The Women of Yesteryear
Stories of Yesteryear's Women
The stories listed below are from a discussion on the Smultron.com mail list. As you will note, some reflections are made of women in the United States and others from Sweden and Norway. They remain as told on the mail list, that is without editing.
I wish not to go into an editorial on what life was like for women in the past and compare it against today's woman, or what it is like for women in one country opposed to another. There is enough of that on television, in newspapers and magazines. The key is respect and love. I believe these stories prove just that.
My thanks to everyone who has allowed me to print these stories. They are not all up , but check back soon for more. If you have a story about your mother or grandmother you would like to share, please e-mail me.
My mother at age fifteen, 1927, was boarded out with a Long Beach, CA, family. She was very unhappy with her situation. Her foster family had pulled her out of school, and forced her into being a nanny and house servant. She managed to save some money, then ran away. Police, private detectives, ticket agents, were all alerted to look for a minor female leaving town, but too late. What no one suspected, Mother had disguised herself as a boy and had already hitch hiked out of the LA area. She was going to Alaska, a place she read much about and dreamed of seeing for herself.
While thumbing for a ride near the CA - OR border, a large touring car passed her. Then the same car turned around and returned to pick her up. What Mom didn't know until later was that the two men in the car made a five dollar bet as to whether she was a boy or girl. Their destination was Portland, but before they let her off, they took her to a hiring agency and directed that she be given a flunky job at the Weyerhaeuser camp at Rainier Oregon. Before leaving her, they told her about the bet. Later Mom realized that the "W" monogram on their luggage was the Weyerhaeuser family initial.
Mother was a natural at her new job that required speed and dexterity. One would first think that a young woman working around these crude, rough men would be exposed to many unpleasant situations. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Loggers of that time and place were always gentlemen toward ladies, and were very protective of the female employees. Any new man who got out of line with the ladies was quickly and, if necessary, forcefully corrected.
Mothers first pay check was spent on a fine Kodak camera. For the rest of her life, she was never without her cameras. I have hundreds of photos of those logging camps. Pictures of the trains, skidders, spar trees, and cook houses scenes. More pictures of the loggers and people she worked with, and of herself. Pictures of her, while off work, wearing boots and jeans, often with a fishing pole and showing off a string of trout. I have pictures of a chipmunk she tamed. It lived in her jacket pocket. Another picture of her and a coworker holding a pair of bear cubs. Imagine; a California city girl, gone wild. It wasn't Alaska, but that could wait.
After several years, my parents met and married. Mother quit working to stay home and raise her children. After we children were grown up and gone, Mom finally realized her life's dream. Dad took a Cook/Baker job at an Alaska logging site, and Mother was hired as his assistant. She packed up her camera, boots, and fishing rod for the next ten years roamed the Alaskan bush until Dad retired. My sister and I have thousands of her photos taken of Alaskan logging camps, people, animals, and Alaskan scenery. Mother and Father spent their next twenty-five years of retirement, traveling the country, fishing, camping, and taking more pictures. Mother died at home on 9 May 1993, Mother's Day. Walt
I was born after the Depression and things were still financially tight for our family of five. We lived in an urban setting with city blocks, sidewalks and streets. My Norwegian mother did not work outside of the home, which was my Swedish father's wish.
Our garden was small, so produce was purchased from local farmers. A neighbor lady had chickens, and the milk was delivered with cream at the top, which was scooped off and made into butter. My dad fished local coastal streams and we all clammed and crabbed the beaches and canned the excess "catch." Fruit was hand picked from local orchard and canned or made into jams, and jellies, preserves and fresh pies. We put up dills, bread and had fresh baked desserts nightly. We always ate dinner together at the dining room table on real plates, never lacking for food and guests were always offered food at all hours of the day, frequently to my youthful embarrassment. Seems we were always eating or cooking.
We owned one car, so my dad took the "trolley" to work and mom kept the car for errands. We walked to school and later rode bikes. Mom was always home for us. She sewed all my clothes, and hers, wore a "house dress" and strange "foundation garments." She paid the bills, managed the household finances and in her spare time tended to her mother who lived with us for years. I think she truly enjoyed her position and delighted in her family with much pride and love. She was a little, bitty thing with boundless energy and a big smile. She lived to be 94. Nan
My grandmother, Lydia Linstrum Lunberg, was a college graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She taught in Texas before her marriage and in Chicago after her marriage in 1911. After my mother came, she devoted her life to being a minister's wife, but was always at functions - so it was like a job and I believe she considered it as such.
My mother, Ruth Lundberg Lindquist, had some college training, but was not a graduate. During World War II she worked as a secretary for Rock Island Railroad. During that time I lived with my mother's parents on their farm. Grandpa continued as a minister and I went with my grandmother to quilting bees and other functions.
After the end of the war, I went back to live with my parents. Mom didn't work again on a regular basis, though I think she did occasionally. I think she really missed working. Cheryl
My Swedish women ancestors all worked. My morfarmor (b. 1855) was trained at the Seraphimer hospital (I think I've got that correct) in Stockholm as a midwife, we think. She didn't marry until her late 30's and then emigrated to the prairies of Canada in about 1892. Although I'm sure she worked hard on the farm, she also delivered all the babies in the countryside.
My mormor was a tailor. She left Sweden, single at 26, determined to marry an American. She worked as a maid for the rich cousin who paid for her passage, then moved to Nebraska and opened a tailor shop. She married (a Swedish immigrant which was probably OK since he was an American citizen), and in quick succession, her husband died and her daughter was born. I think she sold the tailor shop to move closer to her sister and family in Alberta. She worked for about 10 years as a housekeeper for the family of the midwife above after she died and finally married one of the sons. After that, grandma continued to work hard as a farm wife. It always sounded to me like that work was boring to her. I think she would have been happier now with the option to work outside of the home. She was a very capable and creative woman. She even made a sleigh in the kitchen which the family used for years for going to town (about 10 miles).
My take on the women's work thing is that in centuries past women worked hard doing all the housework and farm stuff and didn't have the option to do anything else unless they were wealthy enough to have servants to do all the drudgery and/or lived in an urban setting where there were more options. They were also restricted because, in some areas, girls could not receive an education. Even so, women found ways to make money as a sideline (music lessons, sewing, selling eggs, baking, etc.). Now with all the labor saving devices for laundry, cooking, food preservation, etc., women have more options. Terri
I was born in Kansas in 1935 on a very small farm. Both my parents worked at making a living on the farm and keeping food on the table. Mom helped with the farm work as well as all the household chores, raising two children and in later years took care of her Mother for 16 years. Staying home was not a luxury... it was a way of life that was not easy...it was necessary. I learned to drive by hauling wheat during harvest. My brother and I did not have time to get in trouble with the caring of livestock, going to school, field work and etc. Phyllis
My grandmother, Johanna Nylander, came to America in 1904, from Sweden at age 18, because and I quote, "I did not want to be a poor farm girl." She worked as a meat cook for a family in New Jersey, and laughed about the first time the mistress of the house gave her orders. She said it sounded like chicken talk.
She met a German immigrant, whom dreamed of going to California. He persuaded her to meet him in Oklahoma. Johanna and brother Peter Gustoff took the train to Claremore, Oklahoma in January of 1909. Charles Rauch and Johanna were married when she got off the train and then headed to for Tulsa, which is about 30 miles away. They were robbed on the way and lost all their money. Therefore, they never left Tulsa. Johanna pleaded with Charles to take her back to Karney, N. J. That was the America she had dreamed of, with it's Trolley cars and paved streets, not the mud streets of Tulsa.
Charles Gottieb Rauch, my artistic grandfather found Tulsa much more exciting. Johanna managed to provide for eight boys during the depression, by cooking, washing, cleaning and all those other necessary duties required by anyone raising a family. She was diagnosed with TB of the hip in the early 30`s, was in a body cast for five years, and confined to bed. This was long before homes in Tulsa were air conditioned, during our less comfortable summers. She was told she would never walk again. My parents were married at her house because she could not get out of bed in 1937. This powerful woman walked again, faced the stress of five of her eight boys surviving in World War II, flew to Florida and N.J. several times to visit her brothers and sisters, who also came to America. Charles died in 1951; Johanna lived alone until she had a stroke in the fall of 1963. She died in 1965. We have movies of her dancing the jig on her 84th birthday in July. She loved life and America and believed her life was a piece of cake in comparison to what it would have been had she stayed in Sweden.
My mother was also a stay at home mother. My parents only had two children. I was born in 1946 and I had a brother born in 1951. My mother is Rh negative, and due to a laboratory tech error, my brother was not transfused at birth, as was the procedures in the 50's. When the oversight was caught, 24 hours after his birth, and he was transfused, they saved his life. However, the only muscle control he had was his eyes. The doctors advised my parents to give him up and have another child, because they did not know if he could see, hear, or would live past a year. They did not take the advice, and my brother lived fifteen years. My parents did a wonderful job with the obligation that comes with this type of responsibility. My mother took care of an infant for 15 years. John David was a blessing in all of our lives. All things being equal, if the same situation would happen today, my parents would have accessible the many kinds of assistance that were not obtainable in the 50's and 60's.
I remember thinking, as a child, that I was going to be a working mother. Looking around at my friends, whose moms worked outside the home, life seemed much easier. Or maybe I am just domestically impaired. As we have a way of producing self fulfilling prophecy, in our lives I was a single parent from the time my daughter was 3. Life was not always easy; we ate a lot of tuna casserole. I cannot count the number of times I was about to crawl on that pity pot. However, instead I would sit myself down and remind myself of my family history.
If these women managed to live through situations much more difficult than what I was facing, then I could certainly live through this dilemma at hand. Americans love to glamorize history, remembering only the good, and ignoring the bad. We need to remember, "if it does not kill us, it will make us stronger." We are the result of those survivors. Mary Ann
Cemeteries/Cottar/Funerals/Surnames/To Protect & Serve/
You Bet Cemetery/Walton Family/Women of Yesteryear/Zimmerman Family