It's Jocelyn's birthday

And I couldn't post a less-relevent picture of her, really. She wasn't, like, way into cats, and the picture was obviously taken nowhere near her birthday, because even in Arco, Idaho there isn't usually a foot of snow on September 24. Plus, I'm mad at Cats In General today, after finding about a dozen rude brown lumps in our yard yesterday. However, there's something about this picture that keeps pulling me back to look. Maybe is the surprise at seeing Jocelyn with a cat, or her cute little nose. Corregated tin? Snow? But probably just that Jocelyn is in it.

Nevertheless, today is her birthday. I sometimes ponder on how she'd be as a 32-year-old. What would she like now? What wouldn't she like? Where would she live? Would she have moved to Ireland? Become a crazy cat lady? It's impossible to say, since she is forever half that age and obsessed with glitter.

Happy Birthday full of glitter and cats, Joss!  

Mink Creek

 In Mink Creek, Idaho there is a tiny settlement and a tiny cemetery. Nate's forefathers Rasmus Christian Petersons Sr. and Jr. were some of the founding settlers of that picturesque spot between Preston and Bear Lake. We stopped to say hi on our way to the lake on Labor Day.

Finally we have a cool headstone in the family! (Uh, well, since 1916) RC Peterson, you have a nice view.

More August birthdays / a book

The first thing we did on Norah Jocelyn Peterson's first birthday is go to the Rexburg, Idaho cemetery with my dad, whom she calls Papa. (Or at least presumably she will, once she speaks.)

Happy birthday, baby! 

Calvin, Papa, Norah

Calv, me, Norah

We went to see the headstones of Hogan (or was it Hakan?? the headstone said Hogan) and Cecilia Anderson because I never have and they were right there under my nose the whole time my parents lived in Rexburg. They are moving this month, so I wanted to go while I could. It was rainy and cool, which is of course the best kind of cemetery weather there is.

My dad added to my story about those pioneer ancestors (from here) with a little bit more detail. Hogan/Hakan went to Manti after he arrived in Utah with his cousin when they were lads. They had both been sent from Sweden by their families who couldn't afford to come or take care of them. It is also interesting that Cecelia's friend, who Hakan married first but she died, was named Hannah, and then the couple named their first child Hannah.

And so, here is an old book that belonged to Hannah that is so lovely that I almost can't stand it. It's slightly less than 100 years old, but that pattern on the front is so pretty and to tell you the truth trendy right now that I just like to stare at it.

Hannah Anderson Johnsen was the grandma who raised my Grandma Ada Stricklan in Shelley, Idaho after her mom died. (There is also a picture of Hannah in that post about Hakan and Cecelia as pioneers.) My dad has kept Hannah's journal and ledger book, which has an entry as early as 1918. The journal part begins in 1921. She recounts her engagement and marriage, sporadically writes about her children and grandchildren's lives and prices of crops over the years, since they were farmers. The last entry is in 1940 and is hardly legible. I have read bits of it, but it's hard to read because it's written in Hannah's beautiful handwriting and the pages have faded and some are water damaged and also I get distracted really easily by the amazing pattern on the front cover and the terrifying recipe for soap in the back. I will share a lot of these things as I go, you can be sure.

the piano, part one: acquisition

"My father, Ostlin Hanson and sax," written on back by Ada

Dave and Evelyn at the piano, about 1960

Ada wanted a piano. She grew up with a father who played saxophone in the local band, she played the piano, and she wanted her daughters to play as well. She did hard work, lived a country life, and she wanted a little bit of refinement in music. Wives of sheep herders and ranchers don't get an income, however, and though I doubt Paul had any objection to owning a piano, he objected to buying one. Since Ada had no money to her name, it seemed that she was out of luck. As my dad said, "Of course Paul wouldn't give her the money for it," even with all the work she contributed to the running of their land.

The situation reminds me of a scene in a book where a woman with four children and a successful husband tries to get some money at the gas station in rural Louisiana in the 1950s. She fills up her gas tank for five dollars and asks the clerk to charge ten to their account and hand her the other five. Though he's clearly done it before, the clerk won't do it this time; he's been ordered to stop giving her cash. (Ordered by the Mister.) No matter the wiles she uses, he won't budge.

Myself being a housewife who earns absolutely no money but has nearly complete control over the household expenses, I can't understand the conventions that reigned fifty years ago. That's how they lived, however, and there was nothing that fictional wives or real wives like Ada could do about it.

So here stands the problem. A desire for a piano, no income to buy it. But of course, that's not quite true. Sheepherders with a business to run would occasionally find themselves with excess lambs: motherless from a dead ewe or too many for her to take care of. In those cases, the ranchers would often dispose of the lambs because they were simply too much work to nurse to adulthood and usefulness. If someone wanted to take the bum lambs, however, they could bottle feed and coddle them until they were big enough to sell, though they'd still be worth less than the regular sheep. It sounds like a lot of work for a minimal reward; however, when choices are limited, people get crafty. People like Ada, who could get these bum lambs to adulthood and save the pennies she earned for a basic piano from Chesbro Music in Idaho Falls. So that is what she did.

When she had saved the money for the piano, she picked the one she wanted from Chesbro, and they were to deliver it to the Darlington house. When the man from the music store arrived with the piano, it became evident that he had delivered the wrong instrument. Ada had already paid for it, but he had no intention of returning the 80 miles to Idaho Falls and bringing back the correct piano. He told her she could take it or leave it. After all of that work! I'm pretty sure I would have wanted to smack him up side the smug face, or at least give him a withering stare. I'm not sure if she did either of those things, but I do know she took the piano.

A baby boy

"1958 Dave and me" from back of photo

When my Grandma Stricklan was 42, she was hospitalized for an illness. She had some blood clots in her legs and was receiving treatment. Before she was released, she told her doctor, a longtime acquaintance, that she was pregnant as well. "Impossible," he said, and sent her home to finish her recovery. About nine months later, my dad was born. When my grandma saw that the baby was a boy, she asked my Grandpa Stricklan what he should be named. She had named the girls, and Paul would name the boy. Paul, at 48, was a terse old farmer and rancher with strong opinions. "Dave," he said. And that was that.

At the time, the Stricklan family lived in a place called Darlington, Idaho in Butte County. It is not a town or village, just a "populated place," officially. The house they lived in still stands, if only just barely. It looks much older than a house that could have been home to a family in the 1950s; you would maybe think pioneers. But no, just a hardy Idaho midcentury family, raising sheep and cattle working and living on a plot they half-owned.

Dave was the fourth baby born in the family, but the first boy and much later than anticipated.