09/24/08
V
"During my early grade school years and before, the teacher at our little country school lived during the week with Grandpa and Aunty Mabel.
I suppose because of having two older brothers I was able to read and write before I was old enough to go to school. I’m sure the school board or somebody with the proper authority must have given consent, because I was allowed to start first grade in the spring of the same year I should have started in the following September. Jerry Flugum had been in grade one all year and they passed me along with him into second grade that fall. I remained a year ahead of other students my age and never thought much about it until I reached high school and wanted to date and go places like my classmates. Sometimes I was told I was too young to keep up with them socially and I would argue that I kept up with them in class and felt I should be allowed to keep up with them socially as well."
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Does that sound like, "I am sixteen years old and just as stubborn as you are"?
Here is more evidence for the foolishness of "lock-step" grades in teaching people. It is what you know and can learn, not how old you are, that matters.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Random Recollections IV
09/18/08
I was born on January 7, 1929 while a blizzard continued to rage outside the Naeve Hospital in Albert Lea, MN. I have been told that when my mother thought it was time to head for the hospital, she and my dad got in the car and started down the long driveway from the house to the main road one-half mile away. They had made it a little way down the drive but they were soon stuck in a large snowdrift. As good neighbors do, Henry Peterson, who lived up the hill from our house, was out there with a team of horses to pull the car through the drifts and down to the road into town. My parents were able to drive the rest of the way so I could be born in the hospital instead of in the car! The Evening Tribune published on January 7, 1929 ran its biggest headline as follows: “Weather Grips Entire Northwest. Mercury Hits New Levels in all Sections. Little Immediate Relief From Cold Wave. Forecast - Drifted Roads Block Traffic in Some Parts."
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So my mother and I were both born in blizzards! No wonder we're so cool!
They told me my mother was born in the Navy Hospital and I wondered why there was such a thing in Albert Lea, MN. There are many lakes and ponds in the area, but no need for a navy facility. Now I understand: it was the Naeve Hospital.
I was born on January 7, 1929 while a blizzard continued to rage outside the Naeve Hospital in Albert Lea, MN. I have been told that when my mother thought it was time to head for the hospital, she and my dad got in the car and started down the long driveway from the house to the main road one-half mile away. They had made it a little way down the drive but they were soon stuck in a large snowdrift. As good neighbors do, Henry Peterson, who lived up the hill from our house, was out there with a team of horses to pull the car through the drifts and down to the road into town. My parents were able to drive the rest of the way so I could be born in the hospital instead of in the car! The Evening Tribune published on January 7, 1929 ran its biggest headline as follows: “Weather Grips Entire Northwest. Mercury Hits New Levels in all Sections. Little Immediate Relief From Cold Wave. Forecast - Drifted Roads Block Traffic in Some Parts."
******************************************
So my mother and I were both born in blizzards! No wonder we're so cool!
They told me my mother was born in the Navy Hospital and I wondered why there was such a thing in Albert Lea, MN. There are many lakes and ponds in the area, but no need for a navy facility. Now I understand: it was the Naeve Hospital.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Random Recollections III
"I remember one year in December when our Christmas tree was up and decorated in the living room of the big house where Grandpa Thompson and Aunty Mabel lived. (If we ever had a Christmas tree in the little house where my family lived until I was about 12, I have no memory of it.) We always spent Christmas Eve at the big house. We would start with oyster stew and then probably have potato salad and cold cuts with pie for dessert. After the table was cleared and the dishes washed and put away, we could gather in the living room to exchange presents. I would usually get to be Santa’s helper in passing out the gifts from under the tree. Aunty Vivian would be the one to read the tag and have me deliver the package.
One year I had really hoped for a pair of skis but there were no packages under the tree that could possibly hold them. After all the presents had been distributed and I didn’t get the skis, I tried to be happy with the gifts I had received. I was then asked if I would go to the kitchen and get something (I don’t remember what) next to the telephone behind the door. Of course, when I got there…there were my skis!
I can remember some of the Flugum (floo-gum) children being at our place shortly before Christmas one year and being invited in to see the tree in the big house. We had electricity as early as 1910 but most of the neighborhood didn’t get it until the REA came through in the 1930’s, so our tree had lights and ornaments all over it and I could tell they were so impressed by the beauty of it all.
When I was growing up our country elementary school was situated on a corner of our farm about ½ mile from our house. During the week the teacher was housed and fed in the big house across the garden from our little house. She taught all eight grades every day besides presiding over both morning and afternoon recess and monitoring the pupils during lunch. In the back part of the room there was a large heating stove which she had to start up in the morning and keep going all day and “bank” for the night.
This was basically a one-room school although there was a small coat room on the front and that was where we would take off our coats (or snowsuits), boots, mittens and scarves and hang them on hooks on the wall.
It was fairly easy to listen in on the lessons going on in the front of the room, so by the time we reached that grade we would have heard the lesson several times and would know the answers. The whole school had anywhere from a dozen to 18 students, some grades were not needed at all and others only had one or two members.
I remember a time when my dad came to pick me up with a team of horses on a big farm sled. A blizzard had been going on all day and he came to get me home safely. He also took Harriett Peterson to her home up the hill from our house. When we were out in cold winter weather in a wagon or sled we would use a cover made out of a horse hide."
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My family also had oyster stew on Christmas Eve (because of my mother) and I miss it. Oh,well, I can't really expect you children to like it just because it means something to me.
Apparently the Thompson family farm was doing very well in the first years of the twentieth century. Not only were they able to afford to run electrical wire out from town, but they also redecorated the whole house around 1914.
At some point there must have been a need for cash, though, because half of the original square mile that was homesteaded was sold to the Petersons. The drive forked just before the spot where the house stood that my mother lived in when she was little and then their drive went down over one of the streams and up the little hill to their house. I would like to include a map of the farm so you could visualize things better, but I don't know how to do that.
I remember seeing the old schoolhouse on the corner where the drive met the road. It had sat empty for years and one time when we arrived, it was gone. It had been moved to form part of a pioneer village somewhere in the area.
One year I had really hoped for a pair of skis but there were no packages under the tree that could possibly hold them. After all the presents had been distributed and I didn’t get the skis, I tried to be happy with the gifts I had received. I was then asked if I would go to the kitchen and get something (I don’t remember what) next to the telephone behind the door. Of course, when I got there…there were my skis!
I can remember some of the Flugum (floo-gum) children being at our place shortly before Christmas one year and being invited in to see the tree in the big house. We had electricity as early as 1910 but most of the neighborhood didn’t get it until the REA came through in the 1930’s, so our tree had lights and ornaments all over it and I could tell they were so impressed by the beauty of it all.
When I was growing up our country elementary school was situated on a corner of our farm about ½ mile from our house. During the week the teacher was housed and fed in the big house across the garden from our little house. She taught all eight grades every day besides presiding over both morning and afternoon recess and monitoring the pupils during lunch. In the back part of the room there was a large heating stove which she had to start up in the morning and keep going all day and “bank” for the night.
This was basically a one-room school although there was a small coat room on the front and that was where we would take off our coats (or snowsuits), boots, mittens and scarves and hang them on hooks on the wall.
It was fairly easy to listen in on the lessons going on in the front of the room, so by the time we reached that grade we would have heard the lesson several times and would know the answers. The whole school had anywhere from a dozen to 18 students, some grades were not needed at all and others only had one or two members.
I remember a time when my dad came to pick me up with a team of horses on a big farm sled. A blizzard had been going on all day and he came to get me home safely. He also took Harriett Peterson to her home up the hill from our house. When we were out in cold winter weather in a wagon or sled we would use a cover made out of a horse hide."
*************************************************************************************
My family also had oyster stew on Christmas Eve (because of my mother) and I miss it. Oh,well, I can't really expect you children to like it just because it means something to me.
Apparently the Thompson family farm was doing very well in the first years of the twentieth century. Not only were they able to afford to run electrical wire out from town, but they also redecorated the whole house around 1914.
At some point there must have been a need for cash, though, because half of the original square mile that was homesteaded was sold to the Petersons. The drive forked just before the spot where the house stood that my mother lived in when she was little and then their drive went down over one of the streams and up the little hill to their house. I would like to include a map of the farm so you could visualize things better, but I don't know how to do that.
I remember seeing the old schoolhouse on the corner where the drive met the road. It had sat empty for years and one time when we arrived, it was gone. It had been moved to form part of a pioneer village somewhere in the area.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Random Recollections II
"Christmas when I was a child was a very exciting time. I remember helping Aunty Mabel bake cookies for the holidays. The main thing was she made a ton of the little pfeffernusse, some of which were rolled in sugar and some left plain. I can remember seeing the baked cookies filling up a washtub. Exactly where she stored them until eaten I’m not sure, and I’m sure she gave away a good many, also. This is a German cookie which she probably remembered from her childhood. My memory is that she was born in Chicago and lived there with her parents until she was 7 or 8 years old when she had to come to live with Aunt Annie and Uncle Louis because she was then an orphan. Aunt Annie and my grandmother, Lizzie, were her mother’s sisters.
The story goes that Aunt Annie seemed to favor Mabel’s sister and was more critical of Mabel. So one day when Grandpa Thompson was visiting over there and Aunt Annie started to pick on Mabel, Grandpa said to her, “I think you should come live at our house.” Whatever discussion there was ended with Mabel taking up residence with Grandma and Grandpa Thompson, Roy and Vivian."
So that explains why Aunt Mabel lived with my grandfather's family when he was growing up. It may not have been much better for Mabel at that house than it had been at her Aunt Annie's. Roy's stepmother favored her own daughter Vivian over him and Mabel. Still, Aunt Vivian was Mabel's firm friend and roommate for the rest of their lives.
I have made some large batches of cookies in my time, but never a washtub full. I think a washtub would hold maybe twenty or twenty-five gallons. That's a lot of cookies!
The story goes that Aunt Annie seemed to favor Mabel’s sister and was more critical of Mabel. So one day when Grandpa Thompson was visiting over there and Aunt Annie started to pick on Mabel, Grandpa said to her, “I think you should come live at our house.” Whatever discussion there was ended with Mabel taking up residence with Grandma and Grandpa Thompson, Roy and Vivian."
So that explains why Aunt Mabel lived with my grandfather's family when he was growing up. It may not have been much better for Mabel at that house than it had been at her Aunt Annie's. Roy's stepmother favored her own daughter Vivian over him and Mabel. Still, Aunt Vivian was Mabel's firm friend and roommate for the rest of their lives.
I have made some large batches of cookies in my time, but never a washtub full. I think a washtub would hold maybe twenty or twenty-five gallons. That's a lot of cookies!
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