Monday

The Park Pool

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One activity we just loved in the summer was going to the park district pool.  I would walk over to the pool with my girlfriend or met one of my friends there. I have never been a great swimmer but as good as most probably were and we sure had fun. Those days there was no such thing as the ADA etc. and pools were big and deep. There would be a little pool for toddlers and their mothers but the main pool had swimming lanes, high metal slides (that burned your butt if it was hot out and you were the first one down) and diving boards of three different dizzying heights. The teenaged lifeguards watched out for you and every hour pulled everyone out for a 10 minute break.

 You see, because I am a redhead my Mom had her rules. She would let me swim only in the morning and later in the afternoon. She was concerned about me getting burned. My brother and sister were as blond as could be but they would get a nice golden tan while I just burned and peeled, burned and peeled. She didn't therefore worry as much about them as me. If I wasn't a big enough Nerd already with my noseplugs and pre-requisite swim cap, Mom made me go with zinc oxide on my nose, shoulders and cheeks in addition to sun tan lotion. Seeing how I was nearsighted to boot she made me wear an old pair of glasses broken and taped together at the bridge so "the good expensive ones don't get stolen in the field house". Like people steal glasses because they WANT to look like nerds? I don't think so. The worst is yet to come. She sent me with a big T shirt of my Dad's I was supposed to wear over my swimsuit! I left that in the field house after i first used it to rub some of the zinc oxide off. I mostly got away with that except for the days that a friend of Mom's worked the concession stand. Mom would call her in advance to watch out for me and remind me to put the shirt on. How humiliating! Oh boy what a sight I must have been with the T shirt down to my pasty white skinny legs, frizzy red hair sticking out of the swim cap, broken glasses and nose plugs on my zinc oxide white nose. But it was big fun anyway. 

Look!!! Caught a fish!!!

Here's something I bet for sure they don't do at park district pools any more. At the end of the summer season on the last day the pool was open they filled the pool with thousands of live goldfish. Each kid got a cup and you could keep all the goldfish you caught! What a great idea!  Come to think of it the fish never seemed to last long. I suppose they weren't meant to swim in chlorine any more than we were meant to swim in fish poop. I never heard of anyone getting sick though and it sure was fun.








p.s. Turns out Mom did know best. Now that we are older many of my friends with the much envied sun-kissed golden tans are dealing with all sorts of skin issues due to their sun worship. Me, the redhead? So far so good, still pasty white. Thanks Mom!

Fun in Chicago


When I was a kid, living in Chicago, my parents would take my sister and me to various fun activities. We went to Riverview, a fun old time amusement park that closed unexpectedly when I was about 8. We went to the museums and I don't know how much it cost to get in but I bet it was way cheaper than the entrance fees today. The Field museum scared me, all these stuffed animals in glass cases. The Shedd Aquarium was okay but how many fish can you look at? And Dad agreed with me. It was right on the lake though and sitting outside eating a peanut butter sandwich sitting in Daddy's lap was the best. The museum of Science and Industry was my favorite. You could see baby chicks hatching, fetuses in bottles of formaldehyde, a giant heart you could walk through, and the coal mine. Big fun for a kid. One year my sister who had run up the stairs to the second floor ahead of us turned and yelled “look Mom”. She stuck out her tongue, put it on the brass railing and ran back down the stairs. My Mom nearly had a heart attack. She couldn't have been more than 5 and most likely wouldn't remember it but let me tell you it was the highlight of that visit for me!

The best activities were those that really didn't cost much of anything except maybe a little gas in the car. Activities that maybe don't sound like much now but boy we sure enjoyed it. Taking the toboggan over to the Jensen slides after a snowstorm. Going to Buckingham fountain to see the lights come on or checking out the window displays at Fields at Christmas time. We also would drive down to the beach, along with my parents friends and their kids, spend the day swimming, picnicking, laughing. My Dad seemed to have a fun way of looking at the world and a silly sense of humor. On a hot summer night he would head for O'Hare airport and pull over and park on a street real close. We laid on the front hood or top of the car to watch the planes flying in. We would scream as they came closer and flew right over us. It seemed like inches away to a little kid like me. You can't do that anymore because of terrorism. I don't think you can even get anywhere near the flight paths.

About the time we moved to the suburbs it changed. I have talked with my younger brother about our childhoods and it seems his and mine were different, very different. He doesn't remember Chicago. By the time we moved to the suburbs the dynamics of the family, and therefore of my Dad, changed. He was crabbier, serious, worked a lot, worried about money, worried about health. I think I now know why, in spite of the inevitable teenage fights, my Dad and I always got along. I remembered. I remembered when Dad was young, healthy, happy, silly and carefree. And he knew that of all us kids, I, the oldest, was maybe the only one that remembered. Remembered who he was. I remembered Chicago.
with Dad, first day of spring, Montrose Beach




Wednesday

Death of Anne Martha Sevaldsdatter

Verdal, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway
parish death record of Anne Martha Sevaldsdatter


This is my third great grandmother. Baptized Anne Martha Sevaldsdatter, she more commonly went by Martha. Martha had seven children and lived to what was in the 19th century a pretty old age (75). She is listed as a "kårkone" which translates as a woman who is being supported. That is not a very
all encompassing English translation. She is living on the farm Stubskind. She and her husband owned and worked that farm until 1859. In 1859 the farm was turned over to their son, and my second great grandfather, Sevald Andersen. Sevald paid a price and then supported his parents on the farm. More accurately Martha and her husband, Anders Jacobsen, were retired. If she had been listed as "lægdskone", that was a totally different scenario meaning a pauper supported by the community as was the gentleman who died a few days before her, Ole Andersen.

The causes of death are not listed by this priest. Perhaps death was so common no one really questioned the cause unless it was very unusual or suspicious. At 74, the cause of death would most likely have been listed as "alderdom" or old age, regardless of the specific cause, anyway. I have found alderdom listed as a cause of death for ancestors as young as their early fifties!

I must thank Martin Roe Eidhammer's blog "Norwegian Genealogy and then some". It is a favorite of mine and the link is to the left of my blog. Specifically I often refer to his very helpful genealogical translation list which can be found here→NORWEGIAN GENEALOGY DICTIONARY. It is certainly worth bookmarking.

my third great grandmother
Anne Martha Sevaldsdatter
b. 01 August 1795 Volen, Verdal, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway
d. 07 August 1870 Stubskind, Verdal, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway







**click on document to enlarge for easier viewing, 
or to see the document on the Digitalarkivet click HERE**

Monday

Dad was a Mommy's boy


My Mom said on numerous occasions that my Dad was a "Mommy's Boy". He would go over to her house to help her. When we got a new refrigerator he dragged the old one to her house and things like that. My mother felt that she was always calling him with the "poor me, I'm old and ill and I need help" routine. 

Looking at it now through the eyes of an adult I don't know that I see it that way. 

We were as kids very close with my maternal grandparents. My mother was a very gentle gal who had her share of physical problems. She had a number of surgeries such as her appendix out, her gallbladder out, parts of her stomach removed and she died of cancer in her  40's. For the physical needs my maternal grandmother was there at our house quite often watching us kids.  My grandmother was an emotionally strong person with very definite ideas about most everything. Let me make it clear that I adored her. I understood her because maybe I have a very similar out-there personality. Mom was just the opposite. She thought the best of everyone but she really let grandma's strong personality run roughshod over her. Grandma never spoke well of Dad's family. "They were clingy, they were cheap, they were needy, they were goofy Swedes" etc.  I loved her so much and with my similar unbending personality I basically bought it.

That attitude by my maternal grandmother plus the fact that my paternal grandparents were already old and elderly when I came along left me with very little knowledge of who my paternal grandparents really were. Doing my family history I learn more and more of who they were when young, where they came from and what life threw at them and they had to deal with, with limited resources. I now have pictures of them young, healthy, working. I have heard from cousins, second cousins who had good opinions, who really liked my paternal grandparents. I also am now a grandmother myself and sometime find myself feeling a bit annoyed (yes I know it is unreasonable) that another couple has the all out gall to claim MY grandchildren as also their grandchildren. Shades of my maternal grandma isn't it?

Dad, the "Momma's boy" was a good son. My paternal grandparents both had severe rheumatoid arthritis, in a time when there was next to none of the medications, surgeries, modalities that are available today. He was the closest son as my uncle Al lived in California and also had bad arthritis. Of course he helped them and I do not think we ever suffered or went without because of what he did for them. If anything we spent way more time as a family with my maternal grandparents. 

You can love someone dearly and still disagree with them. I loved, admired and on many levels can only hope to be the great gal my maternal grandmother was but in this respect she was wrong. Dad was no "Mommy's Boy". He loved, respected and helped his parents as he should. Grandma used to say "you are half Norwegian and half Swedish but just tell people you are Norwegian. That Swedish part is a shame." She said it sort of tongue in cheek, like the joke always going around between Norwegians and Swedes. I must have bought it because for years I would tell people I was of Norwegian ancestry and then sheepishly added, "and half Swedish but I'm not supposed to admit that."

Well... my maternal Grandma, the bull-headed, generous, energetic, Bible thumping, straight talking, hard-working, never say die, fun-loving Norwegian is still number one with me, but

I am American of Norwegian AND Swedish descent. Deal with it grandma.

Grandma and Dad (the Mommy's Boy)



Saturday

1900 Norwegian National Census - Ole Helleksen Family

Norwegian National Census 1900
Eidanger, Telemark, Norway
the farm Røra



Ole and Hanna are my second great grandparents. Ole was born in Bø and all of the rest of the family were born right here in Eidanger where we now find them in 1900. Son Gotfred is married to Kirstine and they have two children of their own. Their daughter Gunhild Marie (my great grandmother) is already married and also living in Eidanger on a different farm. She is on the farm Øvald with her husband Nils Gundersen (my great grandfather) and her first two children, one of whom is my grandmother Dagmar.

Oles occupation is listed as "Arbeider-isarbeide". Google translate was no help so I turned to a Facebook Norwegian group for help. A very kind lady, Mette Fausko, submitted this explanation...

"Before electric refrigerators and freezers became common, the Norwegian winter cold ice production 
was a flourishing business. Ice was of course particularly sought after in warmer countries, 
and large blocks of ice were transported by ship from Norway to even as far as including Spain. 
In 1898, Norway was the world's largest exporters of ice. Here's what a Ice works did."


Ole and his son Gotfred were ice cutters!

our Great Great Grandparents
Ole Helleksen
b. 12 February 1842 Bø, Telemark, Norway
d. 21 October 1904 Eidanger, Telemark, Norway

Hanna Matea Gunuldsdatter
b. 22 August 1848 Eidanger, Telemark, Norway
d. 3 November 1902 Eidanger, Telemark, Norway


Monday

Playing outside


A little girl dressed in her girl scout uniform came to my door last week selling cookies. Her parents were with her.They introduced themselves and it seems they lived across the street and two doors north. I had no clue there were children in that house. There must be other children in the neighborhood but they are never outside playing, if they exist at all. The one exception is the family directly across from us. Their children will be outside playing, biking, rollerblading or generally just goofing around most days when they weather is good. Often one of the parents will be out there playing with them. I am very impressed with those parents. When I was a kid being outdoors was the norm. 

When we came home from school, a snack and then homework and then we went out. Kids rarely rang the doorbell in our Chicago neighborhood either. I guess moms were too busy to "wait on" a kid by answering the doorbell. My friends stood on the sidewalk in front and hollered "Yo ooo Ranae" and you went out to play.



I made a list of some of differences I remember. The differences between then and now.
Not in any particular order (except that which comes to my mind)

1. We had very little one on one adult supervision. At 5 or 6 years old you played outside on your own. You understood your own family rules. Only around the block, don't talk to strangers, treat the neighbors nicely, respect their stuff, no fighting or swearing, watch out for the younger kids, come home when I call you for dinner and everyone comes home when the street lights come on. Today that sounds like neglectful parenting and not the "helicopter parenting" you see today.

2. Most all of the moms were at home and they were busy with lots of kids, housework etc. but also all the moms watched all the kids. If you swore at the end of the block and Mrs. Walsh heard you she felt free to yell at you and then told your mom who yelled at you again. Mrs. Walsh, Mrs. Andersen, Mrs. Grossinger, Mrs. Jensen or any of the Mrs. on the block (you see we NEVER called an adult by their first name) also would not let anyone hurt any of the kids and watched out for us all.

3. No room and no fun to play inside. Houses were small and most had just 2 or 3 bedrooms even though, in the baby boom years, families had 3,4,5,6 sometimes even 12 kids although that many was rare and it sort of went with being Irish and Catholic if I remember correctly. Maybe grandma lived there also. No one ever thought they needed a larger home either. If you had a large brood and had a basement or an attic, there was your answer. More buys than girls? Have a makeshift bedroom in the attic. I saw baby beds put in the pantry for a temporary 4' x8' bedroom. If you had your own bedroom and only 1 other sibling? We all figured you were adopted.

4. No one had as much "stuff" as they have now, yet I don't ever remember feeling poor. Without a load of toys, you shared. Maybe a ball that a group of us used to play a game. Or we took turns riding someones bike. Hide and Seek, Red Rover and jumping rope were favorites I remember. For better or worse no safety equipment either. Never a helmet or knee pads. The school playground had high high metal slides (burned your butt in summer), merry go rounds that could spin at enormous speeds (sometimes you flew off if you didn't hang on), monkey bars and jungle gyms built on gravel or concrete. 

5. No internet or electronic games etc. You interacted with real people. Your "friends" were real flesh and blood kids just like you, not just a faceless icon on your screen. You HAD to get along with the others on the block, you couldn't "unfriend" them.

6. Getting a little banged up was what happened when you were a kid. Don't go home crying to mama unless you saw blood, a lot of blood. Every kid had scrapped knees, mosquito bites, bruises from doing something stupid "you should have known better" than to do. Sure, stuff happened but not really very often. No one died. I know one guy whose brother stuck a fork in his eye and another guy who fell out of the jungle gym and broke both arms at once....gross.

7. Unlike now, you rarely saw a fat kid. And we ate bologna sandwiches with real butter, twinkies etc. We never even heard of diet food. I remember when my Mom started buying the new Diet Rite Cola, but I don't remember her getting any skinnier! We were outside getting exercise and too busy to think about snacking. We ate our three meals and had a small afterschool snack, typically milk and a cookie. When you were called in for lunch or dinner you better show up. "I called you, you didn't come so I figured you weren't hungry, so I gave your pork chop to your brother, make sure you get up in time for breakfast, I guess."

I'm not saying things were better or superior to now. Lots of great innovative things we take for granted now I never knew as a child.  Everyone from a good family just remembers their childhood as being the best that childhood could be. 
Like I do.



Saturday

Grace Gunhild Sevald Kallman 1927-1975

My mom died young. Way too young.  Mom never had any grandchildren. A real pity, especially for those kids because she would have been a wonderful grandmother. She would have seven grandchildren and one step grandchild, 19 great grandchildren and 5 step grandchildren. One of the greatest joys of my life has been my grandchildren and until I had them I guess I never really knew how much my Mom had missed out. The greatest loss however was to those kids. She would have loved them so much. Knowing and loving my grandma and being a grandma myself I can tell you that no one loves, accepts and understands you like your grandmother does. I hate it that my kids never had that opportunity to have a special relationship with my Mom.

Today she would have been 90 years old. Happy Birthday Mom! We, your children remember you with love and pass your love on.


Grace Gunhild Sevald Kallman
b. 4 March 1927 Chicago, Illinois
d,  21 April 1975 Park Ridge, Illinois


Thursday

1801 Census - Wærdahlen, Nord Tröndelag

This is the Norwegian National Census of 1801. Wærdahlen is an older spelling of Verdal, which is in Nord-Trøndelag. This is the farm Stueskind which is alternately and at different times also spelled Stuskin or Stubskin.

Norwegian National Census the Digitalarkivet
click for online photo of original 1801 Stueskind census

• Jacob Anderssen-husband-40 years old-married for the first time-occupation farmer-male
• Bereth Rasmuthsdatter-his wife-51 years old-married for the first time-female
• Anders Jacobssen-their child-14 years old-unmarried-male
• Ingebor Jacobsdatter-their child-11years old-unmarried-female
• Urich Jenssen-tenant worker-30 years old-unmarried-male
• Ele Olsdatter-tenant worker-43 years old-unmarried-female
• Sivert Joenssen-man-47 years old-married for the first time-cotter with farm area-male
• Ele Rasmusdatter-his wife-46 years old-married for first time-female
• Arent Olssen-tenant-8 years old-male

Jacob and Bereth are my 4X great grandparents. Jacob is a farmer and owns the farm Stuskin.
Sivert and his wife are cotters, sort of like tenant farmers who are given a small plot of land for personal use. They would owe the owner a predetermined  yearly amount, in work hours or proceeds from their farmed area. The others are tenant workers.

Anders is my 3X great grandfather. As the oldest son he will someday take over the farm. His son, Sevald Andersen. my 2X great grandfather is noted on the 1865 National Census running the farm with his father and mother retired and living/ supported by the farm.