52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 8): Family Photo

The Girl Inside My Mother

My mother, Doris (right), with her Aunt Stella in March 1969.  El Cerrito, CA.

I recently ran across a photo I had not seen in many years.  My mom, Doris, kept it tucked away in a small album that contained mostly photos of garden roses and cacti or succulent plants she had nurtured to astounding size and health (she had a green thumb).  The photo dates back to March 1969, and it is of Mom sitting at our dining room table with one of her maternal aunts.  A special birthday cake made around the torso of a doll is displayed on the table in front of them.  It is a simple image, made with the early color film that ended up fading too easily, shot with a prized possession of the 1960s, a Kokak Instamatic camera.

What is special about this photo is the completely relaxed and happy look on my mother's face.  The cake was in honor of her 49th birthday which occurred that St. Patrick's Day.  Mom was shy and reserved.  She was always a worrier, and never felt totally comfortable being on the receiving end of a camera.  But, this special moment meant so much to her that we can just see her appreciation spilling over in that smile.  It is the same living-in-the-moment happiness she certainly experienced as a child growing up on a farm.  This carefree contentment did not show on her face very often, but it did manage to get captured in a few photos over the course of her lifetime.  At the time this photo was taken, her happiness was about more than just birthday cake.  It had to do with being next to the woman on her right, my grandmother's youngest sister, Stella (Berge) Schuster.

In early 1969, Mom's Aunt Stella traveled from Minnesota to the Bay Area for a rare visit, along with another aunt, Clarice (Berge) Gunzberger, and her husband, Sol Gunzberger.  It was the first time and only time I ever remember meeting any of my grandmother's siblings.  It was a mild March in the Bay Area--the sun was shining and the lovely Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard was in full bloom, with large whitish-pink petals scattered about the lawn.

My maternal grandmother, Esther (Berge) Johnson, passed away in Minnesota from tuberculosis before my mother turned two years of age.  It was a devastating loss for Mom and her sister, Phyllis.  Although the little sisters were well cared for by family members, they grew up without a mother to nurture and defend them.  The girls were sent to live with their paternal grandparents, and since Esther's family lived in another town, Mom did not get to see the maternal (Berge) side of her family very often.

Esther Johnson with her baby, Doris, in 1920.

When Mom became an adult and left her paternal grandparents' farm, she moved in with her Aunt Stella in St. Paul, Minnesota and found a job.  Shortly after, she followed other relatives to California, although truth be told, she would rather have stayed in Minnesota.  She enjoyed living with her maternal aunt in St. Paul and getting to know her better.  One time, I asked Mom who of her relatives she thought I was most like, and she said it was Stella.  I was flattered, since Stella, who had worked as a nurse, was quiet, kind, and sensitive.  She was the type of aunt that I, too, wished I could have spent more time with.

Is it any wonder that this particular photograph captures Mom's face in a rare moment of unfettered happiness?  Stella and Clarice brought along so many pleasant memories and feelings to the reunion.  They were close blood kin to Mom's own mother, and it was almost as if Esther had come along, too.  Through the eyes, voices, and arms of her younger sisters, Esther returned to Earth once more to reassure her baby girl--my mother, Doris.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 1): First

First

The challenge for the beginning week of Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 "52 Ancestors in 52 weeks" has to do with "firsts," appropriately enough.  The inspiration that immediately came to mind was to write about my first relative on this Earth:  my mother, Doris.

Doris with Chery (age 2)

This is so important for me to write, yet so difficult.  I went through life never being able to accept that I would one day lose my mother.  In March of last year, she was hospitalized with a flu virus.  Although she recovered, she passed away from the complications of vascular dementia on August 3rd.  She lived a long life, spanning ninety-eight years, but I will never be one to say that it was long enough.  I feel like there were still so many firsts that we had yet to experience together, in addition to repetitions of comforting habits and traditions.  Out of necessity, I have gone through many "firsts" over the past months, including the first time I have helped a loved one through the end-of-life process; the first time I have spent my birthday, as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas, without a mother to share in them; my first up-close and personal experience with profound loss and deep grief, and more.  So many heartfelt and lonely firsts.  No matter how much loving support you have at times like this, you must navigate certain dark waters on your own.

As Mom's eldest child, I provided her with many of her own "firsts":  a first pregnancy; the first worrisome ride to the hospital for delivery; the first pains of motherhood (childbirth was only the beginning!); the first time she ever had to care for another individual "24-7";  the first time she ever heard the word "Mama" spoken to her; a first case of measles, a first day of kindergarten, the first time she had to begin letting go of a child who had become an adult, a first grandchild, and so on.

Mom grew up on a Norwegian-American farm near the small town of Leonard in northern Minnesota.  She cherished her rural upbringing and never wanted to leave.  But leave she did, as circumstances required.  At age twenty-five, immediately following the end of World War II, she reluctantly made her way to the west coast with an aunt.  The train was so crowded with military personnel that the only place they could sit was next to the bathroom, atop their suitcases.  As might be expected, during the last weeks of her life she often returned to the little farm of her youth, reliving the best parts of her memories.

It is in large part thanks to Mom that I appreciate history, genealogy, and family history.  As I grew, she took the time to share stories about the people and places of her childhood.  It was much like being exposed to sporadic installments of a historical novel.  Together with the family photos, letters, and cards that appeared in the mail on holidays or birthdays, these stories deposited themselves inside a mental treasure box that I did not find the key to open until I became older.

My mother was always the first to anticipate my fears and worries, and also my particular joys and abilities.  She was the first to correct, guide, comfort, and defend me.  She understood me.  And, she will always remain first in my heart.

Happy Birthday to Mom!



Bill and Doris Wheeler as newlyweds in 1954

This photo was taken shortly after my parents were married, on the steps of the duplex they shared in Berkeley, California for a few months before purchasing their own house.  Today, Mom is celebrating her 93rd birthday, and I would like to share this poem in her honor.


A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday

by Henry Van Dyke


Lord Jesus, Thou hast known
A mother's love and tender care:
And Thou wilt hear, while for my own
Mother most dear I make this birthday prayer.

Protect her life, I pray,
Who gave the gift of life to me;
And may she know, from day to day,
The deepening glow of Life that comes from Thee.

As once upon her breast
Fearless and well content I lay,
So let her heart, on Thee at rest,
Feel fears depart and troubles fade away.

Her every wish fulfill;
And even if Thou must refuse
In anything, let Thy wise will
A comfort bring such as kind mothers use.

Ah, hold her by the hand,
As once her hand held mine;
And though she may not understand
Life's winding way, lead her in peace divine.
I cannot pay my debt
For all the love that she has given;
But Thou, love's Lord, wilt not forget
Her due reward,--bless her in earth and heaven.      

The Dirty Thirties: No Easy Street, Part II

How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?

My grandfather's family was, almost unamiously, stubborn and proud: not so proud that they would not help one another, but proud enough that they would never have accepted outright charity. When Franklin Roosevelt's legislation resulted in the Social Security Administration and unemployment insurance began in 1935, it would have been a "foreign" idea to my Norwegian-American relations. I'm sure they eventually got used to the idea, but if there was a way to survive, unemployed, and not burden anyone but close family, they would have certainly have preferred that to being "on the dole."[1]

President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (renamed the Work Projects Administration in 1939) officially began with the passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. It served as a continuation of relief programs similar to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) started in 1932 by Herbert Hoover and the U.S. Congress. Both programs were meant to provide the means for many out-of-work individuals to bring home a wage and put food on the table, though the WPA--part of FDR's New Deal--would be much more succesful.

Even before the RFC or WPA, a large scale project came into being in the midwest that provided over 20,000 with temporary work at the beginning of the Depression era. My grandfather, Ernest Johnson, was one of the lucky hopefuls who were not turned away for the building of the Bagnell Dam in central Missouri. The trip out from Minnesota was neither too far nor too ardous when the promise of months of wages were at stake during the 1930s.

I do not know exactly how long Grampa worked at the site, or even what type of work he did, but the construction of Bagnell Dam was begun during the later half of 1929 and completed in 1931. The following images are from 1931 postcards that my grandfather brought home to Leonard, Minnesota to give to my mother and aunt as keepsakes.

Bagnell Dam, Missouri, in 1931 (Postcard #1)

Bagnell Dam, Missouri, 1931 (Postcard #2)

Records show more than 20,000 people worked on the project at one time or another. Although there were some steam shovels and other powered equipment, most labor was done by hand. Pay rates for construction workers were as low as 35 cents an hour. But during the Depression era, when a person could be hired for farm work for 50 cents a day, workers were glad to make the wage.
The project was truly massive. Nearly 60,000 acres of land had to be acquired, and about 30,000 acres cleared of trees and brush. One million cubic yards of earth and rock had to be moved. Enough concrete was poured to build an 18-foot-wide highway from St. Louis to Topeka, Kansas. Enough carloads of material were used in the dam to fill a freight train stretching from St. Louis to Tulsa, Oklahoma. [2]

For more information and photographs, see also the interactive online book, The History of Bagnell Dam, at the Lake of the Ozarks website.

I wish I had specific stories about the time my grandfather spent at the Bagnell Dam, but these personal memories and observations are lost to history. I am sure he told a few tales to his brothers and nephews, but they did not filter down to my mother and aunt--his own daughters. Perhaps if they had been sons instead, Ernest would have shared a few yarns with them, if only to see their eyes open wide in fear or amazement. But, since the Johnson girls did not live in the same house as their father, and they were not of the same gender, my mother and aunt missed out on a lot of the tales of male bravado. Girls were apparently meant to be protected and be useful in earning their keep. Although Ernest Johnson brought his daughters chocolate, treats, small gifts, and even pets upon occasion, he apparently did not spend a lot of time talking to them about his past. What a pity!
If my grandfather were alive today, I would not let him get away from the table without telling me a story or two. When I knew him, I was too young to be assertive (he died when I was 16), and I did not even know what to ask at the time. You know how they say that youth is wasted on the young? I'm afraid so, especially when it comes to genealogy.
In the late 1930s, Ernest Johnson again left his farm in rural Clearwater County, Minnesota, to work on the construction of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam near Las Vegas, Nevada--a bona fide WPA project.

To be continued in Part III


[1] "On the dole": a giving of food, money, or clothing to the needy; a grant of government funds to the unemployed.
[2] History of Bagnell Dam

The Dirty Thirties: No Easy Street

Ernest Johnson Begins Farming

During the Depression era, independent farmers like my maternal grandfather, Ernest Johnson, found it increasingly difficult to earn a living from planting and harvesting, and frequently supplemented their income through other work. The following story tells how he coped and managed to keep his small farm through difficult economic times in the 1920s and 1930s.

Ernest and Esther Johnson in March 1917.
Fosston, Polk County, Minnesota.

My Grampa Johnson was a farmer in rural Minnesota from 1914-1945. Like his nine brothers and sisters, Ernest Johnson had a Norwegian accent all of his life, even though he and his siblings were all born in America. English was something primarily used at school and social functions, while Norwegian was spoken at home. Upon leaving his parents' farm in 1914, Ernest purchased a plot of land about three miles outside of Leonard, Minnesota in Clearwater County, where Mississippi headwaters trickle from Lake Itasca, mirroring lush pines and running crisp and clear on the long journey to the Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. When Ernest married Esther Agnes Berge on March 22, 1917, he brought his shy, deferential, and bespectacled bride to live on that small farm. In a little clapboard farmhouse with one room up and one room down, my aunt and mother were born, in 1918 and 1920, respectively.




The farmhouse where my mother was born near Leonard, Minnesota, ca. 1920.



Ernest Johnson lived down the road from his parents and some of his siblings. For many years, the creed among farmers, including his grandparents as Norwegian-American homesteaders, was that neighbor helped neighbor, and especially, family helped family. Family is the main reason Ernest's parents left behind a picturesque and productive farm in the green and forest-rimmed fields outside Fosston in Polk County, so that they could follow him and his older brother, Bennett, to Leonard, over twenty miles away. Keeping the family together was not only ideal, but prudent, especially when there was hard labor to be done on a regular basis.

Though the newlyweds were off to a good start, Ernest and Esther's marriage was tragically short. Before their younger daughter celebrated her second birthday, Esther fell mortally ill with tuberculosis and died in January 1922. As per their mother's deathbed request, the young girls were sent to live with their paternal grandparents down the road, Ole M. and Malla Johnson, in order to be close to their father as they grew. It was painfully obvious that Ernest would not have the time nor resources to care for his two young daughters as long as perpetual and solitary work awaited him in the fields. And, what of the autumn and winters, when he must travel here and there to bring in some kind of income? No, it was far better that the little tow-headed girls, Phyllis and Doris, be watched over by their grandparents and a maiden aunt, Mabel, who could help supervise them and make their clothing.

Phyllis and Doris Johnson, Sept. 1921.

Once again a bachelor, Ernest applied himself to whatever would bring in enough money to pay the bills and buy seed. He helped on his parents' and brothers' farms, grew what small crops he could, and took pleasure in training and caring for his horses. Ernest's young nephews and their friends delighted in visiting someone who was "batching it." They could also ride horses away from the critical eyes of their mothers, and Ernest helped their fun along with some of his tricks. His horses were trained to stop dead in their tracks when he snapped his fingers, which sometimes left young riders clinging frantically to whatever they could, like real bronco busters. Ernest Johnson's farm was also a place where boys might find some privacy to steal a taste of their first cigar, or make successful raids on the cooky jar without the usual repercusions at home. Ernest may have been a longtime widower, but he knew how to fend for himself in the kitchen. He made his own doughnuts and canned apples, peaches, and other fruit... and he always kept the cooky jar full, too.

Ernest Johnson shows off his prized team of horses, Tony and Birdie.
My grandfather was very fond of this photograph, taken on his farm
near Leonard, Minnesota, May 2, 1943.

Whenever he could, Ernest Johnson raised sheep and planted seed crops such as flax, clover, and alfalfa, using only horses and a plow. He hunted game and fished to supplement both his larder and his income. He often traveled away from Leonard to help with late summer harvests in the fields of South Dakota and also drove drays for logging companies in the forests of northern Minnesota--hiring himself out however he could. He was often away from home for months at a time, leaving family and neighbors to tend to his livestock, and he returned such favors for them. Truth be told, he even attempted a little bootlegging on the side, but it was thankfully a short-lived venture that ended when others blew up the still during his absence.

With the onset of the 20th Century and increased industry, family-run farms began to struggle. Ernest's father, Ole M. Johnson, had made a success out of his own farm without once using a tractor, but he'd had decades of early midwestern development to build upon his success and reputation. For Ernest's generation, when so many small farms reached for a foothold in existing markets, independence by farming was harder to achieve, especially when the stock market crash of 1929 darkened the forseeable future. When the money was gone and seasonal jobs were harder to find, Ernest Johnson, bachelor farmer, began to look long and hard at new federal programs created by President Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and the promise of jobs with the Work Projects Administration (WPA). Unemployment insurance would not become available until after 1935, but even then, many farmers who were independently employed were not eligible for the "Dole," as it was often called.


To be continued in Part II...