My Mothers parents came to the United States in about 1865 from Denmark.
They settled in Marion Iowa shortly after that.
My grandfather had served in a war against Russia with the German army and after the war was over he was trained as a barrel maker. His first job was with a meat company in Cedar Rapids Iowa. There were 6 children in the family George, Carl, Ernest, Tillie and my Mother who was born on Mar 8, 1889.
Mother started school in Marion Iowa and she could not speak any English. But she soon learned. I do not know much about her school days but she graduated from Marion High School in 1907. She took teachers training in High School and taught in rural schools for 5 years.
She met my Father as she was staying at his Uncle Jim Hagerman's house and my Dad was working for his Uncle Jim. The school system wasn't good and had run several teachers off. On the first day of school a 17-year-old boy sassed my Mom and she grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him down in his seat. She didn't have any more trouble with the children. My cousin Everett was a first-grade student at that time.
My Mother and Father were married in 1912 and had a very nice wedding. They had been married about a month and my Mom made biscuits one day and they were so hard my Dad couldn't eat them. So my Dad went down to Toddville and got his Mother and she came out and taught my Mom some good recipes and she made the best biscuits and was a very good cook.
My sister Dorothy was born in 1913 and my sister Daisy in 1918. My folks decided to move to Minnesota and bought a farm near Albert Lea Minn. To move in those days you rented a railroad car and put your cattle and machinery in the car and you stayed in the car with them. They lived on the farm close to Albert Lea for just a few years and then bought a farm 3 miles west of Geneva about 1919. At that time women were wearing long dresses and my Mother said they were so happy to wear a short dress as the long dresses got so dirty. My brother Lawrence was born in 21, Donald in 23, Deloris in 27, and Richard in 35.
Life on the farm was not easy. You milked the cows by hand and horses were used for the farm work. You cooked on a cast iron stove, washed clothes with a wooden machine, and pulled the agitator by hand. You ironed with irons heated on the stove and always had lots of starched clothe to iron.
When my folks lived close to Albert Lea some Norwegian farmers were smarting off to my Dad at the creamery. So he took Mom with him one day and she shut them up. he could understand and speak in both Norwegian and Swedish and also German. Life was full of hard work and in 1929 my Mother developed tuberculosis and had to leave the family and go to the sanitorium at Walker for two years. My sister Dorothy quit High School at 16 and took on the job of looking after the younger ones and doing the cooking and housekeeping. My Mom returned when I was 4 and of course, I didn't know her.
We lost the farm in 1936 and I remember moving day/ It was a bad winter and the neighbors came and moved us with their horses and sleds. My Mom carried the mantle to the Alladin lamp in the car and we got moved into the rented place. It had 5 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. My brother was just a baby and I watched him a lot, There were 7 of us living at home and Mother made bread about twice a week. We bought flour in 50-pound sacks. A good breakfast was salt pork and fried eggs and biscuits and gravy and sometimes corn bread. My brother Don liked oatmeal cookies and he would come home from high school and mix up cookies and Mom would bake them. He wanted about ten cookies and an orange for school.
We lived on that farm for about 4 years and moved to a 360-acre farm about 5 miles south of Owatonna Minn. My Mom got a washing machine that was run by a Briggs and Stratton Motor. She was so happy. She made most of the clothes for the girls in the family. Her brother Ernest would send her good wool clothing and she would make me a jumper and snowsuits out of the clothing. She taught me how to sew and how to embroider and how to tat. I taught myself how to weave and then taught us how to mend our stockings by weaving.
In later years they sold their farm equipment and moved to Willow River Minn and later to Sandstone. They celebrated their 50th anniversary with a big party at Dorothy's and my Dad's cousins came from Iowa. They later celebrated their 60th anniversary. My Mother passed at age 84 and my Father at age 89.
