| DAD'S FAMILY |
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| Farfar, Jöns Jonasson, was born in Södra Torp, Värmland, on December 22, 1862. By the time he reached his destination in America, that name had been changed to John Johnson, so to us he was always Grandpa Johnson. His father, Jonas Mattson, 1821-1892, also born in Södra Torp, was a farmer, village custodian, and district-court juryman. His mother, Anna Larsdotter, 1819-1885, came from Granval, a nearby small village. Grandpa applied for permission to emigrate on April 4, 1884 and on the 18th boarded the Orlando in Göteborg bound for Hull, his ultimate destination being Cokato, Minnesota. On June 10, 1898, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. About Farmor, Olive Carlson, I know only that she was born in Stromsburg, Nebraska, of Swedish immigrant parents. Her father, Magnus Carlson, was born on June 12, 1824, in Yxfal, Kysa Soken, and came to America in 1846; her mother, Josifina Shillerstrom, was born in 1828 in Hallingberg, Soken, and came to America in 1851. I have yet to find either place on a map, but I expect they are both in the vicinity of Jonköping. They married in February, 1852, after which the only information I have is Mother's note, "They both must have died in 1898." The Stromsburg cemetery records show that both birth years are correct, but great-grandfather died in 1911, and great-grandmother, in 1914. Dad's parents were married on March 4, 1891. He had one sister, Evelin, who died at age five before he was born. His brother, Hadden Laurance, was born in Lake Elizabeth, Minnesota, on August 22, 1899. Two documents of the Baptist General Conference of America augment these facts: John Johnson was converted to the Swedish Baptist faith in Cokato on October 23, 1885 and was baptized there the following spring by Carl August Johnson. Later in 1886, he began his "preparation for the ministry at our seminary, Stromsburg, and Chicago, graduating in 1890." The Swedish Department of the Chicago Baptist Union Theological Seminary in Morgan Park, Illinois, asserted on April 17, 1890 that John Johnson "honorably completed the full three years course of study"; signatories were George W. Northrup, C. G. Lagergren, Eric Sandell, and N. N. Morten. He filled student pastorates at Platte and Stromsburg, both in Nebraska, and at Princeton, Illinois. After graduation he served several pastorates in the Midwest: Concordia, Kansas, 1890-1891; Omaha, 1891-1893; Cokato, 1893-1898; and Lake Elizabeth, 1898-1904. In 1904 the family moved to Oregon, where he later became the first pastor of what I knew in childhood as the Haley Baptist Church. On April 23, 1982, a young man living in Södra Torp, Sweden addressed a letter to my mother. After introducing himself, he continued: "Through the Haley Baptist Church in Boring I got the information that you should be the daughter-in-law to Pastor John Johnson. Therefore it would be very nice and interesting to get in contact with you, because it seems we are related. But maybe I should start from the beginning. In our home we have an old wedding picture that we got from America many years ago. My grandfather used to tell us that it was Uncle Jöns Jonasson in the picture." All that Östen Olsson knew about the man in that picture was his name and that he had later become a Baptist pastor in Oregon, an occupation designated in Swedish by the one word "baptistpastor." He started in a library, probably in nearby Stöllet, "where they have all the old churchbooks in microfilm." Here he learned Jöns' birth date and that he had applied on April 4, 1884 for permission to emigrate. "Then I went to our county's capital city, Karlstad, about 75 miles south of us, and visited the Emigrant Register." Here he learned the details of Jöns' emigration from Sweden. "This was all I knew except for one thing; the wedding picture was made in Clay Center, Kansas. But this wasn't much to get anywhere with, so I contacted the House of Immigrants in Växjö, Småland, and asked them for advice. I told them that I believed he became a Baptist pastor in Oregon." Östen was surprised, as am I to this very day, when a few weeks later he received the results. In some old annuals describing Swedish Baptist pastors through the years, they had found one with the correct birth date, but of course with the changed name, John Johnson. They also knew his last city of residence, Boring, Oregon, so it was to the Swedish Baptist Church there he addressed his letter. Getting no reply, he wrote again, this time to the Boring Postmaster; his second letter received an answer, from the pastor in Boring. "And you know that I really got overwhelmed when he wrote that there were members in the congregation who remembered John Johnson and his son Gordon Vance. Pastor Savage also wrote that he had a brother-in-law who knew you, and he gave me your address." The resulting correspondence between Mother and Östen came to my attention in 1984, a short time before I visited Scandinavia with my mother-in-law and her second husband. The flight schedule from Seattle to Göteborg brought us there one day before we were to board our ship for a short cruise, so I left the older people to relax in the city and went off to meet my past. The flight aboard a small plane to Karlstad ended in a memorable cross-wind landing, and an impressive number of relatives were there to take me by car to Södra Torp. Grandpa Johnson, the youngest of five children born to Jonas Mattson and Anna Larsdotter, is in the 12th generation listed as residing in Rosgården; the first entry is dated 1566. His brother Lars, Östen's great-grandfather, inherited the farm, married Kerstin Persdotter, and together they raised two children, Anna and Axel. After the deaths of their parents, these two divided the property, Anna retaining the existing house, and Axel building his own, I think in 1919; it's called Rosenlund. Axel Larsson married Inga Olsson, and their daughter, Karin Gunhild, married Helmer Olsson; the latter couple are the parents of Östen and his older sister Monica. And so it was I spent the night, a very brief one, at Rosenlund, only a short distance from the house where my grandfather had been born and in the Jubilee year of his emigration to America. The countryside is pastoral and quite like Oregon, with many lakes and forests; it's no surprise that Grandpa and Grandma seemed happy with retired life in Haley, where the farm and the church are actually located. Both of those places, when last I was able to find them, some years ago now in the suburban maze expanding inexorably to the east of Portland, looked much the same as they did in my childhood. Both of the Swedish houses are simple frame structures, painted white, but the interiors contain many objects of great interest to me, including the famous wedding photograph. Unhappily, the roll of slides I took of those items was lost, but I was given a postcard-sized copy of the wedding picture. Gunhild, as she is known to the family, and Helmer were sharing the house with her brother, Ivan, and Östen at the time of my visit, but Monica and Herbert Nilsson, with their sons Magnus and Jörgen, have since moved in too, since their rented house was sold. Regrettably, both older men have since died. The family earns its living as foresters, selling each year what is allowed under government control, and supplementing that income by gardening. Breakfast was a simple repast, taken individually from the large table whenever it was convenient, and dinner was somewhat informal also. What surprised me most was the way butter, smör, is served. A big mound sat on a dish in the middle of the table, and when someone wished it, a person nearby put a big piece on the serving knife and then passed it down the table. All of the other food was in serving dishes, and individuals simply got up, walked around the table filling their dinner plates, and then returned to their chairs to eat; Monica filled my plate, so I remained seated. It was very good wholesome food, appetites were hearty, and I must confess that many of the people in my generation were a bit on the heavy side, Gunhild and Helmer being notable exceptions. Anna's daughter, Gun, lived with her husband, "Sigge" Larsson, in Rosgård, but since they have no children, I don't know who will next reside there. I attended two, possibly three "coffees" during my stay, including one at Gun's house. These were the most structured and formal of the meals. China, linens, silver, and serving utensils were of high quality, and coffee was served first to the guest of honor. There were several, no, many varieties of cookies, and the hostess was not satisfied until the guest had tasted each one. Next we had what I called coffee breads as a child, two or three kinds. Finally came the cake. It was white, two-layered, with fruit between the layers, covered with absolutely sinful whipped cream, and decorated with more fruit. Fortunately my weight had come down quite a bit before that trip, and the food and wine tour of France was still several months ahead. In the years following my visit I occasionally received letters from Östen and Monica, more often from the latter, since as she told me after announcing the death of their father, "My brother has got a girl friend. Her name is Annika. Now you understand why he hasn't written to you. He has been busy!" She also responded to a question I had raised in a previous letter. "You asked me for Swedish traditions at Christmas. I won't tell you now; let's wait until the long dark evenings of November. Now it's too beautiful to write about Christmas. We have green grass and trees, flowers and those beautiful bright nights…. Last night was a beautiful night so I went to a Swedish 'Folkpark' to dance. If you'll visit Sweden I'll take you to a Swedish 'Folkpark' one Saturday night." Later, Monica did write to me about Christmas in Sweden. "We are all fine, except for the traditional cold we catch before Christmas. Today we have been to a restaurant and eaten a 'Swedish Christmas table' (Julbord). It was a perfect day; the weather has made this part of the country into a real winter landscape. Four Sundays before Christmas we begin Advent. Then we hang 'Stars of Advent' with electric lamps in our windows. The stars can be made of wood, paper, metal or straw. We also put electric candlesticks with seven lights in our windows. On the balcony or in the garden it's very common to put electric lights on a spruce or a pine. We also have a candlestick with four candles on the table, one for each Sunday in Advent. "The thirteenth of December we celebrate Santa Lucia, who is originally a saint in Italy, the Queen of the Light. A young girl is crowned Santa Lucia and is escorted by maidens and 'star-boys.' Everybody wears long, white skirts. On the head of Santa Lucia is placed a wreath of lingonberry sticks with candles on it. The maidens have a candle in their hand and tinsel around their heads. The 'star-boys' have a cornet of paper, decorated with golden stars, and in their hands they have a golden star or a candle. Of course, the boys and girls are singing during the procession. They sing the Santa Lucia carol and other carols belonging to Christmas. We eat white bread with saffron decorated with raisins on the day of Santa Lucia." These activities for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are quite familiar to me, although her family, unlike my memories of mine, serves lutfisk. She concludes, "Christmas is some kind of a break during the long, cold and dark winter. The celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ combined with some sort of worshipping the light, that's how I think the Swedish Christmas is." Nearly three years before that she had sent me an early Easter card and Glad Pask drawings from her sons: Magnus Per-Olov and Jorgen. After wishing my family well and lamenting Sweden's cold winter weather that year, she continued: "Like Christmas Easter has its traditions. On Easter Eve we will eat a lot of eggs. Herring (sill) in different flavors also belongs to the Easter smorgasbord. We also have other traditions on Easter: children dress like witches and paint Easter letters which they gave to neighbors and friends. As we still are afraid of witches here in Sweden we burn fireworks on Easter eve; in some parts of Sweden they light fires on Maundy Thursday. All that is to frighten the witches who fly to the mountain Blakulla on a broom. They used to bring their black cats and their coffeepots to Blakulla, but technical progress has also reached the witches; nowadays they have been seen going in rockets." Haley Baptist Church is an important part of my childhood memories, although I don't recall attending any services there; I suspect we did, however, if for no other reason than to keep our Sunday School attendance records unblemished. Its history is described variously by several sources. Perhaps the nearest to an official source is the "Seventy-Five Years' History, Columbia Baptist Conference," by Gordon Carlson, published in 1964, from which I extracted the following information: Haley Baptist Church was begun in 1907 by 13 Swedish Baptists from the East. It was organized on August 19, 1909, in a mission tent, and it subsequently met in Edwin Stone's home. The original church building was dedicated in 1912, and additions were built later. In October, 1944, it separated from the Columbia Baptist Conference, and in 1950, it joined the Conservative Baptist Convention. The duration of John Johnson's pastorate is given both as 1910-1920 and as 1907-1920. The most entertaining, and I think still most authoritative because he was there, source of information about the church and the people who lived on Haley Road during the first half of the 20th century is Miles Aubin, a man with whom I've never spoken, although twice, unknowingly, we have been in each other's presence. I quote from his first letter to me: "I lived near the John Johnsons, who built a new house on Haley Road at the top of the hill near Haley Station in the mid-twenties. "I am assuming that you are the son of Gordon. I picked strawberries with Gordon and his wife in 1930 (I think). They were recently married and picked with the rest of us. As I remember, Gordon had been made pastor of a church in Washington, and Mrs. John Johnson gave him the profits to help in the organization of the church. I remember Hadden, who died of meningitis while teaching high school in Coos Bay. "I remember John Johnson as a nice old man who was easy to talk with. He overused the adjective 'tremendous' along with the noun 'amount.' He seemed always to have a hoe in his hands. I don't recall Mr. Johnson being very active in the church at that time. "I think the church was organized in about 1908 as the Swedish Baptist Church of Powell Valley. The church was built in 1911. The name was changed to Haley Baptist Church in 1918. "I have a picture of most of the founding members of the church. The picture was taken on the John Johnson place on S.E. 242nd [then Hogan Road] and Buena Road. Reverend Johnson walked from there to the Haley Baptist Church to attend all meetings; the distance was about 2 1/2 miles each way. [This was while he was still pastor and well before the family moved to Haley Road.] "I'm guessing that the Johnsons had ten acres at Haley, of which one acre was in strawberries, and two acres were in raspberries. They hired pickers, who lived in a small house behind the new one and in tents." "HALEY ROAD FROM 1921" BY MILES AUBIN "The H. C. Comptons lived in the large house at the top of the hill. They moved in around 1919…. The Comptons had an electric generator powered by a one-cylinder gasoline engine. They had electric lights and running water. In those days houses had running water systems with bathrooms, but the toilets were outside where they belonged. I never knew of an inside toilet in the Compton house." "In 1922 or 1923, John Modin, 28, and his wife Dorothy, 21, and their two children lived in a new two-room small house next to the Comptons. John was the son of Chris. When Chris Modin died in about 1925 or 1926, John and his family moved onto the Chris Modin place next to the Stenbergs. "The John Johnsons built a new house where John and Dorothy had lived. The old 'doll house' was used as a guesthouse for berry pickers who were needed to harvest Johnson's two acres of raspberries and one acre of strawberries. John Johnson was the first preacher at Haley Baptist Church, which was built in 1911 by August Lekberg." [The Oliver family, who fled from Oklahoma's "Dust Bowl," occupied that small house for many years, paying little or no rent until Dad forced them out, as I recall; my brother Wes thinks that Mr. Oliver's brother and his family lived in the Compton house then.] "John Johnson was a nice old man who farmed the five acres with a hoe. He had been replaced as minister before we arrived in 1921. When he attended church, he was not very vociferous. He sat in the back and kept his mouth shut." [Across Haley Road from the Johnson's front yard was a magnificent field of blackcaps, from which we ate our fill in season, whether with or without permission, who knows now. I don't recall if George Lane, who at one time was a supervisor for the Gresham Berry Growers, was still alive during my boyhood, but Wes remembers Mrs. Lane vividly as "a school teacher with powerful lungs, who was short and stout; her voice would echo down the road shouting, 'Eleanor! How many hallecks have you got?'" Eleanor Lane and Wes were about the same age.] [The Lane house, down the road and across from the John Backlin place, was the oldest in the area, having been built for the Klein family, who arrived in the mid-teens from The Dalles area. Two of the Backlin children were known to us as adults: Harold, who became a Baptist minister and on several occasions visited our home, perhaps in Seattle; and Olive, who married August Lekberg and lived in a house next door to her parents' place; Ray and Leroy, the youngest of their six children, were our closest friends during those early summers. Wes remembers their cousin, Florence Lekberg, who was considerably older, as "their spinster aunt"; Miles reports that she was the church organist. I recall that at one time Harold was pastor of a Chinese Baptist Church, likely in Portland, and more recently I've heard rumors that my parents tried to arrange an affair between Mother's cousin, Inez, and Harold.] |
| W. Vance Johnson 14 Aug 06 |