Bio of the Swendsen Family Part I, Pine Co., MN USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Carol Eddleman Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 12:10 PM This biographical sketch is the compilation of various Swendsen family members' memoirs. In about 1916 Nels and Anna Swendsen bought 80 acres of land east of Hinckley, Minnesota and built a large farm home, a barn, garage and chicken houses. Nels worked hard clearing the land of stumps, Norway pine roots and swamp lands. They planted fruit trees, especially apples and plums. While living here he was assessor of Barry Twp. for eight years. He would drive old Molly (the horse) to the farm homes to visit them for the assessor's job. Evenings he would concentrate on the huge books with all their figures. They would haul water from the creek. Lavina remembered her "Papa's" warm hands holding hers. The kids rode any horse that was handy. Molly was an old white horse, a mare, that never wanted to be caught, but they managed to ride her often. King was a big gray gelding and Sprink was a big bay horse. Molly had several colts, which were sold. Prince was a long-legged colt that Lavina rode, which made Nels and Anna nervous, because he was so peppy. She had no saddle. She remembered driving horses to haul hay, plow, drag and cultivate on this farm. That was because she loved to do any work which meant that she could drive the horses. They used to plow using 3 horses, disc or walk behind a drag. She always helped mow, rake or load hay using two slings that were lifted up into the hay mow. She also had to help feed and milk the cows. And remembered that breakfast was usually 1/2 banana, oatmeal and eggs. At Christmas time there was never enough money to do the things they wanted to do. There were home made doll dresses and clothes, though, and Nels made doll furniture--tables, chairs and beds, while Anna made small pillows for the dolls and pieced small quilts. Santa would come while the children were out of the house. They had oyster stew and had fruit, candy and shelled nuts. They exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve and played games. Nels gave rides on his back and bounced the children "Riggidy Jig" on his knee. When you got so big that your feet would touch the floor when he held you on his knee, you couldn't play that game any more. It always ended in the "horse" collapsing and you tumbling onto the floor (and him hanging onto your hands so you wouldn't get hurt). We got pretty good at bending our knees up a little so they wouldn't touch the floor so soon. There was also "Pon a Bane" (sp?) where you sat in his lap and he would say, "Now there is no laughing in this game." And he would touch your forehead and say, "Pon a Bane", touch your eye and say, "Augustane" (sp?), your nose and say, "Nasafip" (sp?), your lip and say, "Monalip" (sp?), your chip and say, "Augafip" and then tickle you under the chip and say "Gully, Gully, Gully" until you dissoved in laughter and fell off his lap onto the floor. And even though we knew exactly how it went, we couldn't play it enough times. Christmas sometimes was at the Zieglers (Nels's sister, Mary, and her husband, Frank Zeigler, lived about 8 miles away). If the weather was bad, they would take the horses and sleigh the 8 miles in the cold. The kids loved to ride in Uncle Frank's Model T Ford. He was a careless driver. As farm expenses mounted, they tried various ways of supplementing the family income. Once they had as many as 75 swarms of bees. That fall they had nearly two tons of honey which Nels sold farm door to door at Hibbing and other towns. These bees had to be destroyed because of a "supposed" disease. Nels kept Holstein cows and believed in correct feeding methods, while Anna prided herself on keeping a productive flock of leghorn chickens. (There is a copy of an article from a farm paper called, "The Farmer," named "Their Chickens Beat their Cows" and pictures the family among the 325 chickens. It is subtitled, "Nels Swendsen Finds Poultry Best Paying Investment on His Farm' and was written by Don P. Shannon.) His records showed that his hens laid 3,741 dozen eggs during 1924, which is an average of 138 eggs per hen. This amounted to $896.34 in revenue. The sale of broilers, spring chickens, hens and baby chicks brought $198.92. The net profit of the flock of 325 hens was $621.76 for the year. Nels had picked up drift logs from the Kettle River by riding a big horse to cross the river and had the logs sawed into lumber at a small mill close at hand to build the poultry house. It was built with one thickness of boards, covered with roofing paper on the outside walls and the roof. Sawdust was used as insulation overhead. The sawdust helped to keep in the heat in the winter and the heat out in summer. He had seven Holsteins, which in 1924 produced $786.59 worth of cream and butterfat besides that which was used in the household. He sold $80 worth of honey, $225 worth of potatoes produced on 10 to 15 acres dug by horse machine and hauled to town by wagon, and $120 worth of clover seed, making a total net income for the farm, above cash paid out for feed, of $1,683.45. They had a cucumber patch and Lavina could keep the money she made on these. In town she could choose 5-cent hard candy or a 5-cent ice cream cone on a trip she loved to make with "Papa". Nels saw an ad on how to make radios and sent for the directions. His first sets were crystal sets. The whole family sat around with the headsets on and were thrilled to hear Omaha and Chicago and even sometimes Nashville, Tenn. For better reception you had to have a big aerial, so Nels set about doing this. By the house he spliced two long poles together and put another pole on top of the barn. Then he had four strands of wire from the house to the barn. Soon there were tubes with dry cell batteries and coils to wind for bigger sets. He made an Ozarks set and then sold these for a while. The first car they had was a big Studebaker and Thelma remembered that it didn't go up hills very well and there seemed to be some talk about its using too much gas, etc.! It was quite a day when they got an Overland touring car. Thelma remembered that it was a special joy if the family could get ready and go into town to see the family movies. Family rates were 44 cents for the whole family, and of course there was a continued serial of "Tom Mix" or such. They belonged to the "Lone Pine Farmers' Club" a group of people all from east of Hinckley. Lavina remembered big lunches held there. Nels was often the president and he loved ice cream. So they always served him a huge dish and coffee in an oversized tin cup. All the children came along, but the small children were put to bed. Often many children to a bed, lengthwise to fit more in!. If there was a piano, there was singing. "Mrs. Fogarty's Cake (Foggerty?)" was Nels's favorite. Winters were so cold and they had such deep snow that early cars were kept off the roads. There were no snow plows, so they used horses hitched to sleds to take them to town. One year Lavina used her potato picking money to buy gray tweed knickers and a red sweater and was proud to wear them (she froze a lot) going skiing on Lone Pine Hill and also in the woods. Simple skis had just a strap to stick a foot into. Skates were clamped on shoes and they hunted for ice on the Grindstone River. Someone would build a big fire to help keep from freezing. There was skiing and slinding on the big hills and swimming in the Kettle River and Grindstone Lake in the summer. There was riding Molly who would pull the home made wagon they had. There were 4th of July picnics and home made ice cream. On your birthday you could have frosting on the cake, but other times, it was considered too extravagant. About this time, Anna wasn't feeling too well and one hot summer day on July 30, 1918, she called Dr. Stephan. He brought out a baby brother to show Thelma and Lavina. The girls weren't too sure how this situation would work out, since there wasn't too much room on "Papa's" knee for both of them. Then, too, Nels would take one girl on each hand and now, surely, one of them would be left out. They decided to call the brother, Merle, even though Nels had another name for him; he was the "Little Man'. On Feb. 7, 1922, the youngest sister, Wanda, was born. Thelma thought she was a sweet little doll. Anna had made a lot of new baby things. She spent many hours at the old Singer sewing machine making their clothes. They had to be neat and clean and their meals were simple, but nourishing. In the evenings Thelma remembered that they played games or practiced writing and doing "figures'. This was sometimes an oral addition/subtraction game where he would recite a series of math problems and you would have to follow in your head. It was a contest to see who would know the right answer. Nels taught them to play dominoes and they also played Old Maid and "slippery" or rummy. They had one game called "Buck", too. Anna and Nels told stories of their childhood days and the children never tired of them telling the Halloween pranks they did or the time Nels fell off the mule into the hog pen. Or the time he sat in the parlor all afternoon. Thelma remembered Nels calling "central" and saying, "Give me 9-F13, please." Then he would say, "Hello, Mary," and if they didn't especially want the party liners to hear what they had to say they would talk in Danish. Many times their conversations would end with, "We'll be over for dinner," or "Let's take the car and go to Grindstone Lake for a picnic." The cousins would have a swell time playing all the various hide-and-seek games. They played Tom Mix, too. The best of all times was when they could ride horseback. Aunt Mary and Uncle Frank had an Arabian horse that could really "take off". They also had a pony at this time. Anna sent the children to Sunday School and they certainly had to go to Daily Vacation Bible School. There were memory verses and one of them went like this: "Little children, you should seek rather to be good than wise, for the truth you do not speak shines out in your cheeks and eyes." Another one went like this: "Whatever you do, do it with all your might; things done by halves are never done right." When Merle was about ten years old, the folks acquired a small accordion. (concertina?) Merle could play it right from the start. He practiced and got to do quite well. Nels bought him a better one, and he wore this one out, too. Then Nels would get out the fiddle he had spent $10 for and play along, while Anna played the piano. Nels had taken half a dozen lesson and had learned to fiddle old-time tunes. The two of them would play for house dances. The people would move out furniture, stoves and the rugs and the neighbors would come in and dance. Whole families would come. The names Lavina remembered were Jaques, Hedtke, Burdan, Moffet, Smith, Sanford, White and Henny. The young people played games like "Skip to My Lou"and "Needle's Eye". There were big lunches. There were square dances, waltzes and two-step dances. Soon Merle learned to transpose music so that the pieces could be played by note. In later years the family played for dances as an orchestra in small halls, at first. They made enough money for groceries during the early 30s. They might get paid $10 for the whole family playing from 8 PM to 2 AM. The music was arranged from piano or concertina scores and was "Old-time" or " New-time" music. A lot of Polish polkas and Mazurkas were included in the dances. The places they played included were "Green Hut" and "Pine Camp". They played on the radio in Minneapolis and in Yankton, South Dakota. Sometimes they hired a drummer and sometimes a bass player, Milo Nicholson. They wore white slacks, shirts and skirts. They all had to be washed, starched and ironed each time they played. The band was called, "Swendsens' Concertina Orchestra" or "Doc Swendsen's Band". In 1928 they had a farm auction. The bank had foreclosed for a debt of only $900. The girls felt very sad about selling old "Molly", the horse. They loved that horse. They dreaded leaving the old farm with its Norway pines and all. They moved to a house about 1 1/2 miles NW of Hinckley. Nels went into business. There was a lot of worry about how he was going to send four children to school with no money to start a business. He had to borrow money to buy his first Maytag washer. He rented a store window to show the aluminum tub washer. He sold from door to door and demonstrated by doing the family washing. Soon he went into a store with the town electrician and started selling electric appliances. Then he rented a store on the south side of main street of town. Next, he purchased the Hinckley Variety Store and then put in furniture as a side line. Swendsen's Furniture and Appliances was well known throughout the county. He expanded this store by putting in a cement floor and adding additional space with an upstairs. He often told Carol that losing the farm was a blessing in disguise, because he never really liked farming. He realized he was a salesman only[IT: after :IT]he had lost the farm.