And so, back to Minneapolis
Yesterday afternoon my 98-year-old great-aunt stood in the old farmhouse where she'd been a child, her careful feet on the break between the newer part of the house and the old. Gazing down at the scrubbed floorboards covered with a modern rug, she said, "My father lay right there in his casket. I was five years old, and I had no idea what was going on. They never told children in those days, you know. Not like now."
Standing by her was the 82-year-old man whose father had bought the farm when my great-grandmother finally had to give it up, after unsuccessfully trying to hold onto it as a widow in the Depression. He'd been a kid when he moved in, and at once his dad put him to work improving a house that was still nineteenth century in every way--outhouse on the knoll, paraffin stains on the walls from the lamps, a wood stove that was the only heat in the house. That stove was gone, as was the big copper pot before it that the families had bathed in--the girls first, then mom, then the boys, and the dad got the dirty bath water after everyone else was done. Both families--that was the way around there--and they laughed about how to get in and out with your knees around your ears.
That house has been in their family for seventy years, but he and his family always understands when the Carlson girls' descendants want to come visit the farm. (I was there with my mom summer 1969, but that time the dad was away, so we could only peek in the windows) They hosted a Carlson family reunion on the beautiful grounds about ten years ago--my grandmother got to be there before she died.
My daughter and I spent the entire day with my aunt, going to the various sites from hers and my grandmother's and their sisters' childhoods, with glimpses, no more than shadows, of the previous generations, left behind in work, and of course in their graves in the cemetery. So many children. "These two little boys would have been my uncles," Aunt Mim said, pointing down. One was two, the other made it to five before he died in the 1880s.
My daughter asked over dinner, "Do you miss those days?"
"Are you kidding?" Aunt Mim laughed. "Life is so much easier now. Especially for us girls. We were indentured servants back then."
She fought bitterly to be allowed to finish high school, and they let her, but the minute she got home she had to get on her overalls and get the farm chores done (she was living with a childless aunt and uncle while my great-grandmother worked as a domestic at a local rich person's house; my grandmother did child labor as the domestic at someone else's house, all the labor for a buck a week). Her younger sister was so bright that she was offered a scholarship to the local college, but that was ridiculous, the family decided--it was past time to get to work.
All the women worked, she said. Her best job was at a local orphanage, where a lot of the kids coming in spoke only Swedish.
Late in the day she admitted that she had written her autobiography. It's wonderful.
"I sugar-coated some stuff, you know," she said. I nodded--having just read a harrowing passage--and told her that if it was computerized it would be easy for her to change it any way she liked.
She admitted that she's always liked writing, but never showed anyone any of it. The only one of her kids interested died of MS ten years ago. Aunt Mim's nearly blind, but she bends over the paper with a super strong LED light bar, and writes in pencil. I told her if she writes more, or can find the chapters she wrote subsequently that didn't get typed when the MS finally crippled her daughter, I can put them in her book, and see that the whole family on that side gets a copy, along with the film my daughter is making. (She took her boyfriend's super powered camera along, and spent the entire day shooting tons of footage.) So she gave it to me.
When I show this autobiography to my mom, she's going to be blown away.
Standing by her was the 82-year-old man whose father had bought the farm when my great-grandmother finally had to give it up, after unsuccessfully trying to hold onto it as a widow in the Depression. He'd been a kid when he moved in, and at once his dad put him to work improving a house that was still nineteenth century in every way--outhouse on the knoll, paraffin stains on the walls from the lamps, a wood stove that was the only heat in the house. That stove was gone, as was the big copper pot before it that the families had bathed in--the girls first, then mom, then the boys, and the dad got the dirty bath water after everyone else was done. Both families--that was the way around there--and they laughed about how to get in and out with your knees around your ears.
That house has been in their family for seventy years, but he and his family always understands when the Carlson girls' descendants want to come visit the farm. (I was there with my mom summer 1969, but that time the dad was away, so we could only peek in the windows) They hosted a Carlson family reunion on the beautiful grounds about ten years ago--my grandmother got to be there before she died.
My daughter and I spent the entire day with my aunt, going to the various sites from hers and my grandmother's and their sisters' childhoods, with glimpses, no more than shadows, of the previous generations, left behind in work, and of course in their graves in the cemetery. So many children. "These two little boys would have been my uncles," Aunt Mim said, pointing down. One was two, the other made it to five before he died in the 1880s.
My daughter asked over dinner, "Do you miss those days?"
"Are you kidding?" Aunt Mim laughed. "Life is so much easier now. Especially for us girls. We were indentured servants back then."
She fought bitterly to be allowed to finish high school, and they let her, but the minute she got home she had to get on her overalls and get the farm chores done (she was living with a childless aunt and uncle while my great-grandmother worked as a domestic at a local rich person's house; my grandmother did child labor as the domestic at someone else's house, all the labor for a buck a week). Her younger sister was so bright that she was offered a scholarship to the local college, but that was ridiculous, the family decided--it was past time to get to work.
All the women worked, she said. Her best job was at a local orphanage, where a lot of the kids coming in spoke only Swedish.
Late in the day she admitted that she had written her autobiography. It's wonderful.
"I sugar-coated some stuff, you know," she said. I nodded--having just read a harrowing passage--and told her that if it was computerized it would be easy for her to change it any way she liked.
She admitted that she's always liked writing, but never showed anyone any of it. The only one of her kids interested died of MS ten years ago. Aunt Mim's nearly blind, but she bends over the paper with a super strong LED light bar, and writes in pencil. I told her if she writes more, or can find the chapters she wrote subsequently that didn't get typed when the MS finally crippled her daughter, I can put them in her book, and see that the whole family on that side gets a copy, along with the film my daughter is making. (She took her boyfriend's super powered camera along, and spent the entire day shooting tons of footage.) So she gave it to me.
When I show this autobiography to my mom, she's going to be blown away.