The journeymen, they were allowed to wear a hat, kind of round and old-fashioned; but the apprentice wasn’t allowed to wear that. When someone tried, they’d just throw that hat off and down in the dirt. The journeyman, he told me one day to oil his shaft. I thought I didn’t have to do that, but maybe I should have done it because he sure gave me a dandy licking. Ja, they were tough. I think we were about twelve apprentices to the place. And we became powerful after a while because there was almost more apprentices than journeymen. They changed a little bit.
After I was through apprenticeship four years, then I went down to Hamburg in 1914–15. The war had begun at that time. I went out on the Flugplatz, the flying field in Hamburg. There I was doing some machine job. These big balloons—zeppelins—would go from there up along the coastline and watch out for the fleet and they would go to England, too. One day, it was kind of blowing. They didn’t have enough [men] to haul the zeppelin down, so we from the shop had to go over and help haul that thing down and get it into the big hall. We held on and then a storm, a kind of heavy wind, came and it went up. I let go, most of them just let go. But there was a couple that kept hanging on to that darn thing, and they went up with it! Of course, they came back down. Then I saw the bombs—the ones that they used against England. They were stacked outside; they were kind of pear-shaped.
Then I came home. My oldest brother, he was a strong Dane and my sister, too. They went across the border and had their meetings over there. The Germans were not always too sweet. You couldn’t sing. The newspapers could be anti-German, but if you had festivities, certain hymns you couldn’t sing. There was a wedding in town and there was some of those younger guys that want to sing these here songs that they were not supposed to sing. This Hans, he was from Jutland, but he was a strong German. So he mentioned about this here singing they did. The judge and some of those Germans found out and they went to court about that. And right close to the border, they had some rough guys that went into the school. There was usually three pictures on the back wall. That was the Kaiser, the former Kaiser, and Kaiser Wilhelm. And they had damaged the pictures. That was very serious. They had to skip the country; they got up to ten years in prison. That was terrible to damage the image of the Kaiser.
Then I was drafted into the service. When you’re young like that, you hear them talk about all what went on, war and so forth—you hear it from school. It was worked on you constantly, this here propaganda about how wonderful war was. We had a teacher, he knew our Danish sentiment. He didn’t like that. He was from further down in Germany. I didn’t have any special interest in going off to a German war, because our sentiment was rather Danish. But still, I liked to see what went on, so I could tell when I came back what I’d seen. Boys, they have that kind of spirit.
There was two million students in Germany that volunteered. When they came to the front, they found out they didn’t like it. And I had the same experience. The frontline, that’s where reality shows up. There is nothing beautiful about a war. If there is a hell on earth, it is right there. I was down in France. Then I contacted typhus and came back to German hospitals and was taken well care of by the nuns. Especially one, she was the sweetest. I wasn’t supposed to have any black bread or any pumpernickel, but she come after work and give me something. I don’t want to go on about the war.
After the war, in 1918–19, we could come to Denmark; the border was open. I had my four years of apprenticeship that was necessary to enter the engineering institute in Copenhagen. We got a good education there, about three and a half, four years. After my schooling, I got a job in a dairy machinery outfit in Kolding, Denmark.
I went to the United States in 1923. I was getting to be up in years, twenty-seven. There was not enough work in Denmark. They couldn’t use all the technical men they made. I had been ’round in the world, been working in Germany, in the war. To go to America, I didn’t think there was much to that!
*Some six thousand Danes from Slesvig died in German uniform during WWI; an additional seven thousand ended the war as invalids.
Sigfrid Ohrt
“He slipped out of the country.”
Sigfrid Ohrt left Norway with her mother in 1901, at the age of ten. They settled in the Dakotas, and Sigfrid held many different jobs while obtaining a business education. She and her husband moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1919. They raised four children.
We lived in Eidsness, a rural community up on a fjord, and my father made his living by working in Bergen. He did various things. He worked for a newspaper, wrote articles and witty things, and was involved in a bank. My mother had a child every year. She came from a mountain family where they had been in dairying. She did the farmwork; it was a small, small acreage.
In those days, the families made their own clothes. They had sheep and used the wool. My mother had a spinning wheel and I can remember winding up yarn for her. She had a dressmaker come in to sew for us, a shoemaker come in to make shoes. She did a lot of things, but she couldn’t do everything. So, that’s the kind of a family we were on a small place. I was born September 26, 1891.
I remember being quite an active child. My brothers would make a big swing between two trees, one boy on each tree; they’d swing me almost around in a circle. We played with boats in the little inlet and we did fishing. In the winter, you could skate on the lake. I don’t recall ever swimming there. Girls could wade, but boys could swim. One of my brothers snared birds. We frown on that today, but then it was sport. We played games with rocks. We’d pick up little rocks and throw them up in the air, and they’d land on the back of our hand, and we’d throw them up and catch them again. That was one of our favorite pastimes.
We started school at the age of seven and had school six days a week, Saturdays as well as other days. I was very excited the first day of school. My sister Inger and her friend, who were three years older than I, took me to school. They each held a hand and escorted me into the schoolroom. The schoolmaster was a young man who sat me in a seat and gave me some instructions. He asked me to write a “4.” I wrote it upside down. He said, “In our school, we do it this way.” We used slates and slate pencils. I was given one and felt very important.
We had to memorize our lessons. I used to get up real early every morning to do my studying. We were very well disciplined; we did our work. I was not the best student, but I did try to memorize. Religious training was done in the school. We had catechism and Bible history.
On Sunday, the neighbors used to gather. They had a big boat, big enough for the neighbors who wanted to [go to] church. About four men would row across the fjord to the church. They were long services. My mother used to have us children on the floor in front of her. The seats were high-backed seats so we couldn’t be seen. We’d be playing on the floor there while the service was going on. I don’t know how she kept us quiet; she was a very good disciplinarian. After the services, we looked forward to getting out and looking at the graves [in the churchyard]. I can still remember admiring the beautiful roses.
My grandfather Eidsness was a very fine old man. When I was a little wee girl, grandfather used to hold me on his knee and sing to me, “Ride, ride ranke, hesten heter Blanke.”* He was living with his second wife in one part of the house. The house was built with two stories and we had half of it, the bigger half. Grandfather and grandmother had their room and a storeroom. We were never allowed to visit them without permission. But I used to follow grandfather around the grounds; and when he went fishing, he’d have me in the boat with him. Grandmother had a great big apron she wore and whenever she went out some place away from the house, she’d gather up sticks and things for her stove. They were very thrifty and she was especially so.
Our mother seldom left her home; she was so busy there. But she did go to the Christmas program at the schoolhouse with us. We danced around the Christmas tree and sang Christmas carols. They had one ring of adults. And the next [ring] would be coming the opposite direction with teenage children and at the outside were the little ones. We’d go in different directions. That was