Sandbakkelse and krumkake and all that [typical cookies] was kept in a big tin can, so you had it for weeks after New Year’s. Of course you didn’t get all you wanted; that was more or less rationed. When people came to the house, they had to have coffee and goodies. We never went anyplace and nobody ever came to us from an invitation; it was always, if they stopped by. We didn’t have much of anything except we had good food. At least it tasted good to us! I never tasted lutefisk* until I came here to Normanna Hall [Tacoma, Washington], and I didn’t like it. Nobody had it where I came from.
Good heavens, for money I started to work when I was just a little tyke. Our neighbor was quite well-to-do, had a big, big farm, and did a lot of hiring, especially in the haying and cutting the grain. My brother and I were just small ones and we were cutting grain for money. It was raining. We had made kind of a headgear out of gunny sacks and that got soaked wet and you were wet. But you stayed all day long, day in and day out. Working, that was something we had to do when we started to walk. There was no playing; even going to school we never had any time for play.
While I was confirmed, I worked in a granite rock quarry. We hauled gatestein, cobblestones, down to the dock and the steamers came in and picked it up. There was no power equipment; your arms and hands did it all. Then I went on a road gang. We made a highway going up to the valley. You had a long plank and a wheelbarrow and a pick and shovel. It was all done by hand, every bit of it. You got into rocks, then you had the experts dynamiting it. That’s all I did until the time I came here [to United States].
I grew up with people that had been in this country. I’d say just about half of the population home had been here. My gosh, you could go down to the stores and they would sit there and talk English, and even talk Norwegian, about the old logging days out here [in the Pacific Northwest] and fishing in Alaska and farming in the Midwest. They all liked it out here [Pacific Northwest], the climate and it was just like back home—trees, water, boats, and what have you. As much like home as you can get, on a bigger scale.
Through the quota system, I signed up to go to a farm.* My dad’s three brothers lived in North Dakota, so I sent some papers to them and one of them signed a guarantee. The next thing I knew, I got a notice that I was accepted and had to go to an American doctor in Bergen. It took money to go up to Bergen and I didn’t have any money. Home you had plenty to eat, but there was no cash. So my dad had a cow he was going to sell, says to take it along to town. So I took the cow along to town, sold it in Stavanger, got the cash for it, and went to Bergen.
The doctor checked your teeth for cavities and checked you for hernia and then filled out some papers. That was about all. I was eighteen in May and went to the doctor in the fall the same year, 1928. I didn’t go [emigrate] till March of 1929.
I made my own trunk, spent weeks on that thing and made it good. Mother was pretty good up until the last day. She made breakfast and I ate good. And then right after breakfast, she decided to go out and I could see that she just couldn’t be there when I left the house. So she went out in the barn. As I walked out, why I glanced to the side and I could see her through the window in the barn.
My dad took me down to the dock. Of course, he had been here; it was nothing to him. He was glad that I could get out, because he knew very well that there was nothing to do at home. It’s silly to keep the kids at home, if there’s nothing for them.
*A person’s last name typically derived from the name of the farm. Place names remained stable, whereas personal names might shift.
*Lutefisk, dried cod which is treated and soaked before cooking, is widely identified as an ethnic trademark among Norwegian Americans.
*Through the quota laws of 1921 and 1924, the United States government began restricting immigration into the country.
Gretchen Yost
“We had to find out ways for ourselves how to make things go.”
Ten-year-old Greta, or Gretchen as she became known in English, emigrated with her mother and brother in 1919. From 1920 she lived in Tacoma. On her own at the age of fourteen, Gretchen worked in a cafeteria and later baked and sold pies. She shared favorite food customs with her three children, but cultivated no formal ties with her Swedish heritage.
My name was Greta Karlsson. I was born July 25, 1909, in Malmö, Sweden. Malmö was a very busy metropolis.* I remember its cleanliness and I remember the birch trees down the inner section of the roads. But no small homes; they were building apartment complexes. There would be a cement court in the middle and then all these apartments around. You went in through like a gate, actually not a gate but an opening. Inside, they would have a level up where all the little outhouses were, because there wasn’t any indoor plumbing. The courtyard was a place for the children to play. It was a fabulous place, because [at Midsummer] the big maypole would be put up and the violins and the accordions would come and everyone would dance.
That was fish country. I remember the fishermen coming in this courtyard with a cart and calling out “Limhamnssill, Limhamnssill.” Limhamn was a little fishing country [village, now suburb of Malmö] and sill of course meant fish [herring].
You came into a hallway. It was quite dark. Then it had a small kitchen where my mother always had flowers of some kind growing. I remember very vividly that she’d have nasturtiums and how bright they were in the window. Then there was one small bedroom and one a little bit larger. We ate in the kitchen. It was just very small. No indoor plumbing as far as the toilet facilities was concerned, but yet we had water. All these little outhouses were locked, so I had the key around my neck when we’d be out playing.
My mother was a widow. My father was drowned when I was six months old. He was a fireman on a ship. And so, from then on it was hard work. My mother couldn’t make enough and us children had to help. She was cleaning office buildings or whatever menial labor she could get. My brother had a job working for a fruit company where he would haul the fruit in a wooden cart; and when the fruit got ripe we were very happy, because he could bring it home if it got too ripe.
In those days there wasn’t the fear of children being on the street or in a crowd. My brother was a real promoter. He was old for his age. And he’d get this type of a job and that type of a job. He had this job selling newspapers and magazines and he involved me in it. I used to sell magazines and papers in the depot when I was five years old. My brother was five years older than myself; he’d hide behind the post to see that I didn’t get away with anything and they bought a lot from me. Of course, I wasn’t old enough to go to school and he was, so I had to stay at home in the apartment during the day by myself—which left an effect on me, because I was always afraid of being alone afterwards.
It was just a matter of survival. Everybody had to pull together. Lots of little odd jobs that we would do that would help us bring in a little bit of money. Running errands and that type of thing for people, too. During the First World War, I can remember my mother taking a blanket and going and standing in line at the commissary and laying down on the blanket. And in the morning there would be nothing left, she couldn’t bring food home. There were many beggars that would come right to the apartment. Mother always shared whatever crust we had. There were a lot of people that were going through miserable, miserable times.
I can remember vividly saving our öre, which is like your penny, so that once in a great while we could stand in line for hours and get way, way up at the top to see an opera. Or maybe saving a little bit so we could go to the bakery and get a big bun full of whipped cream. That was part of our scrimping, to be able to do things that other children had every day. I remember the royalty coming to Malmö one time and we lining up the street to see the coach go by—to see the king and queen, which was a big thing for us.
My mother was a great