In my own extended, blended family I have found many women to admire. I didn’t have to look to far past my own birth maternal family. My grandmother who arrived through Ellis Island was probably the first woman I ever admired. I was a small child when I first realized I wanted to be like her.
I loved being outside and strove to climb the biggest tree, ride my bike the fastest and outrun any kid on the playground. I learned to golf at a young age, I learned to shoot a gun and how to hunt pheasants in tall corn fields. I was always tagging after the men in the family and rarely wanted to be inside with the women. All they did was sit around and talk, I wanted to be outside and learn things! My grandmother was the first woman I met that actually did men’s work and did it by herself or with my grandfather.
My Grandma Inga had been born and raised in Christiana, Norway (Oslo now). She never knew her father, or if she did, she never talked about him. Her mother had been married and had five sons first and then she left her husband. Now, whether there was a divorce or not, we really don’t know. However, great-grandma did go on to have my grandmother and her brother, Martin with another man. When their mother died, they were put in an orphanage until an older half-brother took them home to his farm where they worked very hard for he and his family. When Grandma was seventeen, she packed her bags, borrowed 600 kroners from her brother who owned the farm and headed out to America. Martin stayed behind.
This is where the story gets a bit murky. She landed at Ellis Island and somehow she had met a young man named Emil, who was German Swiss. He was also Jewish. The time between 1912, when she stepped onto the golden shores of the USA until 1914, when she arrived in Minneapolis, are rather unclear. She worked for the Rockfellers for a short time, went to Gardiner, Maine and traveled to Minnesota. When she got to Minnesota, she found out her brother, Einar, had passed away and so she moved in with her cousin, Olga. My grandmother, unmarried, was also expecting my mother. Emil is listed on the birth certificate as her father.
In the spring of 1914 she gave birth to my mother and began working for the McKnight family. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._McKnight ) Grandma joined the Sons of Norway Lodge, met her future husband and began a new life in Minneapolis. My mother was the only child she ever had. In the late 1940s, my grandparents made the decision to move up to northern Minnesota. They started life in a one room cabin that was heated by a cast iron laundry stove, they gradually added onto their home and built a cabin for my grandfather’s brother, Erick, who lived in California with his wife, Coral. They came to stay in the summer.
My grandmother worked hard and my first memories are watching her chop wood and fill the wood box. She was a large, tall woman, who wore sturdy pants and flowered or striped blouses that she made herself. She wore sturdy oxfords and white or black socks. in the fall and winter she wore wool buffalo plaid men’s coat with black buttons. I loved that coat. I would try to wrap up in it when it hung in the closet because the coat smelled of wood smoke and Grandma’s soap.
I admired this woman because she could hunt and fish with the best of them. She butchered the deer and cleaned the fish. The ducks hung on the clothesline to age and I can still see her getting the last of the pin feathers off them. Grandma canned, had a small garden and picked all kinds of wild berries for jelly and jam. My grandfather shared in these chores and also worked as a cabinetmaker and did custom windows and doors.
In the meantime they built another cabin and rented it out, along with Erick’s cabin, to people that wanted to spend time among the tall pines and the lakes. They were the people that wanted to hunt and fish. The added income helped and soon they built up a good reputation.
I also remember the wonderful meals my grandmother made. Not only were there dishes from ‘the old country’ but after working for the Rockfellers and McKnights, she had picked up many tips on how to make food extra special. But, best of all, were her rolls, pastries and pies! I don’t remember her ever working from recipe cards or books but she could sure whip up some delicious meals.
And, the one vice I remember is the fact my grandma could drink with the best of them. She got loud, sang off-key Norwegian songs and she danced. Sometimes she grew morose, other times she was the life of the party. And, no matter how hard or late she partied, she was always up early the next morning making a lumberjack breakfast for whomever was up and moving. The coffee was strong, the eggs done perfectly plus pancakes with homemade syrup and sausage and bacon! How she did it, I will never know.
In the midst of all this, they took my brother, who was a ten year old boy, and raised him to adulthood. I think the hardest thing my grandmother ever did in her life was to put me, her only granddaughter, in a foster home. I was only fourteen months old and she couldn’t care for me in her home in northern Minnesota. They had no running water at that time and still used the cast iron stove for heat. They knew a couple through the Sons of Norway Lodge and I was placed with them. My parents marriage had fallen apart and my mother was too ill to care for us. My dad had a girlfriend that didn’t want the baggage he came with at that time.
My grandmother died when I was sixteen. As the years go by I miss her more and more. I miss her big bear hugs, I miss helping her hang the white sheets on the line, I miss watching her cook in her big cast iron frying pans. I miss picking berries with her and I miss snuggling into the beds at her home that had Hudson Bay blankets tucked around me.
I learned much from her. I learned good work ethic, I learned that no matter what life hands you, deal with it and move on. I learned that a woman can do a man’s work and still remain a lady. She taught me to appreciate fine glassware, the best silver and wonderful linens and how to set a sparkling table. But most of all she taught me how to love family and she taught me about loyalty. She taught me how to be better woman.
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