Genealogy Jottings

Archive for May, 2017

My mom used to tell us stories about her childhood on the Iron Range of Minnesota. Her mother, Martha, had grown up there, too. In the first half of the twentieth century, both had a multicultural upbringing even as they lived in a close-knit Finnish family.

Some tales I remember:

1. Grandma Martha’s immigrant family and relatives were all Lutheran, but many of the neighbors were Roman Catholic—Italians, Poles, Bohemians. When my grandmother was a small child, she heard the Catholic Bishop was coming to the community for a visit. Grandma did not know what a Bishop was, but all the neighbors seemed to be in a frenzy about this. When the big day finally arrived, Grandma decided to protect herself by hiding under the bed. “And I wasn’t even Catholic!” she exclaimed.
2. When Grandma grew up, she and her family lived in a house built by her carpenter father. It was next door to her parents’ house, and the two residences shared a clothesline. Trouble ensued because Grandma and her mother had different laundry day practices. Grandma always left the clothespins on the line to be used next time she hung out her wet laundry. My great-grandma, Ada, always collected the pins when she took in her laundry, leaving none on the lines for Grandma to use. The controversy over this had come to a boiling point when my grandfather finally settled the matter. He painted all his wife’s clothespins red so Ada would know they belonged to my grandmother.
3. During the Depression years, many families raised a little livestock to provide food. My mother spoke of the neighbors directly behind them who would wring and pluck chickens while Mom’s family ate dinner and watched from their kitchen window. Another family kept a goat to provide milk for their daughter. My uncle was known to sneak over to their property and milk the goat. The same uncle also used to help his grandfather make (and drink!) dandelion wine.
4. One day the circus came to town. Unfortunately, an elephant died during its stay. What do you do with an elephant carcass? Hibbing officials buried it beneath the main street of the town. My mom always wondered if any record had been kept. Perhaps some future builder will discover the bones and wonder how they came to be there.
5. School days were not always dull. One time, the boys in Mom’s class put stinky limburger cheese in the classroom radiator. When the heat came on, the room became quite smelly, provoking the teacher.
6. The Finns in the community regularly visited the public sauna. Often my mom had to accompany her grandmother. She dreaded these visits because she disliked sitting in the nude with the elderly women in the sauna. They all spoke in Finnish, which Mom could not understand.
7. Mom enjoyed other outings with her grandmother. The grandparents owned some land at the edge of town and used it for foraging. Mom often went with her grandmother to collect berries and mushrooms. Her grandmother told her the land would be valuable someday because it was located near the Hibbing airport.
8. Mom enjoyed spending time with her grandfather, too. He used to carve little wooden toys for her. He took her downtown on Saturdays. He often let her buy some candy although it took her forever to make up her mind on what she wanted.

These stories and more made the life of the immigrant community more real to me. Both Mom and Grandma had a hard time leaving Minnesota after WWII when my grandfather decided to change careers and move to the West. For the rest of her life, Grandma always avidly read the Hibbing newspapers sent by her younger sister. She never forgot her younger years in Minnesota, and neither did my mom.

A few days ago, my young granddaughters made a discovery when they visited my house. They found my blacksmith’s iron key. They wanted to know what it was and why I had it.

Their curiosity presented me with a teachable moment and an opportunity to tell them a little about their family history. I explained that they come from a long line of blacksmiths in the Sherman branch of their family tree. My key reminds me of that although it does not unlock anything that I own. It serves as a paperweight.

I have not had it very long. Knowing my family history, my husband/tech advisor gave me the key and several richly-illustrated children’s books about blacksmiths for Christmas last year. Now I was happy to share some information about blacksmithing with the girls.

I explained that the key they found is a replica of antique keys once made by blacksmiths. They were amazed that common household items like farm tools, pots, locks, and keys used to be made, one at a time, by village blacksmiths, including their ancestors. As we discussed the role of a blacksmith in the community, they were relieved that today they have the luxury of visiting a dentist instead of needing the blacksmith to pull a bad tooth with the same tool he used to remove nails from a horse’s hoof.

The girls liked the photos of blacksmiths hammering hot metal at the anvil while wearing heat-resistant leather aprons. They learned new words like forge and smithy and bellows. One of girls recalled visiting a working blacksmith shop at the Littleton [CO] Historical Museum. Now the other granddaughter wants to see it, too.

Not bad for a spur-of-the-moment history lesson.

How were my mom and I alike? How were we different? Even today, so many years after she passed away, I find those questions difficult to answer. I do know that we did not get along well. Were we too much alike? Too different? Perhaps the long lens of time will allow me to look back to answer these questions better than I could have while she was still living.

Personality-wise, we had some things in common. She and I both occupied the same family position—eldest child. A lot goes along with being the big sister. The eldest daughter does a larger share of the housework and childcare than younger siblings do, so we had that in common. We both turned out to be responsible, reliable, diligent people.

Both of us also could be called sequential (as opposed to global) learners who approach problem solving as a step-by-step process. We both were good students, and she was even valedictorian of her high school class in Hibbing, Minnesota. I went to one of the country’s best law schools. We both belonged to the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

After that, many of our similarities ended. In adulthood, I have tried to be a life-long learner by reading a lot and taking classes. I join organizations that provide some mental stimulation—genealogical, political, and cultural clubs. In contrast, my mom always said she had read enough in school and did not want to do it anymore. She preferred solitary, repetitive pastimes like sewing and gardening. She loved celebrity gossip.

She tried to share her interests with me, but it did not take. I detest using a sewing machine, and in the garden I have a brown thumb. I do not follow celebrity news, and in fact I do not know the names of many of them. I would prefer discussing the issues of the day to discussing the lives of movie and television stars.

Why didn’t we get along? I am probably too close to the relationship to provide an objective answer. We did not enjoy doing the same things, and we found little to talk about when we visited one another. Each of us was critical of the other. We did not have a close mother-daughter bond, and in that we were alike. She did not get along well with her own mother, either.

We had personality traits in common, but we did not have the same interests. As mother and daughter, we were like oil and water.

They say “home is where the heart is”, but in some ways home simply means the place I live now. My heart has remained in my Wyoming birthplace during my lifetime, although I have lived in Colorado for over thirty years. Perhaps I have two homes.

I came to Colorado willingly in the 1980’s with a job transfer. My dad had grown up here, and a couple of his brothers still lived in the Loveland area. I also had extended family all up and down the Front Range at that time. I had visited Colorado as I grew up, and I liked it. The weather was good, and there was more economic and cultural opportunity than in Wyoming.

When we arrived, my husband/tech advisor and I settled into a nice, two-story house in what is now Centennial and began raising our family. We put down some real roots and enjoyed our life. We loved our house and the beautiful yard we created. We got involved in church, politics, Scouting, and the genealogical community. We began to feel more at home.

After our children grew up, they and their families moved into houses nearby. Our family grew. We resumed frequent child care with another generation, and it became more difficult to find time to maintain the big yard. We did not like having so many stairs. We began to think about moving to someplace with less upkeep once we retired. We liked the idea of a patio home but thought a move remained a few years in the future.

Then the City began an undesirable construction project too close to our property. Trying to reason with them went nowhere. We felt the need to leave, but were we ready for retirement-style living?

If the answer was “no”, we probably would need to move twice—once to an interim place, and later to the long-intended patio home. We realized that because moving is both strenuous and expensive, once would be enough.

That winter five years ago, we sold our house and moved into a wonderful patio home just two miles south of where we used to live. We felt fortunate to be able to stay in the same vicinity that we had come to identify as home—keeping the same familiar shopping areas, medical facilities, and church.

We met wonderful new neighbors and became involved in a new community. We have nested by doing several home projects.

Our house truly feels like home now, and perhaps Wyoming feels less so. My dad has moved back to Colorado, and my mother-in-law is selling her place to move into assisted living. In the years ahead, we will have less of a reason to visit Wyoming. Close family members who helped make that state feel like home will no longer be there. Our children and our future lie in our adopted state, and we are content here. Our hearts will always have a soft spot for Wyoming, but increasingly Colorado is home.

Like many Americans, I have moved around a bit:

1. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. My parents and I lived at a place on Rainbow Street—a house? an apartment? Of course, I do not recall. We stayed there only a month or two after I arrived so that my dad could complete his college degree at the University of Wyoming.
2. After his graduation, my dad remained in Wyoming for some job training while my mom and I went to live for the summer with my grandparents in Rapid City, South Dakota. I was baptized at the Lutheran Church there. I do remember my grandparents’ address, 232 St. Andrew, because I used to write letters to my grandmother at that address as I grew older.
3. When my father completed the training phase of his career as a petroleum landman, he took an assignment in Bismarck, North Dakota. There we moved into an upstairs apartment owned by the Fossum family. We did not stay long, but it was an ideal location for our young family. Without a car of our own, my parents could walk anywhere they needed to go. The Red Owl grocery store was across the street in one direction, my dad’s office was kitty-corner, and the Lutheran Church was across the street the other direction.
4. My brother arrived 20 months after me, and by then we needed to move to a larger place. My folks located a rental house on 16^th street in Bismarck. We occupied the ground floor, and another family lived in the basement apartment.
5. In another year or so, we moved up in the world again. We rented the house at 1300 N. Fourth St. in Bismarck, right across the street from the North Dakota Capitol Building. A place all to ourselves! My mom put in a garden, bought a house full of Ethan Allen furniture, and joined a bridge club. We got our first television set and another baby brother arrived. I started school.
6. When I was in the middle of the first grade, my dad was transferred to Sidney, Nebraska. We rented the ranch-style house at 1332 23^rd Avenue. It was bigger than our previous home, and I had my own bedroom. Of all the places we lived, I think this house was my mom’s favorite. But my dad did not like Sidney, and he kept his eye out for another position within his company.

   His chance came 15 months later when management consolidated the field offices into the Casper, Wyoming office.

7. In Casper, my parents could not locate a suitable place to rent. They finally decided to buy their first house at 1544 So. Beverly (now Fairdale St.). Several of my dad’s co-workers purchased homes in the same neighborhood, so we had a ready-made community of familiar faces. Again, I had my own room. I passed it along to my baby sister a couple of years after she was born. My dad built a new room for me in the basement. The elementary school was around the corner, and my parents never dreamed we would still be in Casper when it came time for us to attend junior high. To their surprise, all of us graduated from high school in Casper.
8. From there, I followed in my parents’ footsteps and attended the University of Wyoming. For a couple of years, I lived in the Women’s dorm, White Hall. My high school chum Karen was my roommate. Then I married, and my husband/tech advisor and I moved into married student housing.
9. After graduation, he took employment in Austin, Texas. Over the Christmas holidays, we moved into the Pepperwood Apartments at 6710 Burnet Lane. He commuted to work on a motorcycle while I drove our only car to work at a Lutheran Pre-school and Day Care.
10. After a year, we wanted a dog, so we moved on to the Dawnridge complex of townhouses in Austin. Our closest neighbors were cockroaches. Robbers found us.
11. We hoped that buying our first house would offer us more security and perhaps some freedom from nasty bugs. A new subdivision of starter homes called Lamplight Village was going up north of Austin. We purchased the property at 13003 Powderhorn and watched as the house was built. When it was completed, we settled in, and our first son was born.
12. Within a couple of years, however, we had had enough of the sweltering Texas weather. We decided to return to Wyoming for its cool summer nights and proximity to our families. We bought a bi-level house at 118 Jonquil in Casper and began improving it. Another son was born, and we planned to stay put.
13. Life had other plans, and I was transferred to Colorado with my oil company job. We bought a two-story house on a large lot at 5526 E. Hinsdale Circle in Centennial. Our boys grew up there, and we stayed 26 years. By then, Centennial had really grown. Noisy traffic streamed past our house. The city allowed a 40′ cell phone tower to be installed close to our bedroom window. We decided the time had come to move on.
14. Now we live in an adult community surrounded by green belts and open space. We have friendly neighbors. This neighborhood is ideal for us, and we hope to stay here a long time.