While trying to recall things to tell about the four oldest boys I realize I barely knew them as young men. By the time I was old enough to remember them they were away from home making their own way. John was possibly eighteen years old when I was born, Pete only a year younger.
Somehow I picture them in two pairs – John and Pete, Emil and Calmer, as they themselves seemed to pair off in such a fashion.
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I’m sure they folks had plans of John being a preacher. They loved to tell of the times when as a little boy he loved nothing better than to gather the other kids around him and maybe neighbor children, get up on a stump or box and preach! He went though the motions and used some of the words, too, or maybe just used a jabber language of his own. As he grew up he became more sparse with his words and was known as the quiet type. |
Pete became the one who liked to talk and wasn’t reluctant about voicing his own ideas on any subject. Most of the time with humor, he was a great entertainer. He and John were great story tellers and could recall interesting events that happened to them. Many times the stories were long and it took time to listen. Later in my life I had many opportunities to hear their stories and I have a glad feeling to think that I stopped my work to listen and visit with them.
John didn’t like the dust and dirt or the smell of animals. The smells of books and papers was more to his liking. So he was the only one of the boys who went on to High School.
Pa was a stern man and expected strict obedience from his boys. I’m sure they rebelled at times but they worked hard and were good boys. They got very little if any spending money – why should they, Pa thought – they had food and clothing and what was there to spend money on? After all, he went out to work for board and room at age ten and he considered them very lucky to be able to stay at home. There wasn’t work enough for them all, tho so the oldest four left home I’m surmising in their early teens.
I like a story that John told me years later about a scheme he had to buy a plug of tobacco now and then without asking Pa for money. I don’t suppose he wanted to tell what he needed it for, anyway. He hunted for stolen hen’s nests. Some chickens like to find a hiding place to lay eggs and if it isn’t found they sit on them hatching out their own chicks. In fence corners, under machinery or in the stray stack, John found them, hid them in his own secret place until he had a dozen, then took them to town to trade for tobacco. I believe he said they had a bicycle. It was almost four miles to town.
He got his High School education at Canton Lutheran Academy. This was near Sioux Falls so he didn’t get home often but his summers were spent working out to earn money for the next term. As he grew older he taught Parochial School (Vacation Bible School it is called now) after school at Canton was out for the summer. I’m sure wages were very small.
By living frugal he saved money to start college in St Olaf and again was far from home. Sometime during these years he and Pete went to Perkins Co. to file on homesteads. These were in the Cole area, south of the Lundeen ranch. He stayed on the claim long enough to prove up, herding sheep for Lundeen, a job he seemed to like, to be alone out on the vast prairie with a dog and sheep and maybe a horse for company, Most of the time he was afoot, I think.
| Pete stayed on the homestead and married Julia Mogen from Summit. She taught school several years then settled down to sheep herding herself. Living in a three room tar paper shack, she seemed content, being not too isolated at that time. It was in the 30’s that people moved away and neighbors were few and far between. |
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Both Julia and Pete were great readers. Even tho’ Pete never went to school beyond the eighth grade, he was a well educated man. What he read, he remembered and discussed. I have some of their old books stowed away here, “Black Oxen” by Gertrude Atherton, “Wild Geese” by Martha Ostenso – I think she won the Pulitzer prize for this one if I’m not mistaken, also “A Man Called Peter – or Simon Called Peter”, a World War I story.
Something else I have here that I treasure very much is the old Norwegian trunk that John and Pete took along from home. This same trunk held Ma’s and Pa’s belongings when they came from Norway so it is now almost 100 years old. A home made, sturdy trunk still in perfect condition. If I had the space I would display it in my living room.
After proving up his claim, John went on to St Olaf, spending his summers usually herding sheep. This is about the time I remember him coming home for vacations. He was always quiet, never had much to say about school. I have a copy of the St Olaf annual book called “The Viking” that was published the year of John’s graduation. Under his picture is the caption “He should cultivate a closer acquaintance with his tongue”
Calmer and Emil had gone to North Dakota during this time to farm so Ma was busy knitting socks and mittens for her boys away from home. The yarn was home spun, left in the natural color and was heavy sturdy yarn. Before the yarn, a wool fleece had to be prepared. I don’t recall ever seeing sheep on our farm but maybe they kept one or two for the fleece, before I was old enough to remember. The fleece had to be washed many times in hot soapy water to get out the grease and dirt, then laid on the grass to dry in the sun.
When it was thoroughly dry it was ready for carding. The cards were two wide wooden paddles with handles for easy holding, studded with heavy wire set thickly in the wood, about ¾ of an inch long, much like a curry comb. A hunk of wool was laid on the bottom card and worked back and forth until it was well combed and free from any burrs, sticks, weeds or any dirt left in the wool. Then it was worked into a roll, still between the cards, about an inch in diameter and a foot long.
Now it was ready for spinning. Pa used to help with the carding but the spinning was entirely Ma’s department. She set the wheel in motion with her foot on the treadle and deftly fed the curl of wool into the action that carried the yarn into the spindle. How supple and gracefully she worked! Not a bump or knot showed in the yarn and when she was almost at the end of the curl of wool she took another without stopping the wheel, somehow joining them without a break in motion. How easy it looked, but I tried it just once and gave up.
When the spindle was full, I seem to remember there was another attachment that unwound the spindle and made it into hanks of yarn. Then it was our job – to hold these hanks between our hands as she wound the yarn into a ball. Now it was ready for knitting. She used to sit in the bedroom off the kitchen in the half-dark as we kids were around the lap set on the table, doing our home work or just reading. Pa was there too, with the latest copy of the Decorah Posten, the weekly Norwegian paper published in Decorah, Iowa, along with the “Posten” was the little magazine called “Ved Arnen”, such good stories to read every week! Ma enjoyed them too but knitting was something she could do without a good light and she never missed a stitch. We liked the comic strip of “Ola og Per” that was in the paper every week.
The folks celebrated their twenty fifth wedding anniversary with a large reception in the Lutheran Church in Lake Preston. I was six years old, Esther was four. Somehow I recall the “old ladies” (we thought) who came to talk with Ma and to see her two little girls. We were timid and bashful and hated the attention.
Their gift from friends and the congregation was a beautiful silver sugar bowl and cream pitcher which was the proud possession of the whole family and used on special occasions as long as I can remember. It is now in the care of Marlys Hanson, handed down from her mother Tena. It was decided that being the oldest girl she should have this heirloom. Besides, she had a glass doored china cabinet to display it in.
I vividly recall the ride home. The folks and girls rode in the surrey (It didn’t have a fringe on top) But it had side curtains that buttoned or snapped shut to make it warmer when we rode to church on a cold winter day. The team was usually two bays, Ned and Nellie but sometimes Topsy was hitched up with Ned. Nellie was a graceful little horse and was sometimes ridden. Topsy seemed so big and clumsy compared to Nellie we didn’t like it when she was hitched up.
Back to the night of the reception – on the way home a terrible rain storm came up, with wind, thunder and lightning. There were little oil lanterns on either side of the surrey, they gave very little light at best and this night the wind blew them out. I was deathly afraid of thunder and lightning even when I was snug in bed at home so this ride was like a nightmare. Pa stopped once to try and light the lanterns but it was impossible so he let the horses find their way in the inky darkness. I don’t remember anything about getting home – maybe I had passed out from fright, but I doubt it. The storm was maybe over by the time we got home. The members of the family who rode in the open wagon or buggy must have been soaked to the skin long before they arrived home. When I think back to those sort of events and realize how much better we have it now, with good cars (that don’t have to be unharnessed) paved or gravel roads, the speed of travel, I feel that today’s people won’t have any stories to tell. Who knows but that in fifty more years the speed and ease of today will be as a snail’s pace compared to what can be expected well say in 2060 or 2070.
Calmer and Emil were in North Dakota for many years, on the farm near Kintyre which is southeast of Bismarck. Calmer came home about every winter to trap muskrats with Sam Odegard on Lake Whitewood. This was a very large shallow lake south and east of Lake Preston, teeming with muskrats, bullheads and ducks for fall hunting.
This area of South Dakota is a country abounding in lakes and sloughs. To the west was Lake Henry, south of there Lake Thompson, north was the lake Preston, the town was practically built on its banks. In later years much drainage was done to make the land arable. Farther east and north were the larger deeper lakes, Lake Campbell, Lake Albert, Lake Paintsett, all good fishing and camping areas, Farther north yet was the largest of all, Lake Kampeska, which was near Watertown.
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One winter Calmer made the trip home from Kintyre in a fancy light cutter (sled) pulled by a beautiful team of horses named Cap and Colonel. My! How those horses could run! He took us for rides and what a thrill it was to speed over the frozen ground and snow drifts. No snow plows cleared the roads of snow in those days. When the snow got too deep for a wagon the horses were hitched to a bob sled and they went up and over the drifts making the ride like a miniature roller coaster thrill. |
Calmer loved to sing so when he came home we always had more music even than usual, with Sylvia at the organ we sang from a brown song book called “101 Best Songs”. This book contained those lovely Scotch and English ballads like Annie Laurie, Highland Laddie, Loch Lomond, Believe Me, If all those Endearing Young Charms, Long Long Ago – Oh so many more and also the Stephen Foster songs besides Civil War songs, like Just Before the Battle, Mother, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, naming just a few. Then there were the good old Gospel songs, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, No Not One, Work for the Night is Coming, Little Brown Church, and Almost Persuaded. Best of all, tho, to Calmer was his book of Swedish hymns that he knew and loved so well. Years later – I think about 1960 we visited him and Clara at their home in Steele, N.D. He asked me if I remembered those songs and he was so pleased that I could, and I played them without the music as he sang along. I have never forgotten their lovely melodies.
Emil didn’t get home quite as often and when he did he either came by train or hitch hiked. He was always full of fun and knew so many songs, too but they were snappy little tunes that he liked to sing by himself. Now I don’t seem to remember them at all. Both Calmer and Emil were smokers, much to Papa’s dismay. I remember one time when Emil came in the house he stuck his pipe in his coat pocket and hung it in the stairway. In the evening before going to bed we smelled smoke and saw a light shining through the crack of the stairway door. He flew across the kitchen, opened the door and found his coat ablaze. He ran out with it, outside where he could beat out the fire. I am sure the coat was beyond use. It seems to me, it was a sheepskin coat so it must have been in the winter time. In just such careless ways, great fires have started, burning both homes and its occupants.
