The Christmas Pajamas

It's very nearly Christmas! At least it's the time of year many of us are getting ready for Christmas. Christmas shopping, decorating, singing, giving and traditions. Ever wonder where your Christmas traditions came from? I don't mean general things like putting up lights or a Christmas Tree or stockings although if you came from a home that put lights up on your house, you probably put them up as part of your decorating and Christmas celebrating. What I really mean are other things that might be a more personal family tradition like molasses cookies, acting out the nativity, lighting a candle for every day in December before Christmas, listening to Christmas music (or collecting Christmas music-like me), collecting nutcrackers (like my dad), a 12 days of Christmas service project...the list could go on and on. One thing my brother (Eric) and I did (maybe mostly me) was to turn out all the lights except for the Christmas lights on the tree and where ever else they might be in the room and turn up the Christmas albums and dance and act them out. I think that's why I love Christmas music so much and have made it a hobby to collect Christmas music. I think that we have traditions that we may not even know why we have them. That's one of the fun things about learning our family history...we can see how it might connect to us today!

This memory about Freda is from Aunt Avis (Carl's wife):

Do you remember the pajamas she made every Christmas for all her grandkids?  She used to buy a bolt of flannel fabric and make each and every one of them a new pair of pajamas every year.  I am thinking there were close to 20 the last year that she did this.  She cut out and sewed every pair herself but she hated wrapping packages so she would call me and I would go and wrap the packages for her.  There would be all those pairs of pajamas laid out on the little bed in the room off the kitchen.  All of them alike but many different sizes.  I will never know how she knew what size to make for who, but a lot of those kids were around the same age so that probably helped.  And she would get all these packages ready to mail and we would take them to the Post Office.  Also included in these packages was the best divinity I have ever tasted.  She could really make that like a professional (which I guess she really was.)  She would make batch after batch and drop it on cookie sheets by the tablespoonful and set it in the little room to “cure.”  There was always a box of it to put in the Christmas package for each family.  She also hated to decorate the Christmas tree they always had in their living room so Greg, Kris and I would go over to their house (we only lived about 2 blocks away from them in Hampton) and decorate the tree.  She liked those foil icicles and they were always the last things put on the tree.  And we had to separate them one by one and hang them that way.  Always looked beautiful after it was all done too except for one year.  The tree had been up and decorated for a couple of days and when they got up that next morning all the needles had fallen off and were on the floor and it hadn’t made it to Christmas Day.  So Johnny went and got another tree and we did it all over again.  I think Satch might remember that because he was home for that Christmas.

I don't remember any of the pajamas tradition and neither did my father, but my dad was the youngest child of Alfreda's, so maybe she had stopped doing it by the time he had a family. It's funny, though, we got pajamas for Christmas every year when I was growing up and I think we talked our parents into letting us open them on Christmas Eve...my children got pajamas every year and talked us into letting them open them up on Christmas Eve. Eerie. Now we're into matching pajamas...go figure! Look for pictures of us on Facebook!

As far as the tree goes, my dad remembered that and he said they kept hearing a whoosh sound and they couldn't figure it out until they realized the needles had fallen off the trees and that was the sound they heard!

Do you have any pictures of yourself in Grandma's pajamas? If you do, post it on our cousins page on Facebook. Do you have Grandma's recipe for divinity? Help the rest of us out! Share the recipe. I've never made divinity, but I'd love to try it since it was Grandma's!

Thanks, Avis for the memory!

Next time: more memories! I'm wishing more and more that I had known my Grandmother better and that I had been a better granddaughter.

Timeline of Alfreda's Grown up Years

I thought it would be interesting to see a timeline with major events in Alfreda's life mostly because I was curious as to why Orin's family would do so much to help her family instead of her own parents and family. I was pretty sure some of it was a responsibility to her because of the actions of their son/brother, Orin, but I was sure that if it were possible, her family would help her as much as possible, especially as I believe they made a good living. It turns out that her parents passed away before that very difficult time in her life and although she had occasional help from her own family, her children that were home at the time were passed to relatives for care and work from Orin's family.

Age     Date    

20     27 February 1915 Marries Orin Johnson in the home of her parents, Hans and Isabelle Johnson. Witnesses are Carl Johnson and Gustave Johnson and they are married by Reverend O.M. Vereide.

22     1916  Son, Orin, born and passes away. He is buried on a knoll near Ole Johnson's Farm (Orin's father) which land is now owned by Victor Johnson (Orin's nephew and son of his brother, Joseph).

23     1917 America enters WWI.

24     1918 Daughter, Marjorie, born.

26     1920 Lives in Alden, Freeborn, MN.

26     1921 Daughter, Adele, born in Rake, IA.

28     1923 Son, Orris Harlan born in Walters, Faribault, MN.

31     1926 Son, Carl Dean, born in Alden, Freeborn, MN.

34     The Great Depression begins and lasts until about 1939.

34     1929 Her father, Hans, passes away.

34     1929 Daughter, Betty, born in Estherville, IA.

37     1932 Daughter, Marilyn, born in Fenton, IA.

37     1932 Mother, Isabelle, passes away.

38     1933 Orin, Jr. born in Swea City, IA

42     1936 Divorces Orin (as far as I can tell. I am told that he was declared dead, but I haven't searched for that information yet.)

48    1943 Marries Ray Elijah Towle

68    1963 Ray passes away. They were married for 19 years.

Alfreda Julene Johnson Towle lived in Hampton, Iowa from 1943 until her death on the 9th of February, 1984.

The children were all born in different places as you can see. It may be that I have incorrect information but I understand that they moved around quite a bit in those years that she was married to Orin as he tried unsuccessfully to farm so that would explain the different birth places. They owned a house in Pine City at one point as well.

Next up will be words from her children!

Alfreda Juline Johnson Towle: The Early Years

This is it! My first story blogging! This blog was begun to share some of the family history I have learned over the years. It may be a hit and miss kind of a thing but I will share the link on our cousins facebook page when I've added something new. I really wanted to bring the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Orin Johnson and Alfreda Johnson Towle together, but I think I will split this into two blogs, one for each of them and their ancestors. I'm calling it "The Norske Side" because I was brought up believing I was half German and half Norwegian (Ha! It's way more complicated than that!) so this is the Norwegian side of me! The blog I do about Orin Johnson will be "The Other Norske Side".

I thought it would be good to give some background information on Alfreda Johnson Towle before I shared some of the stories that were sent to me.

Alfreda Juline Johnson was the fifth child born to Hans and Isabelle Johnson on August 30, 1894 on the home farm near Rake, Iowa. Her brothers and sisters are:
Josephine Marie, July 14, 1883-Dec 7, 1979
Gustave Benhard, April 17, 1885-May 3, 1966
Ada Christina, May 18, 1886-April 2, 1975
Carl Tideman, Nov 16, 1888-Oct 2, 1925
Harold Orin, Dec 2, 1897-March 21, 1898
Harold Irving, Nov 11, 1899-Oct 3, 1995
Hazel Geneva, March 8, 1902-Dec 19, 1992
Leslie Clarence, May 9, 1904-Nov 15, 1939
Oliver George, Aug 4, 1907-Dec 10, 1984
Bernice Arvilla, Nov 29, 1909-Oct 31, 1993

What was life like for Alfreda and her family? She was not even six at the turn of the century and her family lived on a rural farm. There was no electricity at the time and they probably had an outhouse to use as a bathroom. Her father, Hans, helped settle the Brush Creek area and was active in civic affairs and helped organize the Rake Creamery and the Rake Elevator and was secretary of the old Lincoln Lutheran congregation. I suspect from the pictures that they were not poor. The following letter was sent to Jim Johnson (the son of Leslie Johnson and the Author of "The Johnsons 1750-1976 A Family History") which Jim shared in his book about life growing up in the Hans and Isabelle Johnson household from Oliver Johnson (10th child of Hans and Isabelle and another younger brother of Alfreda's), and while he was a bit younger than Alfreda, we can probably assume some similarities in the household.. With Jim's permission, I am sharing a portion of that letter.

"I remember our life at the farm west of Rake and starting school at the age of five. We walked to school which was a country school one mile north of our place.

My father, Hans, was easy going and only spanked us after mother got after him to do so, and then only mildly. But he could get very angry if something real bad was done, especially affecting the horses or cattle. He had a great many beautiful horses and a horse sale on January 6, 1919 brought high prices for them. Many of the horses were bought previously in 1917-18 for the Army by government horse buyers who were at our farm often in those days. He raised corn and oats, mainly. We had a lot of cattle and hogs and milked about 20 cows. We boys got up at 5:00 A.M. and each milked 4 cows, then fed the calves, separated about 20-30 gallons of milk, then fed skim milk to the hogs and a little to the calves.

We had a milk house that had a gasoline engine in it. It ran a shaft which went the length of the building and outside to a well. it pumped the water which ran through a tank in the milk house and had a pipe overflow to a stock tank further down by the barn. The cold water pumped from the well ran through this tank, and that's where we kept our cream cans, butter, etc. It would also run the cream separator and a washing machine. We also had a cellar underneath the house which was very cool, where my dad kept a keg of beer, which he seldom drank because it seemed to last for a year.

My mother was, of course the boss and we children had to obey her as she had a little switch for us if needed.

We moved into the town of Rake March 1, 1919 to a beautiful house. It was the only modern one in town, then, as it had a well in the basement and pressure tanks filled by a gasoline engine. There was no electricity at that time, as it came in 2 or 3 years later, and then the gas engine became an electric one.

The house had a large coal-burning furnace that provided hot water heat as there were radiators in every room. The house had three very large bedrooms upstairs and a large sleeping porch on the east side of the house and had room for 4 beds. It was nice and cool in the summer."

Of course, Alfreda would not have lived in that house as she was married in 1915, but I think this gives us an idea of how she lived when she was young. I imagine she had many chores inside and outside the home. Possibly helping to cook and clean, perhaps taking care of other farm animals like chickens. She probably helped with the laundry as well and helped with the younger children. I'm sure she used the skills she learned as a child in her parent's home to support her family in 1935 when her husband, Orin, left.

This is a picture of the Hans H. Johnson Farm House. Standing in front are Gust, Carl, Ada and Josie.

     Alfreda Juline Johnson Towle

Alfreda Juline Johnson Towle

Alfreda Juline Johnson Towle

Front L-R: Leslie and Hazel. Middle L-R: Isabelle, Harold, Hans, Gust, Carl. Back: Alfreda

On laps L-R: Leslie and Oliver. Middle L-R: Harold, Hans, Hazel, Isabelle. Back L-R: Ada, Gust, Alfreda, Carl, Josephine. (I think.)

Front L-R: Ada, Bernice, Josephine. Back L-R: Alfreda, Hazel

 Front L-R: Ada, Hans, Isabelle, Josephine. Middle L-R: Bernice, Oliver, Hazel. Back L-R: Alfreda, Leslie, Carl, Gustave, Harold.