Chapter 8: Our Dreams — Our Lives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 7: Work on the Farm

With so many brothers in our family, we girls never did have to milk cows as most farmer’s daughters did. Esther one year helped stack the oats, that was before shock threshing was started. Once her hand was pierced through with the tine of a pitch form. A poultice of salt pork was put on it and it healed without trouble.

I don’t know when the above photo was taken, or who is in it. All I know is that it was taken by the Walline photography studio of Gowrie, Iowa, from the embossed logo in the lower right corner of the heavy board upon which the photo is mounted (see below). A Google search turned up the following information at this website: 

WALLINE, ANDREW LARSON

Walline had a studio in Gowrie, Webster County, in the early 1900s. He used a curved mount format. He may have also worked in Des Moines. From the Gowrie News, May 7, 1936: “A. L. Walline, Gowrie photographer and prominent member of the Congregational Church here several years ago, died Monday morning in a hospital at Hampton, where he had been a patient since January 17. Mr. Walline moved from Gowrie twelve years ago to open a photo studio in Clarion. Funeral services will be held here this afternoon with the Rev. W. L. Patterson of the Methodist Church in charge. Andrew Larson Walline was born in Willinge Malmohus Lan, on November 27, 1865, and was baptized the same year. He learned the cabinet making trade and worked at that trade after coming to the United States in 1888 and locating in Des Moines. While working in Des Moines he attended night school and became a naturalized citizen at that time. Later taking up the photographic business, he conducted studios at Harcourt, Stratford, Boxhold, Ogden, and Gowrie. He was united in marriage to Miss Anna Dahl of Harcourt on January 16, 1898 and they made their home in Gowrie. To this union three sons were born; Lawrence who died in 1916; Paul, of Crookson Minnesota; and John of Hampton. Surviving Mr. Walline are his sons, Paul and John, and a granddaughter, Phyllis Walline, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Walline.”

There are ten examples of this photographer's work in the SHSI collection.  Several are of towns near Gowrie.  Some are Sweden views, pirated comic or views from Eastern states.

Corn picking in those days took many weeks and we girls were called upon to help with this work. For those weeks we, so to speak, turning into boys, though we never did wear overalls or jeans as women of today do. Mother never required us girls to help with the house work as long as we helped in the field. At the start of corn picking time a large bolt of heavy husking flannel would be bought. With two sizes of patterns, large for men and small for boys and girls, we cut out and sewed a large supply of mittens; then at the close of a day’s work in the field we would sew patches on where needed.

When it was dry and not too cold, husking corn was fun. There were cold frosty days when our mittens would get wet and our fingers tingle with cold no matter how busy we tried to be. Serenus and I used to be partners at one wagon. Though younger than I, being a boy he could pick his row as fast as I did mine. How well I remember with what pride of achievement we would ride home on a big load of corn, and how good our meals tasted. Father, though he had withdrawn from active farm work, stood ready to scoop the corn into the crib for all of us. This task, and the pumping of water from the deep well for the stock, he considered his work as long as he was able and neither of these tasks was easy work.

We considered ourselves lucky (or smart) if corn picking was completed by Thanksgiving Day. It often took longer. When the last load was in we celebrated with a feast of “kropp-kakor” or potato dumplings, a rare treat.

Father never was interested in new modern ideas of farm equipment, but after he retired and the boys took over, many ways of farming were changed. The greatest change perhaps was that after the county drain went through, tile was laid to drain the ponds so that all the land could be tilled.Tiling also did much to improve the roads. One wet summer both grades half way to Gowrie from our place were under two or more feet of water and for weeks we had to drive around to the east adding 2½ miles to our driving distance. On all roads the sticky Iowa mud would at times make driving next to impossible. Gravelled roads were not known until after the automobiles began coming into general use. What a change in the last 35 years.

As years went by many changes took place in farming ways and equipment, and so came the time when the steam engines of the threshing rigs, gave way to gasoline engines. Brother Carl bought the first gasoline engine in our part of the country. One night we never can forget is when his big new Hart Parr slipped off a grade as he was going east from our place. Those old Hart-Parrs made a terrific noise, and as he worked most of the night to get it back on the road, the exhausts sounded like the world might be coming to an end, or like cannon fire! For some years Carl really went into the threshing business. At one time he owned three rigs and hired crews to run them. There were as many as five of those big Hart-Parr engines on the farm, two he bought second-hand to use for spare parts.

Mother’s work on the farm was “never done.” After the rest of the family were in bed, she would sity for hours by the dim light of an old kerosene lamp, knitting or sewing. Mother had to provide long knitted wool stockings for so many; not only stockings, but for the school children also long leggings, scarfs, and mittens, all of which she knit of woolen yarns. One time she knit several pairs of stockings for Mrs. Lennarson, as pay for a good dress that she had made for Esther. Though not skilled in fine sewing, Mother had a sewing machine and made the every day garments for the whole family, even Father. I do not think in his whole life on the farm he ever bought any ready-made overalls of shirts. Not only did she make the countless shirts, dresses, pants and outer garments for us all. She also made all the undergarments. There were no rib-knits in those days.

For summer wear there was always a plentiful supply of flour sacks for panties and vests. For winter she bought a large bolt of gray outingflannel for long drawers for everyone. It required some skill to fold the bottoms of these snugly under the long woolen stockings so as not to show an unsightly bulge. We didn’t like these undergarments, but they did keep us warm.

Mother had a love for pretty things and enjoyed knitting and crocheting lace in her “spare time.” I’m quite sure there were no untrimmed muslin petticoats for her babies and girls. As we grew larger, there would be voluminous flounces on the petticoats edged with beautiful wide lace. I still treasure my baptismal dress which has a front panel of crochet and rick-rack and 4 inch wide edging at bottom of both dress and slip of the same pattern. As Esther grew older she shared this love for fancy work. So also did Ruth. Esther began to design new patterns, wrote detailed directions, and sold these to various women’s magazines to get money for thread.

The cooking of meals was relatively simple in early days, but much food had to be prepared for the growing family. There were large semi-weekly bakings of bread, rusks, and cookies for no baked goods was ever bought at the store. A large kettle of potatoes disappeared at one meal. As fruit (apples, plums, and cherries) became plentiful, the dessert was most often canned sauce, which meant hours of canning fruit. At first Mother used some small mouthed earthenware jars for canning plums and tomatoes. She bought these from Mrs. Woodard when they moved to Dakota. The were seals by several strips of muslin dipped in hot rosin and pressed over the top. In later years Mason jars were purchased though the old jars were still used, for glass jars were costly to buy.

Even fuel was not plentiful, for as yet there were no trees to cut for wood. Father hauled coal from the mines near Lehigh. Hauling one load was generally considered a two day trip with his slow team. There were cobs, but not too plentiful a supply, since Father hauled the ear corn to town. The first year on the prairie, Mother has told of how she would pull the long wild grasses and twistit into bunchesto burn in her little cook stove.

As for water, for many years this was carried from a well almost a quarter of a mile from the house. Mother often said she thought that the hardest work of washing clothes was done after the water had all been carried to the house. It was hard water which had to be heated and “broken” [softened]  with lye. There were no detergents as we now have that could be used in hard water. Of course, in summer there was some rain water in a large barrel but this could not be stretched for all needs. When in winter there was plenty of snow, it could be carried in and melted but was often black and unsatisfactory.

There were two factors that made it possible for Mother to accomplish all this work, which we of today would consider utterly impossible. The first was that there weren’t the many outside activities of modern day living. There were occasional visits to neighbors, but these visits were rare; for the most part all the family stayed home and worked. And the second factor was that as the family grew each one learned to help in various ways.

Chapter 6: Visitors

Many visitors did come to our home on the farm, some welcome, others not so welcome. Even in pioneer days the Indians had moved from these parts, but Mother had one experience when Indians came when she was alone at home with her little ones and frightened her very much. However, they only begged for some potatoes and she left her wash bench to get some, forgetting that she had slipped off her wedding ring and laid it on the bench. When she returned, an Indian squaw was admiring the ring now on her finger, but surprisingly she gave it back when she saw Mother’s frantic fear of losing her precious ring.

Gypsies also came in bands, begging, trading horses, and also stealing if they had the chance. Mother had told us that gypsies would steal little children, and we were afraid when we saw them coming along the road and would run and hide. One morning on my way to school, as I came up the small hill about half way, I saw a large moving object turning at the corner. Gypsies, I was sure! Leaving my dinner pail by a fence post, I ran back as fast as my little legs could carry me. When, after awhile, a farmer’s lumber wagon came along, I realized that I had run for nothing, and moreover that day I was late to school.

We had very slow horses and could never count on less than one hour to cover the four miles to town. One Sunday we passed a band of gypsies who had stopped at a place about two miles from home. For once the horses were urged to make more speed so that we had time to reach home, unhitch the horses and get in the house, lock the doors, and draw the shades as if no one were home. However, we children couldn’t forbear peeking from behind the shades and were seen by the gypsy who came to the door. It was very difficult to get rid of these unwelcome visitors if they once got into your house.

Then there were the tramps, even as we have a few even today. But two of these tramps were regular visitors. In earlier days there was “Kaffe-Olle” who was thus called because he always carried a coffee pot in his bundle and never failed to beg for coffee. On his first visit, Mother was very much frightened and taking the children ran down to the neighbors. However, he was quite harmless, and later she learned that though he would enter the house without knocking, he would only rest awhile, ask for his coffee and then go.

In later years there was “Jonte-Kalle,” a half witted man who made his regular rounds in our community. One of our neighbors took pity on him and had a place where he could sleep. How well I remember the tall gaunt man just sitting silently for a long time, starving vacantly at nothing. After Mother gave him something to eat, he was ready to start tramping along the road again. In his old age the authorities tried to keep him at the poor farm, but he was not satisfied to be there, and resumed his aimless wanderings.

Welcome to us children, though not to Mother, were the peddlers who were frequent visitors. Some drove an old bony horse hitched to a cart. Others carried large packs on their backs. It would happen at times that a peddler prevailed on Mother to keep him over night. In the large east hall was room for an old cot where she let him sleep; locking the door securely to the rest of the house. There was expectancy in our childish hearts when the next morning the peddler would open his packs and spread out his wares. It was to us like a glimpse into wonderland, as we stood spell-bound looking at the assortment of glittering trinkets, laces, ribbons, cloth, notions, etc. For in those days there were not dime or variety stores! Finally, Mother would choose her pay for her lodging, but she always got useful things, never any of the glittering baubles.

Most of the peddlers were Jews or Armenians who barely could speak the English language, but they were shrewd. Just lately I read an interesting account of how the six Jewish Younker Brothers, one century ago began their business by peddling their wares in Eastern Iowa. Now the large Younkerstores are flourishing in several cities in Iowa.

As time went one, some of the young people of the community were ready for marriage, and then there would be a great event, with all the neighbors invited to the wedding, but not the children of course. It was Mother’s custom to bring home to us her beautiful large orange, always one of the delicacies of the wedding feast, and the only oranges we ever tasted in our childhood.

At these weddings uninvited folks would come and “shivaree” the bride and groom. Bringing all kinds of noise makers, een shotguns, they would surround the house and make an awful clamor until the groom came and and treated cigars. Often they also wanted money. Small as I was, I well remember how we children at home were much frightened hearing such a “shivaree” at a neighbor’s house a mile from our place.

But there were also welcome visitors. How happy we were when we saw some of the Callerstroms come driving their white horse named “Peggoty,” or “Peg” for short. Or when about once every summer Uncle Frank’s family from Madrid came for an over night visit, their light surrey filled with the Anderson cousins, second cousins they were. Aunt Emma, Mother and the little folks would visit in the house, but Uncle Frank would get us older ones started on interesting games, and how we played! From Madrid it was almost a day’s drive even with Uncle Frank’s light-footed team, so quite early the next morning they had to start back home.

The Callerstrom daughters, first cousins of Emma Sophia Sjostrand Peterson. Front, Lily Hanna (Hannah?) and Daisy. I do not know the names of the two in back. From a Google search, I learned that Lily married David Vikner, and went to China as a Lutheran missionary. While there, she bore three children — Ruth, David, and Carl. Ruth died in 2011, in Chelan, Washington, about half a day's drive from where I now live in Seattle. I would have liked to have known this sooner; I would have tried to contact her. On another front, when I did a search for "Callerstrom" I found several individuals with that surname living in the Minneapolis area. I'm guessing that they would be my third cousins.

With our slower moving horses, we never did drive as far as to Madrid. Even the 18 miles to the Seashores south of Dayton would mean a 4 or 6 hour ride. With old “Hallie” who was the nice looking but slow footed single horse that we used to drive, we counted on it taking six hours to drive to Fort Dodge.

For many years the lumber wagon was the means of travel. Father was the first in our community to buy a spring wagon, a lighter vehicle. This had two seats, one of which could be removed when not needed for passengers. It was years later before we had covered carriages and top buggies. These both had detachable side curtains which were used only in bad weather. When there was snow in winter, many could pile into the old bob-sled, the wagon box mounted on double sled runners. I remember one snowy Christmas morning when an old quit was spread like a tent over the top of the wagon box, but we enjoyed it all. How inspiring to comeinto the church with its lighted candles in the “ljus kronor,” candelabra made to hold tall white candles in two tiers; the arms made of heavy wire and wrapped with fringed strips of tissue paper. Most of the homes owned a “ljus krona.” In church were several; it was only in later years that Christmas trees came into vogue. and electric lights instead of candles.

With such slow means of conveyance, even a visit to a neighbors was a big event but neighbors did some sometimes, many times even on foot. Then there would be neighborhood gatherings or “kalas” at times when several families would meet at some home for a good visit. These gatherings always closed with a devotional period before all left for their separate homes. Many of these neighbors came from the so-called pietists of the old country, and religion played an important part in their lives and they appreciated these gatherings for fellowship.

Yes there was fellowship and visiting even though the distances seemed farther because of slow means of travel. There were deep bonds of friendship in those days, which meant much to all. On Father’s and Mother’s twentieth anniversary, the Callerstroms had arranged a surprise for them. How well I recall, though I was but 8 years old, how we children coming walking home from a long day of Swedish school in the Telleen schoolhouse, say many buggies in the barn yard and a large group of people gathered in the front yard. Feeling embarrassed because of our bare and dusty feet, we wondered what it was all about. A lovely set of green-sprigged dishes was given to the folks by the friends as a remembrance of that occasion.

Chapter 5: Our Country School

In 1886, when Carl was seven years old, he started school. Like most of the children of pioneers of Swedish descent, he neither spoke nor understood a word of English, but children soon learn. He carried his noon day lunch, a sandwich of bread and molasses, in a little pocket that Mother had sewed on the inside of a new little coat. That was the beginnings of school for the Peterson children. All of us completed our grade school training in that little white school house, District No. 9, in Clay township.

How long before this time this school house was built, I do not know, but there it remained on the corner about three-fourths of a mile west of our home as a beacon of learning until the Gowrie Consolidated School District was formed; the fine modern building erected; and school buses went out into the country, bringing the country children in to attend a good graded school, starting a new era of schooling.

Rural school, location unknown

These school houses were all built after the same pattern. The school room had three windows on each side; at the front a raised platform for the teacher’s desk; in front and on both sides, black-boards; on one side of the teacher’s desk a globe of the world and on the other, a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. To the side front stood the cast iron heating stove; on the rear wall was a tall cupboard for lunch pails; on the side walls various specimens of the pupils’ best work. When Carl Knock taught our school he secured pictures of all our Presidents, which we framed and placed in order of their presidency above the blackboard on the front wall. This might have been a fore-runner of visual education. In the hall entry to the building were hooks for all the wraps, but in winter time overshoes often were arranged in a circle around the heater to dry out and be fit to put on at closing time. I must not omit to mention the shelf at one end of this hall where stood the water pail, with a dipper which was used by one and all. Water was carried from the nearest farm home, and the pupils took turns doing the task.

There was also a coal house which in warm seasons the girls would fix up to play house in. Another “family” would live in the storm cave if there was no water in it. These storm caves were built after the terrible tornado struck at Pomeroy in the 1890s. Only once was it used when a storm threatened, and at this time there was about a foot of water in it. So the older boys and girls stood barefoot, knee-deep in water while the teacher and little folks crouched on the steps. It got dark as night, but turned out to be only a bad dust storm.

The pioneers showed by their action in erecting these schools that they knew the value of schooling for the children. They were placed at the section corners, two miles apart each way so that some children were fortunate in living quite near to school while others might have as far as two miles to walk. These walks were generally shortened by cutting across the fields.

Our walks to school stand out in my memory, especially when in the spring we could walk barefoot, and often linger along the way to pick wild flowers, buttercups, violets, and other flowers which grew in abundance by the road side. The teacher generally had several bunches of wild flowers on her desk. Often school would continue into June, and then there was an abundance of wild strawberries to pick and eat on our homeward way. Never did any fruit taste sweeter or more delicious.

There were rainy spells when water would overflow the grades, and we would have to carefully pick out way if we had our overshoes on. Naturally, if barefoot it was the more fun to wade through the water. What child does not revel in wading?

In winter the story was different. Bundled up so that only noses and eyes showed, we bravely trudged through deep snow and facing the biting cold wind. Seldom, if ever, did we get a ride to school. Of course there were days when we had to stay home from school when it was too stormy. That was especially true of the little folks. We all hated to miss a day of school.

There are many memories linked with that little school house, standing on an acre of ground fenced all around with a board fence. There was plenty of play ground space, and recess time was as much enjoyed in olden times as it is today. Favorite games that I remember were “Pump, pump, pull-away,” “Last couple out,” “The old witch,” “Bear” (something like the modern game of “Cops and robbers”). Very little ball was played because of the different ages and sizes of the pupils, but “Anteover” over the school-house roof furnished plenty of competition between the two opposing sides. Aross the road from the school yard was a large slough or pond, generally too overgrown with pond grass to afford good skating, but we enjoyed wading there in warm weather.

Unless the weather was rainy or stormy, the pupils were expected to all go out at recess to work off some accumulated restless energy. It was not often that the teacher had time to supervise or join in the games, for her time was filled with putting extra assignments on the black-board; extra samples to supplement those in the arithmetic books, for example. I can still see the board filled with these examples in the four fundamentals: their purpose being to develop accuracy and speed in figuring. Long division combined addition, subtraction, multiplication and division so was much stressed for the older pupils.

Speed an accuracy were given in a test at the Friday afternoon time of ciphering down, much enjoyed by all. For beginning with the first graders and their simple examples, the winner would choose another contestant until the exciting last minutes when two eighth graders would compete for the top honors. Proud and happy was the winner. Similarly, contests in spelling down took place in that happy time on Friday after the last recess. In this way accuracy and speed in two very important subjects was stimulated.

Reading and writing, spelling and arithmetic were stressed much in those days. Much so-called “busy work” helped pupils to keep occupied after they felt they had properly learned the assigned lessons. This was became when teaching grades one to eight, a teacher had little time for supervision. In one front side of the room was a long bench for recitation of lessons. A very limited time (often as little as five to seven minutes) could be spent for each class in order that all would have time for a recitation. It followed that pupils of country schools had to a great extent depend on their own initiative and efforts, and really had to learn how to study. The last term I went to school I was a lone eighth grader and brother Carl, who was my teacher, just assigned so many pages for each day and hardly ever had time for me to do any reciting. Still he kept an eye open to see if I applied myself as I should. One day a book agent came during school hours and as, proverbially, book agents are persistent; so was this one, and took some of the teacher’s valuable time. I was an interested listener-in and my eyes were not on my books! To my dismay that day I was called on for a recitation and other classes were skipped over! No doubt big brother saw a chance to teach me a lesson in another subject than in my text books.

The need of a school library for use as supplemental reading gave rise to the custom of having one evening’s entertainment a year for fund raising. Generally a pie or box social was the best means of raising money. The entertainment varied from community spelling bees, to programs put on by the school, consisting of songs, dialogues and recitations.

For these events folks really turned out. Many bought lanterns to hang up for lights. Sometimes a lamp or two added extra illumination. Grown folks squeezed themselves into even the primary children’s low seats. I can’t recall where the school children were, probably back stage in the hall. This was a high point in every winter term. The funds raised were wisely spent for children’s classics and supplementary readers, also some appealing story books of the age like the Five Little Peppers series, the Elsie Dinsmore books, the Fenimore Cooper books, etc. These books could be taken out and brought home, but the most use of them was made when pupils got permission tot ake a library book to their seat after lessons were learned.

There was also in later years a traveling township library, augmented each year from a township fund. For several years after I had finished eighth grade, Carl was secretary of the Township School Board and one of his duties was to select and send for these books from the book supply company. He, in turn delegated this delightful task to me. Esther was much concerned lest I should grow to a lazy good-for-nothing, for when that package of books came I felt I just must read every one before they were distributed to the various schools.

These school houses could comfortably accommodate about 25 pupils. Then, as now, enrollment varied by cycles, depending much on if large families would move onto the rented farms in the district. When I was six years old, Mother kept me home until the spring term, as Marie Callerstrom that winter had 35 pupils enrolled. So crowded was the room that the smaller children had to sit by threes in a double seat. In contrast about 15 years later one winter term there were only three pupils enrolled. Until just the last few years the school year was only seven months long with quite long vacations between terms.

On the back of this photo, my dad wrote: “This is, I believe, a copy (perhaps an enlargement), of a picture I had printed from an old picture that, as I recall, I acquired after my mother died. It may be of the students at the country school the Peterson siblings attended, but I can identify no one of them.”

Whatever the enrollment a teacher must be read to teach first to eighth grades if needed. No normal school training was necessary, no not even a high school diploma. Any one who could pass the rather difficult teacher’s examination in the subjects to be taught, plus Didactics, or the art of teaching, would be granted a third class certificate. After some months of teaching experience this could be raised to a second class certificate. The salary? As I recall, it was $35 a month for third class, and $37.50 for second class, but dollars had more value then than now.

By diligent review and study, Carl, Esther, and I secured teacher’s certificates and taught in the local schools for various lengths of time. I marvel at our self-assurance in taking on the teaching of neighborhood children who knew us so well. but there was a wonderful co-operative spirit in those home districts and we got quite good results in our teaching efforts.

The country school teacher’s work did not consist merely of teaching. No, she was the school janitor as well. This meant coming to school early on winter mornings so as to have the room warm for the first early arrivals. It also meant carrying in coal and carrying out all the ashes, sweeping and dusting. Before the school year began in the fall it was the duty of the school director to thoroughly clean the school house. From that day on it was up to the teacher to try to keep the dust down. In winter snow scattered on the cold floor in the morning kept down a lot of the accumulated dust. Often times pupils would volunteer to stay after school and clean black boards and erasers.

Sometimes on nearing the school house one could see smoke coming from the chimney. This meant that some wandering tramp had spent the night there. any a tramp slept on those long recitation benches! It wasn’t much use to even lock the door, for they could easily com in through the windows. It always was with a sense of fear that the door was unlocked for the tramp might still be there, but it never happened in our school. However, although for that one day, the fire need not be started up in a cold room, there was the task of carrying in more coal and also more ashes to empty, before beginning the day.

Some pupils would come so early they almost beat the teacher. No one wanted to come late for we all enjoyed the brief opening exercises, always a portion read from the bible and the singing of a gospel hymn, and perhaps a patriotic song. Roll call was often answered by quotations we had learned, and proud was the pupil who some time found a new one to copy into our copy books. Often times the teacher would also read a chapter from some interest-book, like a continued story. After that we were all ready for the day’s school work.

Not very many pupils took the eighth grade county examinations for they had no hopes of going farther with their education. Be it said, thought that the Petersons one and all did “graduate” from country school, and went on to some further schooling.

I want also to tell about our Bible schools — in summer — then called Swedish school, since Swedish reading, spelling, and composition was taught as well as the Bible History and Catechism.

Two years I well remember when we had two months of summer school, one month in District No. 8 and one in District No. 9. Since the summer days were longer it was as well to make good use of the day, so our school days began at 8:00 A.M. and kept on until 4:00 P.M. None of us considered it a hardship to attend. We thought it was a privilege for we enjoyed the association with our neighbor children of different districts; maybe also the change to get away from home duties. We had one teacher born in Sweden who was very strict, but when in a good mood would sit down and relate the most wonderful stories about the Norse men and Swedish history.

One summer when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I memorized the whole Luther’s explanation of his Small Catechism, about 100 pages including all the Bible verses. As I later have adopted the English as my “church language” I have often regretted that this memory work was not in that language, for what one learned in childhood remains in one’s memory.

When it was Mother’s turn to board the teacher it was Lawrence’s job to carry his noon lunch packed in a grape basket, to us it seemed to much, compared to what we carried in our own dinner pails, and to our childish minds came the questions, “Why the difference?”

Until the time of World War I, Swedish was the home language for many. Carl tells how he didn’t know any English when he started school, and he was not the only one. That first year I taught in the Telleen school, it was next to impossible to make the pupils speak anything but Swedish on the play ground unless the teacher was out there to enforce it. In fact, an English speaking family of several children learned enough of the Swedish language to carry on a conversation with the “Swedes.”

After World War I, there arose a decided opposition to any foreign language being used even in Sunday School and church. It hastened the turn-over from the Swedish, even at worship. This was a real loss to many of the dear old folks whose heart language it was, but viewed after 35 years, one can see it was the best of continued church work. As an example, when I taught Swedish school in the summer of 1915, there were several pupils who were struggling to memorize the catechism in Swedish, a language which they did not even understand. The change over was far from painless but because of the external pressures it was necessary. It has been our regret that we who knew two languages equally well, were not able to pass on this heritage to our children, but the trend of the times was against it.

Chapter Four: Home Improvements

After Serenus was born, the family numbered eight and the little old house was just too small for the growing family. Plans were made and the new house was built in 1893. The was quite an undertaking, but finally the last mortgage on the land had been paid, and of course building costs were not then what they are now. The lean to kitchen was torn off and the main part of the old house was turned half way around the forms the back part of the house as it now stands. Thus, the family lived in this part while the new house was being built. 

The Peterson family, 1905. Back, left to right: Lawrence (17), Naomi (15), Serenus (13), George (22), Esther (24), Carl (26). Front, left to right: Ruth (10), Jonas (60), Lillian (5), Emma (43), Laurine (1) (on lap), Milton (8)

When Father was to do anything he wanted to do it up right and the new house was one of the very best in the country round. The rooms were large and airy. There were good floors and nice wood-work. Only in the very large parlor was the floor laid of six inch boards. It was taken for granted there would always be a wall to wall carpet there. This rooms was furnished with a nice woolen ingrain carpet, some beautiful cane seated chairs and a red plush sofa. That’s all I remember about this room, for it was seldom opened up and used only when company was invited. But one day when little Lawrence got his fingers squeezed in the clothes wringer, I so well remember how Mother comforted him by the simple expedient of bringing him in to sit on that wonderful red plush sofa!

There were styles in building then as now. And so, though the wood-work in the bedrooms upstairs was simply varnished and the natural beauty of the wood retained, not so down stairs. Much work was done on a ground coat of paint, then graining a pattern in a darker color to resemble wood grain But was years passed by this wood-work was less attractive and harder to clean, and yet that finish cost much more in the first place.

In the new house there was plenty of room for the growing family and more comforts, though a coal stove furnished the only heat in winter. Stove pipes leading up through two upstairs bedrooms took off some of the chill, but we used to grab out clothes and run down stairs to dress where it was nice and warm. Some houses in later years were heated by hard coal stoves, which gave out a delightful warm glow through the icing-glass [isinglass] body of the stove. We never had one of these, but a soft coal stove with a protective grill work was bought after Serenus as a baby fell on the cast-iron heat and badly burned his face, leaving it badly scarred for months.

Spring and fall house cleaning was really a big job in the new house. Five of the rooms boasted of carpeting; wool ingrain carpets in the spare bedroom and the parlor and the small bedroom downstairs. Two rooms had home woven rag carpets. An old lady in town, Mrs. Stone, wove the carpets for Mother. Under each carpet was put a layer of clean straw, clean at least when first laid down. Then with a mechanical device called a carpet stretcher the carpet was pulled taut and tacks drive in about every three inches. It looked real nice when the job was well done. Then came the time when all these tacks had to be pried up with a screw driver, and the carpet taken out to be beaten clean of dust. This was a big job. The straw, now all filled with dust. was replaced with clean straw and then again the task of laying the carpets. What a lot of dust could be accumulated over one winter, especially from the coal and ashes from the heating stove which added to that tracked in by many feet.

But, on the whole, work was easier in a roomy new house, and there was also room for boarding the school teachers. Both the public school and Swedish school teachers often stayed at our place. When any carpenter or other work was to be done in those days, it was taken for granted that the work men also got room and board for now there was plenty of room at our house.

A few years after Father died, the farm house was modernized (I think it was about 1910). Again the Peterson house became one of the better farm houses around Gowrie. A full basement was put in and a hot water heating system installed. The west wing was added, providing a nice kitchen and pantry downstairs and a bathroom and storeroom upstairs. A large cistern was built and the house well dug, with the pump on a screened-in porch right outside the back door. With plenty of water near at hand, running water was also installed. Truly a marvelous changed from when Mother began her housekeeping in that first little house on the prairie thirty years before. To this day the old farm house provides a comfortable living, as our family experienced when during the depression in 1933, we left our home in town and move there to live in order to make both ends meet after Clarence lost his job at the bank.

The new big barn had been built some years before the last improvements on the house. Uncle Callerstrom and Adolph Blomgren built the house in 1893 — the barn was the last big carpenter job that Uncle did. In the fall of 1914 Carl built the double crib which burned in that awful fire in the fall of 1947, the last fall we Strands lived on the old farm place.

Chapter Three: The Family Grows

When Carl was 18 months old, Esther Adelia was born. Help was not easy to get but this time old Mrs. Hendrickson had come to help Mother. Then the baby did not come at the expected time and after several weeks, Mrs. Hendrickson had to leave as her own family needed her. So when Esther was born Mother had no help after all.

The family kept on increasing. Esther was not quite two when George was born. As a baby he had several spells of convulsions, and no doubt this was the reason that he never was strong and well like the rest of us children. Then followed a really difficult time for the little family. After a miscarriage it seemed that Mother could not regain her strength and for months was unable to work at all. Help then as now was hard to get, though her cousin Emma Seashore was there for awhile. At times Father would be alone to care for the three little ones as best he could. Carl and Esther say they well remember the very thick pancakes he used to bake for them on top of the cast iron heating stove. Neighbors were helpful and kind, and came often to wash, clean up the house and bake.

Original Peterson farmhouse and granary, circa 1883. From left to right: Carl, Jonas, George, Emma, Esther. Note the small spruce trees surrounded by wood-post enclosures.

Though Carl must have been only about six years old, he has recalled of how on Christmas Eve, three forlorn little folks were sitting in the dusk, on a shawl spread on the floor for warmth, when Theodore Hultquist, a cousin of Father, who was working for Mr. Lennarson, came over and brought them some little gifts and Christmas cheer.

It took much urging and encouragement from her cousin Emma and her neighbor, Mrs. Woodard, to get Mother to try to walk again. Almost as when a child, she had to learn to take those first steps. But gradually she regained her strength and was able to care for her family, who so much needed a mother’s care.

Sorrow came to the home when their next baby, lovely little blue-eyed Elvera, died at the age of nine months, but before long there was a new baby. Lawrence was born on March 20, 1888.

It is difficult for us of this generation to grasp the monotonous trend of the life of those days. Seldom were they able to go to church, and Mother grieved over this. For some time before Lawrence was born, her Uncle Carl Gustaf came to help with some building. He was the uncle who was also a lay preacher, and Mother has told of what a season of refreshing this was to her starved sould, as he read and explained the Bible and sang to them.

It was quite an event when in 1890, just before I, her sixth child, was born, Mother got her first washing machine. Until then all washing had been done on a wash board. On the 3rd of July, after 10-year-old Carl came home from the last day of school, he and Mother did a big washing. The machine was operated by a push and pull handle on the lid of the machine, and standing over the hot steam was not an easy task, even for an older person, but this was Carl’s task from then on.

That evening as Mother realized her baby would soon be born, she had Father bring the children in to Auntie Callerstrom’s “for a visit,” while Auntie came back to assist at the child birth. The next day there was a Sunday School picnic out at the Isaacson farm. Dinner was served pot luck style, but at tables, the older folks were eating first. Esther relates how they then let the little folks eat on the dirty dishes to save washing! In those days children always waited till all the older folks were served. Folks were not so afraid of germs then as now! How well I remember us thirsty children crowding around th water bucket and all drinking from the same dipper.

But germs there were in those days too. We had the usual childhood diseases in turn. After Serenus was born the whole family had the whooping cough, even the baby. There was no known relief in those days and it had to run its course. Imagine six children sick with the whooping cough at the same time!

Except for Carl, who was born in Illinois, Auntie Callerstrom had served as mid-wife for all of us children until Serenus was born. She had learned much from experience, and when she was called out on November 14, 1892, she saw that this time Mother needed a doctor. With his slow team of horses Father set out for Gowrie. There he found old Doctor Evans unwilling to come with him, so he had to continue on to Callender and Dr. Fox came with him to the aid of poor Mother who had waited in pain all that long time. It maybe was a blessing that rough old Dr. Evans refused to come after all, for the younger, more skillful doctor was able to change the position of the baby so all went well.

The first small house had a sort of attic or loft, not plastered, which had to be used as an extra bedroom, even in winter. With the many cracks and crevices in the rudely constructed homes of pioneer days many folks were pestered with bed bugs. To make matters worse, these bed bugs would be carried in clothing and so spread from one house to another. One fall Mother’s step-brother, Gottfried, who had recently come from Sweden, came to stay with them after working for sometime for other families. He and Carl shared this attic room, and Mother let them take care of the room as at that time walking stairs was difficult for her. Imagine her dismay when one day she did go up to clean and found the bed literally crawling with bed bugs. The only thing to do was to empty and burn the corn husk filling of the mattress, wash all the bed clothes and then souse every crack and corner with kerosene. As I grew older and helped with the house-cleaning, I remember how as a precaution against bed bugs, Mother would use a feather and soak every crack in the wooden bed steads with kerosene each spring and fall.

Every fall we would go out into the fields and gather sacks full of the inner corn husks to replenish our mattresses. The ticks were washed and kept from year to year, but the husks would get matted and dusty. It took skill in those days to make up a bed so that it was smooth and even. One had to reach in through the opening at the top of the mattress and kind of level off the hollows and bumps made by our bodies, a far cry from the inner-spring mattresses of our day. Of course, there were no springs at all until many, many years later.

As the family increased so the work increased for Mother, and it was only be each one doing his or her share to help, that all the work could be done. The spring that Ruth was born in 1895, Esther stayed home from school to help. Then the next year she went back to school for review before taking the county eighth grade examinations. Likewise, when Esther began to teach school in the spring of 1903, I stayed home, as Mother was not well that year. So, though not quite 13 years of age, that spring I baked large batches of bread, (12 loaves at a backing) scrubbed the floors and did the heavier house work. At that time a 50 pound sack of flour lasted only one week. One time I recall Father bought 20 sacks of flour at one time.

It was quite a thrill for me that later that spring I could pass the eighth grade examinations and rank first in the whole county, even though I had not been attending school. I was awarded one year’s free tuition at Tobin College, but could not avail myself of it, as I was needed at home.

When Milton was born on September 4, 1897, it was just at threshing time. Esther, only 16 years old then, was responsible for the threshers. At this time the Jacobsons lived on the Woodards’ farm. Mrs. Jacobson came up to help Esther but her little three months old Leonard was a “colicky” baby, and cried all the time so it wasn’t too much help. Cooking for the threshers was no easy task under any circumstances. Esther will never forget how as the men went out after dinner one of them clumsily tipped over a large can of water brought in for preparing the next meals and though it flooded the kitchen, he only laughed; while she had extra work of cleaning up that mess before getting supper on to cook. The crew with the threshing rig were often rough and unmannerly. These men also stayed nights wherever they were working. The good old days? — not for the farm women.

Though I was only seven years old, I so well remember when Jonas Milton was baptized at home; how Rev. Landell looked at the slip on which the baby’s name was written, showed it to someone and smiled as if her were amused. Of course Milton translated the Jonas to John as he got older. He and Leonard Jacobson were inseparable playmates as they grew old enough to be left alone together. In those days there were no clean sand piles for children to play in so their favorite play spot was the accumulated pile of ashes. They enjoyed this ash pile, but the mother had to wash some very dirty little boys.

When Lillian was born January 27, 1900, I was ten years old. This time our good neighbor, Mrs. Knock, came to take care of Mother and baby for the first week, and I spent a wonderful week visiting with the Knock girls. This is really one of the outstanding events of my childhood. Their older sister, Emma, took good care of us all there.

Though there was the same difference in the ages of Milton and Lillian as between the rest of us, it has seemed as if there was a closer bond between those two — they seemed almost like twins. Perhaps this was because for a while it seemed as if the family had reached its full number so there was not a new baby crowding in on their play. It was not until Lillian was almost five years old, that Laurie was born on September 9, 1904. Mother was then 42 years old, and not at all well. In fact, she herself feared she would not live through this child-birth. But all went well and little Laurine became the pet of us all, but especially of Father.

About this time Father got a bone infection in his little finger. For weeks that infection caused an almost unbearable pain until two thirds of this finger, bone and all, had literally rotted away, leaving only a loose portion of flesh which he himself one day cut off with just an old pair of scissors and then fainted dead away as he tried to walk to a chair. How frightened we all were. But after that it miraculously healed.

After this, though only about sixty years of age, Father withdrew from active farm work, leaving the management up to the boys, who were naturally interested in the newer methods then coming in and also in the tiling of the lower ground, as the county ditch had gone through and provided an outlet for the water. From then on we remember Father sitting in the shade of the big maples in summer, and by the bay window in winter, entertaining Laurine who was left without playmates, since Milton and Lillian were already of school age. Part of each afternoon Father would lie on the bed upstairs by the west window, reading his Swedish newspaper and also a weekly newspaper, “The Chicago Inter-Ocean,” which furnished all the news we ever got from the outside world even up till Father’s death in 1915. How times have changed in these last 40 years.

It was about this time that our Grandfather Sjostrand died, and Mother invested her legacy from Sweden in a piano. After Esther had taken lessons on the organ from Mr. Lagerquist, she in turn gave the rest of us lessons. Father loved organ music but had no taste for what he called the tinny sound of a pianoi, and he would retire upstairs when Ruth and I began taking lessons from Hilma Liljegren and practiced on the new piano. The old organ later was placed in the school by Esther when she taught District #9. I have often wondered what became of it after the consolidation of schools, for there are happy memories of childhood when we would gather around the organ, and sing our favorite hymns. May of these Swedish hymns are indelibly impressed on our youthful memories.

When Esther was 17 years old, she went to a sewing school for three months. Mary Hicks taught may girls of those times what I later years we might call Home Economics. After completing thus course, Esther went out to various homes and did sewing. She earned 50 cents a day and her board, for a ten hour day of sewing — just five cents an hour!

As with her organ lessons, Esther felt she should pass on the sewing skills to me so I took could carry on, which I did do after she left for Omaha. But, maybe I was the black sheep of the family! I did not love fancy work like Mother and Esther did. And I surely hated to sew. I can well remember angrily crying as I saw doing some sewing which Esther thought I should be learning. I loved to read, and read anything and everything I could get hold of. I loved to work out of doors. But how often in life one must learn to do work that is not what we might like to do. That is a lesson I think we all learned in our youth.