Aunt Eleanor's Journal, January 17, 1982

My grandmother becomes a widow in this next entry. And as a reminder, the text within braces {} is information that I added for clarity.

Jan. 17, 1982

Again evening is here and I can’t think of anything interesting to do so I’ll go on with my tale. Can’t imagine any one getting a bang out of reading this, but perhaps a similar evening will come into some ones life when they are alone and wondering what to do to pass the time, then they can read this and maybe think “Oh! That’s what I can do. Write a story of my life: Then go a head and do it. Now to go on with this little story.

We were one happy family of three with sister Leola making it four. We stayed at this house till the 1^st of Nov. 1928. Ned {from now on I’ll call him Daddy} He was so proud to be a Daddy. He had to be on the road all the time from Mon. to Fri. Nite or Sat. sometimes, so week ends were really looked forward to. One week end he couldn’t make it so he called to let us know he had to go out to a place in western S. Dak. When he was away I never bothered with fixing potatoes so I was rather amused when I went into the kitchen and found Leola peeling potatoes. I said “what are you peeling potatoes for? Daddy wont be home till next week end. She said “I know but I’m not going to wait another week for potatoes. Guess potatoes are a desired food on most peoples menu. We had a phonegraph with a big horn we put on the floor beside Edward and turned on the music, he would lay there and listen to the music for a long time. Mother came to see us that summer and sewed some outfits for Edward and a dress for me. Leola started to take up beauty culture in the fall so I was alone with Edward during the day. I never mentioned this but Leola became a widow in 1926 and when she came to stay with us she left her family “Kendall June and Joyce” with Grandpa and Grandma Stoutenburg. She planned to get work as a Beauty Operator and then have the children with her but that was never to be.

We went down to Martell to see Grandma and Bernice that summer and Leola was along. She hadn’t been there since she was five yrs. old so it was quite a thrill for her. She noticed Grandma’s spinning wheel that was standing in a corner in one of the rooms upstairs and she went downstairs and asked Grandma if she could have that when Grandma was gone. I had many times wanted it too but never thot I could ask for it. Grandma’s face lit up and she smiled so sweetly and said “yes you can have it. But that too was never to be.

In Nov. we moved for the 6^th time back to the apt of 24^th and 1^st ave So. We bought a very nice Majestic radio and we spent a lot of time listening to that radio. It was presidential election that fall 1928 and Hoover ran against Al Smith. That was the first election we had ever had the chance to hear over a radio. Hoover won of course and took on the job of pulling a nation up out of a down slide into depression. Right after that Daddy was encouraged to go to Regina Sask. and take a job up there, so just before Christmas he left and I made a move to Swanburg no. 7. Leola stayed in Minneapolis so she could finish her course at the Beauty School. I with Edward stayed at Grandpa and grandma Stoutenburg. On March 16^th Edward and I (move #8) took the train and left for Regina. Daddy met us in Moosejaw and took us to our new place in Regina. We rented a furnished home there, and we had a boarder by the name of Spika Harris. Edward had his first birthday just eight days after we arrived. His Daddy picked up some gifts for him as I was too new to venture down town to shop and I thot his gifts were kind of strange for a little boy. He got a cupiedoll, a little black doll, a mouth organ and a rubber ball. I made a little birthday cake and he was happy. I spent the day dressing him up in different out fits and taking his pictures. It was a nice warm day and I had outside without any coat or sweater on for some of the pictures, It was while I was outside that the lady next door came out to hang something on the clothes line and she spoke to me. She had a little girl and a little boy who used to come over and play with Edward. We got to be good friends and used to have tea together in the afternoon. But at times I would get lonely for friends back home. I remember we had a couple of gloomy days and I wrote a letter to some one back home mentioning the gray cloudy day but I said “we don’t mind the dark cloudy day cause Edward is our sunshine. He was a little busy body and could get into his share of mischief. One Sunday as we were sitting out on the veranda we heard him inside, it sounded like he was swatting with a flyswatter but I thot I’d investigate and here he was on a chair up the kitchen cabinet and we had a bag of eggs there that we had just bought from a farmer who was selling them door to door. Well Edward had dropped them one by one on the floor and there was that puddle of eggs all 12 of them. I don’t like cleaning raw eggs off the floor very much. But seeing it was Edward who was to blame it wasn’t too bad. I don’t believe he was even paddled.

We lived in the house till May 31^st then we made move number 8 to another apt. Spike didn’t come with us. In the new place there was a fenced in yard where Edward could play, and there is where we got acquainted with Joe and Esther Hudon. We used to play cards and have each other for dinners and go to shows etc and that made life a little more worthwhile. Esther and I have corresponded and we have visited each other ever since.

While we were there Bernice came to see us in Sept. Grandma had passed away shortly after I arrived in Regina and Bernice was free to come and visit. We used to get letters from Grandma Stoutenburg telling us that Grandpa was not feeling well and things were not going well on the farm, they sure wished we would come back and help out on the farm. Daddy felt he should do that but he had promised to stay year with the Company he was working with so we couldn’t go till the first of the year. I was a little skeptical about this but finally in Oct. we decided I had better go back and Daddy would finish out the year up there. Thats what we did, and just before Christmas I rec’d a letter telling me to meet him (Daddy) in Brainerd on a certain day and to keep it secret. I got Aunt Em and Uncle Bill to take me to Brainerd and we met him and surpriced Grandpa and Grandma. They were sure two happy people, and Leola came up from Minneapolis too so we had quite a reunion. She had graduated from her Beauty School and was working in a Beauty Parlor. But the depression was being felt, money was scarce and living became harder every day. We cut timber for pulp wood but it didn’t pay much. We never were hungry but we sure didn’t have money for anything but food. We lived right with Grandpa and Grandma for that winter and part of next summer then we got a truck and went to Mpls to get our furniture and we fixed up a little house that was used for storing things in, and we moved into that. Seemed nice to get by ourselves again. We had our beautiful radio but no electricity to plug it into. To be continued.

To be continued...

Aunt Eleanor's Journal, December 25, 1981

Aunt Eleanor wrote the first entry in her journal just after Thanksgiving 1981. She wrote her next entry on the night of December 25, 1981. As I read her journal, she seemed to write in it after she had visited her family.

When I transcribed her journal, I typed what I saw. In some cases, Aunt Eleanor added comments within a pair of parenthesis. Occasionally I added comments to clarify things. These comments are included within a pair of braces {}.

Christmas Day nite Dec. 25, 1981

I will write a few more lines in here tonite. I was at Diannes last evening, joining her family on Christmas eve, and today I was with Edward and June at Pamela’s. All of them except Eddie and Jan were there.

I’m thinking of the many Christmas’ in the past when Santa was such a hero. How we waited fro Christmas to come and what fun we would have visiting with the neighbors, it was one big dinner after the other. We would always gather round the piano or organ and sign our hearts out also had skating and sliding parties and sleigh rides. The horses were always decked out with sleigh bells and as they trotted merrily along the bells would ring out so cheerfully. Santa was very real till I was seven years old when I found out he was a hoax but it didn’t stop us from hanging out stockings and as long as I was at home Santa always left something in them. My father and Mother made very sure tho that we knew what Christmas really was, and there was a truly sacred atmosphere there which seems to be missing in so many homes today.

Another event that thrilled us no end was the Christmas program at the little school house. Well it was all so much fun and life was so carefree and gay but years passed and in 1917 we lost out dear Father. He died of anemia on June 28. It seemed that life could hardly go on but of course it did but never quite the same.

That summer Mother, Mrs. Peterson {Nora’s Mother} and Uncle Theodore {my cousin Isadora’s father} decided it was time that we girls should take confirmation lessons so every Thursday Leola, Nora, Isadora and I would ride into Pine River with the mail man and meet with the school principle and go over our lesson. We were good students because in just a couple of months we were all confirmed. It was during the Time we were riding with the mail man that we first saw two young men who used to come out to their mail box to get the mail. We girls were quite smitten and all four of us rather claimed them. Nothing came of it tho and the next summer I went to Wisconson to help in my uncle Louis Hemness’ general store. That summer on the 4^th of July I went to my first dance and from then on I was dance goofy. Dancing and singing were my great pastimes. It was also at that time that I got letters from Nora, Isadora and Leola telling me that they had met those boys who always met the mail man and I would get reports of all the fun they were having at parties. I wrote back that they had better not think they could have the one named Neddy cause I was going to have him. Well I didn’t really get him until 1925 that was seven years later. I stayed at my Grandmother’s later on in the summer of 1918 and worked at a little store in Martell until just before Thanksgiving Day, then I went home and came down the flu. I gave it to every member of the family but I was hit the hardest. I really was sick and it took me longer to recover. To be continued.

Jan. 2, 1982

This is a good time to reminisce so I’ll add a few more paragraphs. It was while was staying with my grandmother that I learned a few things about her. She was such a sweet devout person. She grew up in Norway, in her youth she used to take care of sheep and she would ski seven miles to school. She like to read and every day she read in her Bible. At the time I was there she was 81 years old and she would walk up to the pasture in the morning with the cows and in the evening she would go and get them. I think it must have been at least ½ mile away. She milked the cows also took care of the chickens. Grandfather was a stone mason and when he came home he just rested. I remember he always went to bed early. I remember I couldn’t understand Grandfather, he spoke in a different dialect and so grandmother would always tell me what he said. They both spoke Norwegian.

After Grandmother grew up she became a dress maker. She had lots of pictures of ladies she had sewed for and I used to love to sit and look at them. My what fancy dresses they had on.

Well to go back to the fall of 1918, after I recovered from the flu – by the way it was the flu that caused Grandfathers death that fall so I never got to see him again. From Thanksgiving time till Feb. 28 it seems we did nothing but go to parties and dances and it was then that I met Ned and we sure had lots of fun. He made a bet with his brother Max that we would get married before he did. But he lost out on that because on the 28^th of Feb. I went to Fergus Falls and it wasn’t long till we didn’t even write to each other. My sister Leola and Max were married a year later.

I was 2½ years in Fergus taking up nursing. I didn’t finish the course because I couldn’t get along with the head nurse and her second in charge nurse. So I went to Mpls. Worked down there as a nurse maid for a year then went back home and loafed for a couple of months. In Oct. I went into Pine River to care for Mrs. George Bowman who was bedridden with inflamitory rhuematism. She was in terrible pain and was a lot of care. One of the treatments we gave her was steambaths. We borrowed someones alcohol lamp and used that to heat the water and she would sit inside the tent like deal with just her head sticking out and get steamed for 20 minutes at the time. The ones who owned the alcohol lamp needed it so we had to get another one. Mr. Bowman couldn’t find an alcohol lamp instead he got a keozine lamp. The first day I used it Mrs. Bowman said, “It looks like there is smoke coming out around my neck.” I came to examine it and sure enough black soot was coming out of the steamer. I opened it up and Mrs. Bowman was covered with the blackest soot. I had to wrap her in a blanket, get that lamp out and believe me I had a mess but we couldn’t help but laugh. It was some job to get her washed clean. I was on that case for over 2 months. Then I spent Christmas at the Stoutenburgs my sisters Emma and Bernice were there too and we had a great time. We all got books for Christmas and everybody was reading. Ned was in the marines at this time. After the holidays I went with Bernice to Martell Wis. There we stayed with Grandmother she was alone and very crippled with arthritis, so she couldn’t be alone. She was still her own sweet self reading her Bible but so bent over, she had to use a cane. Grandma and Bernice always went to bed at 9 o’clock so I had to too, but I would take the lamp and set it on the floor at the foot the bed, turn it down low so it wouldn’t bother Bernice, then I would lay on my stomack with a book right by the lamp and I would read till all hours of the night. Our cousins Erwin and Bernell came too and we had a great time that winter. The next spring I took a job taking care of Mrs Theodore Winger who was bed ridden. She and her husband and 2 bachelor sons had moved into a new home, when she got sick. It was a nice house but they didn’t have any furniture only in the kitchen and their bedrooms. There was an old phonegraph and a few records I used to play. I had an Army cot to sleep on. And the men folks did all the cooking. The same thing day after day. It was a rather dull time. I did get to leave on Sundays and there were young folks that I went out with so on Sundays we had fun. The summer passed, in August I went back to Mpls. got a job as nursemaid for Mary Hoyt age 1 year. I was there till the middle of Dec. then I got called back to Martell. My uncle Edward had fallen off a boxcar and broke his neck, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He had been taken to a chiropractor’s place in Ellsworth Wis. And he needed nurses care around the clock. My cousin Bernell and I took care of him there until after Christmas then he was transferred to a hospital in St. Paul and we went there to be with him every day. He died the first part of January. This was the uncle who never could stand me. I guess I was always goofing off too much. Its funny that it ended up that I had to care for him. I was there by his bedside when he took his last breath.

It is now 12:25 PM. Saturday or Sunday now. And I have to be ready to go to church in the morning by 9:15. So again we will leave this writing till another time.

To be continued...

Aunt Eleanor's Journal, November 29, 1981

I only knew my Aunt Eleanor as a white-haired, old woman. She was my grandmother's sister. I never knew my grandmother as she died when my mother was six years old. Aunt Eleanor's granddaughter, Patti, asked her to write her autobiography. Aunt Eleanor began to write about her early life after her great-granddaughter gave her a journal in 1981. Not only did I learn more about Aunt Eleanor but I also learned more about my grandmother.

Aunt Eleanor was 81 years old when she made her first entry. I first saw the journal in 2001 and made a photocopy of it. Her handwriting was difficult to read so I decided to transcribe it and share the transcription with my sister. Over the years, I have reread the journal many times and have come to realize that Aunt Eleanor's journal is not only a story of her life but also a record of life in the first half of the twentieth century.

I typed what I saw and that included spelling errors and lack of puncuation. In a few instances, I added notes for clarification and enclosed them in braces {}.

Nov. 29, 1981

Dear Patti, You asked me to write my autobiography just for you. On Thanksgiving day Nov. 26, 1981 Micki gave me this notebook and it made me think of your request. So now I am sitting here by myself (you and Jo Jo left a few minutes ago after bringing me home) and I decided I would start writing. Goodness knows when I’ll finish. Eighty-one years to report on will take a while.

 

My earliest memories are my home in Martell Wis. where I was born, the fifth child in the family. There Grace, Emma, Ferdinand, and Bernice were and I’m sure they all were glad to welcome a little black haired, big eyed, pug nosed sister (me). I was two years, one month and seven days old when I had the chance to welcome my sister Leola. I could not say Leola so she was always Yola. Later on she was called Ole. We were very close, but I remember I did recent (sic) her being the baby and when she talked baby talk I used to give her a swat. One day after she was big enough to walk, her buggy was outside on the sidewalk which slanted a little towards the garden. There were a couple of steps down to the garden, anyway I had crawled into the buggy and Leola gave it a little push, down the buggy went over the stone wall with me in it and of course it tipped over and I got a cut under my chin. I thot I would surely die because everything I would eat would come right out of that hole. But I lived thru it.

My sister Bernice was three years, three months and 20 days older than I was. A very blond and delicate girl who liked to tease me and I’m afraid she got the worst of it when I would fight with her. Ora Ruud would take her home with him because he thot I was too rough.

Brother Ferd was always pulling tricks on us, Sister Emma was so gentle, I always wanted to be her girl when we played house as we called it. I also preferred to have her comb my hair and dress me. Sister Grace I thot was too bossy and she pulled my hair too much.

We did have a happy childhood a close knit family. My father was so very patient with us and always joining in with us when we played games. I dearly loved my father. Mother by the time I came along had enough to do taking care of all of us and couldn’t spend time playing games with us. She cooked, baked, sewed, washed clothes, ironed and mended. Sometimes she would fix meals for us that we could eat in our playhouse. That was great fun.

When I was five years and about five months old we moved to Swanburg Minnesota. We left our freinds and relatives in Martell. I missed my cousins there, Erwin and Lorenzo Anderson were twins just my age and we lived close enough that we no doubt saw each other everyday so it was rather sad to have to say good bye, but my childhood pal Nora Peterson whom I had played with in Martell was living in Swanburg and we had a great time getting reacquainted.

There were two or three families living in Swanburg when we arrived the Petersons, Steins and a family by the name of Askins. The latter family didn’t stay long so I can hardly remember them, but the Petersons had a hotel and a store also the Post Office besides a herd of cattle. The Steins had a black smith shop and cattle. Mr Stein also was the mail carrier. My father had a sawmill and a small herd of cattle that got bigger each year.

The sawmill was our biggest attraction and many an hour was spent on the carriage that carried the big logs past the big circular saw that cut the log into lumber. There we would sit and ride back and forth while the pitchy saw dust would fly into our hair, faces and clothes. No wonder I would hate to have my hair combed, it was no doubt so full of pitch one could hardly get a comb thru it. I think most of the lumber was pine as at that time there was very little if any hardwood in that part of Minnesota. That’s the reason we were so pitchy. Another great fun was to crawl up the chute that carried the sawdust away from the mill, and then we would jump into the fresh warm sawdust pile. This would be at the close of the day when the mill was closed down. My sister Leola and friend Nora and I would play in the lumber yard crawling up on the piles of lumber and jumping off seeing who could jump the farthest. Oh! Yes it was great fun. Later on I tried my hand at working at the mill taking the lumber away from the saw and rolling it down on the rollers to the next man but on day I got my hand too close to the saw and got my finger badly cut, that was the end of my sawmill career. My father said no more. We all went to school in a little white school house in Swanburg that holds many happy memories.

In 1909 another baby was welcomed into our family it was my brother Glen. He truly was a much loved addition. Full of mischief he was but such a dear. Then in the spring of 1913 our sister Bertha joined our gang. She was also so very welcome and of course by that time we were old enough to help take care of her and we did spoil her. Poor Glen suffered most from that cause all Bertha had to do was open her mouth and bawl and some one would yell at Glen to let her have whatever she wanted, he always had to given in. He had one champion tho me. I was always on his side.

The summer I was eight years old {that’s the year Glen was born} my father moved the mill to the shores of Little Whitefish Lake there he built some buildings and we moved down there for the summer. It was a great summer. Swimming in the lake everyday and kind of camping all summer, it must have been hard on Mother but we children had a great time. It took several men to run the mill and mother had to cook for them besides her own family. Grace had married by this time so she a home of her own, but Emma, Ferd, Bernice, myself, Leola, and Glen were there.

It was five miles up to the little white school house where we had Sunday School in the summer and I dearly loved going to Sunday School. That summer I won a prize for perfect attendance at Sunday School and I had to walk every Sunday, there were no cars or any other transportation at that time. I really enjoyed it. One or two of the others always had to go along with me.

I have tried to give you an idea of my childhood, I couldn’t recall every incident, there wouldn’t room for everything but I just want to say it was a happy childhood and as long as I can remember I have known my God, prayed to Him, and tho I sometimes strayed His Spirit always nodged me and brought me back. And this is the last Thanksgiving I gave thanks for just that and much more. Now I’ll quit writing and continue this at a later date.

To be continued...