The Norske Side: 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.