Being Danish

Sat., December 19, 1936 - Iny came home today.  Cleaned the house.  Irene, Helen, Bess, & Dorothea came over tonite for our slumber party!  Iny & Bess slept on the lounge.  Howard stayed over home.
Sun., December 20, 1936 - Up to Margaret's for dinner with the folks.  Had a grand dinner.  Tonite we & the Rews were over home and made candy.
Mon., December 21, 1936 - Made some candy.  One batch failed, but the other O.K.  Went to town tonite to lodge Xmas party.  Everybody brought candy or popcorn.  The lodge bought apples.

I can just see Grandpa's reaction to an upcoming slumber party at his house.  I wonder how quickly he beat feet out the door.  Haha.  First no birthday celebration, and now this.

I went to my first Danish Sisterhood of American function this weekend.  It was not a regular monthly meeting, but their annual district convention.  Which was very nice as there were people not in our local lodge there, meaning there were extra people to visit with.  I learned over supper (and it was news to most of us at the table) that back in the earlier days of Danish immigration, there were basically two groups -- Happy Danes and Holy Danes.  The Holy Danes were very strict due to religious beliefs.  The lady next to me at supper was probably in her 70's and she said she was not allowed to go to movies or dances, and there was not a deck of cards in their house until she was in high school when her mother apparently thought she was old enough to handle the temptations and evils attached to playing cards.  She said she played Solitaire, which I imagine was fairly safe.  From what I gathered, the Holy Danes were, for whatever reason, more likely to put aside their "Danishness" -- traditions and history, etc.

The Happy Danes liked to drink and dance and were eager to embrace and preserve their "Danishness".  Based on the above photo (Uncle Nels Petersen and Peter Iversen), and the thousands of hours spent playing cards in just my childhood, I am sure that we are descended from Happy Danes.  I think I will take the photo to the next meeting as my proof.

But back to Holy v. Happy Danes.  When the Danish Museum that eventually ended up in Elk Horn, Iowa was being contemplated, the nearby town of Kimballton thought they should have the museum because they were Happy Danes and were the ones already preserving their heritage.  However, someone gifted land in Elk Horn to the museum (in their will or otherwise, I didn't hear) and that clinched that.  There were hard feelings between the two towns (only about three miles away from each other = awkward) for quite awhile.

But, that is behind them now and the museum, genealogy center, and windmill are quite the big deal for the general area.