Ardys Oberg Sharpe
PART I
MEMORIES
Family History (OBERG and GABRIELSON)
Family History (OBERG and GABRIELSON) and into our family unit - Reuben, Anna, Ardys, DorothyMy family history as I remember it - or being told about it - written by Ardys Oberg Sharpe - 1997.
Wesley and I had been working at this, and even in 1993 and 1994, when he was so ill he dictated portions of it that pertained to the war years, so that you might have the information "first hand," from him.
You are my descendants, and really, you know so little about us, your Grandparents. I have decided to entitle this production, "WHAT I DIDNT REMEMBER TO TELL YOU."
You may or may not know some of the things that have made up what we are today. James, Julie, and Christine, did you know that your ancestors came from England, Germany and Sweden? As you became part of the SHARPE family, you became a mixture. Did you know that your ancestor, John Howland, was one of the persons who came over to this country on the Mayflower? And, that he was an active young man, so much so that he "horsed around" on board the deck of the ship and fell overboard. He was rescued, and had he not been, you might have had a different heritage entirely. All of you are registered and documented as official descendants of the MAYFLOWER, a real part of the beginning of our countrys history. I have documented membership for the great grandchildren, Andrew James and Jamie Catherine Sharpe, and Alexander Mark and Melanie Jane Baumgart. At the time that I am no longer with you I hope you will complete and continue this lineage for any more that might be descendants of ours. At some time, even your grandchildren might like to know something about their past history.
The reason I got so involved in tracing ancestry was that a good share of it was done, and through the influence of Wesleys sister, Leora, she encouraged me to continue. And, when I was attending college, I worked for a professor there, Mr. Thomas Goff, who had the hobby of genealogy. In order to make some money that I needed for college expenses, he paid me 50 cents per hour to do the recording, and write the letters for more information. So, I had an understanding of how to go about tracing the ancestry for my family, and getting additional interesting information. Proving what I found out as a bit difficult at times, I continued, for it was still interesting. Not until now have I made the real effort to consolidate it into something worthy to read, and somewhat interesting as well. At one point I had to prove the connection between one generation and another, and it was through the publication of the United Methodist Church that it was possible. They accepted that proof - for Wesleys grandfather, Rev. Thomas Sharpe, was a minister and I had to prove that the publisher was in existence that published the year book for the church at that time. I needed to connect Wesleys grandmother with her mother -- and the obituary of her (a ministers wife) was published in the church year book in those days. Appeared in her listing was that she was the youngest daughter of her mother, and it gave her mothers full maiden name. That was what I needed, and it was considered as proof to qualify for certified documentation that Wesley was a descendant of John Howland, a passenger on the Mayflower when it arrived in our country.
The other part of Wesleys family, through lineage of his mother, Goldie, came through German lineage of the Sleeter family. They too migrated to this country, but official records are not as complete as those originating with the English Sharpe part of the family. Many German traditions have stayed with us through the years, and as I, of all Swedish background, became part of the Sharpe family, I have enjoyed the "kolaches" that Grandma Goldie Sharpe made as a specialty. It was a sweet dough roll with stewed prunes wrapped within it. I had planned to have Wesley dictate some thoughts that he had about those delicacies of his Moms, but he did not get to do that before it was time for him to meet his Maker on September 20, 1994.
************* Heres where I begin the story of the OBERG part of my history!
I, being of all Swedish background, it was a futile attempt to trace my ancestry with any accuracy for I found that the farms in Sweden were named, and when the family moved on to another farm, they took the name of the farm! Imagine trying to find your way in that maze of transfers! And, as they migrated to this country they took considerable freedoms with their names as well. My fathers family was originally known by ISAACSON; but when they came to America they changed it to OBERG. My mothers family did the same thing - they were ANDERSON over there, but chose to be GABRIELSON when they came to America. In addition to that confusion, they sometimes used the plan that
Isaacs son became Isaacson, and Gabriels son became Gabrielson, and Oles son became Oleson, etc. So when I get mailings that advertise family crests, it amuses me, for they really have very little authenticity when it comes to any Swedish lineage proof.
The Swedish background brought in many foods that others consider quite different - but thats what makes things interesting. I recall that on Christmas Eve there were always items that were on the menu. One was the Swedish Meat Balls and the other Lutefisk. Sometimes there was oyster stew - but only Mother and Dad enjoyed that. The Swedish Meat Balls have remained within our family recipe collection, but not the lutefisk. In fact, I did not ever eat that at home - my imagination just "ran away with me.". Dorothys family does have lutefisk some, but of course, Richard (Dorothys husband) is of all Swedish descent too. It was impossible for me to develop that taste, and quite improbable that it would be encouraged enough to make my German-English husband an avid enthusiast for that delicacy.
Potato Sausage (made with beef, pork, and potatoes ) was, and is, part of our traditional meal for Christmas holidays. When Mom passed away Dorothy made it a point to perfect that skill and keep that memory alive. I made it a point to perfect the rosettes specialty of Mothers. Another was a special kind of butter cookie, (and of course it was very important to use Land OLakes butter!) pushed out with a cookie press, called Spritz Bauckus (not sure of the Swedish spelling) that was another of the Swedish treats.
I have a soup terraine (spelling?) from the Oberg side of the family that carries with it many memories, too -- not that it contained fruit soup (a tapioca thickened sauce with dried fruit in it) very often, but that on special occasions it was filled with caramel-covered popcorn balls! Maybe one of you children will cherish that piece of dinnerware someday knowing this little bit of information about it.
A meal that was meant to be an economy measure (but to us it was a special treat), was when we got the ground-up potatoes mixed with the ground-up left-over beef roast, and all were put into a skillet and heated and ended up to be "hash." To make it so-o-o-o good, Mom would let us put jelly or jam on it. When I married into the Sharpe family, many ideas about food were exchanged.. Sie, my brother in law, became converted 100% to the jelly or jam on hash, and I became converted to his special treat - radish sandwiches (sugar added to the radishes and the sandwich buttered).
I have been digging into old photo albums and little bits and pieces of things that Mother and Dad Oberg (Reuben and Anna) had treasured. From these bits and pieces I find many cherished memories of theirs - and I am sharing them with you now, otherwise these items and notes might not have been preserved. Some are not chronologically presented, but they do have a connection to the subject written about at the time.
OBERG INFORMATION - and there us a detailed lineage chart included separately giving statistical information. But in order to better understand the information that follows, this simple listing will give you the names of Dads family members.
August Oberg(b. 1843) married to Anna Wickstrom Johnson Her children: Martin Johnson Elmer Johnsontheir children: John E. Obergb. l877Charles Edward Oberg b. l879 Freida Oberg b. 1882 August Oberg Jr. b. 1883August Oberg then married Anna's sister, Marie Larsonb. 1852their children: Esther Oberg b. 1885Anton Oberg b. 1886Selma Oberg b. 1888Samuel Oberg b. 1890 Reuben Oberg (my father) b. 1895At the time that Eldo Oberg (the youngest son of AUGUST JR. promoted a reunion in Moline, Illinois in 1986 ( I think I have the date right) , I got busy and put together the things that I knew about the Oberg family in genealogy form - but nothing ever more came of it even though I made it out for members of the family hoping that they would be willing to fill in some of the missing information.:
I found that Dad (REUBEN) was the youngest son of a second family his Dad had. His father, AUGUST OBERG (March 25, 1843-Nov. 19, 1920) came over from Sweden about 1848. Their name, when they came was ISAACSON, and they changed it to OBERG. In fact, I have a white pitcher that came with them when they came to Hudson, WI. He was married to ANNA WICKSTROM JOHNSON. They had these children:
JOHN, who lived in California and never did marry.CHARLEY, who was killed as a switchman on the railroad in St. Paul, MN FREIDA who died early in life with a medical disability, being both deaf and blind..
and AUGUST, who went into farming at Elk River, WI At the time of his birth, his mother, Anna, died.
Grandma August Oberg homesteaded the property in Trade Lake and I have the homesteading document that was issued to him by the United States Government. That must have been quite a different kind of dealing in getting land than we have today.
AUGUST, SR., my grandfather, later married MARIE LARS0N (Nov. 5, 1852-Jan. 20, 1923) and this is the Grandmother that lived with us, and died when with us. She lived only two years after her husband died (from 1920 to 1923.) I was would have been two years old that coming March. It was January when she died. It hardly seems possible, but I do remember a little bit of her being there. Maybe a little of the following had been retold enough in my young years that it seemed real - but it did happen. One night we became so frightened. It was a cold wintry blizzard raging outside. We had all moved downstairs for the winter - Mom and Dad with their bed in the dining room, Grandma Obergs bed and my crib were in the "front room," thats what we called it those days. There was a crashing at the front door (that opened right into the room I was in) that was at the front porch of the house. A man was caught in the snowstorm and was so cold, and he saw the little light that they had burning for Grandmother and I, and he kept walking toward it. The story goes that they took him in, warmed him up and he stayed the night, and the next morning Dad took the horses and got him to one of the little towns nearby. In those days we did not have the fear of intruders --there was something wrong--and he needed help. I wonder just what would be done today if someone was crashing into our home with such a force as that in the midst of a family supposedly asleep? There might have been a different ending.
From this second marriage of Grandpa AUGUST OBERG, Sr. and Grandma MARIE there were these children born:
ESTHER died in childbirth. She died in 1918. Her husband William Anderson married again, and we got to know them quite well when they lived in the Milltown area - and later moved to St. Croix Falls. In later years my father worked with William and learned many of his carpentry skills from him. I think this was done so that Dad could bring in some extra cash money to the household.
ANTON, a brother of Dads, became a fireman in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lived until l962 and we got to know that family quite well. Having an uncle that lived in the big city was quite a plus to us. We thought it great to stay at their home when we went to the cities to get our eyes examined. They had a "LITTLE back yard" with a white picket fence, sidewalks along the whole side of the house, from front to back." They hardly had any lawn to keep cut. I noticed that, for we had a big lawn, and with only a "push" mower that took lots of pushing. Anton and Aunt Namie had three children, Evelyn, Virgil, and Harvey, all of which are gone now. But, they were "big city relatives" that would come out to the farm for their "vacation." We on the farm never heard of a "vacation" before that, or even after that. Farmers did not take vacations in those days. They used to come out and stay with us, and Anton did a lot of fishing -- it was really great to have all the fish we wanted to eat. Mom and Dad would have liked to fish, but they had no time for it. Uncle Anton always cleaned them for Mom, and she surely knew how to fix them - fried in lots of farm butter, nice and crispy. If I could find fish done like that I probably would be eating fish today.
It was ANTON in the cities that we went to stay with while we took care of our medical needs that Dr. Al Swanson prescribed for us. We could stay overnight there Going to a restaurant in those days was the most unusual thing. But on some of the trips home from Antons we would have to stop for something to eat. I remember so well that Dad would order a "hot beef sandwich." That would come with lots of potatoes, meat, gravy all poured over a slice of thick bread. He got that for 25 cents. We could share with him from that plate - but he was always sure we got all we wanted and then he finished the rest. If Mother was along, they would order two of those. We did not order milk, we could get that when we got home. We ordered tall glasses of cold water. It is so strange to think that certain things like that remain stored away in our computer minds, ready to be drawn out when the right stimuli is given. The writing of this project of memories has certainly stimulated a lot of my brain crevices.
Dad also had a sister by the name of SELMA. She died in 1919 with asthma and tuberculosis. She married a Bjork. I never got to know any of that family - they had moved to the Montana area I understand. Some of the other members of the Oberg family have had some contact with the descendants there.
Dads next brother was SAMUEL - we called him Sam, and he married my mothers sister, Gerda, so that we really were "double cousins" to their children. That had its advantages, but disadvantages too. It seemed that there was twice as much "tattling" going on. If I did anything naughty at school, my Mom always seemed to know about it before I got up the nerve to tell her about it. There seemed to be extra-good communications with my double cousins mother, and my cousin Harlan! Sam bought the original Oberg place about 3 miles East of us, in the township of Trade Lake, after the parents had passed on. The place was way into the woods. You had to open three sets of gates to get into where the buildings were. I remember that. Some years after that they discontinued farming there and bought a little 10 acres plot out near the highway closer to where we were. He never did much farming after that. What they lived on after that was hard to understand. Uncle Sam and Gerda had three children, Harlan, who was close to my age; Arlette, who was about Dorothys age, and then Elaine who was quite a bit younger. I remember Harlan taking every opportunity to let me know that I was "fat" and that no one would ever marry me, because I was "fat." Arlette is still living, but Harlan and Elaine are not.
I loved my aunt and uncle, but they were different. Aunt Gerda didnt scrape the soft butter off the wrapper before she discarded it. My Mom "gleaned" every droplet. I was so shocked when I saw her NOT scraping off the softened butter from the wrapper when a new pound was begun. My Mom would not waste even a "half-teaspoon" of anything! At the time that Dad was building a new barn to replace the old log barn, it caused a bit of jealousy. So when they would drive by, they would make a point of not "turning their heads to look in." Maybe it affected me as it should not have, but I was so proud of my father and the effort he was making to build that new barn!
Then Dad (REUBEN WALTER OBERG)- came along - March 21,1895-June 12,1958), the youngest, and of course, I know the most about him. He was a very attractive young man, and always remained so. We have a picture of him with his big dog, sitting on the grass at his home farm, and he was so handsome! No wonder Mother fell in love with him. They were married on June 14th, 1919. He died at the age of 62, and looked young most of his life, until illness took its toll.
Dad bought this tract of land, 36 l/2 acres, at a little intersection of roads U.S. Highway #48 and County Trunk Z, in Trade Lake Township, Burnett County, Wisconsin. They began their life there. The house was the Baptist parsonage that was moved across the field in two parts. He bought the land before he married Mother. . Dad promised Mom that he was going to make a nice home for her. She shared that bit of expression about Dad when she was telling me about it. He had said to her, "It does not look for much, now dear, but I am going to make a nice home for you, Anna." He did, but they surely had many hardships in the years that followed. She was only 18 when they married; he was 24. Their love was strong, from which they drew their strength.
Dad was a good carpenter and had he had the training when younger, might have really done great things. I have several things for me - a music cabinet and a magazine rack and lots of picture frames. He did the work on remodeling our home where I grew up.. He and Mom got the raw oak from Grandpa Gabrielson (Moms dad) as a wedding present. Dad felled the trees, and took them from raw state to the final beautiful finish to make the banister for the stairway at the farm at Four Corners. I think that was the main thing that was hard to see go when we had to sell the farm when Mother could not live there alone any longer in 1983. So much loving care had gone into those stair railings and the banister. I remember climbing to the top of them, sitting there with my coloring box, and writing on the wall at the top - a real secret place for me to get into mischief. And, many times I had to help clean off the wall that I had decorated in a fashion that I thought was pretty special. I dont remember Dorothy ever doing that. Maybe she learned from my lessons. Most of the time when she disappeared it was to the spaces and could not be found - it was that she had found a book, hid behind some furniture and be reading to her hearts content. She did not even realize when we found her - either she was all in smiles or there were tears on her face. She lived the part of the characters in the book! But, Mom being the "teacher at heart" that she was - never seemed to scold her for escaping, even if the main original purpose was to get out of doing her part of some chore - "like wiping the dishes." I was "older," - and "I should understand," Mother would always remind me.
I was literally born on that farm - right there on the kitchen table. I wish now that I had kept that table - just for memorys sake. Of course, I dont really remember any of that, but it has been told to he that Mom had a difficult time with my delivery, and I carry marks on both sides of my head from the forceps used to aid my birth. We were fortunate though, for a country doctor, Dr. Swanson, who became a dear family friend, lived just across the road. He was there to help me arrive. As years went by he took care of me for every little runny nose, every little degree of fever, etc. In fact, to be sick was quite an ordeal - we had to stay in bed for 3 days after the fever left us! Those where the doctors orders, and he checked on us every day to see that we did stay in bed! He came to be known to us as "Uncle Al." --and his wife as "Aunt Birdie." Since the time of my birth, Mother often referred to childbirth as going through "the valley of death." Probably that was the reason she never really spoke much to us about getting ready for that role in our future lives. I new very little. My house mother, Lillian Duerst, at college told me what I wanted to know.
When I was four years old our doctor friend, Uncle Al, noticed that I had a tear duct that was leaking quite consistently. He immediately arranged for me to be taken to a specialist in Minneapolis, a Dr. Erickson, and since then I have worn corrective lenses. My first little pair of glasses had little round black frames, and I still have them in my collection of memories in my framed memory box. I remember the pain that I endured when the doctor put those heavy, heavy big diagnostic adjustable testing frames on my little nose. They had to do that in order to slip the lenses in and out, to decide which ones did me the most good. I was found to have astigmatism in one eye, which had already damaged the eye considerably and made the other eye lazy. The doctor provided me with a patch that I was to wear on my good eye, to make the other one work harder.. For a four-year-old that did not work too well, and finally they had to abandon the effort. As a result, the correction remained very extensive on one eye, and less on the other.
I then went to a doctor in Green Bay and went to contacts. I tried both the hard kind and the soft kind, but they did not prove to be satisfactory at all. I could not tolerate them.
My next step --I made an appointment with a Madison specialist (Dr. Sturm,). He had been the doctor of Wesleys sister, Verna. When I saw him I immediately approached him with the request to "buy an eye." He looked at me, a little surprised at my impulsive request, and after examining me, said, "We can help you. You have cataracts in both of your eyes and when you are emotionally ready, we will operate and replace your lenses with implants." I immediately responded, "How about today?" I was ready
Both of the surgeries were successful; I had the good eye done first and stayed overnight (we could then) because I was afraid of complications. The second one (the poor eye) I had done a year later. I can say that I have better sight today than I ever remember having in my whole lifetime. When I was younger, the lenses were always made of glass, and with the big corrections, they were so heavy. I had sores on the sides of my little nose so often, and I many times cried about it. Thanks to modern medicine and research. With the use of plastic lenses, that discomfort was corrected in later years. Even yet I cannot stand the corrections made of glass -- still to heavy, on my "full grown" nose! God gave someone the knowledge to fix my problems. I thank him for that, and for so many more things,
Just a few more little things about our "Uncle Al." He always came up each day to get his milk supply from my folks. He had a fur cap, and I can still see him sitting near the doorway and visiting with us. I spent many hours on his lap. He was the one that took me, and my Dad to Minneapolis in 1926 for we both needed medical attention. Dad was suffering from bleeding ulcers and they removed a large part of his stomach, and I needed to have my tonsils and my adenoids out. So both of us were in a Minneapolis hospital at the same time. I remember so well that they took me down to Dads room to see him after his surgery, and they gave me ice cream --it tasted so good, and so "cool" - for my throat was so sore. Dad was only 31 years old then. Dorothy stayed at home with the doctors wife so that Mother could come down to Minneapolis with Uncle Al when he came to see us. It was 70 miles to Minneapolis, but in those days when we would go down to see my uncle and aunt in St. Paul (Anton and Namie Oberg ) it took a day to go down, one day there, and one day to come home. We had our Model T Ford - with side curtains on only one side. Dad liked it that way so that it did not become so windy in the car. My sister and I used to argue about who was going to sit on the side that was open!
I was given sort of special treatment by Uncle Al and Aunt Birdie. They would take me along on some of their family outings. At one time we went to see the "kettle pits" at St. Croix Falls. All was going fine, going up and down those rocky places, until I decided to crawl under one of the steel railings and get closer to that "great big hole." I guess Uncle Al almost had a heart attack trying to quietly convince me to come back on the inside of the railing! At another time, I got sort of "feisty" on the way home in the car as we were going by one of the lakes that was real close to the road. He said to me, "Ardys, you behave or I will put you into this lake right here." I surely did get my scare from that -- although I know now that he would never have done that! But his tactic worked. I behaved.
As we were growing up on the farm at Four Corners, I mentioned that Uncle Al, and Aunt Birdie lived across the road from us.. They had a girl named Jane. She was in 8th grade when I was in first grade.. When we walked our mile to school she was my protector. She was like a "big sister." She was sort of my "baby-sitter". We never used that word in those days. Well, one cold winter day at school, at recess, I was playing on the steps outside the door entrance. There were metal pipes alongside the steps to use as guide rails. I had other thoughts - maybe no thoughts at all - for I put out my tongue on to one of them --and my tongue did not come off! I cried out in terror, and although the teacher tried to help me - I would let no one near me but Jane. They went to get some warm water, and she patted my tongue with the warm cloth until it finally released. For I few days I had very few words to say.
Dad farmed this little hilly farm (only 36 acres) through the depression and both he and Mom really did sacrifice for us. I know they had very few clothes - and I remember that Mom, herself, had only one change of underclothes at a time. One set was always being laundered ready for the next change. Dad was careful with his clothes - but always was clean and neat with is hickory striped clean overalls - especially whenever he went in to town, either for an errand for the machinery, to pay the taxes, to go to the doctor, or get groceries. Most of the time they went together for the groceries. I recall how he used to comb his few light strands of hair back across his head so that they made sort of a little hump, which I thought was like having curly hair.
Dad always cut our hair himself - and then we both had short straight hair, cut in bangs across the front, and straight cut along the side and shingled high up the back. I used to just hate to sit and wait for him be so particular about cutting the front bangs. They had to be perfectly straight and not too close to the eyes. As soon as they got near my eyes -- it was always time for a hair cut. They said if they were too long they would draw my eyes up to them and that would not be good for my eyes. I had already had problems with my eyes, so, of course, they were doing everything they could protect them..
I think back on some of the times together with my sister, Dorothy. She was 3 years younger than I, and when she was little, she was so "very little." I was the "chubby and fat little baby." Mother took a lot of scolding from her family because Dorothy was so thin, and looked so sickly. They finally found out that she was not getting enough milk from Mothers breasts. I am sure, with the hard times they were enduring, Mother probably was not getting the right kind of nourishment for herself and for Dorothy too. If you look at my sister now, you will find that she has become a much more shapely person than her older chubby sister has become! She did have trouble in early years, a mastoid infection, and the folks kept her back a year from beginning school for that reason. So, she started lst grade when she was 6 years; I started when I was five.
That year delay helped her a lot, for she never had to struggle for knowledge with the same effort that I did. She was more mature. I always envied her and her ability to perform in almost anything before I could. I was older, I should have excelled first! She could skip before I could, she could swim before I could, she could whistle before I did, should run faster than I could, and she could get her school work done so much faster than I did. But, believe it or not, I loved her dearly, and still do. I am so thankful that we have one another. I have always said there should be a heavenly law that no Mom should have only one child - and that one of the children she had should be a girl! It makes quite a difference when you get older. m. Dorothy has a lovely family of 4 children, all married.
It seemed that throughout our lifetime on the little farm, Dad worked under one disappointment after another. In the days when horses were the means of power, it seemed that before he got one paid for, it would die from some other kind of illness or injury, and then it was to go into debt again to buy another. In going through some of the business papers of my fathers I found that he paid interest rates of 8 and 9% in the l920s, while savings in he bank were only earning 1%. I remember seeing gray "Nancy" pawing into the air trying to get her breath, and then dropping dead.
Vividly I remember the hours and hours we spent on our knees picking beans for the factory, for them to can. Probably the small net-income checks that came from the creamery were just not enough to make a living. The beans were a cash crop that was so important to us. I remember how we had to crawl on our hands and knees and pick the beans, dragging the container along with us which was getting heavier and heavier with each move forward. We would then dump them in larger bags and deliver them to the weighing station for weighing, -- hoping that the grading that they did at the factory would be good -- but most of the time it was harsh. You would get "Grade A" if the beans were little, little pods, which did not add up much in poundage at all. The bigger they were, the lower the grade, which paid us less per pound. I just cant remember now what they paid us. We contracted with the factory (Stokley Brothers then) for certain acreage and they guaranteed that they would buy our crop. They furnished the seed, and we furnished the work of planting and harvesting. Of course, they were in the control -- setting their own price, and their own grading standards. Nowadays they do not pick by hand, a large machine comes in picks up the whole plant in one sweep - little and big beans at the same time. We used to pick every day, for many weeks, all through the summer. I wonder if you can imagine what it was like to crawl on your knees every day of the week, to get money from this cash crop for the essentials we needed! When I eat green beans now, these thoughts come rushing back into my mind..
Beans were not the final answer to our financial problems. There had to be another way to get some cash generated. Mother and Dad finally went into raising raspberries. We had a field of 3/4 of an acre of them! We would pick all morning, and then Dad took the berries to a town nearby and peddled them from door to door. We were getting 50 cents for a quart even at that time. But, if he did not have luck selling them all, he would come home with them. The chores would have been finished by Mom, with our little help, and then we all would begin the process of canning the berries -- which often went far into the night. We always did have delicious canned raspberries in the fruit cellar for the winter. They were a special delicacy we could legally enjoy - we had done the work! That was a treat - raspberries -- for even today they are almost a luxury with the prices they demand. When I go to the grocery store now, I never think of buying raspberries,-- they are far too expensive for the little time you can enjoy them, and they quickly melt away in your mouth. Sometimes it was not so pleasant to care for the plants after they discontinued bearing fruit -- it was to cut out the stalks that would not be bearing fruit the next year. That was a biannual plant, taking two years to grow before producing the fruit. That was a prickling job, even lying on your stomach as we cut away the dead stalks that had finished bearing that current year.
As I mentioned before, when Grandpa August Oberg died in 1920 (cancer of the stomach) Sam, Dads brother took over the farm, and Grandma Oberg stayed there with them. She did not stay there very long, but came to live with my father and mother in 1921, shortly after I was born. I was such a little one then. I do have mental glimpses of her in my memory. She would rock me to sleep on that little cherry rocking chair (called a sewing chair) and she had lots of long dark brown hair! It fell loosely around her neck when she let it down. (Dorothy has that cherry rocker now.) I dont think that rocking did hurt me at all, for I got lots of it, I understand. These are just glimpses of her love that she shared with me. Dorothy was not able to have that joy, for she died in January of 1923 when I was not quite 2 years, and before Dorothy was born.. It hardly seems possible, but I do remember a little bit of her being there. I have been told that Grandma Oberg was a beautiful singer -- and maybe the songs she sang to me gave me some of my musical voice! Glimpses of her memory are those of love, and the love she had for us. Maybe some of the information had been retold enough in my young years that it seemed real - but it did happen. Both of my parents were singers, and Grandma Oberg and Grandma Gabrielson both had lovely voices, I have been told. My voice is a gift from God through my heritage for which I am so thankful.
One night we became so frightened. It was a cold wintry blizzard raging outside. We had moved downstairs for the winter -- all of us. Mom and Dad had their bed in the dining room, and Grandma Oberg had her bed in the living room with me, where my crib was. There was a crashing at the front door (that opened right into the room right off from the front porch) where Grandma and I were sleeping. A man was caught in the snowstorm and was so cold. He saw a light at our home, and he kept walking toward it. The story goes that Mom and Dad took him in, warmed him up and he stayed the night, and the next morning Dad took the horses and got him to one of the little towns nearby.. In those days we did not have the fear of intruders -- there was something wrong - and he needed help. I wonder just what would be done today if someone was crashing into our home with such a force as that in the midst of a family supposedly asleep? There might have been a different kind of ending!
Dad had been unwell so many years prior to that time with is asthma, and it had enlarged his heart so much that breathing was difficult. When he died the doctor said that he was a 62-year old man, with an 85-year old heart. When Steven, our son, was little, and Dad was so ill, I would take the car and drive from Milton Junction up to Trade Lake (from the southern part of the Wisconsin to the northwestern tip of Wisconsin). I made many trips home. Steve was the age that I could do that,. Dorothy could not do that as often for she had 3 little ones. Finally he got so bad that I suggested that Mom take a job teaching closer to me, sell the cattle off the farm, and bring Dad down and I would help care for him. So, with some reluctance on her part she consented; but it did give Dad the security he needed. It was hard for him to be home alone when he was so unwell. They bought a mobile home and we put in the backyard at the parsonage at Pardeeville where by husband, Wesley, was assigned to be the minister there. We had an intercom installed so that Dad could talk to me anytime from the mobile home to me in the kitchen - and his was left as an open "two-way phone," that we kept open at his end, so that I could hear him if he was having any problems.
Our Steve was about 7 or 8 years old then. Mother got a job teaching at the school there in Pardeeville and taught there for 3 years. Then she got a much better offer from Horicon, about 10 miles east of Pardeeville. Dad was better, so we bought a piece of property over there - had them put their mobile home on it - and Dad could be there with her. Dad made a garden on the lot, and helped us build a garage on it too. We made the garage big enough so that in the warmer part of the year Mom could have a study area out there and a place to store her school materials.
The spring of 1958 Dad wanted a garden so that he could raise produce and sell it at the roadside there, - so he planted seeds of tomato plants, etc. When school was out, and he and Mom were planning to go up to the farm at Trade Lake for the summer, they stopped in to see us at Pardeeville. He took Steve aside and said, ":I wont be back to see you, Steve. So you grow up to be a good boy and a good man." He turned to me and said, "Will you take care of all the tomatoes that will be coming - I wont be back to take care of them." He and Mother drove up to the farm, but before going to the farm, he insisted in stopping at the cemetery and checking that out - saying "I want to see that things are all right there." After being at home on the farm for a few days, one morning he felt unusually good - and asked Mother to out and count the trees that they had planted on the place in their lifetime. While she was gone, he laid down on the couch that he used for resting, crossed his legs at the ankles, and slipped off in to the life beyond. That was June 12, 1958, and he was buried on Fathers Day, June 15, l958. Dad never finished 8th grade because he had to be home and working, but he had the brains to do great things. He was a beautiful person, and his ability with numbers was outstanding, and he had beautiful penmanship, and a bass voice that thundered out the melodious low notes of harmony..
Dorothy was pregnant with Cecile at that time - but it was as though God had planned that a new little life was arriving to fill his place. Before the year was over, and before she arrived, her other grandfather on Richards side, (Anderson), died too. But little Cecile arrived in November, on the 6th of that year when both her grandparents had been called home by God.
Before getting too far along into our immediate family lives, I want to go back and give you some bits of information about Mothers family life .... She was a little girl once too, although we always think of her as "grown-up" and "all-wise."
GABRIELSON HISTORY
My mother, ANNA EVELYN GABRIELSON was born March 5, 1901 and died on February 5th, 1991, just one month short of being 90 years old. Her parents came from Sweden too. When they came their name was ANDERSON, but when they arrived, and with so many Andersons, they changed it to GABRIELSON. That was often done in Sweden. Gabrielson may mean "son of Gabriel" or Olson may mean "son of Ole." Growing up and hearing Grandpa and Grandma talking, there was never any wishing to go back to the homeland, and after I saw the movie "The Immigrants" I can understand why. I guess children were raised to be workers, and when they were old enough to be on their own, they were put out to take care of themselves. I know that my sisters mother-in-law was sent here to America at the age of 13, with no intention of returning to Sweden. Even after Mother had retired from teaching, I asked her once if she wouldnt like to take a trip back to Sweden, and that I would go with her. It could have been less confusing for us, for she could speak and write and read Swedish. Her answer to me was, "I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I have no interest to go back to see what Sweden is like." I guess she had heard enough of the hardships that they had endured.
She has been a teacher all through her life, was our teacher at one time with only Dorothy and I in her home classroom before we left for public schooling. Our school training was the uppermost thing in her life and she was behind us every step of the way. After we grew up and went off to college, Mother went back into teaching on a permit and continued to earn her full college degree in the years that followed! In fact, after Dorothy and I had finished college, she went right to work at it for her residence requirements and in 1959 she was awarded her BE degree in Education. We were so proud of her and she continued to teach for the years following until she retired in 1968. Dad was ill a lot and she did the teaching, did the chores, and took care of the home. She was a powerful and progressive lady and I am so proud of the example that she put forth for us. She had not a lazy bone in her body. In fact, we wondered where she had the stamina to carry on with such force midst all the difficulties. Even after her mind did not function well, and she entered a health care center at Peshtigo, (to be near where Dorothy lived) many times she was in her own world of teaching, even if the "white-haired ladies" did not come to class regularly.
Mother (ANNA EVELYN GABRIELSON) was part of a family of 7 children, 2 boys and 5 girls., Mother would never let us carry coals from one wood stove to another, when another had to be started. When she was a little girl she was doing that, and as she turned to bring the shovel of coal to another stove, little Adeline (her sister) appeared and ran into the hot shovel of coals at neck level. She was severely burned, and Mom seemed to carry a guilt trip about that way into later years. She has repeated that story so often as she reminded us of the dangers of hot coals.
I gather that was part of the reason that I have no love for wood burning stoves, or fireplaces. In the years of "making wood" it always seemed to be such a time-consuming and repetitive chore. We would have to help with the cutting of the trees in the pasture; then help with the hauling of the logs to the top of the hill where it was level enough to pile them so we could get them during the winter; then the hauling to the area of the house until they could be cut and split by hand - which was an open wood pile with an ax ready for work at any free moment that Dad would have. Not only that, but each piece that was split had to be piled neatly in a stock pile. As winter went along, and as we used the wood, it was to pick off the snow-covered pile and carry pieces of it into the back porch and make "another neat pile" of this split wood. Then as the wood was being consumed by the stove, at regular intervals we had to carry it into the house, and pile it "neatly" in a pile beside the stove until it was needed for the fire box in the stove. If that was the end of it, that would be luck. No, we had to watch the ash try below the fire box, as it filled up with the ashes of the burning wood, and remove its contents, which had its beginning in the swamps and woods of our farm.
In this era of modern technology, the thermostat and the oil burner are the treasures of my century. I would give up many things before I would go back to the "wood burning stove" of my past. Those stoves kept us warm - at least on one side at a time. I remember dashing down from the unheated upstairs, all nice and warm in a pair of my dads woolen union suit underwear, to the corner, back of that pot-bellied stove to change into my own long underwear for the day and whatever else was to keep me warm. I used to try so hard to get the fold-over crease in the long underwear to be neat and smooth so that it would not show so many bumps in the long white stockings that I wore to school. But it never did disappear. Anyone looking would know that we were wearing "long underwear.! Mother put our long underwear on us a lot earlier than other mothers did - and kept them on us longer in the spring too.
Mother and Dad were married on June 14, 1919. they went to the parsonage and were married by Rev. and Mrs. Forsburg; he the pastor at the Methodist Church there. Mabel, her sister, and one of dads friends, Arnold Selin, were their attendants.
Mother, as a child went to the Mission church at Trade River. Her folks did not profess to be church-going people, but they did send the children, those that wanted to go, across their pasture woods, over a creek, and over the hills to a little church there at Trade River. It was a nice place to go, and in those days children really welcomed those extra special things that were being done for them by folks that were concerned about them.
Dads original family were Baptists and members of the Trade Lake Baptist Church there - where we attended. Grandma Oberg was a devoted worker - so that being a Baptist was not anything unusual, and my Dad and Mother joined the Baptist church at that time. They both were very active in the church; Dad was busy as Sunday School worker, church janitor, and church treasurer for many years. Mother was a Sunday School teacher too She also taught Bible School and was active in the womens group of the church. Both of them loved to sing, and the choir meant a lot to both of them. I remember being wrapped up and carried to church (we were within walking distance from the church - even though in the country ) and sleeping in the pew when choir practice was on. That was after Grandma Oberg died, otherwise she took care of me when they went to choir practice. Then being bundled up, carried home and then put to bed to finish the night. Mother and Dad traveled with a church quartet to various churches to sing, too -- Mom sang alto, Aunt Gerda (mothers sister, married to Sam )sang soprano, Rev. Herbert Peterson sang tenor, and Dad sang Bass. When I was still in graded school I was asked to sing in the choir by Rev. Peterson --I was much younger (still in graded school) than anyone else that was asked - and envied by some others in the congregation - and I have been singing ever since, probably because of that good start..
My church experiences and singing had its debut when at Christmas time I sang, alone, "The Star of the East." I was about 4 years old. I had been sick prior to that time, and Uncle Al (our neighbor doctor) gave the orders that "I had to be dressed warm." In those days, to dress warm meant to be wearing something dark, almost black, maybe - anyway, dark gray. Mother had made me a new pongee, light tan dress for Christmas --and here I was sick!. So, she made for me a dark gray flannel slip to wear under it. I could still get up and sing my song, and still be warm. I did sing my song, but I did so behind my skirt that I had lifted far above my head, leaving in full exposure the full length dark petticoat that Mother had made for me! Not until I finished the song did I drop my skirt so that they could then view that beautiful pongee dress that was so special for that Christmas.
A few years later we had an evangelist come to the church, by the name of Rev. Cedarholm. He was musical and lots of music was part of his evangelistic presentation. I guess I sang like I enjoyed every minute of it, so he asked me to come and sing with him --and I did not hesitate one bit (I was about 7 years old). I sang many times with him that week and loved it. I guess that is a carry-over for me and my church singing today. When I grew up I used to say that I wanted to marry a man who could sing, and we would live in a suitcase and travel the country and sing! Well, I got a man who did not sing - but he being a minister, I got all the opportunities to travel about and sing after all! God does make the plans. In 1984 when we retired from the ministry I had put in 39 years of choir directing in churches. At my first teaching job I had an assignment to direct the Girls Glee Club at the Grantsburg High School, and I had had no previous directing experience. I went home and practiced before the mirror!. After 3 years of our retirement, in 1987 I became restless again, and put in 6 years of being choir director and organist for the St. Johns Lutheran Church at Beaver Dam. I guess it was just in my blood. I loved it. Wes attended the Methodist Church there for those years, and I went to the Lutheran Church! Well, he never did sit with each other during the many years that he was in the ministry, so that was not much different after all. Now, being that I am alone, I had been doing substitute work as organist for various local churches - being able to say "yes" when I wish to be committed - and to decline gracefully is I have other plans. Now I am full-time organist here locally in Peshtigo. Being choir director for 42 years in the past, and organist for many of those years, I now choose "when" and "how often."
My parents were very generous to the people that would come to our Trade Lake Baptist Church as missionaries or special speakers. Many of the times they were guests in our home. I think part of the reason was that we were located so close to the church too. One evangelist we had was Rev. David Anderson. I still can see him standing with his Bible under his arm - he was such a nice man. When I grew up and understood more, I found out that he was a lonely man. His wife had to be committed to an institution because of brain damage so he was living a life alone. When he left he gave my Mother a wall vase with scalloped edges, - it always hung between the 2 windows on the west wall of the kitchen until the day Mothers home had to be sold. I have that vase now and when I see it, I think of him over and over again... It was right next the wall mirror, by the sink, where Rev. Anderson had to come down to shave. Dad shaved there too. That specially scalloped-edged mirror is now with Dorothy, but if it could talk, it could tell us many things. Dad shaved by it, we combed our hair by it, we washed our face by it, we took our last "peek" at it before leaving the kitchen. It was "the mirror" of our home. We did have another one that had three hooks on it that hung at the end of the stairway to upstairs (that came from Dr. Swansons home when they moved.) and the other mirror was upstairs on the upstairs dresser. We preserved that mirror -- Dorothy has had it refinished and has it in her front hall and it will continue to remind us of the lovely images of home as time goes on
The Trade Lake Baptist Church was our central meeting place outside of the home. We went to Bible School each year. Mom did her share of teaching. We made hats that we wore with much pride - they told of the Bible stories. We learned the song:
"The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, thats the book for me.It stands alone on the Word of God, The B-I-B-L-E."This was another song that I learned beyond "Jesus Loves Me." Pictures were taken annually outside the church of all church families together. It really showed history in the making. We not always could afford the picture, but they are posted in the church and I have looked at them several times over the past years.. Often the new ministers made their first visits to our home, for a meals, and sometimes child care, while moving into the parsonage.
After our parents home was remodeled after their marriage, they began to improve the outside buildings at the farm. The old log barn was in bad shape - so Dad did build one of those nice shiny silver-like barns, with a curved roof, and a cupola on the top with a weather vane on top adorned with a rooster on it. It always interested me in later years when the barn was re-roofed, that the cupola and weather vane were removed. I guess they did no longer serve a purpose. I still have the weather vane and may put it to some decorative use again - or keep it as a treasure. This was one of the first shiny new barns put up in the area, and it caused a lot of jealousy in the neighborhood and in the family. I remember that some of the relatives would not look in as they drove by as it was being built, trying to give us the impression that they were not a bit interested in what we were doing -- but they were very much interested, in their own "sly way". Shortly afterwards the folks put in running water, and that was "the most extravagant thing that they could do!" according to critics about them. It was such a wonderful thing to have the water come into the house, and leave the house by itself -- a faucet and a drain.
That is where the limited luxury stopped, for it was not until after Mother retired from teaching in 1968 that she put in a bathroom -- long after everyone else in the neighborhood. Those things I remember for one of the big issues of each day was that no one was to hear our door slam shut at the house when we went to use the outside toilet, for we had to walk across the whole lawn to get to it, and everyone else in the neighborhood would know when we used the toilet! That was something that was not to be known to others! My, how times have changed! Even the disposal of the contents of our in-the-house "night toilet facilities" (pot, is the word) had to be done when someone watched that no car was going by on the road, which was on two sides of us, and no country neighbors could be observing our actions. Or, it had to be in taken care of during the darkness of night - and if the moon was out, it made it so much easier. We did not own such a thing as a flashlight, and we would never have been allowed to carry a lantern -- that would be too dangerous. It was up to us to plan ahead -- take care of those needs before darkness set in.
This barn that was new, had a "sling" that was used to lift the hay from the hayrack and up into the hayloft. That was really something to watch. We would have to arrange that sling on the bottom of the load before they started to throw the hay cocks on to the wagon. It was my job to be on the top of the hay, keep stomping down on it, and even out the hay as it was thrown on, and move it about some if it was not loaded evenly - then stomp my way to the front, get the reins of the horses, and move the wagon to the next position for Mom and Dad to throw on the haycocks next in line. When the rack was half loaded - then another set of slings were stretched across the load, the process went on again --sometimes putting me pretty high up in the air, with no sides to hold on to. Sometimes the hay got slippery and moved me about when I was stomping it down into position.
It was on one of those expeditions that I became overheated, and since then I have had quite a problem with heat. I begin to shiver and shake. When we worked in the field all day it meant that Mother was not at the house making a meal. I can well remember when they would have me go out to the chicken coop and get 5 or 6 eggs or whatever the hens felt they could part with, and I would walk across the road to a little country store and get some wieners for supper. With the eggs as payments I could get wieners for our supper. There might be times that we could be a bit more extravagant and get a little can of sardines -- much to my dismay! Maybe that is why I have no desire for sardines to this day.
I mentioned before that our front porch was open - just 4 x 4s at the corners to hold up the roof, and it was open for use, for leaves, and all kinds of debris. That meant a lot of sweeping to keep that neat. The back porch, on the East side of the house facing the barn, was screened in on the upper half, with a wood wall half-way up. The boards of the wall did not reach the concrete floor -- always a space between. They must have planned that as we used it for our shower room during the warm weather. We would cover the screens with dishtowels when time for a shower. We put water in a boiler and tub, took a "splashing good bath" for the excess water could run through the space under the wall, and off onto the ground outside. Then when it was all over we could pour all the extra water over our heads -- with some help from each other times! That was our bathroom shower facilities, and it was fun, too. During the summer months we could do our washing in the same area, for we had the old-fashioned wringer washing machine.
As I write of these memories, I recall that good wholesome "unpasturized" milk was the healthy food we had in abundance. Dorothy, who used to go out into the barn when the milking was in process, would stand by the cow Dad was milking -- and with her cup in her little hand he would "milk" warm milk direct from the cow in to her little cup. She loved that, and she did that for many of her younger years of her life. We did not know anything about pasteurizing milk then. That was one of the delicacies I did not enjoy. I wanted my milk cold.
As I think of cows and the farm, we girls never did learn to milk a cow! Both of my parents felt that it was not the life they wanted for us - so they would not teach us that skill. Not that we insisted either! But, we had the job to walk deep into the pasture areas of hill, ravines and swamps to get the cows to the barn for milking. The cows always seemed to take to the boggy swamp areas or beyond it. It was cool and tasty for them, but a real chore for us to wade through the mud to get to where they were grazing. Often we lost our shoes in the "muck." We even encountered some of the water creatures of nature as they were disturbed by our presence. As years went by, with Dad often sick, and Mother teaching school or out making some extra money, not knowing how to milk caused far too much pressure on Mother. She made a try at selling insurance for the New York Life Insurance Company, worked as a bookkeeper for our friend, Oscar R. Johnson who was the treasurer of the local creamery, worked in the canning factory during the seasons of harvest, and attended classes toward her college degree. We could have been of more help had we known how to milk a cow, and we often felt badly about that at times in the years to come. She managed to handle it all, even when Dad was ill and she was alone with him. She did not have it easy.
Dad and Mother provided meat for the family mainly by canning it from the butchering of one of their own animals. There were times, though, that they could not afford to butcher an animal -- they needed the cash it might bring by selling it to the stockyards. I remember one time that Dad shipped a heifer (young cow) to South St. Paul, but when he got his statement back, the heifer had not brought in enough to pay for the trucking cost! Those were depression days -- we could have kept the animal and butchered it for food. My folks experienced many heart-wrenching experiences those years. We were involved, but really did not know what it was all about, but we loved Mother and Dad, and they showed us over and over that they loved us, and that love sort of covered up the "wishing and wanting" that must have shown up in our eyes.
A few incidents did let me know, being I was the oldest child, that things were pretty difficult financially. I noticed that Dad never ate much of his breakfast until we, Dorothy and I, were almost done with ours. Now I know that he was being sure that we had enough before he began to eat his.
At another time I was making an art project in graded school. We were to bring 3 pieces of the shiny tin foil (that is what we called it then - but it really was aluminum foil) so that I could put in back of a silhouette (spelling?) picture that I had painted with black enamel on a piece of glass. Those pieces of foil were the ones that were wrapped around a five-cent Hershey candy bar. That would mean the purchase of 3 bars! Fifteen cents! The picture was that of an iris. I have saved it - it has memories of its own. I can still see my father when he handed me those 3 Hershey candy bars! It took all three to cover the background of the picture I had made. Had I known, I could have chosen a smaller picture. Of course, I did not think that far ahead. I knew that they gave up a lot to sacrifice so that I could have those pieces of foil. But, I remember well that candy that was within those pieces of foil did not thrill me all. We shared it, but it still hurt inside of me to know that they had to make such a sacrifice. They could have purchased some food of more value for all of us. But, they wanted to - or they would not have done so. That is what you call love. I know that now, but I felt guilty then.
When I was in high school, they had what they called Assembly Programs. There was a charge of 5 cents to attend them. I attended very few during that time because I knew they did not have the money. In fact, many times I did not tell my folks that we were even having a program coming to the school. But when that happened, they would inevitably hear about it from someone else, and that made them feel badly too. I just did not know which decision to make -- to tell them, or not to tell them. I guess that is what life is all about -- we feel for one another - and that is what family life is supposed to be. Love,- that is the most important thing. Other things come second.
One of my happiest times we could experience was when Dad had the time to take us swimming. We had to go to Pine Lake, which was about 3 miles from home - but we could only go if Dad went along. He always had chores to do, so it always was when evening was coming on. He was the only one that knew how to swim, and he was a good swimmer and helped us learn. Mother paddled along some. Dorothy was like a fish in water and quite daring, but I continually would sink. I guess I was not athletically coordinated, but I finally did learn, with the final passing when I took a course in swimming when in college. That gave me the confidence I never did have. Of course, being in a swimming pool with 4 sides about me was more assuring than being in a lake and not knowing what was under me or out beyond me.
Dorothy had more than her share of confidence - once when we were picnicking along the St. Croix River at the park at Taylors Falls, MN, she decided to swim across the St. Croix River. She was doing fine until the current of the river took her downstream. She really did not end up on the shore she anticipated - she could see that, but did continue and safely arrived on the other side - far down the shoreline. She waved back to us the confirmation that things were OK when she got on the other side. She took her time and rested before she started back, but this time planned for the downstream pull. We all had the fear way up into our throat - but Dad seemed to have the confidence that she would be all right. Of course, he was the swimmer, and he know Dorothys skills. He probably would have been out after me if I had even tried such a thing!
After I learned to swim at college -- and passed the testing I felt much more confident. We had a swimming hole area on the outside of Whitewater by the old condensory. We kids used to go out there an picnic and swim. One time I was so smart - and tried to do a fancy dive off the diving board -- but made the "down-move" too soon, and came back and hit the diving board. My "front" was pretty sore for many weeks to come. I should have realized that I was chubby, and planned for more space between the board and I.
As we grew up on the farm there were animals - animals - animals. Cats, cat, cats, cats, - but they were all barn cats and did not know the meaning of "cuddling." They wanted nothing to do with either Dorothy or I. They were no fun all. For awhile, though, we were the caretakers of a great big police dog that belonged to Dr. Swanson (Uncle Al), but he was no "cuddling creature!" We took care of him for a period of time when Swansons made a trip to the West before moving out there. We respected him, rather than loved him. He loved us, but we were a bit more skeptical about him not letting him get too familiar with us. His name was "Netka." Thats why I use that name for my access to E-mail today.
As years went by - the decision was - "no dog for a pet!" The reason was that the folks always said that it was because we lived on the corner of the highway where it turned, and that a pet would get into the road and probably be run over. Well, one day Dorothy came home with a little black terrier from the neighbors. She finally approached the folks, begging to keep it, for it was the only one left and no one wanted it. It was a "runt." All the rest had short stub tails, (like the terriers were supposed to have) but this one had a scraggly long black tail. After much "tear-jerking and pleading," Dorothy was allowed to keep the dog. It was a pet, and it did get to be in the house too. It even had the privilege of chewing on the rungs of Dorothys little walnut rocker, and she has cherished those teeth marks as years have gone by. Little Corey Jo, Ceciles girl, has inherited that rocker. Mickey is buried underneath one of the red peony bushes there on the farm - we think she got into some kind of poison
Busy days on the farm were when the farmers all went together and helped one another during threshing of the grain and filing the silos with corn silage. It was a preparation time of many days and weeks before, for Mother was preparing the food that the men would need while working there. They did it that way. Then when Dad went to another place to help, they fed him well too. We had no refrigeration, so everything had to be taken down the crooked curved stairs to the basement, and placed on the floor it was the coolest. Even dishes of butter had to be placed right on the concrete floor and covered with another dish to maintain some shape to the butter, and to keep it clean. It was soft-blend every once in a while, because it was not cool enough, but it was real butter! No margarine in our home - that would be the act of a traitor to the dairymans business! (but years later after they were out of farming, they did purchase some margarine.) All the cheese and butter we used was ordered direct from the creamery that took our milk. When the net profit came from the creamery check, many times it was not very much left.. That was our sole take-home pay check for the month!
Those cooperative work crews were exciting to anticipate coming, and their arrival had droves of children following and watching the process. That big steam engine that would come into the yard, with all its noise and whistling was descriptive of silo-filling time. A family by the name of Lindblad was the only one with that piece of machinery and we all had to wait our turn to get them to come. We all hoped that it would be a nice day for the job to be done. At the time of threshing the grain -- that too was brought in by outsiders and we looked forward to that caravan too. Kids nowadays dont have all those "neat things to look forward to. We children could play barefoot in the grain bins in the oats or wheat (we liked the wheat best, for it was smooth and cool - the oats chaff sometimes picked at us) in the granary. We just had to promise not to spill it on the outside of the bins, or we would be taken out of the bins and no more fun for us! So, we were pretty careful. The men would come in to the granary to dump the sacks that had come from the threshing machine They carried them on their shoulders and then would tease us and dump the contents all over us. We liked that.
With silo filling there were no "fun" times like that. That machine operation was dangerous and we could not even be near the area of the silo where they working on that process. Corn stalks were brought to the silo in wagons, then put into a conveyer that chopped them up into little bits, then blown up into the silo and left to ferment there and eventually became silage. There was always a danger for anyone going into a silo, during or even after the filling process, for they could be overcome with the gases that formed in there. - especially if there was silage in the silo from the year before. It carried a fear in the minds of all, and owner of the silo was the one to go down there if there was a problem of distribution -- and at our place it was our Daddy. That adult harvesting process of corn always registered fear within me, for I was worried where Daddy was when filling time came around.
When field work was on, many times the men did not want to take the time to come in for meals, for fear that rain might come, or it might get too dark to work. We did not have lighted tractors in those days, just horses and men with ordinary vision. We would bring their meals to them to save time. That was a hard job - and the baskets and boxes we carried out to them got to be "so heavy." It was hardest when I would be sent out alone with lunch to the men - then I had it all to carry myself. Until Dorothy got a little older she was not much help, obviously. It was a fun run-time for her, but it was fun having her to play with on the way back to the house.
Climbing and sliding in the hay mow always beckoned me. It looked like so much fun. Some kids could climb up into the hay and play at their home places, and they talked about it, but we could not. Mom and Dad said that it was too dangerous and that we could slip down in a crevice of the hay and be covered with falling hay and would not be able to breathe or get out. Hay was heavy when there was enough in a pile. When the hay in the hay mow was almost gone in the spring, then they would let us play some, if someone was with us - but they always were concerned that we might slip down through one of the hay hatch drops on to the floor of the feeding aisle in the barn. It would not hurt the aisle, of course, but we knew they were being cautious and letting us know that they really loved us. As I recall, there were so many things our parents did that showed over and over that they loved us - without even saying that they did. Of course, they told us in words, too, many, many times.
Life on the farm gave us so many interesting things to do. I tried so hard to make friends with our chickens when I was little -- but they only would peck at my toes. I would go to the granary, get hands full of nice fresh grain, and they still pecked at my barefoot toes! I would go into the house many times in tears. At that time, I could not understand that they were not unappreciative -- they were just picking up the seeds of grain that had slipped through my little fingers as I fed them as I toddled along.
Later years we raised a big tom turkey for our Thanksgiving, but that bird was mean. She did not like me at all. That Tom would even go after Mother and Dad, and finally, a bit early however, they decided she was going to be the Thanksgiving turkey meal! It was a battle of all seasons with him, but he did not win! Since my experience with the chickens and this Tom Turkey, I have never been comfortable around chickens, or birds. They often act as though they are going to attack me. I have even avoided seeing the movie of "Birds."
I did try to be kind to birds and feed them in a feeder while we lived in Beaver Dam when we retired, but I got tired of that -- they had dispositions that I was not aware of -- they fought --they were selfish -- so I gave up. I also had a tussle between who got the food -- the birds or the squirrels. I finally decided I no longer wanted to chaperone their antics. Even Steve, as he was growing up, did not show any interest in having a bird feeder; probably because he got no encouragement from his Mother!
I think often of many things in my childhood, and back to the horses. Dad always loved horses and seemed to be able to handle them. He even "broke" horses to train them. He rode some and Mom did too. When the doctor (Uncle Al) had to go out on house calls, and the roads were too bad for his snowmobile (they surely looked different -- just a car on skis instead of wheels), Dad would take the big sled, hitch his horses to it, and take him to the ill persons home. If the weather was not too cold, sometimes Dad would let me ride along, all bundled up under the horse-hair blanket. Those same horses used to take the cans of milk to the creamery in the morning with us in the wagon - the whole neighborhood - so that we did not have to walk the mile to District #5 Graded School. That was fun for all of us. Mom would wrap a woolen shawl around me - it was about 6 ft. long, and she started it on top of my head, and it was wound round and round, way down to my hips, and tied in the back, or fastened with a "big horse-blanket" safety pin. I surely couldnt get cold - and I almost "couldnt walk" - Id just "waddle." When I did walk to school, that is the way I started from home - no way to get out of it until I arrived at school and the teacher would "undo" me. Sometimes I got so warm that I was literally wet!
Mother loved horses too, and did ride some when they were first married - bareback. After she started teaching she bought herself a lovely leather saddle, and it was so well cared for many, many years. It was stored in a large box in the corner of our large country kitchen and wiped off carefully, occasionally by her. At the same probably within her a yearning desire to have the chance to use it. When the horse died that she loved so much, she did not ride much more - but the saddle stayed in the box, and finally found its way upstairs to be stored away. When I grew up I thought I could help her sell that saddle. We lived in an area of horse riding people at Union Grove, WI. I took it down there, advertised it, and could not get the $400 she wanted for it. So, I hauled it up home again - she put an ad in the local paper herself, and she got her $400! My Mom was a real business woman! It was she that made the initial effort to raise young stock, sell, and rebuy, etc. after they sold the milk cows. I think that is why she could teach school and still run a farm, and go to night classes herself, all at the same time.
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In 1969 my mother suffered from some heart damage, and after one of her examinations which I took her to at Monroe, WI (we were located at Union Grove at that time and I had been called home because of Moms health) the doctor questioned her about her previous heart attack. She denied that he had had one, but after more probing by the doctor, she admitted that once during the time that Dad was so ill, and she was running the farm and doing all the chores --milking cows each morning and night after coming from school --which was about 8 miles from her home, she said that she had had a terrific pain one time when cleaning the barn. She was using the manure carrier that was on a track, and in pushing it toward the end of the barn it happened. She admitted that she was "frozen" in position in pain for about 20 minutes before the pain subsided. That was the beginning of her problem. In November of 1979 she had an attack which ended up in severe heart damage when her heart was deprived of oxygen. This happened in November of 1979.
I was called home by the local Baptist minister there. They had arranged to have Mom with them for Thanksgiving dinner. When he called for her, there was no answer at the phone. He went to the house of Mothers (which was only a short distance away) - across the road - and found that it was all locked up, and he could not rouse her to answer the door. He finally went home again and called her on the phone, letting it keep ringing, and she finally answered faintly and he kept saying to her, over and over again, "Anna, unlock your door - this is Pastor Weko I will come and help you." After repeating that over and over again, she finally did unlock the door, and it was unlocked when he arrived.
This is when he realized she had suffered some kind of a stroke. He called me at once, and I started out from Niagara in bad weather. It was foggy, winter, and slippery. I knew that I could not make it alone so I asked my chauffeur, "Lord, Ill drive, but will you keep m on the road?" It all went well for me, but not so for many others that had detoured into the ditches with the slippery conditions. When I got to St. Croix Falls, I stopped and called Mother again. She did answer and I told her where I was and that I would be there in about 20 minutes. I dont know if she really did understand me or not. I had stopped to call, just in case someone had taken her to the hospital there, for that is where she would have been admitted. When I got home to the farm, the pastor saw me drive in, and came right over. Seeing Mom as she was, I bundled her up and put her in the car and took her to the Croix Falls hospital. The pastor followed me so that I would have help in case I would have trouble with the slippery road conditions. It was a "sheet of ice" on the roads there too. We made it OK, thanks to our driver guide from "upstairs." Mother had suffered considerable brain damage due to blockage that did not let the oxygen get to her brain. She was hospitalized there until December 8th when we moved her to Peshtigo, so that she would be nearer to us at the Rennes Health Center there. Dorothy and Richard made the arrangements with the staff there. Wesley came over with Dorothy and Richard and we closed up the house, and took her back to Peshtigo with us, direct to the Nursing home there. She never did get to her home again. She was there until 1991 when she passed away on February 4, 1991, just one month short of an eventful life of 90 years.
