Travels with Grandma

17 May 1914

Perhaps the entire town showed up for the festivities, a celebration of Norwegian Constitution Day. May 17 also happens to be Grandma’s birthday, though she’s not yet in the photos. She won’t come onto the scene until 1923.

The crowd gathered on the banks of the Clearwater River for the photo, taken from across the water. The women wore white from head to toe: white hats, dresses, maybe even shoes, and the men and boys dressed in dark suits. The school children wore parts of their traditional outfits for their program, led by their schoolteacher, Bjorgulv Bjornaraa, my great-grandfather. The photos are captioned in Norwegian.

The Norwegian flag fluttered alongside the American flag that warm, calm spring day. Though it’s difficult to see faces, the photos leave the viewer with a sense that the day was joyful, peals of children’s laughter mingling with the hum of adult conversation, the air heavy with the smells of traditional foods – lutefisk, maybe? — parents and children both gratified after waiting in anticipation for the celebration to begin. Though these people were living in the U.S. — their children had likely been born American – they still proudly celebrated the holidays of their homeland, the happiness and pleasure edging out the nostalgia.

I had been searching through Grandma’s closet, searching for her down comforter (she’s always cold; I was wearing a tank top that day), when I spied an envelope full of photos peeking out of a half-hidden shoe box. In it were pictures Grandma’s niece had sent of the family pre-Grandma. Eileen, daughter of Grandma’s sister Selma, had apparently found some old photos her mother had kept and sent them to Grandma.

I dug through with relish, realizing that, though I had been lamenting the fact that I wouldn’t be traveling while I stayed to help Grandma, I would still be able to see the world. It would just be travel of a different nature.

One of the photos shows three boys and a girl, Grandma’s oldest siblings, Selma included. The next shows about 20 kids gathered on the steps of a schoolhouse; the index card attached has all their names in order. Bjornaraa siblings Dreng, Thorwald, Olof and Selma are in there, along with their neighbors, who appear to vary in age from about five to 12 or so years old. All have Norwegian names, first and last.

Of course, Grandma has no memories of these events, but they do encourage her to recall vignettes from her childhood, of her parents and siblings, and growing up on a farm in rural Minnesota. She spoke Norwegian at home (and what a small homestead it was, especially for 11 children!) and English at school, presumably like the other children in her community, and her family was busily involved in keeping their Norwegian heritage alive, as the May 17 photo attests.

She remembers how Selma and her mother sent messages to each other by attaching them to the dog’s collar, and she remembers the folk music her brothers used to play at local and regional festivals, on the violin and accordion. A story I remember her telling during my childhood involves cross-country skiing on the way to school. Once she lost a ski but continued to school with only one, apparently the Norwegian-Minnesotan version of the uphill-both-ways stories grandparents always tell.

Another photo shows her parents sitting in a sleigh pulled by a horse (not a reindeer) on their way to church. “I remember a sleigh,” says Grandma, although it seems the sleigh must have been all but out of use once Grandma came along: She also remembers learning to drive at nine years old, and bringing lunch and supplies to her brothers who were out working in the fields.

They are tales of a different time and place,  but they never cease to fascinate me.

When Grandma receives the monthly Sons of Norway magazine, Viking, I devour it with as much gusto as I do my adventure magazines. I’m fascinated by the cooking implements like kransekake irons and lefse paddles, by the stories of successful Norwegian-Americans, by the advice for staying connected with the homeland. Though it’s not specifically about travel, it’s enough to get the juices flowing.

Amazing what one can discover hidden in a shoe box deep in Grandma’s closet.