Nora Hoffman Macbeth: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “In the Kitchen”

Grandma’s Kitchen: Home to African Violets, a Metal Formica Table and the Heart of the Family

Nora Elsie Hoffman Macbeth: 1899-1994

 

            As soon as I read this prompt, I immediately thought of my grandmother’s kitchen. Some of my best childhood memories took place in that tiny room. The room was home to a thousand different household functions—I don’t know how my grandmother managed to do so much in that cramped space.

            Grandma’s kitchen had scarcely any wall space—the L-shaped room had a stunning six doorways—the main door out to the porch and farmyard, the door to the stairway leading to the second floor, the door to the basement, the door to the huge pantry, the door to the living room, and lastly, the door to an enclosed porch we called the “sunporch”. The remaining space featured wall-mounted coat hooks by the door next to an old white porcelain sink surrounded by white metal cabinets, a stove on the tiny wall between the basement and the upstairs doors, and the refrigerator wedged between the pantry and the living room doors. The kitchen table was pressed up against the wall opposite the stove.

The tiny corner by the living room door contained a turntable console with a row of books on top, and table linens stored beneath instead of records. A black dial telephone was mounted on the wall above, along with a wall calendar from a local bank. All my grandmother had to do was drag a chair over from the kitchen table so she could sit and talk comfortably. She had three sisters and a sister-in-law plus her daughter (my mother), and she loved to talk to them all for hours.

            When she had to iron clothes, Grandma would drag out a large, folding ironing board from a cubby on the back wall of the basement steps, and would open it to stand in the space between the living room door and the kitchen table. It would block traffic to and from the living room, forcing people to go through the sunporch to get to the back of the house.

            My grandmother was a lover of gardening, and hated the long winter months when her garden was frozen under a blanket of snow. To satisfy her craving for plants, she grew pots of African violets. My grandfather, who loved to craft things with wood, built her a series of shelves along the window that looked out on the sunporch, each shelf screwed into the window frame. Her violets lived there, carefully tended, watered and fertilized—studded with blossoms of deep purple, purple and white stripes, lavender, violet, and pink.

Violets, tile trim and Last Supper bas relief

            It’s odd what the brain remembers and what it forgets. Until I examined this photo of Grandma’s kitchen from 1963, I had forgotten some details. I hadn’t remember the tile border around the room that separated the two paint shades on the walls. I’d forgotten the bas relief of the Last Supper mounted on the wall above the table. And I’d forgotten what the table and chairs looked like, with their curved silver metal legs, the oval black-and-gold-flecked white formica table-top with the metal edge, and the plastic upholstered chair cushions—I think they were charcoal and white.

Clockwise, Nora Macbeth, her sister Sadie and husband Fred Seltenreich, sister Mart Seltenreich, sister Jennie and Delbert Edwards, and sister-in-law Mildred Hoffman (also Delbert's sister), 1963. Photo taken by Nora's husband Ivan.

            My favorite childhood memories involved Grandma’s huge pantry. It provided storage for food, spices and the usual pantry goods, but also Grandma’s pots, pans, dishes and silverware. Tucked in drawers and cupboards were towels, tablecloths, napkins and potholders, most featuring hand embroidered decorations my grandmother added.

            The best feature of the room, however, was the large workspace under a window that looked out onto the screened porch that ran the length of the back side of the house. The space was made for mixing and kneading bread dough, for the house was built in a time long before the advent of supermarkets and sliced mass-market bread. My grandmother inherited the house and the pantry from her mother-in-law, Lucy Macbeth, and, just like Lucy, she made her own bread for many years until she started complaining of “rheumatism”, which was probably osteoarthritis in her shoulders from heavy, repetitive labor like kneading bread dough, making lye soap, and washing and wringing clothes with a crank washer.

            Below the workspace was a tilt-out drawer where the huge 50 pound sacks of flour were kept—that was how people bought flour in those days, contained in fabric sacks. Fabric was expensive, so the flour sacks, which occasionally featured floral prints as well as solid colors, were repurposed into dresses, blouses, and aprons. I remember my excitement as a child when Grandma let me tilt open the drawer and use the red plastic measuring cup inside to measure out the flour we needed for a baking project. I had a special apron to wear at Grandma’s too—an over-the-head smock style similar to her own. I learned how to make yeast dough from her, punching down dough as I gazed out the pantry window through the screened porch at the chicken house and the garage.

            I also remember Grandma’s cookie jar, shaped like a lamb, painted a soft brown color with pink trim, and the words on the lamb’s tummy “For good little lambs only.” No matter whether I was a good lamb or not, the jar always held cookies. Usually they were homemade peanut butter cookies, a special favorite of my grandpa’s, or a molasses spice cookie. Occasionally, there were store-bought cookies like Fig Newtons or vanilla sandwich cookies.

            Grandma didn’t have a dining room, so all the family meals were eaten at the kitchen table. I graduated from an old wooden highchair to a real chair—at first with Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs stacked on the seat so I could reach the table. Grandma was a good cook, so I always looked forward to eating there. We drove to their house—thirty miles from our farm-- at least a two or three Sundays every month, so Sunday dinner at Grandma’s was a tradition.

            The kitchen table was also used to play games—Chinese Checkers, Sorry, and a variety of card games. Often the adults played card games too complex for children, so my brother and I would play with a set of toy farm animals and equipment that were stored in another niche on the basement stairs. The kitchen was also a source of entertainment—a radio sat on one of the shelves—I think it was on one over the stove—and music and farm commodities news would be playing.

            My Grandma’s kitchen was the center of her home. Looking back, I realize that the kitchen, like Grandma, was filled with a sense of love and purpose. Nora, like her kitchen, was a woman of many talents who stepped up to do whatever needed to be done.

Jerome Dane Meets Abe Lincoln? 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Family Legend”

 

“Captain Dane Relates Interesting Stories of Lincoln”

Jerome Dane: 1828-1908

 

            My second-great-grandfather, Captain Jerome Dane, was a colorful character who enjoyed an audience. He loved to tell stories about his life to the press. He gave his final interview to the Mankato Daily Free Press on July 17, 1907, just months before his death in February of 1908. In this interview, he claimed to have met Abraham Lincoln in the late 1840s when he spent several months living in Springfield, Illinois. Family members remembered this story—he had told it several times over the years before it was recorded by a reporter. But is it true? I don’t think I will ever be able to find real evidence to support his story, so it will probably remain a family legend. However, it is a great story—his recounting was full of detail. I like to believe it has a basis in truth.

            I have transcribed the pertinent sections of the newspaper interview below:

“The Captain’s story is as follows: ‘I was discharged from the regular army at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis in the summer of 1848. From St. Louis I made my way to Springfield, Ill., reaching there in August. I spent some time chopping wood on the bottoms of the Sangamon River. A man whose name I cannot recall, offered me a team and wagon, agreeing to furnish half the feed, if I would use it in teaming and give him half of what I made. I found a lot of red oak logs, cut for saw logs which had lain two or three years and were pretty well water soaked. The party who owned the logs said I could have them if I would cut them up.

            I cut them up into cordwood and hauled it to a vacant lot in Springfield in the fall while the roads were in good condition. The spring of 1849 was very wet and the streets were almost impassable. A great many people were out of wood. Then I went to hauling. The first load I hauled I sold to Lincoln. I had a wagon box full—perhaps a quarter of a cord—as the streets were too muddy to haul a full load. I was on the street with the wood, when mr. Lincoln came around and asked me if the wood was for sale. I told him that it was. He then asked me what kind it was and what I wanted for it. I replied that it was dead red oak and that I wanted $2 for the load. He replied that it looked like pretty tough wood, but that he would take it.

            So I drove around and unloaded it in the rear of this house. A day or two after this Mr. Lincoln met me on the street and laughingly inquired if I had any more wood to sell, and added ‘that the load of wood you sold me was good dead oak sure enough. I can’t get fire enough under it to bring it to life.’”

            I love the word play in the story—Lincoln’s comment at the end certainly sounds like the sort of dry wit he was known for.

            Captain Dane recounted another meeting with Lincoln a little further down in the interview.

            “I left Springfield in March, 1849, hiring out to a man by the name of Fox to take a drove of cattle through to Philadelphia. This man Fox had 1,200 head, divided into droves of 120 each. Fox took me with him to help get the cattle across the rivers. When I hired out to Fox we went into Lincoln’s law office to make out a contract. Lincoln wrote out an article of agreement. I asked him how much it was. He inquirether I would pay for it or Fox. I said that as I was the one who called for it, I supposed I would have to pay for it. He said: ‘If you are to pay for it I won’t charge you anything but if Fox is to pay for it I would charge $1.’”

        This is another example of detail that might be true. I can imagine Lincoln might have had a soft spot for young men without resources, trying to make their own way in the world, just as he had done. Captain Dane wouldn’t have yet turned 21, while Lincoln was over a decade older. I can see him giving a young man a break on the cost of a simple contract.

Captain Dane had one final comment about Lincoln:

“I saw Lincoln frequently in Springfield. He was very tall, rawboned, had a large mouth and was always good-natured.”

            What a charming and amazing story! It’s understandable that it captured the imaginations of Captain Dane’s descendants—his grandson, Ivan Macbeth, (my grandfather) passed the story along to my mother and mentioned it to me when I was a child and still too young to understand the significance of meeting Abraham Lincoln.

Are there any obvious flaws in Captain Dane’s timeline? Lincoln had served in the House of Representatives from 1846 to 1848. He left after serving a single term, returning to Springfield and his law practice. So he was back in Springfield during the spring of 1849, and could have purchased wood. As a practicing lawyer that spring, he could also have written up a simple work contract when asked. It sounds as if my ancestor was a friendly, garrulous sort, as Lincoln was. It is possible that the two would have enjoyed chatting had they met.

            The timeline of Captain Dane’s military service also seems to fit the story. Jerome enlisted at 18 and served in the Mexican War, which lasted from 1846 until 1848. So his muster-out date of June 1848 sounds plausible. According to Wikipedia, the location also fit, for “upon the return of the triumphant U.S. forces in 1848, many were deployed to Jefferson Barracks due to its strategic location and healthful situation.”

Jerome’s claims that he didn’t return to his birthplace in New York after his discharge, or immediately tried to rejoin his siblings in Wisconsin are also possible. After all, he was unmarried, barely 21 years old, and had no responsibilities. Selling wood and droving cattle in the Springfield area would have provided both a living and some independence, along with a chance for adventure. Late in 1849, Dane did decide to head north to join his brothers and mother in Wisconsin, where he met and married his wife in 1850.

Jerome Dane late in life

            Whether or not every detail is true, this is a marvelous family legend that I will ensure is passed down to more of Jerome Dane’s ancestors.

Sources:

Mankato Daily Free Press, July 17, 1907. “Sold Wood to Abe”. Accessed at Blue Earth County Historical Society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

https://www.nps.gov/articles/lincoln-home-national-historic-site-a-place-of-growth-and-memory-teaching-with-historic-places.htm

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Final Prompt: Resolutions

 

My 2021 Research Resolutions

 

I have just completed my second year of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, and it was a success—I completed 57 blog posts in 2020 that related some important and fascinating pieces of family history. And I had a blast researching and writing them.

So my first resolution for 2021 is to join the 2021 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program. I can’t wait to see what I discover next year, and how I can craft those discoveries into interesting blog posts for my family. I hope to complete all 52 weeks just as I was able to do this year.

My second resolution is to expand my research from just my family to my husband’s family as well. I hope to alternate crafting posts about his ancestors with those about my ancestors. There are some fascinating characters in his family tree, and I need to record some of those stories.

My third resolution is to do more work preserving family photos and letters. I need to work on scanning the originals in my files, converting them to digital files that can be shared by family members. As 2020 has shown all of us, we don’t know how much time any of us has, so I had better ensure these items are accessible to others in our family.

And my fourth and final family history resolution is to do more work transcribing my 9^th great grandfather Francis Dane’s Commonplace Book. I am eager to understand more of what he recorded nearly 400 years ago in the early years of Andover, Massachusetts.

Due to COVID and the stay-at-home orders, 2020 turned out to be a very productive year for my genealogical research. I hope that 2021 is equally productive, but also finds us able to return to our normal lives as soon as vaccinations can reach all Americans.  

Goodbye, 2020. On to a more healthy and happy 2021.   

Jerome Dane and the Dakota War of 1862: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Witness to History”

Captain Jerome Dane, the Minnesota Ninth Regiment Company E and the “Sioux Uprising”

Jerome Dane: 1828-1908

 

            My brother-in-law recently contacted me after listening to a public radio program about the Dakota War of 1862 and the mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota of 38 men from the Dakota tribe, the largest mass execution in American history. Knowing that I grew up just miles from Mankato, he wondered if I had ever heard of this tragic event. Oh, yes, I responded. I am very familiar with the Dakota War and the hangings in Mankato. I had learned about it as a child, when the war was referred to as the “Sioux Uprising.” But I was more familiar with it because my second-great-grandfather, Captain Jerome Dane, fought in the war and commanded one of the units that provided security at the execution. He was an eyewitness to a sad and ugly piece of history.

Captain Jerome Dane--1863 Civil War Photo courtesy of Minnesota Hist. Society

           The Dakota War of 1862 began in August of that year. The government had, as usual, reneged on the terms of treaties signed with the Dakota tribes, pushing them off their lands to make room for settlers and leaving the Dakota desperate and starving. After some young Dakota men were involved in a violent confrontation with some settlers, the Dakota went to war, attacking the mostly European immigrants who were homesteading in southern Minnesota. Over the next few months, somewhere between 400 and 800 settlers were killed, including women and children. The lightly defended forts in the area of the uprising, including Fort Ridgley near New Ulm, received reinforcements from the Minnesota Volunteer infantry units, which had been forming in response to the Civil War. The infantry units eventually defeated the Dakota people, leading to their expulsion from Minnesota and the horrific mass hanging in Mankato on December 26, 1862.

            Jerome Dane was born March 3, 1828 in Genesee, New York. His father died when he was only seven, and times were difficult for his mother and siblings. When he was a young man, Jerome and his brothers moved westward in search of a better life. They first settled in Wisconsin, where Jerome married a young woman from Wisconsin, Mary Jane Mills, in 1853. Jerome was then 25 years old. At some point in the later 1850s, Jerome moved his young family to southern Minnesota, settling in Blue Earth County not far from Mankato, where he took up farming.

            Jerome was also interested in the military life. He had served as a lieutenant in a militia, so when it was time to begin recruiting Minnesota men to serve in the Civil War, Jerome volunteered and was commissioned as a Captain in the Minnesota 9^th Infantry. Since he lived near Mankato, he was placed in command of Company E, which was being formed there. When the Dakota War began, this new unit was close to hand and were sent by to defend the German community of New Ulm about twenty miles distant.

The town of New Ulm was then the largest city in that part of Minnesota, with 900 residents. As terrified settlers fled the Dakota, the town’s population ballooned to nearly 2000. It was a repeated target of attacks by the native fighters, and over the course of several weeks nearly 190 structures in the city were burned. The town was evacuated at least once, but residents returned and came under attack again.

Attack on New Ulm: 1904 Oil Painting by New Ulm artist Anton Gag

Judge Charles Flandreau had been placed in charge of the defense of the area, and he reported that in early September, “Enough citizens of New Ulm had returned home to form two companies at that point; Company E of the Ninth Regiment, under Capt. Jerome E. Dane, was stationed at Crisp's farm, about half way between New Ulm and South Bend.”

Another history of the war states, “Company E under Captain Jerome Dane, was temporarily mounted on horses and stationed at New Ulm. Later Company F, of the Eighth Regiment, under Captain Leonard Aldrich, was sent to New Ulm, relieving Captain Dane’s company, which was then stationed at Crisp’s Farm, half way between New Ulm and South Bend.”

Settlers escaping the violence 1862 by photographer Adrian J. Ebell 

During his patrols with Company E, Captain Dane discovered the corpses of settlers killed by the Indians and helped to rescue and protect survivors. Of course the press was greatly interested in the war, and wildly lurid stories began to be published, claiming that people were nailed to fences and mutilated. Captain Dane apparently proved to be source of colorful—and perhaps exaggerated—copy for eager reporters. As reported by Gary Clayton Anderson in his book Massacre in Minnesota,

“Captain E. Jerome Dane rescued the Lake Shetek survivors, including Lavina Eastlick, Smith, Bentley, Everett and the others on August 26. A month later, as the story regarding the fence incident escalated in the press, Dane gave his version of it to George W. Doud, apparently on September 25. One young girl, Doud later reported, ‘was fastened to the side of a house by driving nails through her feet and her head was downward.’ Another young ‘lady was found scalped and all her garments were gone and both of her breasts were cut off.’ Finally a woman ‘soon to be a mother’ had her baby cut from the womb, ‘her offspring had been severed from her and an owl was deposited in its stead.’”

Lavina Eastlick and sons, Lake Shetek survivors protected by Dane's unit--Lavina had been shot three times and beaten; her husband and middle child killed.

Doud’s lurid details were apparently based in part on Captain Dane’s supposed eye witness testimony. Other witnesses call Dane’s testimony into doubt. Burial parties reported the bodies they buried—who admittedly were not the people Dane saw-- had been shot or stabbed; no mutilation. Why would Dane have lied? Did he hope to further inflame sentiment against the Dakota? Or was he merely eager for publicity and so chose to confirm the crazy stories that already existed? Or did he actually witness the atrocities as reported by Doud? We will never know for certain.

By December 1862, the captured Dakota warriors were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of some 200 Dakota, but let the death sentences of the remaining 38 men stand. Nearly 4,000 people gathered in Mankato to witness the execution. Several infantry companies, including Captain Dane’s Company E, were assigned to provide security, to control the angry crowds. Confirmation of this comes from the National Park Service’s Civil War records, which state:

“ Company "E" organized at Mankato and duty there; at Lake Crystal, Judson, till April, 1863. Present as guard at hanging of Indians at Mankato December 26, 1862. Mustered in November 14, 1862. Frontier post service at Hutchinson, Forest City, Long Lake and Pipe Lake till September, 1863.”

Scaffolds in Mankato surrounded by Infantry Units including Dane's Company E. Artist W. H. Child, original at Library of Congress

            I wonder what Captain Dane felt when he saw the gigantic gallows in Mankato for the first time. I hope he felt some pity for the 38 Dakota men when the mechanism was triggered and they all dropped to their deaths at once. However, fear and anger ran high among the residents of southern Minnesota who had lost so many friends, neighbors and family, so I suspect he felt the deaths by hanging and the expulsion of the Dakota people from the state were justified.

Painting of the December 1862 Execution by J. Thullen, courtesy of Minn. Historical Assn.

            As the Civil War records note, Jerome’s Company E spent the next year providing frontier post protection in southern Minnesota before they were sent to the front in the Civil War. Jerome would go on to witness more cruel and violent incidents in American history before he was able to return home to his farm in 1865.

Sources:

Minnesota In Three Centuries, 1655-1908: Description And Explorations, By W. Upham. Lucius Frederick Hubbard, William Pitt Murray, James Heaton Baker. Pg. 377.

Encyclopedia of Biography of Minnesota, History of Minnesota by Judge Charles E. Flandreau, 1900, transcribed by Mary Kay Krogman. http://genealogytrails.com/minn/history_militia.html

“Union Minnesota Volunteers: 9^th Regiment Minnesota Infantry”.  https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UMN0009RI

Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History, Gary Clayton Anderson. University of Oklahoma Press. Oct. 17, 2019.

http://www.dakotavictims1862.com/Family_and_Friends_of_Dakota_Uprising/Newspaper_Articles_of_Settler_Stories.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862

Ivan Macbeth’s Good Deed Goes Awry: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Good Deeds”

Playing Santa at the One-Room School in the 1930s: Unintended Consequences

Ivan Macbeth: 1904-1972

 

My mother, Ione Macbeth Peterson, told a marvelous story about how her father’s good deed in the mid-1930s went sadly awry, crushing her childhood Christmas dreams.

My mother was born in 1928 to Nora Hoffman Macbeth and Ivan Macbeth. Ione attended a one-room school, the Tivoli School in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. One December during her early elementary years, her teacher asked to talk to her after school. She wanted my mother to ask her father to do a favor for the school.

My mother obediently remained behind as the other children left and started their walks home in the chill Minnesota afternoon. Her teacher gave her a message for her father, both written and verbal, asking him to dress up to play Santa Claus for the school Christmas party, which was coming up in a week or so.

My mother couldn’t remember what she said to the teacher. She couldn’t remember the long, cold walk home. She was stunned. How could her father be Santa Claus? My mother, despite being nearly nine years old, still believed in Santa Claus. Now her world was crushed. She realized adults had lied to her. LIED. They had told her Santa brought her presents on Christmas. They had told her he rode through the sky on Christmas night in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and that he stopped at the house of every child to bring the good ones gifts and the bad ones lumps of coal. They had told her Santa was real. And she had believed them, because they were her parents. Because they were adults, and adults were the source of facts and knowledge.

Ione Macbeth 8th Birthday

When she arrived home and relayed the message to her parents, and also expressed her confusion and feelings of betrayal, her parents laughed. They had assumed she had already figured out that Santa was a lovely Christmas fiction, and that she’d just been playing along as most children do, pretending to believe the last couple years. Their laughter just hurt my mother even more.

She recalled that her father did a good job as Santa. He had been pleased to be asked and was happy to do the job for the school—he saw it as his Christmas good deed. 

Ivan and Ione as a toddler on the Macbeth Farm--1930

Ivan Macbeth was a slender man, so she was amazed that he looked quite fat in the costume, and that his face was nearly unrecognizable under the full white beard. She remembers staring and staring at him, wondering how she had ever believed the school Santa was real—now that she knew who was beneath the padding and red clothes and black boots, it was so obvious that Santa was just a father in a costume, and that different fathers had played the role in years past.

As an adult, my mother recalled that for years after she remained mistrustful of adults. “If they could lie about Santa Claus, they could lie about anything,” she said. And when she had her own children, she refused to pretend that gifts came from Santa. She always made sure we saw her putting the gifts under the tree—there were no Christmas lies for my brother and me.

Blizzard of 1917: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Winter”

 

A Brutal February the Year My Father Was Born

 

            I wasn’t sure how to approach the 52 Ancestors “Winter” prompt until I ran across a vintage photo on Ebay from my hometown of Hanska. It was labeled “Hanska Blizzard Feb. 1917”.  It depicted a roadway with 2 wagon tracks in sharp black running down the snowy middle of the road. The roadway had been cleared of a large drift that had covered the road. Snow drifts formed walls flanking the road. I could just imagine the force of the wind that whipped up such enormous drifts, and the amount of labor—most by hand in 1917—that would have been required to make the road passable.

            My father, Juhl Peterson, was born August 1, 1917, so his mother would have been pregnant with him when this blizzard struck. I decided to do some research on the event. I discovered that the blizzard, one of six that battered Minnesota that February, wasn’t the worst of the winter problems residents faced. Here is a passage from an article by Mark Seeley in the 2017 issue of Farm Progress, titled, “February 1917: The Heart of a Brutal Winter”:

“The winter of 1916-17 was one of the cruelest in state history for a number of reasons. It started early, with widespread snow and cold blanketing the state by mid-October. From there, the cold became more intense and the snowfall more frequent. Over the three winter months — December through February — temperatures around the state averaged from 9 to 12 degrees F cooler than normal, and many climate stations reported extreme low temperatures ranging from -30 to -40 degrees F.

Some climate observers reported 12 to 15 days with morning low temperatures of -30 degrees F or colder. Seasonal snowfall accumulations in many areas were record-setting, ranging from 65 to 99 inches.

In the middle of this winter, the month of February brought persistent and extreme cold. The month started with 110 consecutive hours of below-zero degrees F temperature readings, finally rising above 0 degrees F on the afternoon of Feb. 5. For many areas of the state, only four nights brought low temperatures that remained above 0 degrees F. The only two days during the month with above-normal temperatures were Feb. 15 and 16. Monthly average temperatures from Minnesota climate stations ranged from 12 to 16 degrees F colder than normal. At the time, February 1917 was the coldest in state history, with an average statewide temperature value that was subzero in most places.

This magnitude of February cold was not surpassed until 1936. As the month closed, climate observers noted that lake ice was extremely thick, ranging from 20 to 40 inches in thickness. Many well pumps froze up, causing rural residents to harvest and thaw ice for water supply. There was little let up from the cold until March 20, when temperatures rose above 40 degrees F.

During February 1917, six blizzards crossed the state, mostly affecting northern and western counties. Snowfall totals exceeded 20 inches in many places, and snow depth exceeded 2 feet in most areas of the state.

During the first half of the month, these blizzard conditions blocked railroads for many days and caused many school closures. Farmers also reported some livestock losses associated with these storms.”

All I could think about was my grandmother Regina Peterson, then 45 years old and pregnant with what would be the last of her nine children, in a tiny house, probably no more than 900 square feet and with perhaps four rooms, trying to keep her family warm in those brutal temperatures.

Paul and Regina's small farmhouse circa 1917

The family couldn’t stay huddled by the stove or fireplace all day and night; farm work still had to be done. I don’t think the house had running water yet—they were still forced to pump well water. If the well froze over, they would have been melting snow to get water. The wood they needed to burn to keep the house warm would have been stored outside. The windows would have been single-paned and would have been drafty when the wind howled outside. The farm animals still had to be cared for—grain measured out, hay forked into pens in the barn, and water tanks cleared of ice. The work was hard and the family would have only had woolen clothing and leather gloves and boots to wear as they worked, possibly fur coats if they had them. I am amazed no one lost fingers or toes to frostbite given the extreme cold. The windchill would have been even more numbingly cold.

Paul and Regina Peterson on their wedding day

Reading about this horrible winter makes me admire my grandparents and uncles and aunts even more. They had to deal with the worst of nature without the tools we take for granted now—county snowplows to plow the roads, efficient furnaces and well-insulated homes to keep us warm when temperatures drop, and innovative fabrics like down coats, thinsulate gloves, and insulated boots. They were strong, determined people—true pioneer stock.

Sources:

https://www.farmprogress.com/weather/february-1917-heart-brutal-        minnesota-winter ; February 1917: The Heart of a Brutal Winter. Mark Seeley. Farm Progress. Jan. 4, 2017.

Rev. Francis Dane’s Commonplace Book: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Gratitude”

 

Rev. Francis Dane’s Poem Fragment on Gratitude

 

In my previous post, I wrote about the difficulties of transcribing my tenth great-grandfather’s Commonplace Book. Rev. Francis Dane, the first minister of Andover, Massachusetts, wrote in the book over a forty year period. He used it to make notes, compose poetry and hymns, and draft sermons and letters. One poem fragment I discovered dealt with the topic of gratitude. I have tried to transcribe it below. Any misspellings are copied from the original text:

 “And tell you that my gratefull mind

Do render thanks as much in kind.

Take in g. part this small return now

Though for me yet sure my love doth bestow.

But if I wholley silent were

And after all shouts still forbear,

Then justly you might count me rude

And charge me with ingratitude.”

 I know that I have made some mistakes, particularly in lines three and four, which were damaged and scarcely legible. However, the basic meaning and intent of the poem is clear: that he feels grateful but has trouble expressing his gratitude, which may cause others to judge him as rude and ungrateful.

I find the poetry in the book to be quite charming. It is rough and uneven in meter, so I don’t believe he was copying the works of others, but was composing his own poems. I love getting a glimpse into the mind of this fascinating ancestor of mine.

Image 146: Complete page containing Gratitude poem.

I too am grateful—grateful that this book survived nearly four hundred years, and that the NEHGS generously posted the scans of the book’s pages online for all to access without charge. What a wonderful gift to Rev. Dane’s many descendants, as well as to historians studying early colonial life.