Memories – Page 5 – Valerie's Voice

Auntie Ag

We called her Auntie Ag. She was my dad’s older sister, Agnes. She was a special aunt…she never married so her nieces and nephews were very important to her, and she treated us well. She pass away in 2004.

Last summer I inherited a couple of her photo albums from the 1930-40’s. I was amazed at what I could glean from perusing the old photos, where few photos had captions, and very few were dated!

I have many good memories of Auntie Ag. I knew her well, particularly in her older years…But when I looked through her photos, I felt I learned a lot more about her as a young woman. I found it interesting that I felt I could capture her essence from the photos. I decided we had a lot of similar traits.

When I found this photo of Auntie Ag, I remembered a dress I wore to a high school winter dance that was similar. I don’t know the date of Ag’s photo. The photo of me was taken in 1969.

I resonated with the photo of my aunt overlooking Lake Superior when she was a young woman. The photo immediately caught my attention when looking through several of her old photo albums.

Auntie Ag on the north shore. Date unknown.

One similarity is our love for Lake Superior and the north shore. It is my happy place. It was fun to see how often the north shore showed up in her photos, and to learn she went there often. I also know that my grandmother, my dad and Agnes’ mother, had a love for the north shore.

Another trait I share with Auntie Ag is she liked to travel. She liked to travel a lot; across the country, and to cozy cabins, and to Norway in later years. I like to travel too.

She was an adventurer…There were photos of her on hikes, on bikes, on horseback, on the water, on a toboggan, and fishing…what fun! I, too, am fond of adventure and new experiences.

You could see from the different photos she liked being with friends, and she had a lot of them. She loved hosting them for breakfasts and dinner parties, as do I.

Agnes’ mother, my grandma, was always well-dressed. I think there are stories of grandma having more than one trunk of clothes when she traveled to Norway. I noticed Aggie was always well-dressed in the photos. I know when she was older, her outfits “matched” and she always wore “matching” jewelry. I am not a fashion bug by any means, but do like to dress nice.

Auntie Ag’s nieces and nephews, photo taken in 1971. I am in the front row, in the red dress.

There were hundreds of photos of our families. I know Aggie loved her extended family. She was a believer and prayed for me (and for her nieces and nephews) all her life…and for that, I am grateful. I too, am a believer, and deeply love and pray for my family.

My Grandfather Torkel and Grandmother Elizabeth in the front row. Again, I’m not sure of the year this photo was taken. Elizabeth died in 1962. The siblings in the back row L to R: Herbert (my father), Agnes, Earl, Bob.

Up in Flames

Thousands of words, hundreds of pages, years of journaling…up in flames… Intentionally.

A few months ago, a friend and I were talking about what to do with our old, personal journals. I’ve had mine sitting around for a while thinking I’d reread them, but I’ve only glanced at them and reread a few entries. The most interesting was writing out 40 days of prayers during Lent one year.

The content of our journals were our feelings at the time…my journaling was more therapeutic than anything else and so I decided I didn’t feel the need to keep them anymore. The same held true for my friend, so we decided to burn them, together. We would create some sort of ceremony making it an event of some significance.

And so we did.

She came over and we built a fire in the fire pit in our backyard. We said a prayer, and sat around talking about all the memories we accumulated over the years, while throwing our papers into the fire.

One memory that surfaced while we were talking, was from years ago when all our kids were school age (our two families got together often and had many bon fires over the years). We would get together at the end of the school year, build a bon fire, and the kids would throw in their collected school papers from the past year into the fire.

That is what my friend and I did…We threw out all the written pages of our learning over many years, hopefully maintaining wisdom from all the experiences we had.

Amen.

The Island of Stord, Norway

After saying good-bye to Brita’s house in Kaldestad, we took the ferry to the island of Stord, where my second cousin Heine and his wife Kari live, and work, and have a “cabin”. Heine works for a company that makes oil platforms for the north sea.

Kari manages a delightful home decor/gift shop, The Five Hens.

We stopped by their home in the southeast area of Stord, on the way to their cottage on the sea, located in the northwest part of the island. That day we went from my grandfather’s house, built 1882, to Heine & Kari’s house on the sea, built 2012.

The cottage was a gorgeous home, with floor to ceiling windows and it sat right on the water’s edge, offering a great view. The six of us, Jomar and Bente, Gary and me, Heine and Kari, spent three nights there and had an enchanting time.

Besides being at the “cottage looking out over the water”, our mealtimes were memorable. Gathering around the dining table each morning, and every night, was fabulous. Not only was the food delicious, but the camaraderie was sweet.

Breakfast buffets in the hotels in Norway are amazing with breads, jams, soft-boiled eggs, egg dishes, meats, cheeses, fish, yogurts, oatmeal, trimmings, waffles, salads, cucumbers (and more)…they’re bountiful!

We had a lot of these same foods for breakfast at the cottage, except they were all set on the table in front of us. We passed the array of food back and forth, and enjoyed our leisurely breakfasts.

Dinners were fantastic too. Scrumptious food including elk, beef ribs and a pork roll, and chicken. Yum. We would eat a late, leisurely dinner, with good conversation.

Heine grilling elk from his hunt last fall.

Lunches were eaten outside; on the deck, or on the boat.

Our enchanting mealtimes made for some wonderful memories at the cottage.

Happenings in Kaldestad, part 2

I haven’t mentioned much about my grandmother’s family.

She grew up in Prestnes, an area next to Kaldestad. And therefore, I have relatives in the area on her side of the family too. Jarle Prestnes is another second cousin – on my grandmother’s side. His grandfather and my grandmother were siblings. We had lunch with Jarle and his wife and one daughter, at their home in Bergen. They also traveled to Kaldestad, to Jarle’s father’s home, and Gary and I went there for an enjoyable dinner with his wife, daughter, and Jarle’s sister (and therefore, my second cousin) and her husband. 😉

Redden Jane, front left and Jarle, head of table, are siblings and my second cousins.

Jarle, my second cousin on my grandmother’s side.

We did not see my grandmother’s home this time however, in 2007 we were able to see Grandma Elizabeth’s house. It is not owned by anyone in the family. In fact, I’m not sure if it is still standing.

My grandmother’s family outside their house, early 1900’s. My grandmother is Elisabet (Elizabeth), the one in the white dress.

The front of my grandmother’s house. Photo taken in 2007.

Before leaving Kaldestad, I want to highlight a new boathouse. Some of the grandchildren built a boathouse across the inlet from the old boathouse. It is twin-peaked, modern, and painted white. The boathouse fits right in on the shoreline and is very attractive.

The new boathouse is the white one between the red and the gold one.

It has space for several boats and currently there is a kayak, a canoe, and a very special treasure…the old wooden row boat that my grandfather’s brother, Johnannes, used for his livelihood, fishing, back in the early 1900’s.

The wooden boat underneath the kayak is the fishing boat my grandfather’s brother used in the early 1900’s.

Our times in this very special place, Kaldestad, was enjoyable, exciting, amazing and memorable! I am grateful.

As we left Kaldestad, my heart was full.

Happenings in Kaldestad, part 1

While staying at Brita’s house, we were able to connect with more relatives. There was a large gathering at the house, and we were also able to visit many homes in the Kaldestad area for a more personal touch.

Our first day in Kaldestad additional second cousins, and their families, gathered around the large, dining room table in Brita’s house.

My second cousin, Sigrun, made Sodd, a national dish mainly associated with the Trondheim region. It consists of sheep and beef meatballs, cooked carrots and boiled potatoes. It was delicious. And the conversations were sweet.

Sigrun’s (in green) husband and middle son were not able to attend this gathering. We enjoyed visiting with her oldest son, and her youngest son (first person on left in the photo) and his family.

I’m trying to say how much I appreciate being together with everyone in Norway.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and we were able to move outdoors, to a patio near the summer kitchen, for dessert. The dessert table was bountiful. There was a Norwegian cream cake, an almond cake, a fudge cake, ice cream, and… Valerie‘s apple cake.

Gunnvor (she made the delicious desserts) and her husband, my second cousin, Jostein.

In the 70’s when I was in Norway I made my mom’s apple crisp recipe for the relatives and everyone liked it. The recipe was then modified to the metric system and they’ve been making this recipe in Norway for the last 40+ years and they call it Valerie‘s Apple Cake. How fun is that?

The following day at Kaldestad we visited folks in their homes.

First we went to the home of my second cousin, Sigrun, who’s yard is meticulously manicured and beautiful. Her father, Sigurd, was a bloomster (gardener) and ran the nursery in the Kaldestad and surrounding area. I assume Sigrun acquired her love of gardening and her amazing gardening skills from her father, and by helping with the plants in the gardens and greenhouses while growing up.

Sigurd (the bloomster) was a first cousin to my father and his house and nursery were just up the hill from Brita’s house.

An old photo of Sigurd, the bloomster, in his garden with his greenhouses in the background.

Jostein and Gunnvor’s house. The greenhouses were to the left of the house before they were removed.

My second cousin Jostein (Sigrun’s brother) and his wife Gunnvor, have lived in this house (Sigurd’s) for many years. The greenhouses are long gone, but they have pretty flowers growing everywhere too. We enjoyed coffee and desert with them.

And a little farther up Kaldestad Hill, Jostein and Gunnvor’s son, Steiner, built a home. It was built within the last ten years…what a view.

From Steiner’s house up on Kaldestad Hill: LtoR Jostein, Gary, Valerie, Steiner, Kari, Gunnvor, Heine, Jomar. Stiener’s wife (Aase), and daughter are not pictured.

We were able to visit each of these families, all within walking distance of each other, and all within walking distance of Brita’s house.

All had wonderful views. All were beautiful homes. All had magnificent gardens. All were very welcoming.

A Serendipity

Last week we went on a picnic… Our financial advisor held a picnic outdoors under a tent in the parking lot. They handed out box lunches, and had a duo playing guitar and singing quietly in the background. It was nice.

We were first to sit at our table. Then we were introduced to a local pastor and his wife who sat down across from us. As we chatted, the places where we grew up became a topic of conversation. They spoke first and they said Columbia Heights and Fridley.

I immediately responded I was familiar with that area because I grew up on 35th and McKinley… then Gordon, the pastor, said with much surprise, that he did too, until he was six years old! We discovered we lived four houses away from each other. He is four years older so I would have been two years old when his family moved away, but he did remember playing with my older brother and all the neighborhood boys his age. There were seven or eight of them!

He also said he remembered my mother, and her name, Ruby.

What a serendipitous moment. We were excited to discover this fact, and had fun reminiscing about that great neighborhood in Northeast Minneapolis.

Later I asked my brother if he remembered Gordon, and he said yes… playing ball together.

Our Camp Stove

We have had success putting unwanted items on the curb, free for the taking. I like that it helps keep things out of the landfill, and people can find another use for what we no longer want. Our latest item on the curb was our old Coleman camp stove…the classic old-style green one. It still worked, but was in rough shape so we thought some young folks might like it as a starter stove for camping. Apparently, someone did – it was gone the next day.

The camp stove served us well. Gary already owned it when got married, and we finally replaced it last year, in 2021, therefore it was over 44 years old. A few years ago, it converted easily to using one-pound propane tanks.

The camp stove holds fond memories. We used it on numerous camping trips over the years. Mostly when our two sons were younger. We liked to camp in Minnesota State Parks, and we liked to take road trips to the National Parks throughout the United States; from Acadia, to Great Smokey Mountains, to Yellowstone, to Zion, to name a few. We had many good times together on our camping trips…sometimes with friends, sometimes just the four of us.

Our firstborn son was three-months-old when we decided to go away for a camping weekend. We didn’t go far from home but one still needs to pack the almost the same amount of gear as for a longer stay. We made it to the campsite and got the tent (we always used a tent) and site all set up. After dinner, it started to rain…pour…so we quickly took the tent down, in the rain, and headed home. Camping in the rain is never fun, camping in the rain with a three-month-old is even more not fun.

But, we made up for it by taking several camping trips over the years…instilling a love of nature and the outdoors in ourselves, and in our sons.

We did buy a replacement stove, but doubt it will get the same use. Although we love to camp, we like being off the ground these days, so we try to stay in camper cabins. We discovered you need to collect the same amount of gear -just minus the tent- for camper cabins, but it’s much more comfortable than sleeping on the ground which we did all those years.

I’m grateful we were able to take these camping vacations. It made great memories for Gary and I to look back on now that our sons are on their own, making memories with their own families.

If you find a penny…

It was a dreamy evening, the other night…after dark…sitting on the deck, watching the lunar eclipse. It was called the blood moon. I learned, “a “Blood Moon” happens because the sunlight shining directly onto Earth passes through the atmosphere and is projected onto the moon–giving it a red tone during the eclipse.*” It was amazing to watch. I’ve always been fascinated by the moon……

Photo of a postcard, with a moonrise watercolor by Dee Teller.

This was happening after a long day. We had driven up north of Brainerd – and back home again – to attend my uncle’s memorial service.

The cover of the memorial service brochure. All the stockings of this family hung with care.
Christmas 2021.

Uncle Bob was 94 years old when he died, last December. I last saw him in August. He was in fairly good health (he drove us to his granddaughter’s cabin down the road a couple of miles), although his hearing had deteriorated a lot.

A favorite photo of Uncle Bob in Norway.

My uncle, my dad’s brother, was a kind and loving man. He was special to both Gary and I, and many others. His memorial service was well attended. They had a wonderful program and fun photos all around. During the luncheon afterwards, some of the grandchildren handed out a scrolled-up piece of paper with a ditty about…If you find a penny think of Bob. I dismissed it as cute…but not apropos.

Later, as I was sitting on the deck and going over the day’s events in my mind, I found myself lamenting the fact that I didn’t have an elder in my life to talk things over with anymore. I found myself talking to Uncle Bob a bit that night on the deck, in the dark, watching the moon disappear – and soon Gary came and joined me as we watched the lunar eclipse together.

When we went in for the night, I stepped into my closet for something and as I reached to turn out the light there was a penny on the closet floor. An unlikely place to find a penny.

It made me smile…

* NPR 05/16

An Assignment

Recently, in my writing session, I learned about a new (to me) writing pattern… syllables crescendo up and then decrescendo back down. In my poem that follows, I started with two syllables in the first line, and worked up to seven syllables, then repeated seven, and worked back down to two.

The house my dad built in northeast Minneapolis, where I grew up.

The prompt: Describe a day in the life of your childhood.

Get up. 
Eat breakfast. 
Do a few chores.
Go outside and play. 
The neighborhood gang waits. 
Play until it’s time for lunch,  
then go out to play some more. 
Go inside for supper. 
Go out until dusk. 
Then in, once more 
Go to bed. 
Repeat.

Obviously, this is exaggerated, but I do look back with fondness and gratefulness for my childhood. Which was so very different than my husband’s, who grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. His was a happy childhood, too.

A Childhood Memory

My friend wrote a story about ants, which prompted a memory from my childhood involving ants. I grew up in northeast Minneapolis. Across the street from me lived my two best friends: Donna and Diane. This story, and many childhood memories, involve them. I don’t have many pictures of the three of us…but I found a couple pictures from Christmastime with the three of us and my brother.

This photo was taken in 1958 of my brother, Donna, Diane and me (L to R).

Here’s my story: Ants

I don’t remember whose idea it was to sneak treats up to the cabin, but we thought it would be a fun thing to do. My “partners in crime” were my best friends at the time, two sisters who lived across the street from me, Donna and Diane. Our parents were good friends…they met when there was a surge of families moving into a new neighborhood in Northeast Minneapolis, in the early 1950’s.

We moved into the house my dad built when I was six months old, and I grew up there, with the same neighbors for the most part. There was a huge gang of kids in the neighborhood. And it was a fun place to grow up. I didn’t move out of the house my dad built, until after high school.

My parents had a large group of friends (with young families) that connected on a regular basis. They had coffee together, played bridge together, went camping together and rented cabins at the same resorts together. It was a family of friends. And Donna and Diane’s family, as well as mine, were a part of this group from the beginning.

Donna, Diane and I played together daily. We played outside, we had overnights, we played dress up, we played games, we had fun together, we grew up together. So, going up to a lake resort was a common outing for us. I now understand what a privilege it was to go to the resorts…but I guess since our family didn’t have a cabin – yet my parents wanted the cabin experience – the next best thing was to rent one.

As our parents planned another trip, we three girls planned our own shenanigans. I’m pretty sure we had enough to eat on these weekend get-aways, and probably more than enough snacks, so why we thought we needed to buy more snacks to sneak up to the cabin on this trip is a mystery. I know, at the time, we thought we were so clever and sneaky.

We must have pooled our allowance to get money to buy a few treats…maybe chips and cookies …I don’t remember anything other than the watermelon. And it was a half watermelon. Cut and wrapped in saran wrap. That’s a hard thing to sneak into a car, but we were determined.

When we got home from our grocery shopping excursion, we needed to hide the goods until the next morning when we were to leave for the cabin. So…we hid the snacks, including the half watermelon, in the bushes in Donna and Diane’s backyard. It made sense at the time…

Until the next morning when we took our pillows along to retrieve our treats and hide them in our pillow cases. What we discovered was a half watermelon, full, blackened even, with ANTS!

And we were so surprised!!! Little did we know the ants would show up. We learned a lesson that day…do not leave watermelon outside overnight under a bush – or anywhere!!! It’s a fun childhood memory.

This photo was taken in 1969…me, Diane, Donna and my brother (L to R).

Unfortunately, all of our respective parents have died, so we cannot get their take on this story.