The Story of Clara Swanson
Edited. Text and illustrations added.
To my children: the story of Clara Swanson
As told by Gwen Dahl, wife of Einar Dahl, Clara's son
When Einar and I were first married, your Grandmother Dahl was very anxious that I understand "how it was for her" when she was growing up and during the years before she was married. Memory is far from an exact tool, but I will do my best to recall some of the things she told me, so that you, too, will understand and appreciate the strong and very intelligent lady she was.
She was born in a little
fishing village in Sweden called Fiskebackskil. Her father was a cobbler and she remembered him as being so in
demand making shoes for the "rich people" that there was little time
to work for the people of the village.
She made hand sewn formal shirts for the "rich people". She was very skilled. The shirts had rows of tucks down the
front. The "rich people" were
the vacationers that flocked into the village each summer. Your grandmother always seemed to see people
as "rich people" and "poor people" and the sure way to
trouble was for "poor people" to act like "rich people".
Her parents had a relative
in America whom the family called Uncle John.
Letters from him were about the wonderful opportunities in America,
where every person could be free from the restrictions and troubles of
Europe. Here land could be had merely
by finding a piece of unclaimed land and staking a claim. The requirements for a deed were easy to
meet. By 1887 her family had made all
the arrangements to move to America.
They had sold their holdings in Sweden and gotten passage on a
ship. Grandma was twelve; her brother
Joe, ten; Charley, three; and Aunt Jenny, six; when they arrived at Uncle
John's in central Nebraska.
[Front: James, Charlie,
Christina; back: Clara, Joe, Jennie]
Uncle
John's wife was not pleased to have a family of six move in with them in their
small sod house. She immediately
insisted that Clara be "farmed out" to work for her board and room in
a good Swedish family. I believe Joe
also had to find another home.
Charley
and Jenny were allowed to stay. The
parents worked very hard that winter trying to make sure they earned their
keep.
It
is my understanding that by early spring, the James Swanson family had located land
to homestead. They then had to build
their own sod house and such out-buildings as they could manage. I do not know whether they had enough money
to buy the necessary livestock and equipment.
They might have had to use credit.
It was an enormous step for a Swedish cobbler and seamstress to learn to
be pioneer farmers and ranchers in a land where everything was so entirely
different than in their village.
Your
grandmother's mother hadn't wanted to leave Sweden n the first place. Their village was very clean and neat. She hated the sod house, with its dirt
floors and stretched muslin ceiling. [The interior walls of many sod houses
were plastered and the windows, framed and glassed.] She hated even the thought
of having to have a sod house of her own.
Uncle John had sounded so big in his letters. Where was the good living he wrote about? She missed the harbor and the fishing boats. She thought the language was absurd. Why call a hand cloth a towel? There were flies in America. How she hated flies! But most of all she grieved about having to
send twelve-year-old Clara away to live with strange people.
But
for Clara, this was the pattern of life until she was grown. Each family she stayed with promised that
she could go to school and that there would be at least one visit home before
spring; but, in all the years she worked out, she got only two and a half months more of formal schooling. There was never a mid-winter trip home to see the family. It seemed that the reason she was needed was
always the anticipated arrival of a new baby in the family. The families were very poor and there were
no labor-saving devices. She had to
carry water from the well and fuel for the stove. She did manual work far too hard for one so young. She remembered the people as being
kind. It was just that they were so
poor and that there was so much that absolutely had to be done all the
time. She remembered happy times, too,
and kind acts.
When
she was still very young, she had to help with the birth of a baby, when
necessary. There was usually a midwife
present. The first birth she witnessed
was twins. At sixteen, she had to help
with a breech birth. It was an
experience she never forgot.
As
one would expect, as soon as she could be of real help to her parents in the
busy summer season, she came home and helped on the farm. It was good to be with her family. Then, each autumn, there was another family
who desperately needed help, so she left home again. I do not know how old she was when she first received pay for her
work. I do not know whether she or her
parents collected her wages, but my guess would be that a goodly portion went
to the parents.
One
summer when she was home and the family was driving to church in a wagon with
seats across the low side-boards, something frightened the horses and she was
thrown out of the wagon. One wheel ran
across the small of her back. Even
though the pain was excruciating, she managed to get back into the wagon, and
the family drove on as planned. Back
home again, she had to stay in bed for several days. They did not call a doctor.
Each time she told the story, she would shake her head and say, "We
were so ignorant. It is terrible to be ignorant."
But
ignorance is certainly something I did not associate with her. Somehow she had learned to read, and she
read very fluently. She tended to
choose items in the paper about people in trouble, and she would say, "I
have such pity for them." She used the word pity as we use compassion.
Her
mind seemed to go straight to the point without ever straying off on
tangents. There was a careful,
painstaking quality to her work that was sometimes the key to success and at
other times a very inefficient use of time and material. She prided herself on being able to get along
well with people. The few times she
felt someone needed to be told off, she did it with a very few well-chosen
words and walked away. She never
permitted a rebuttal. Her compassionate
nature caused her to be a worrier. One
cannot write about her characteristics without mentioning her hearty
laugh. It seemed to start way deep
inside and just bubble out. When she laughed, everyone within hearing distance
laughed, too.
She
was twenty-eight when she and your grandfather married. They moved into the sod house on the land he
had homesteaded a few years earlier.
The land was poor and making a living was difficult, Theirs was not a
particularly happy marriage. Their
temperaments and aspirations were so very different. However, there seemed to always be a loyalty and appreciation of
each other's virtues that helped them through the rough spots during their more
than fifty years together. Love and pride in their four sons was ever
present. To her, they were educated men
and would never have to bear the burden of ignorance. This thought brought her great comfort.
The homestead years were
difficult for several reasons. Grandpa
was thoroughly a city boy. He knew
nothing about farming when he moved to America. [They were married August 7,
1901.] Their babies came very early in their married life: Carl Waldemar, May
28, 1902; Clarence Rudolph, June 6, 1903; Lawrence Walfred, March 16, 1905; and
Einar Segfried, August 31, 1906. In the
years immediately following Einar's birth, Grandma was very ill and they were
both very frightened. She remembered
how hard her husband worked and how tender he was to her and to the boys.
As Grandpa worked at farming
in this drab environment, he thought about his home and life in Sweden and soon
began to make plans to sell the farm and move his family back to the land he
remembered and visualized in his daydreams. [Here is his painting.]
Grandma was opposed to the
move. She didn't want to leave her
parents. She understood pioneer living
and knew she could cope.
In 1912, they sold the farm
and moved to Sweden. The family lived
in a tenement house in Vanersborg for a short time and then located on a small
farm of about twenty acres. Moving back
to Sweden did not prove to be the answer for either of them. War seemed to be in the air, though no war
was then in progress that involved Sweden.
They didn't want their little boys to grow up and be used to fight Europe's
battles. They returned to America on
the ship Lusitania in October, 1914. [A German u-boat sank the Lusitania on May
15, 1915.]
The years in Sweden were
very difficult ones for Clara and she was eager to return to America. Her father had died while she was away. Her mother was now living with Clara's brother
Joe. Upon arrival in Nebraska, they all
stayed with Joe until they found land to buy.
They bought a small farm of eighty acres, not far from Clara's brothers
in the community called Dry Valley.
Eventually, they added more land, so that the farm totaled 240 acres. On this farm they raised their four sons and
were an active part of the community.
Barn of Dry Valley Farm, as
seen in 1954
Like
so many others in the depression years of the thirties, they lost their farm to
their debtors. Drought, depression and
poor money management resulted in the loss, in spite of the fact that four
hard-working sons had brought in good crops over the years.
By
1932, they moved to Loomis, Nebraska. This was a Swedish community and Grandma
loved it. Her house there was the best she had ever had. She dug in her hells
like an old mule and permitted nothing to be changed during their years there,
not even an indoor bathroom. As always, Grandpa was restless.
When
Grandma and Grandpa were definitely no longer able to care for their daily
needs, they had to be moved to a shelter care home in Holdrege, Nebraska. It
was a heartbreaking move for them and for their sons. Who had to make the
decision. Aunt Lillie, Joe's wife, offered to take care of them at first, but
it was too difficult for her. The move was made to the Christian Homes in
Holdrege, Nebraska. Here they received good care and good meals. They had a
large comfortable room, and friends from Loomis visited them often and so did
their family.
Grandpa
Dahl died September 18, 1956. Grandma Dahl died April 9, 1962. Both were over
86 years at the time of their deaths. She had been determined to outlive him,
so she could take care of him, which did to the end.
At
her funeral, I looked for the last time at that strong intelligent face and
silently I celebrated the victory of her years on earth.
With
love,
Mom
(Gwen Dahl)
Clarence Robbins Family
Memoirs
Stephen Alva Van Cleave
Memoirs
Tales of the Van
Cleave Elders