Month: February 2023

By Vernetta Thuener.

I spent my early childhood next door to my grandparents. This was a wonderful privilege. They lived on a farm in southwestern Minnesota, seven miles south of Lakefield, Minnesota, and five miles north of the Iowa border. My memories and visual reflections are vivid. Grandma is average in height, of a stout Swedish build with a round face. Light blue eyes appear behind her round rimmed glasses. She pulls her long fine grey hair into a bun, referred to as a “pug” (in later years, she wore her hair short and permed). She is a solid person. She wears a cotton print dress with a half apron which she sewed from colorful cotton feed sacks. She ties the apron in a bow behind her back. Grandma is serious in nature; words are few while I follow her around. Mom says Grandma is a “worrier.” In the summer Grandma goes barefooted around the house. I recall one day comparing our feet, our two large toes shaped the same, curving inward toward the other toes. “Uff da,” says Grandma.

On a sunny blue cloudless day, I walk from my home on a narrow black dirt path to the green lawn of Grandma’s farm. It’s early spring. I inhale the sweet-smelling aroma of the lilacs that surround the sides and front of the house.

In the summer along the wire fence surrounding the yard, I notice the orange tiger lilies. They’re next to the front white wooden gate. I take in the sweet smell of pink peonies. There are also purple and white irises. And a tall, green-stemmed patch of white daisy-like flowers. And a wild climbing pink rose bush with thorny stems.

Grandma loves flowers. She cuts a fresh bouquet of pink peonies for her dining room. In the garden across the gravel driveway, there are four-o-clocks and sweet peas, and oh yes, several long rows of gladiolus are in bloom, bright and in various colors. In this garden of rich black soil are also vegetables. Included are asparagus and rhubarb. Grandpa plants red & white potatoes. In the fall we harvest the potatoes. They’re stored in brown gunny sacks in the cool dirt cellar for winter consumption.

As I enter Grandma’s house through the screen door, I am on the screened windowed porch. This is Monday, wash day. Grandma is carving homemade lye soap made from pork fat. She drops the shavings into her wringer washing machine. It’s filled with hot water boiled on her kitchen gas stove. There are two tubs of rinse water, one with bluing to whiten the clothes. The Sunday comics along with a LOOK magazine lay on top of an old wooden table. It’s next to the porch wall and covered with a patterned oilcloth. I read “Blondie” as Grandma continues with washing and rinsing the clothes. We do not speak. Then she hangs the laundry to dry with clothespins on several wire lines between two trees in the yard. In the afternoon following her nap, I watch as she dampens the dry clothes with her sprinkle bottle. Then she irons pillowcases, tea towels, aprons, handkerchiefs, and Grandpa’s shirts.

When nature calls, we open the gate to the fenced in yard to walk to the white painted outhouse. It has a shingled roof and sits in a grove of trees. Inside is a bench with two holes, one larger than the other, one for my grandmother and the smaller one for me. In the corner on the floor lays an old Sears catalogue. In late summer there may be a pile of pink fresh peach tissue wrappings with a sweet aroma of peaches. Money was not spent on toilet paper.

Grandma works around the house and yard, too busy to share words. She mows the lawn with a push mower. In the kitchen she primes the pump to bring water into the sink from the cistern that catches rainwater. She cans tomatoes from the garden into quart jars. From cabbage, she makes sauerkraut. Along the screen window ledges on the porch, the quart-filled jars of sauerkraut are topped with salt to ferment. Through the screen I catch the mother duck with her yellow baby ducklings following her. They waddle past the cottonwood tree to the pond for a morning swim. Grandma uses the duck feathers to make our bed pillows. She takes time out in the morning to write to one of the children who live out west. She sits at her dropdown wooden desk in the living room and scribbles a letter with her fountain ink pen.

Grandma is industrious, devoted to her housekeeping tasks. She keeps a clean and orderly house. She works swiftly to get things done including baking sugar cookies, bread, and rolls. At harvest time, there are a half a dozen hard working men (Grandpa, Dad, uncles, and neighbors) to feed at noon. Grandma and Mom are busy preparing dinner. They peel potatoes. They brown a pot roast or fry a chicken. They cut string beans and slice tomatoes, combine cabbage salad as well as gravy. We serve these hungry men around the large expanded oval table in Grandma’s dining room. Following coffee and dessert, the men go back to work. Now it is time for the women to eat. Then we clean up and wash the dishes by hand. “Uff da,” says Grandma. Now it’s time for her nap. She removes the combs and pins from her pug and lets down her hair for a short rest. I know it’s time for me to go home.

During harvest time around three o’clock in the afternoon, Grandma makes a large bucket of lemonade. She squeezes the lemon juice from a dozen lemons or so by hand. She then slices the lemon rinds into the water adding sugar and ice. Grandma proceeds to make lunch for the harvest crew of men along with Mom. They prepare cheese, jam, or peanut butter sandwiches with home baked bread. Also included is chocolate or spice cake, oatmeal, or sugar cookies. Everything is made from scratch. A thermos of coffee, especially for Grandpa (the only one who drank coffee in ninety-degree weather) is not forgotten. As we walk toward the red barn with lunch, the farmers are throwing golden yellow shocked oats into the thrashing machine. The oats are bound with twine. A tractor connected with a twisted belt creates turbulence to run the machine. The thrashing machine is separating the oats from the straw. The air is hot and dusty as the straw is being blown into a haystack. The kernels of oats drop out into the back of the farm truck. The noisy machines go silent upon our arrival with lunch. The thirsty men gulp the ice-cold lemonade and devour their sandwiches and sweets. They exchange conversation on how things are going amidst the weather changes. They also lament how much more needs to get done before they’re finished.

In nice weather at three o’clock in the afternoon I go to Grandma’s house. We have coffee, cookies and sometimes half a sandwich in the dining room, along with Grandpa. I watch how Grandma puts two heaping teaspoons of sugar along with cream in her coffee and stirs. As we consume our so-called “lunch,” I watch Grandma take another spoonful of sugar into her mouth. She washes it down with a swig of coffee. From the day I was born I heard again and again that “too much white sugar is bad for you.” I went home and told my mother how Grandma used so much sugar with her coffee. Mother replied, “Vernetta, I don’t mind if you drink coffee, but don’t use cream and sugar. It poisons it.” To this day, I drink my coffee black.

On another afternoon following Grandma’s nap, I sit with her as she sews on her Singer treadle sewing machine. She might be patching Grandpa’s blue denim overalls. Or piecing scraps of fabric into a quilt. Or sewing long, one-inch-wide strips together for a rug. These fabrics come from old clothes or colorful printed chicken feed sack scraps. While Grandma sews on her machine, I sew with needle and thread. I attach one-inch-wide strips of fabric end-to-end forming a long continuous string which we wind into a ball. After a few months we take our large wound-up balls to a neighbor. She weaves these balls into area rag rugs on her floor loom. Sometime later my ball of fabric is used for my very own rug. Another afternoon Grandma is sitting in her pale-yellow vinyl upholstered chair, near the radio. She listens to her “soaps” while her hands and fingers knit, tat, crochet, or embroider.

Grandma’s hands are always busy, never idle. She may knit a sweater for me. Or tat lace around handkerchiefs. Or embroider tea towels with cute little kittens, one for each day of the week. These towels come from fifty-pound flour sacks, washed, and bleached. She also crochets doilies with yellow or pink flowers. Or creates a pineapple patterned tablecloth for her dining table. The doilies are starched, shaped, pinned, and dried on a towel on the living room green carpet floor. Oh, how pretty! “Uff da.”

It is Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa go to the country Lutheran church. It is quiet on the farm, a day of rest except for milking the cows in the morning and evening. During the afternoon I see Uncle Kenneth and Aunt Betty pull in to visit Grandpa and Grandma. I wait awhile and then I walk over to Grandma’s. I find the four of them around the dining table playing rook or canasta. They are taking turns placing cards down on the table. I listen as they chuckle here and there. They seem to be enjoying the game. Then someone puts down a surprising card and the four of them laugh.

We celebrate Christmas Eve at Grandma’s. There is a strange but an appetizing smell as we enter the house. Tonight, we are anticipating and looking forward to lutefisk. Several aunts, uncles and cousins all gather around the large oval dining table. Grandma serves her lefsa (buttered sugared and folded) along with the lutefisk. There are also white potatoes. And white sauce. And cranberries followed with apple and pumpkin pie. A feast like nonother! “Uff da.”

While Grandma works with nervous energy, Grandpa plods along with his outdoor chores. He comes into the house, washes up, and sits in his upholstered rocker chair. He stares straight ahead, perhaps contemplating the farm. He rubs his nose. I climb into his lap, and he grabs my knee. It tickles and we both laugh. This winter evening, he tells me I’d better run fast when I go home. Otherwise, Jack Frost will catch me and bite me. I believe this. Sometime later I have a vivid dream of Jack Frost chasing me. To this day that image runs through my mind.

In Grandma’s later years, she acquired late onset type II diabetes and heart problems. She died on Christmas day, 1960. We were in California celebrating my other grandparents fiftieth wedding anniversary. At that time, I was thankful to remember Grandma as she was, engaged in her industrious tasks. I am also thankful for my childhood times with Grandma. She taught me perseverance as she lived through very challenging times.