Lois G. Dahlberg's Obituary
Lois Genevieve Dahlberg Harris Life History
Because I believe intensely that someday, my grandchildren and perhaps all of my descendents will become interested in knowing more about their background and family history, I am writing stories about my life and things that happened to me and my siblings in a day when the general lifestyle was much different than it is today.
During the central years of World War One, (1914-1918) most European Nations belonged to Alliances. Most of Europe, therefore, was drawn into the conflict which was one of the most deadly known to that point. President Woodrow Wilson tried to keep America out of the conflict, but after repeated attacks on our Merchant ships in the Atlantic, the United States declared war on the Central Powers. After a million soldiers were sent to Europe, the tide soon turned and Germany surrendered in November of 1918. It was during the midst of the 1st world war on July 2, 1916 that I was born in a small insignificant township of Courtenay about twenty-five miles north of Jamestown, North Dakota.
My earliest memories are when I was two years old. I can recall when Verna was born in North Dakota. She was two years younger than I am. I remember the midwife that came to help Mama. We children were very curious about what was going on. She had this suitcase and I remember asking her what she had in the suitcase and she said she brought the baby in the suitcase. We were curious about it but never thought to ask how the baby got in the suitcase; we just took it for granted.
We were very poor, everyone was poor. The house we lived in had been reconstructed from an old chicken coup, we were told. Brother Jim and I were both born on that place. Winters in North Dakota were very cold and barren. They were usually windswept because hills were few and there were practically no trees. The temperature would dip far below zero, sometimes forty or fifty degrees. Ice would freeze at least two feet.
I was the fourth child and 2nd daughter of nine children born to Ernest Fowler Harris and Pearl Abra Posey Harris. We were all about two years apart. Little Jewell died the same day she was born after being pronounced perfect by the doctor. I remember her funeral and how grandma and grandpa Posey were able to be there and someone provided a car too. I must have been six years old and it was a sad but revealing experience for us all. The birth order of our family was Earl Wesley, Bessie Jane, James Russell, Lois Genevieve, Verna May, Adeline Louise, Jewell, Bryce Oakley, and Beulah Loraine.
At one time when I was about six years old, we had to walk four miles to school and I remember it was so cold. I walked with my siblings (there were four of us) and my cheeks would freeze everyday. When we got to school they taught us to thaw them out with snow. I didn’t have any long lasting effects so it must have worked. I did have to miss an awful lot of school because it was just too cold to walk. Sometimes it was 30 to 50 degrees below zero. We didn’t have proper clothing to keep warm in such frigid weather. I am pretty sure that I didn’t pass one grade because of that. I believe it was the first grade.
We never had any money. I don’t know where we got our clothes from but they must have been hand me downs from someone else. I remember Mama used to make us some clothing out of flower sacks and we really thought we had something. We were really proud when she got around to making us a dress. Sometimes she would dye them. I guess we maybe had two dresses and that was it. Girls didn’t wear jeans in those days and we didn’t have anything to keep our legs warm except stockings
We lived at one time on a place belonging to Uncle Tommy, mama’s brother. I remember going to the outbuildings during the time of prohibition where Uncle Tom used to make his own whiskey. People who did that were considered bootleggers. He had several big whiskey barrels. I remember we used to spit in them because we didn’t approve of this habit.
We moved an awful lot. We always had to be ready to move. We seemed to be always packing and unpacking. Of course, we didn’t have a lot to pack.
While we lived in Carrington Bessie and Earl must have gone to a different school. Jim and I went to the same school and on the way there Jim would always run away from me, deliberately lose me and I didn’t know how to get to school. We were strangers in the town and I was so scared. I remember being traumatized so much of the time because of being alone in what seemed a very large town. We were used to living in the country. Somehow I survived.
My maternal grandparents, George and Abra Posey, didn’t live far from there; they lived in Melville, which was probably about twenty miles or so. We used to get over there quite often. We usually had a team of horses or mules. We always went there for holidays. The house was very small but we managed even with all of the Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. They would have a big meal. The children would play outside while the adults ate their meal and then they prepared for the children. It worked out well and nobody complained. They seemed to have plenty. Maybe it would be pork or turkey or chicken and there were plenty of vegetables. They would make pies and we would have quite a festive meal. We really looked forward to going to our grandparents for the holidays. Grandma always enjoyed having us come to visit. I remember I used to go quite often to visit. She had long, curly hair and she loved to have us comb and brush it for hours, it seemed like.
My Cousin Phyllis Pratt Cooper had sent me a train ticket two or three different summers so I could visit them and help with their children. They lived on a big farm and Ray Cooper was a wonderful man and about the hardest worker I ever knew. It makes one wonder where men and women got the incentive to work so hard in those days. I think it would be hard today, to find anyone who was so dedicated and self reliant and dependable as was Ray Cooper.
That particular year I went to the Cooper home, as usual, but while there, was notified that I had been designated to go to my Posey Grandparents to help care for them as they could no longer care for themselves. My parents had given permission.
Grandma had taught me, over the years, to sew, to crochet, knit and to tat lace articles, some of which I still do, eighty years later. Some of the talents, I let go over the years, not keeping up with them. I still have the tatting shuttle Grandma gave me for tatting lace, but never have really used it much. It has become a precious souvenir.
My Grandma Posey had certain, special toys we children could play with when we were there alone. I remember the beautiful cupie doll that we could play with now and then, but always had to carefully replace to its special shelf. One day it came up missing and was mourned by many of the granddaughters for years to come. Cute toys were a rarity in those days. I have since acquired a cupie doll at the flea market, which I adore because it reminds me so much of those happy days when we were smaller and so loved visiting Grandma.
I stayed with my Grandparents for approximately two years, acting as caregiver and chore girl while I was 12 to 14 years of age. it was a bit long to be away from my seven siblings. I missed my mother terribly. I attended school and yet did what I could to help, such as fixing meals, cleaning house, making beds etc. I did learn several adult tasks that have helped me through the years. Grandma was particular and even though she was blind, seemed to know whether I was doing the work properly or not. Going to school and then caring for Grandma, left me no time for playing and Grandmother discouraged me from having girlfriends over; she had no tolerance for the extra noise, and after all, she was pretty old and we all went to bed early. For me, the time went slow and I missed my family with a yearning every day. There was one joy, however, that I experienced each day while in that little town of Melville with my grandparents. It was the haunting sound of the train whistle as the train slowly came to a stop for mail delivery. I, of course, was hoping for a letter from my family, which I may have received once a month. I would rush to the Post Office; a block down the street, to check after the train went by. To this day, Even though I was usually disappointed, I love to hear the whistle of the train; it sends a thrill through my body that nothing could ever replace. I attribute that to those lonely days away from home and the special love a small letter or note could generate.
My grandparents did not attend any church meetings at that time and I doubt that they were members of any church, but they were Christian believers of the Holy God and Jesus the Christ and they were honorable and just neighbors to all. Grandma was a midwife who actually delivered me as well as many other babies. How she found time as well as giving birth to twelve of her own was a miracle, I would say, in those hard working, cold conditions of the western plains. Grandpa was an honorable veteran of the civil war, a civic worker in the neighborhood and a lover of animals. He cared for his horses, mother said, almost as if they were human. He broke many wild horses and actually became a well-known horse trader. My mother and her sisters helped to break the wild horses with more skill and interest than some of the brothers, she said.
It was while spending those two years with my grandparents that I formed many of my values regarding raising children and keeping my word. Grandma had given birth to twelve children, nine of whom survived to grow up. She died in 1933; just two years after her husband, Grandfather George Washington Posey, had passed on. They had been married for 66 years and were very close and endearing to each other. At the time of her death Grandma was living with her daughter, Ellen Josephine (Nellie) Edwards and her husband John and daughters, Virginia and Bonnie, in the hills of North Dakota. When my Grandmother, Abra Montgomery Huckins Kielley Posey briefly roused from her deathbed, she uttered the words “I knew you would come for me George” just before she passed on. It was, of course, a shock to us all but strengthened our faith in the hereafter tremendously.
Then, I don’t know how it happened, but my folks got word that my dad’s parents were pretty bad off and my dad convinced mother that they should move to Minnesota to be near them. For some reason they didn’t let momma’s parents know about the move until they were gone. I remember they acquired a car just for the move – an old Model –T. Although I don’t remember too much about it, I do remember they got stalled on the trip. There were seven children and the parents in that car so it was really crowded. I remember dad didn’t seem to be a good driver; of course he hadn’t driven a Model-T before. We got to this town and the back wheel went into a hole and they couldn’t get it out. It was a very frantic time. Mama may have been expecting Beulah at the time. Bryce was the baby then. They didn’t tell us what their plans were but the Salvation Army was close by and Dad went over there and made arrangements for us to sleep overnight. We had beds and everything. It was nice. Someone helped us get the car fixed and we took off again and we made it to Minnesota.
We got to Aunt Dora’s place; Grandpa and Grandma Harris’ had a small cottage on their property. They were very happy to see us. We stayed at Aunt Dora’s for a couple of days and then they moved us to the Walblum place, which was a big farm with a fairly big house but unfinished. This is the place I remember the most and loved the most in my childhood. It was a big farm with a fairly big house but unfinished. (We later tacked tar paper and/or flattened cardboard boxes in the spaces between the bare 2 x 4s to keep some of the cold out; however, the dipper would still freeze in the water pail every night). We had little furniture. I believe we must have slept on the floor. Then my dad took the car and went back to North Dakota to pick up our furniture and tools and belongings. He brought back a big hay rack with our stuff on it with a team of mules. He also had a horse or two extra. He brought our bedding. Mama would go out when she thought it was time for him to come home and put her ear to the ground and listen. We thought it was strange but it is amazing what you can hear when there is no traffic or other noise around. She heard him coming and she told us and we were all excited to finally get our stuff, as miserably scarce as it was. We thought it was pretty nice to have beds again. It probably took him a week to make that trip.
There were a lot of trees there, similar to Washington State. We hadn’t been used to trees as we lived in North Dakota where they are very scarce. We had a huge garden on the Walblum place. We raised a lot of corn and cucumbers. We raised wheat which we used for hay to feed the animals. We had a silo there. Sometimes we would have silage and they would put it in the silo. That was one of the places we would play. We didn’t get into the silage. There was a rim around it (probably the foundation) and there was a narrow place where we could walk or run around it. Then there was the granary too. There were different bins in there.
We lived only a quarter of a mile from the school then which was nice. It was a nice school, called the North Kentucky school, the same one that my dad went to. We had some awfully good teachers at the school there. In those days it was against the law for teachers to be married. If they married, they had to keep it a secret. Most of the teachers were spinsters. There were three Martin sisters; they seemed to take turns. The oldest one was Mabel; the next one was Alma and the youngest one was Hulda. Alma seemed to teach the most and she was my favorite. They were all very nice. I don’t know if they ever married. It was a little one room school. They would always have the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning and salute the flag. We would always sing some songs. The children were well behaved. They weren’t allowed to talk in school without raising their hand and being called upon. We had to raise our hand if we had to use the bathroom – we, of course, had outdoor toilets.
Back to our homestead: the garden was out behind the barn or some kind of outbuilding. We had to pick the cucumbers for market and the rows seemed so long and it was so backbreaking. Of course, a child’s view is different from an adult’s; I don’t know how long we actually worked each day, but during the cucumber season it seemed very long. Some of my siblings got out of it; of course, Earl was working for the neighbors and he got paid a little. Jimmy had rheumatic fever so bad that he was unable to work a lot of the time. He would hurt so bad that if we just touched him or sat on the bed, he would scream in pain. Dad and the older boys would trap, get wood, work the farm so didn’t spend much time in the cucumber patch. They would trap weasels, rabbits, skunks, muskrats, and whatever they could get. They would turn the hides wrong side out and put them on stretchers until they dried. Then they could sell them. Later, it didn’t pay well enough so they quit trapping.
While we lived there, we would go to different churches. We would go through streaks where we would have family prayer in our home regularly. They would bring in great big tents and they would have tent meetings. My dad liked to go to them. We had a lot of experiences with different churches. Wherever we moved, my dad would go to these different churches. My father would search and was very curious about all denominations. He would join whatever church was in the neighborhood as we moved around often, always trying to pursue a living and shelter for our big family. My mother never would join any of them, nor would she allow we children to join. We all went with my father and learned a great deal about many different faiths, which gave us a good education in the field of religion in that Era.
About this point in my life, 1929, it was interrupted by my annual train trip to the home of my cousin Phyllis in North Dakota and then on to assist my Posey Grandparents in North Dakota. It was while I was gone that the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came to visit my family and my parents joined the church; they wrote to me and told me about it so when I returned I was anxious to take the lessons; I felt so strongly it was true and joined also.
I started working at the garment factory the fall after I turned 15. It was with the help of a neighbor lady, who had stock in the factory that I got that job. She was impressed that I knew how to sew and with her recommendation, they hired me immediately.
I did well at the factory; I always got my quota with minimal items to redo. We worked on piece work; you had to make a certain quota or get fired. We got paid by the piece; we would get a bundle of items that we had to do within a certain amount of time. It was different and fun to sew on the electric machines instead of the treadle. We were all lined up one after another. I met all kinds of people and made many friends there. I enjoyed that work and as a result, have enjoyed sewing all my life. I tried rooming with someone in town but it didn’t work out well because we didn’t have substantial means to support ourselves.
I worked there until Aug 1933, just a month prior to my marriage. Our floor lady (supervisor) came to me and asked me my age. She said the inspector was coming the next day and I should tell her I was 18 but when she came and she asked me my age I looked her in the eye and I said I was 18. She looked a little skeptical but she went on about her business. She came back about an hour or two later and looked me in the eye again and said “Are you sure you are 18?” I said “no, I’m 17.” And that was all she wanted to know; I soon got my walking papers. After two years of working, I was allowed a stipend of $25.00 a month for six months, which was a lot of money at that time. That is when Russ and I decided to get married. He had been working at $2.00 a week and trying to save money on that.
We didn’t have a big wedding but Brother and Sister Vern Wilson had offered us their home to be married in and they had a big field of blooming gladiolas and gave me a bouquet; Russ and I went out there the day prior to our wedding and picked them.
When I sent for my ring, I also sent for a blue lace dress which I was married in. (Excerpt: As a young girl, wanting to play dress up, I found that dress in a bag and me and my friend were playing dress up with it; Russ already had a suit. The Elders married us there in the Wilson home. We had very few people there. Russ hadn’t told his parents he was going to be married. He didn’t have a car or anything so he often had to hitchhike/walk forty miles to my place. However, that day he hired a friend to bring him and I am not sure if it was on the way there or on the way back after the wedding when they had to stop at a store for supplies and the friend phoned his own parents from there and told them Russ had gotten married. They spread the word and when we arrived at the Dahlberg’s place, there were neighbors and friends gathered to greet us with a big chivalry, which is somewhat like a shower. They had all kinds of utensils and they were banging them together to make a lot of noise. The pots and pans were gifts for us and we received three rolling pins of one stencil. There were actually quite a few gifts which was wonderful.
After we married we moved in with Russ’ family in Vineland (about 30 miles from Brainard). Everyone in the family (Vernon and Linnea were still home) slept upstairs and we did too. However they had only one room up there – a pretty good-sized room and they hung blankets in between the beds so we had some privacy. The next morning Russ was up and out doing the chores by 7am. That is the kind of person he was all his life; very dedicated to his family and a very hard worker. We only stayed there for a month or so and then we heard of a place in the country that was empty. Somehow we got in touch with the owners and they let us live there rent-free for a while. Russ would cut a lot of wood and stack it so we would have wood to burn and we had beans to eat. We went to my folks for Christmas that fall and stayed a couple of weeks; all the while Russ was looking for wood cutting jobs. We returned home and found all of our wood had been stolen that he had stacked. Then we went to Brainerd and rented a flat where my parents were living at the time with Beulah and Bryce who were still at home. We were still newly married. Our flat was more like an attic and we were just there for a few weeks when we heard of a farm in Onamia (belonged to Houlton Benzey) about 5 miles out of town. They needed someone to run that farm and Russ had experience on the Echo Stock Farm. We decided to move there. They had cows etc. Russ milked about 20 cows. At first they had no milking machines but later on, they got one for him. They paid us $25.00 a month and our rent was included along with butter, milk and some meat. We lived there for about 2 years. We had a small garden while there which helped a lot. There were some nice neighbors there.
There was another neighbor who was very helpful to me. I really didn’t know much about motherhood, pregnancies, deliveries etc. when I got married and she taught me a lot of things, especially about babies. My friend came over when I was in labor – and helped me. My water broke at 12 midnight and then the pains started slowly at first. Dr. Vick came over during the night and spent the rest of the night there and then went to work in the morning. The baby (Ralph) wasn’t born until 8pm that night and the Doctor arrived in time. Grandma Dahlberg was there and my neighbor and Russ was there also. My first baby was born a beautiful, healthy baby boy named after his dad, Ralph Russell Dahlberg. He weighed 7 pounds and was a wonderful baby, so happy and always content. He never sucked his thumb nor had a pacifier. He was trained early; I didn’t have a lot of other things to do at that time so I gave all my attention to him and he was trained by the time he was a year old.
The 2nd year at that place, we worked on shares – a program sponsored by the Government – We also got a raise to $30.00.
We moved several times in the Onamia area. One time we lived in a little white house on the edge of town. I was pregnant with Gordon. The thing I remember most was everyday I would lie down and rest (Daddy was working) and every day I would have a nightmare – the same one every day. The nightmare was that somebody came walking in the house and I would hear them but I couldn’t move. I wanted to get up and see who it was. The strangest thing was that it was every day – the same nightmare and very scary. I never found out what caused it but it went away after Gordon was born.
I went to mothers about a month prior to Gordon’s birth. (Daddy stayed at our place and worked and took care of things). Dr. Anderson delivered Gordon while we stayed there at Mom’s in Brainerd. He weighed 8 ½ pounds – my biggest baby. He was healthy and well. It took about 8 hours to deliver him; It was a difficult delivery. He was also a good baby as all my babies were. Mom was good to take care of me and help with the babies. Ralph was just 18 months old when Gordon was born. We went home about 2 weeks after the birth.
We were all pretty happy with our little family. We had put in an order for a girl but didn’t get one; our boys were so wonderful, we didn’t mind. I don’t know why but we didn’t stay in that place very long. From there we moved to the main drag on the road that went to Princeton to an apartment for a while. One time, while living in that place, I heard some noise and went in to the bedroom and there was a big rat running back and forth inside the window screen, right close to where my little baby boys were sleeping. Dad took care of it and I took care of the babies. That was the last we saw of the rats; we must have put some rat poison under the house. While living at that place Russ worked on WPA, which was a government program to help those who didn’t have jobs; he and the other workers helped to clean up the countryside and many other things like improving the roads etc.
The Lindgrens, Carl & Lucille and Stan & Audrey used to come and visit us in Onamia. They came to see us one time and told Dad there was a job available on a Dairy farm in Princeton. We moved to Princeton next door to the Hartman family, with whom we became very close friends. They were nice to us and to the boys.
We moved from there after a short time. We lived across town for awhile by the river. We had to be careful because if the kids got out the back door, the river was right there so I had to watch them very closely. They loved to play in the water but couldn’t go outside unless I was with them. By then, I was pregnant again. I didn’t feel good living by the river so we moved again to a nicer place close to a little store run by a widow who was nice and friendly; she was very helpful to me also. She would close up her store and come and check on me. She volunteered to be a midwife. I had a doctor also and we had another baby to look forward to. Of course, we had no way of knowing at that time whether it would be a girl or a boy. My neighbor lady was very helpful and very kind. We used to get our groceries there. We had a little account; we paid for our groceries at the end of the month. We didn’t dare order very much because we didn’t want to get behind. We had to invent meals from very basic ingredients.
I started canning shortly after I was married. That is what I was taught to do when I was raised. That’s what my mother did. I baked my own bread and of course, never bought any prepared foods; there wasn’t any in those days.
The boys had some childhood diseases while there; the worst one was whooping cough. The poor little things used to whoop and cough so hard; it was really frightening. I had never seen it before; I felt so sorry for them and I was worried about them. They were barely over the disease when we sent them to my mother to care for them. I didn’t want the new baby to get whooping cough right off. The new baby was overdue and maybe that is why she waited three weeks late to be born. She missed the whooping cough and didn’t get it until later when she was two. We had a Doctor for the boys but it didn’t seem there was much they could do but we were very thankful they were over it by the time our daughter was born on Halloween. We were overjoyed with her and although we had chosen the name of Darlene for her (as we had for each of the children), by the time she came 3 weeks late, we were tired of that name so chose the name Annette after one of the Dionne Quintuplets from Canada. We have always been happy with that name and glad we chose it. She was tiny, about 8 pounds, quite chubby and small boned. She was also healthy and strong. We just felt like we had everything. Dad was still working for the Hoen Dairy and he left the house about 4am. He milked the 20 or 30 cows and then he would separate the milk, get the cream, bottle the milk (he even made and bottled chocolate milk) and then he delivered the milk in a nice milk truck. He had a special hat to wear for the delivery; that was a good job. He worked there about a year and we were paid $14.00 a week and we received our milk. After a year the son of the house was old enough and trained enough to take over the route, which left dad without a job. However, they told us about another dairy in the city and dad went over there and got that job. He worked there for a year or so and then he was offered another job where he could make better money; it was at the Feed Mill and he made $19.00 a week. He liked it there; the people were nice to him. The boss used to do nice things for us. One day we went to a Yacht Party on Mill Lacs Lake. That was pretty special. We were shy so didn’t get well acquainted but they were nice to us. They had us over for dinner and did other nice things.
We eventually moved back next door to Hartman’s and we were all happy to be together again. The girls used to take the kids different places. I remember Gordon liked to be over there; it was almost like family, like living together. The girls would always come and tell us the funny things the boys would say. The house there by Hartman’s was nice, with a back porch, which was screened in. One end went into the Kitchen and the other end went into an extra bedroom, which was an add-on; we used to rent it out to schoolgirls. We had a wringer washer out there and so that is where I did my laundry.
Poor Grandma (Julia Sophia) Dahlberg was helping me one day and she caught her hand in the wringer clear to her wrist; she pulled it out and the skin came off clear down to her fingers. It scared us to death. Julia was a hard worker; she was always working and doing something for somebody; she liked to be in charge. We had a good-sized kitchen and a dining area. My sewing machine was in the dining room. There was an upstairs with two bedrooms. Annette was just a baby at first so she slept in a crib in our bedroom while the boys were in the other bedroom.
One day the boys found a juice harp. It had something sharp on it and they cut every single tie off the newly tied quilt I had made them. They were so proud of themselves. Needless to say, my feelings were quite the opposite. They probably got their britches warmed.
Some time later after some of the family had moved out West, we heard there were good jobs in the ship yard and other places. We decided to move to Washington. The trip out in our 35 ford with four kids on the back seat left something to be desired. No video games, I pads, movies etc. We somehow survived the trip and when we arrived in Washington,
Brother Jim and his wife Anne took us in while Russ built us a small home about two blocks away. They had a very small mobile home with two bedrooms. Jim and Ann had a bedroom, and their kids and our kids had the other bedroom. The two daughters slept in one bed and our kids in the other, with the boys at one end and Annette at the other end.
After six months we were able to move into our new little home. We lived there for three years and then moved to a home on 45th and Asotin in Tacoma. The children attended Whitman School. We lived there for another three years. Russ wanted to have a small farm and when the opportunity came to trade homes with the Wilbur family, who wanted to move into the city. Russ loved the country and had a nice garden, calves, chickens and his beloved rabbits, which he raised wherever we lived.
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