewhat preposterous. He also had a very peculiar tic. He would sort of extend his head upward as if his collar was too tight and he wanted to ease his neck from its confines. He also had a quite disconcerting way of staring, impaling the person he was looking at with wide open eyes with his vivid blue eyes quite prominent. That and his unctuous manner as he read from the Bible at the conclusion of an afternoon meal at my grandmother’s. When one of the minister brothers was not present this duty fell to my uncle Carl who would read in his word by word style that he had learned in his early country school days.


Laurence and Dagmar

Uncle George

George, circa 1905

Next in line in the family was I think my uncle George, maybe Lawrence was next, I am not sure at this point. Uncle George carries with him an air of mystery. From what I heard from my mother and other relatives he was afflicted in his early years by epilepsy, and he had what was termed “convulsions” as a baby. What the term really signified I don’t know. This facet of his life was well known and talked about. But there was some other secret of which my mother, my aunt Laurine, [and] my sister Vivian knew that was never discussed. Doubtless other members of the family also knew. What this secret was is forever hidden, all the persons who knew are now dead.

I speculate that it might have been something of which the family was concerned that it mot be known to members of the Swedish community. Was it connected with the one term he spent at Gustavus, a disastrous affair romantically, an overt expression of homosexuality? Was it possibly that he was not the child of Emma and Jonas at all but of relatives and illegitimate? Was he perhaps the child of my grandfather but not my grandmother? The Peterson family were a group of persons who developed gray hair, even white hair early in their years. Uncle George didn’t. In life he was an unkempt, often unshaven shambling figure with a shrunken face and rather claw-like hands. He died sometime in his 50s and I was amazed when I viewed him in his coffin as it stood in the parlor at my grandmother’s house. His dark hair was neatly combed and facially he was much better looking than his brothers Lawrence, Serenus and Milton, who ranged in appearance from really odd in the case of Serenus to mundane in the case of the other two. He didn’t look like a Peterson male at all.

During his early life on the farm he was sickly but he did at times participate in the farm labor. I suppose he finished the eight years in country school and as I mentioned he did attend Gustavus briefly. He accompanied the rest of the family when they moved off the farm and lived the rest of his life as more or less a recluse in my grandmother’s house. He did the gardening around the house, mowing the lawn and tending to some chickens in the barn at the rear of the lot. Toward the end of his life I think he stopped mowing the lawn, uncle Carl took over; I have a vague recollection of being assigned the task of mowing the lawn by uncle Carl.

As I have written uncle George spent a good share of each day in his bedroom adjacent the sleeping porch in the upstairs of my grandmother’s house. At mealtimes he would not join the rest of the family at the kitchen table (or the dining room table when guests were present). Instead he would come down to the kitchen, pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot that was always on the stovetop and have a crust of bread. He was very thin and I suspect suffered from malnutrition. Maybe that was what eventually caused his death in his mid-50s. There are some pictures of large family gatherings in which he appears, but as a rule he shunned the company of anyone even close relatives. Occasionally when one of his minister brothers visited they would spend some time with him. Counseling? My sister Vivian has said that my uncle Carl treated him without compassion. Typical of the brusque manner oftentimes of my namesake uncle.

I can recall the day my uncle George died. It was during the summer and for some forgotten reason I wan on the scene at my grandmother’s house. Uncle Carl had left the house to go to the post office. Why was he not off doing his farm tasks? I don’t know. Maybe the family realized that my uncle George was in extremis and uncle Carl had stayed in Gowrie. Anyway I was standing outside the side door to the house and my aunt Laurine came out of the door quite distraught and conveyed the news that uncle George had died. How she knew I am not sure. She asked me in a peremptory way to go and find my uncle Carl. I was minded not to go, after all he had only gone to the post office and would doubtless be back shortly. Which he was as I made the first steps toward downtown. What transpired after that I don’t recall. After the funeral as the relatives and family friends were having the inevitable coffee hour after the cemetery service, my uncle Carl sat in the chair he habitually occupied on the wide front porch of my grandmother’s house in morose solitary silence. Maybe ruing how he had treated his brother in life and was not feeling pangs of remorse.

As a young boy I recall being at my grandmother’s house along with my mother (as perhaps after a meeting of the missionary society when I had been required to attend the junior missionary group) and I would be gently asked to go and play checkers with my uncle. Which I invariably did. I must have played a lot of games with him over the years. He typically won. I recall vaguely that the set of checkers had one piece missing which had been replaced by a button. Where did we play? I cannot remember. Was it on a table in the bedroom? It was in the bedroom that I first saw a pair of nail clippers. My uncle George used them on one of his misshapen fingernails. In the household of my parents, the implement used was always a pair of scissors. I recall having my father ask me to cut his fingernails. He was not at all dextrous with his hands and could not do the job himself. Vincent says that he took played checkers with my uncle George. At a certain age I no longer did. I can recall being told that my uncle George had told my mother that I had stopped playing the game his him. In a wistful way.

What is my reaction now to my uncle? His life was a tragedy in part because of his physical history and disability but also because of the whole milieu of the Peterson household. Did he have the fervent Lutheranism of his siblings? He never showed evidence of it as did his brothers and sisters. In any psychological study of the Peterson family he would play a significant part because of the mystery that surrounds him.

Aunt Esther

Esther, circa 1905

The second child in the Peterson family was my aunt Esther. She never married, indeed I have no hint that any romance ever entered her life. I seem to recall that sometime in her early adulthood, she made some money as a seamstress. Later on she worked as a domestic servant for the Hubbell family in Des Moines. How she entered this work I have no idea. The Hubbell family was well off economically and I think influential politically in the Iowa of the times. Aunt Esther was the cook for the other servants. There was another cook for the members of the Hubbell family themselves. My impression is that there were maybe half a dozen servants employed by the Hubbells. I have a vague impression that some time in my youth I was taken for a ride in the city of Des Moines and one of the sights pointed out to me was the Hubbell mansion.

Subsequently she worked at the Deaconess Institute in Omaha again I think as a domestic. She was never one of the deaconesses. During her employment there she suffered a mental breakdown and spent several years at the state institution in Cherokee for the mentally disturbed. She recovered enough to be discharged, returned to the parental home where she lived until she and uncle Carl went to the home in Madrid.

In her youth I believe she had some instruction in the piano and later on she was the first teacher that my aunt Ruth had. In her later years she was severely afflicted with arthritis and her hands were pretty gnarled. She used playing the piano as therapy for her condition, how successfully I have no idea. But it shows that she retained her knowledge of the piano to an advanced age.

After her return from Cherokee I believe she would on occasion help my mother with household tasks but I am not certain of this. For example she would come on the days when my mother did the weekly wash and assist her. One time, perhaps on one of these visits she and I were having lunch together. Lunch consisted of potatoes with gravy. There were not many potatoes so she said that she would have bread instead with the gravy. I thought this was odd, I had never had bread and gravy together.

She died at Madrid not long after uncle Carl died. Where my uncle was often a querulous inmate at the home, my aunt Esther was just the opposite — simply grateful for the care she was given.

Of all my grandmother’s children I think her life was the most tragic. Devoid of an occupation that contained any aura of interest, with her outlook on life crippled by her Lutheran belief. Through it all she was an uncomplaining soul.

Uncle Carl's story

After my grandfather died my uncle Serenus took over the farming on the acres. At least it was in sort of a loose partnership with my uncle Carl. Maybe it was during this period that my uncle rented the nearby Woodard place. After my uncle Serenus left the farm to become a minister uncle Carl took over the farming and never left it.

At one time he bought some farmland in Texas. Maybe he was induced to do this by some of the relatives in Texas. It was never a very productive operation. It was in an area where there was the possibility of oil discovery and I understand he did get some royalty income, but nothing ever came of it. I recall him in the fall of the year making a journey to Texas to discuss things with his tenant. Late in life he sold the property and donated the receipts to some church mission.

Although I shared the date August 6 as a birthday with my uncle, and of course as a consequence the same name, I always felt he had a closer attachment to my cousin Eugene than to me. I cannot cite a reason for this. It was just a feeling I have had. Perhaps the relationship stems from the time when Serenus was farming and Eugene was a child. My uncle Carl had a liking for children, mostly young ones he could hold in his lap and tell his one story to. The story about the two little boys who were out in a boat. They were named Pinch Me and Tickle Me. My uncle would say, for example Pinch Me fell out of the boat. Who was left? The child would respond and he would be either pinched or tickled. I have used this story on my three daughters.