Fun was Strenuous, and So Was Farm Work!

During the latter part of this third decade of the 20th century, I spent an increasing amount of time during the summers visiting, and helping with the farm work on a farm about 5 miles northwest of town. Tractors were not used for field work, so my first experience were horses. I learned to bridle, curry and haress. To this day, I am certain I could harness a horse blind-folded, using either croup or breech harnessing. I learned to cultivate corn, using a team pulling a single row cultivator. I learned how to milk cows, how to pick eggs, how to start and stop a windmill and how to use a manure fork for its intended purpose.

Ecclesiastes and Thomas Wolfe Were Right--All is Passing

Thomas Wolfe, the brilliant writer who died at the age of 38, wrote a novel called, "You Can't Go Home Again". This June I recognized the truth of the phase he used for the title of this work. A brief side trip to Bryant on our way back from a visit to my mother's sister in northern Minnesota did this for me. One truly cannot really go home again. In a letter to a friend he never mailed, Wolfe said, "--which means back home to one's family, back home to one's childhood, back home to a father one has lost, back home to romantic love, to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame,--" Wolfe's observation became mine. The Bryant I had known no longer existed, and the child experiencing that Bryant was also long gone, existing only in the memory of a man now grown old.

Stadem Descendants Singing in Church Service

"Snakker du norsk?"--"Ja, a little!"

In those years the church organization we belonged to was known as the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. And Norwegian it was. In each of the three churches, Brant, Garfield, and Bethany, the Norwegian language was used once a month. In fact, just a year or two before my confirmation instruction, all instruction had been given in Norwegian. I was required to attend services every Sunday even though I didn't really know the language. Listening to that much Norwegian, it was inevitable that I got to understand some of the language, and I eventually could put together a few phrases.

Family life in the Jordahl family during the 1920s was a very ordered existence. We had devotions every morning and evening. When it was time for bed (10 o'clock was the bewitching hour), Dad would shake a little, hand-held bell. We would gather in the upstairs hallway, standing in staircase fashion, tallest to smallest and sing a Norwegian song,

"Jeg er tret, jeg sove vil."

Jeg er tret, Jeg sove vil,

Mine Oine lukkes til

Se, o Fader, venig ned

Til mit dunkle Hvillested!

Har idag jeg syndet, Gud,

Slet min synd da naadig ud!

Herrens Naade, Jesu Blod,

Gjor jo hver en Uret god.

Alle dem, som jeg har kjaer,

Maend og kvinder sjern or naer,

Smaa or store, hever in slaegt,

Tag dem i din baretaegt!

A translation would go something like this:

I am tired and would like to sleep.

My eyes are closing.

Look down, oh Father, with compassion

To me in my dark, resting place!

If I have sinned today,

Wipe out my sin by Your grace,

Lord's grace and Jesus' blood,

Yes, you are always good.

All that I love,

Men and women far and near,

Small and large, all nations on earth,

Take them in Your protective care!

We always said grace before and after each meal. These prayers were in Norwegian, and recited in unison. Translated, the beginning lines of the before meal grace read something like this: "In Jesus' Name we go to the table and receive from His hand our food."