The Land of my Mother

It was an amazing day, April 30, 2012.  Carol and I got up in a relatively leisurely manner.  I had to get Sailor out in the morning, so he and I went for a walk around the area at about 7 am.  The circus is in town next door (@ the Sioux Falls arena) and Sailor was very excited by all the animal smells.  I’m pretty sure he’s never smelled elephant or tiger or camel before.  Nose in the air, he pranced around.  I was kind of sleepy on the walk and as I passed by a local business, instead of Hoy Trial Attorneys I read the sign as Hot Trial Attorneys.  What kind of town IS Sioux Falls, I wondered?

Anywho, late morning we headed north about 40 miles to Madison, SD to connect with our Aunt Mae who has lived in this area all her life.  Auntie Mae will be 92 on 12/12/12 and at 91 she’s a wonder.  She lives independently, still drives (!), has good sight and hearing, and seems to only use her cane for minor balance assistance.  I thoroughly enjoyed her company, her sense of humor, and the stories she told us about life in rural South Dakota in the 20’s, 30’s and beyond.  As I stated in my previous blog, there were three girl cousins all born in 1920 -- my mother, Evelyn Mae, the woman we call Auntie Mae, and another cousin Maudie (her actual name was Mary and I think she is one of the reasons I was named Mary).  They were very close as children and maintained a bond throughout their adult years.  These girl cousins were the daughters of sisters – Anne (my grandmother), Lena, and Emma (Auntie Mae’s mother) were all Erickson’s.  Anne became Swanson, Lena became Fitzgerald, Emma became Swindler.  Anne Erickson (Swanson) was born in Norway and immigrated with her Mom, Dad, and her sister Lena; Emma was born later in South Dakota.  My maternal great grandfather (the father of these three sisters) died when the girls were young and my maternal great grandmother farmed the South Dakota land with her three little girls.  She had help from the neighbors and eventually remarried, but can you imagine doing all the back breaking work of farming, caring for animals, and raising girl children on your own even for a short time?  In South Dakota?  Yowzer.  This is what I mean when I refer to the hearty stock of my ancestors.  Amazing. 

So Auntie Mae took us on a tour to see, with our own eyeballs, some of the family sites.  We saw the land that our great grandparent’s farmed, this land where a widow and her girls eeked out a living.  We were unsuccessful at finding the Swanson (our grandparent’s) family farm – the buildings are not likely still standing anyway.  The first three Swanson children (two aunts and my uncle) were born on the property in what was the original homesteaded house that became the chicken coop.  My Mother and the last baby (Aunt Ruthie) were also born at home, but in the actual “newer” house that had been built by then to shelter this family of 7.  Auntie Mae said today, several times, that it was a lovely house, built well and sturdily.  As the piece de resistance, we did locate, with Auntie Mae’s invaluable direction and advice, the cemetery where my grandparents are buried in Salem, South Dakota at the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church.  We found their headstones amongst the other Swansons and Ericksons and Ericssons and Bjornsons and lots of other “…sons”, and had a tender moment of thanksgiving for these people who begat so we could be begat.  Our grandparents were older than the norm when they married, and started their family quite late.   Our parents were in their 30’s when they met and married, birthing me when almost 40.  My grandfather died the year I was born; my grandmother, five years later.  So where others have squeezed in an extra generation or two, I feel closely connected to these Scandinavian immigrants, even more so now that I’ve stood at their graves and witnessed their land, breathed their climate, seen their horizon. 

We scattered some of Aunt Ruthie’s ashes over her parent’s gravesite and Carol read again from our Mother’s old Lutheran Book of Prayer.  The air seemed thick with story and history while our 91 year old Auntie Mae (who is actually a cousin if you’re following the genealogy correctly) looked on.  The weather was comfortable and in the 70’s and the clouds were light and the sun, warm.  We hear there are severe thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow here, so we feel doubly blessed that we had a perfect day.

We took Auntie Mae back to Madison and stopped at the Second Street Café for coffee and a bite to eat.  Auntie Mae’s appetite is great and she would not let us pay for her food or ours.  I think she was really pleased with the outing and with our visit – I know I was.  Upon leaving, she gifted us with an old cuckoo clock that had been originally gifted to her Mother by our Mother who bought it when we were in Bavaria when our Dad was in the Army.  She also wanted us each to pick a tea/coffee cup and saucer from her collection “to remember her by”.  Carol picked a lovely blue flowered set and I picked one from the St. Louis World’s Fair, a fair that our grandparents attended.  Additionally she had a set of 9 rose colored goblets that belonged to our grandparents that she really wanted us to take and share – we left her one goblet and Carol and I will divvy up the other 8.  Such precious gifts given with such sweetness, kindness, and love.  So even tho I’ve just spent the last month letting go of all the miscellaneous things I didn’t need or want any more, now I have a few heirloom items that I didn’t even know were waiting for me. 

The landscape around Sioux Falls, in small towns like Montrose (where my grandparent’s farm was), Madison, Mitchell, and Salem is farmland and peppered with livestock.  Fields are now being prepared for crops.  The farms these days are huge, much larger than what the early immigrants homesteaded for their families.  Most of the towns, however, are still small, with only several hundred to several thousand inhabitants.  Aunt Mae has seen vast changes in her life time – improved roads, the shifts of farming from family to corporation, the transition from walking to horse to automobile.  I am struck this evening with how much I miss my Mother.  I wish I’d gotten to see this area with her, to hear her stories of her childhood.  I feel lucky to have gotten this afternoon with Aunt Mae, as she is the only survivor from this time and generation.  Her faculties are still so sharp -- her descriptions and the twinkle in her eye are imprinted in my memory. This is one of the most precious gifts a family can bestow -- the gift of story, of generational history, of awe at the passage of time.

I’m always looking for the lesson.  One of many from today is to cherish your roots.  I have no illusions that any of these relations were without dysfunction.  I don’t think this was a “simpler” or a purer time.  It was just different.  And I value, greatly, the contributions they made to their families, communities, neighbors.  I’m not sure I would have survived what they did.  I’m not sure I will live as long as my Aunt Mae (who, btw, attributes her long life and excellent health, in part, to eating a good breakfast every day, never having smoked, and not having been a drinker).  Maybe I wouldn’t have even liked these farmer folk, (nor perhaps they, me) but they are who stand behind me, who went before me.  Finally, for the first time and after over 50 years, I am here in this land of my Mother’s people, and I’m so glad I’ve come.  That I got to do this journey with my one and only sibling is grace beyond measure.