Everything changed after JFK

The childhood of a white suburban kid from a good family was pretty darn good in the fifties. Anyone who was growing up during those times and in that place would most likely agree. They would probably also agree that things changed, the country changed when President Kennedy was assassinated. "Where were you when JFK was shot?" is a question that each person in my generation has the answer to burned into their brain. 

I was in the 6th grade at Parkview Elementary School in Morton Grove. We had just come back from lunch and we were maybe halfway through English class. A class I really did not like. The principal came over the loudspeaker to make an announcement. He said that President Kennedy had been shot and we should all say a prayer for him. Boy, you don't hear that sort of thing in a public school anymore. My teacher just sat down and started crying. That really freaked us out. We didn't know what to make of it. Then the principal said school was closing and we should go home. Go home? That was the plan if they dropped "The Big One". This must be that important. Everyone just quietly packed up their books and ran, I mean ran home. 

When I got home I found my Mom was crying like the world was going to end. All the TV shows had been pre-empted. Our eyes were glued to Walter Cronkite. Then it came. It was announced that he had died. The newscasters were teary and shaken up.The handsome young president was gone and we watched his wife in her pink suit stained with his blood, her son John Jr. saluting the coffin. It was surreal and scary. 

The rest of the sixties, all I remember is turmoil. The death of Robert Kennedy, death of Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, race riots and burning down neighborhoods, the war in Vietnam. Just chaos and upheaval everywhere it seemed. What was happening in the world? The government was no longer to be trusted.  In a way it was the end of the world. Our world. Our ideal suburban, white priviledged world of the fifties was gone. It had never occurred to us kids that most Americans had never been a part of Ozzie and Harriet's world anyway.

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President Kennedy's remains lie in state in the Capital building rotunda

Ancestral Farm Stuskin by Norgeskart

I have written a page about my grandfathers family's ancestral home, Stuskin. You can click on the tab above or view the story of grandfather Paul Sevald's ancestral home HERE.

Now thanks to NORGESKART, it can be located exactly on the map. East coordinate 337201.498 and North coordinate 7076646.244

Click HERE to go directly to the ancestral family farm Stuskin on NORGESKART  to get to know exactly where the family farm is. Zoom in closer and closer until you can actually see the name of the street it is now on. There is lots of information there about the area. Sure, it is in Norwegian. But isn't that what GOOGLE TRANSLATE  is for?

I had never seen this before and I have to give a big thanks to Martin Roe Eidhammer, Jana Last and Beth Gatlin and their blogs.  These blogs are worth bookmarking (I have) if you are interested in Norwegian genealogy/heritage and all things Norwegian or family history related.

→  Norwegian Genealogy and then some  

       Genealogy, history and culture from Norway

→  Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog

→  So Many Ancestors!

Nils Gundersen Øvald

Nils Gundersen @1898

My Great Grandfather Nils Gundersen Øvald was the father of my maternal grandmother Dagmar Gundersen Sevald. On the parish record of his marriage he is noted to be a sailor. My grandmother spoke of him being away from home for long periods of time but always returning with gifts from foreign places.

Skipper Nils Gundersen @1930

He later was the ship captain on the Union III. A steam powered smaller ship that traveled with goods, from Skien, at the head of the Telemark Canal,  through the canal and on to Oslo and back again. These next pictures were sent to me from a 5th cousin in Norway. He was in contact with another cousin of mine who I believe would be a second or third cousin. They appear to be from a book or newsprint. I have searched but am unable to find the origin of these photos. It appears from the photos that some of his crew were his sons and sons in law.

The Telemark Canal was relatively recent at this time. It was used not only for delivering goods but sending logs downstream. Cut out of mountainous Norway it had 18 locks.  The difference in elevation from Skien to Dalen was 236 feet. You can read more about the Telemark Canal HERE.

my Great Grandfather

Nils Gundersen Øvald

b: 13 September 1875 Eidanger, Telemark, Norway

d: 02 February 1961 Skien, Telemark, Norway

**click on pictures to enlarge for easier viewing**

Cabbage, Sweat and Mothballs

 I am going to tell you about an odor or scent that is so wonderful and makes me so happy and feel so secure and loved I could cry. I did some research into that just in case I was crazy or something but  science says that it is true. It's called odor-evoked biographical memory. The sense of smell is processed by our brain differently than other senses are.  Certain scents or smells can bring up memories, most often of our early childhood. There is no easier way to describe it so here goes. The smell that brings to me such joy is the combined scents of cabbage, mothballs and sweat. I know, I know that sounds awful but let me explain. That was what, as a child, I thought my grandmother smelled like. 

In Chicago, Grandma mostly lived in those large apartment buildings you would see on the corner. Those old buildings were dark and musty and in the halls there hung the smell of cabbage cooking. Seems to me immigrant grandmothers of all European extraction were forever cooking cabbage. Grandma also knitted Scandinavian-style raglan sleeve sweaters. She wore hers until the hottest Chicago day and then she stored hers in a chest, in mothballs. Grandma was not a dirty woman but I clearly remember my mother trying to give her a roll-on Tussy deodorant. She did not understand why she would need that! 

Grandma was a rock. No matter what happened you knew you would be okay because Grandma would figure out what to do. My Mom was a sweetheart but easily brought to tears. My grandfather was the same. I never quite understood or appreciated that. But.....If everyone else was boo-hooing or praying and wringing their hands, or pointing fingers. Grandma would get down to business. "We have to make a plan"  she would say. "It will be alright, you can do it, Ranae , I know what you are like, you are strong like me".

I would go up the stairs to her third floor apartment (she always liked to live on the top floor "where the sun is") and in the hallway I could hear my Grandpa playing his Norwegian records and singing softly. Grandma, in the hot kitchen, would turn and when she saw me would throw up her hands like seeing me was a wonderful surprise. She would brush the curly tendrils of hair off her sweaty forehead. She then wiped her hands on the apron that covered her printed dress, threw out her arms and pulled me tightly into her ample breast. I would close my eyes and inhale deeply. There was the smell. The smell of Grandma. The smell of love, of acceptance, of security, of everything that was good in my world. The smell of cabbage, mothballs and sweat.

my Grandma, on her back porch in Chicago

Saturday Mornings with Daddy

Daddy, my sister and me

Like most familys in the 50's we had just one car and for a time we did not have a car at all because my Dad drove a company truck. My mother would do her shopping on Saturday morning when the car was available. She would take my younger sister with her but my Dad would say, "Ranae stays at home to help me around the house". Looking back, at 7 or 8 years old, how much help was I? But I felt very Important, proud and thought I was big help. Dad would be working around our house repairing, doing a little maintenance etc in our apartment or the one below. I followed proudly right behind him carrying his screwdriver or plunger or whatever so I could hand it to him at the appropriate time. When Mom was home he was the disciplinarian as in "wait till your father comes home, you tell him what you did". He could on those occasions be pretty harsh. On Saturday mornings though it was different. He would call me "firstborn" and we would laugh, tell jokes and talk. He would ask me about my school and friends. He would ask my advice on the particular job he was doing. "What color should I paint this firstborn?" "Should I put another nail in here, firstborn?" And he would listen carefully to me like I had an important opinion. "Good thinking firstborn" he would say with a pat on my back. 

"Mom is coming home soon lets have something good to eat." We would share a can of chili or his other favorite was corn beef hash that he would slice and fry in a pool of bacon grease. The same bacon grease grandma saved in a coffee can. "Don't tell Mom", he would say, "she doesn't understand good eating." And it was good, Saturday mornings back then were real good.

Sirianna Olsdatter

This rather stern looking gal is my third great aunt Sirianna Olsdatter Stuskin. I came across her photo in a bygdebok (family history) of Verdal Nord-Trøndelag Norway. It is always a thrill to come across a photo of an ancestor that you have never before seen. Of course, ideally I would have liked to find a photo of her sister, Karen Maria Olsdatter. Karen Maria, you see, is my great great grandmother on my grandfather Paul's side. Since they are sisters I suppose I can guess that they had similiar features. Sirianna does seem to have kind eyes and as she is fairly elderly in this photo her eyes seem to reflect the many years of heartache and happiness she has most likely seen. In days before all the medical advances we now have she made it to 96 years of age!

Sirianna was the second child and second daughter of Ole Olsen 1792-1873 and Anna Olsdatter 1806-1895, who were my 3rd great grandparents. She had one sister, my 2nd great grandmother Karen Maria 1828-1896, and one brother, Ole Olsen who unfortunately died just after birth in 1841. She married Johannes Andersen-Stuskin 1830-1929 in 1864 and they had three daughters, Anna Kristine 1865-1947,Olina 1868-1917 and Mette 1871-1932. She and her husband lived on Stuskin West while her sister Karen Maria and husband Sevald lived on Stuskin East, right next door to each other.  Perhaps she assisted her sister at the birth of my great grandfather, Anders Sevaldsen. my grandfather Paul's father. I can only guess.

my third great aunt

Sirianna Olsdatter Stubskin

b: 21 Oct 1835 Verdal, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway

d: 18 Apr 1931 Verdal, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway

When they drop "THE BIG ONE"

Growing up in the 50's and 60's was pretty good if you ask me. But it wasn't all "leave it to Beaver" perfect either.  This was the height of the Cold War. We all knew how World War II ended with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and now it seemed it was a race to see who could get the most and biggest nuclear bombs. The "Evil, Communist, Godless, Red, Russians" were coming to get us. I remember distinctly this film clip they showed us in school and on the TV over and over. It was black and white film of a nuclear bomb going off. You saw the big mushroom cloud and then you saw a house and trees first blow over to the ground and then just disappear into oblivion.

People wanted to be prepared because any day now the Russians might drop the "BIG ONE". We would have these  drop and cover drills. In the suburban Chicago town we lived in various public buildings would have a Civil Defense sign on it. That meant that was where you were supposed to run to if you were away from home and they dropped the "BIG ONE". Every Tuesday at 10:30 they would sound the air raid sirens as a drill. If the sirens went off any other time you were supposed to head to one of these shelters or to the lowest place in your home, like the basement. Like being in the basement of the library was going to save you in a Hiroshima-like blast? If the sirens did not go off and you saw a flash of light you were supposed to drop into a ditch at the side of the road and cover your head. That assumed you weren't looking in the direction of the blast. Kids told me if you saw the blast that your eyeballs would melt and your skin would fall off. Plus, I don't recall ever seeing a ditch in our suburb, only tree lined streets of new construction.

We had drills at school where you ducked under your desk or we all went into the hall laying down against the wall face down. I guessed face down was so your eyeballs wouldn't melt.

"dropping and ducking" under the desks at school

Home preparations did not make much more sense either. My Mom made my Dad fix an old toilet in the basement in case we had to go there. She also had a barrel of sand and potatoes down there. If you are going to make it in the aftermath of a nuclear war I guess potatoes are a necessity? She also took a first aid course at the park district. I read the booklet they gave her and it spoke of radiation poisoning and some of the other awful things that could happen to a person if they even survived the blast. If you had enough money you could build a personal air raid shelter below your house, stocked with everything you needed (potatoes?) to survive the blast and wait out the falling radiation. Years later when the people on the corner sold their house we found out they had built a secret shelter below their basement. My Mom and the neighborhood ladies were just beside themselves, "Can you believe they would save themselves and lock us all out to die of radiation poisoning and starvation?" I remember thinking to myself, oh yeah Mom you were going to share your potatoes?

My grandmother always said you assess a situation and then you should make a plan. So I did. I believed that it was a pretty good possibility the Reds would bomb us. Chicago, being a major city, of course would be a target. If I survived the blast in suburbia I did not think it logical that being in the basement of our apartment building  would save my eyeballs or keep my skin from falling off. How long could a family of 6 survive on a barrel of potatoes anyway? What would life be like if you were all alone, your friends and extended family members all dead? Besides the Russians were smart. They could attack us on a Tuesday morning at 10:30 and everyone would think it was just a drill. My plan? When the sirens went off I intended to run into the street and let the blast, just like the film clip they showed us, blow me over and obliterate me on the spot. Easy peasy way to go. When I told my Mom I wasn't going in the basement with her...........she cried.