Pecking order

Fri., November 22, 2002 - A home nurse came again.  I had Meals on Wheels today.  I called Jean.  Mary & kids came this evening -- they brought soup.
Sat., November 23, 2002 - Tom & Merilyn left Sunday a.m. for Laughlin.  A home nurse came again.  I called Ray.  Mary brought noon meal - a beef & vegetable mixture -- very good.
Sun., November 24, 2002 - I baked a pumpkin pie.  Nancy came & ironed for me.  Tom called from Laughlin to find out how I was.  Bill, Jenny & Patty came in p.m.  We had pie for lunch.

I wonder how it is Jean got called before Uncle Ray.  Maybe she had tried to reach Grandma or something.  Her birthday was in May, so it wasn't that.

I wish I could remember more of the fun sayings Jean tossed around often.  The only one I recall is "for crying out the window."

Here's the Christensen family.  I think Uncle Pete looks rather handsome here.  Jean looks waaay to serious for how I remember her.

Skipping around

Grandma took a little break, two of them really.  The last entry in my last post was August 30, and now we are to September 6.

Sun., September 6, 1936 - Howard went to Andrew Andersen's for a corn binder.  We had a very heavy rain late this afternoon.  Howard took me to town to church tonite -- Mission Festival.

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Sun., September 13, 1936 - John B. Jensen here for dinner.  He brought a little calf from Von Seggerns.  Raymond and Allen here awhile this p.m.  Tonite we took Annie's hens back to her.  Mom went along.

Mon., September 14, 1936 - Raymond and Howard cut corn this a.m.  This p.m. Mom, Howard and I went to Washington in the V-8 to Trina and Andrew's silver wedding.  Stopped in Fremont so I could get some slippers.  We stopped at Adolph's.  Mom stayed there while Howard and I went to Mildred's.  We stayed all night at Mildred's.

Trying to keep this straight in my own mind, but Andrew Andersen was Grandpa Bill's first cousin, with Andrew's father being Niels Andersen, brother to Bill's father Ole C. Andreasen.  It appears Trina (or maybe Trena) died in 1952 and Andrew in 1975, with both of them buried in Washington County.  I have in my Ancestry family tree that they had at least one child, a son Raymond born in 1914.  I do not know who Adolph nor Mildred might be.  Unless Mildred was the Mildred once married to Uncle Chris but not married to him in 1936.

Perhaps Mom and I need to go on another cemetery trip to visit the graves of what I believe are quite a few Andersens in Washington County.

And here's a corn binder with me throwing a complete dart as to whether it resembles what Grandpa might have used.

Radium treatment

Thurs., October 24, 1935 - Nice warm day.  Margaret and Allen Christensen visited school this afternoon.  Grandmother had another radium treatment today.  Aunt Emma is going to stay here until Saturday nite.
Fri., October 25, 1935 - Cloudy and sprinkled a little this morning.  Went to lodge tonite.  Howard brought me up the hill.
Sat., October 26, 1935 - Drove out to Florenz Niemann's to have Irene's and my order signed, took the orders to Irene, stopped at Wagners to tell Edna I couldn't have card club this Friday.  Went to Norfolk about 11:00 with Helen and Irene.  They had been to Wayne and cashed my order.  Went to the Masquerade party at Uncle Hans' tonite.  I got first prize for the girls.  It was a picture.

I am not sure why Grussmother had radium treatments, but I researched a little bit and found the beginning of the end of such treatments.  From wikipedia:

     Concerns about radium were brought up before the United States Senate by California Senator John D. Works as early as 1915. In a floor speech he quoted letters from doctors asking about the efficacy of the products that were marketed. He stressed that radiation had the effect of making many cancers worse, many doctors thought the belief that radium could be used to cure cancers at that stage of the development of therapy was a "delusion" — one doctor quoted cited a failure-to-success rate of 100 to 1 — and the effects of radium water were undemonstrated.

     Around the start of the 1920s, new public health concerns were sparked by the deaths of factory workers at a radioluminescent watch factory, later referred to as the Radium Girls. In 1932, a well-known industrialist, Eben Byers died of radiation poisoning from the use of Radithor, a radium water guaranteed by the manufacturer to contain 2 μCi of radium. Cases sprung up of the development of carcinoma in patients who had used conventional radium therapy up to 40 years after the original treatments.

     The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States, and the term now applies to the women working at the facilities. The first, United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917, at Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s, and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut.

     The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes because using rags, or a water rinse, caused them to waste too much time and waste too much of the material made from powdered radium, gum arabic and water.

     Five of the women in New Jersey challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey's occupational injuries law, which at the time had a two-year statute of limitations, but settled out of court. Five women in Illinois who were employees of the Radiant Dial Company (which was unaffiliated with the United States Radium Corporation) sued their employer under Illinois law, winning damages in 1938.

Hard to keep up

Mon., October 21, 1935 - Ray took me to the 2-mile corner.  I walked the other mile.  Earl absent, the Christensens were back again.  Mom came out after me tonite.
Tues., October 22, 1935 - Car acted funny today.  The report is that Marian Davis has smallpox, so that's why Earl isn't here.  Frederick Niemann has it, too, I guess.  Jean had an earache this a.m.  Mr. Goodling took her home.  Baked cookies tonite.  Howard brought us a pheasant this eve.
Wed., October 23, 1935 - Car worked fine today.  Benthack says Frederick doesn't have smallpox, so Herbert was in school today.

Such comings and goings with students.  Grandma's attendance book must have looked rather festive.

The name Benthack to me means Dr. Benthack at Wayne.  I was not sure of his first name, but found this on the Wayne State College site:

     "While the building boom of the 1950s and 1960s came to an abrupt end, the applied science and home economics programs benefited from the completion of a new Applied Sciences Hall, named for Dr. Walter Benthack, a member of the college governing board (1939-45) and a prominent Wayne physician for more than half a century."

So, perhaps the Benthack Grandma is referring to was this one.  I was not aware there was a Benthack Hall at WSC.  My familiarity with the buildings on campus came from traipsing around for district music contest during my high school years.  In addition to the large halls for the big groups, other buildings were pressed into service for solos and small groups.  If I was ever in Benthack Hall, I have long forgotten it.  I can't believe I couldn't find a better photo.

Another birthday

Tues., February 26, 1935 - Warmer today, thawed some.  To practice at South school with Walkers and Howard.  Put up stage.  Howard went back to Pete's again tonite.
Wed., February 27, 1935 - Warm and thawing today.  Marjorie C. treated with homemade candy for her birthday.  Practice again.  Vaudeville entertainers there tonite.  Howard went to Pete's again.
Thurs., February 28, 1935 - We had mashed potatoes and macaroni for hot lunch.  Dress rehearsal tonite.  Went to practice with Walkers and Howard.

I looked it up and little Marjorie was 7 years old in 1935.  I thought I had a photo of when she was a young girl, but after several days of thinking and looking and finding nothing suitable, I am going with the above photo of the Christensen family; Marjorie, Jean, Pete, Margaret and Allen.  A fine looking bunch.

Scandal?

Sun., November 12, 1933 - A real wind storm raged all day.  At about 2:00 p.m. it was so dark that it seemed like 5:00 or 6:00.  The dust sifted into the house.  Edwin went home about 10:30.  I went to S.S. and church.  We had Holy Communion.  Didn't do much this p.m.  Howard came about 6:00, but I wasn't ready until 7:00.  We stopped at the school house and started a fire.
Mon., November 13, 1933 - I'm glad a fire was started last nite, so much warmer in the school house this morning.  Everything was covered with dust.  After school I washed three of the north windows and wiped down the woodwork.  Had to put compound on the floor.  I baked a cake after supper, Mrs. Mellor's sour cream chocolate cake.  It fell a little bit.
Tues., November 14, 1933 - Delmar and Bruce were at school ahead of me this morning.  We played outside this noon, although it was rather chilly.  George had a headache at recess and I sent him home.  Tried to write lesson plans this evening but didn't succeed.  Mrs. Behmer and I talked until 10:30.

Students arriving to school before the teacher?  Sounds scandalous to me.

Speaking of students and their teacher, I was copying part of the Nielsen/Iversen family history book that Jean and Margie did back in the day to send to Mitch.  I couldn't help but read bits here and there while I was at it.  I stumbled upon a little story I had not heard before.  Here it is straight from the book, under Margie's section:

     Marjorie, Jean and Allen attended 28 North school with Marian Andersen as their teacher, she later married their uncle, Howard Iversen.  They walked the one and a quarter miles to school most of the time with Allen and Jean dragging and helping her along.  According to Jean, she would say "Now Yeannie, you KNOW I is the lillest one"  And it worked wonders.  Sometimes they would cut across the fields as a short-cut and in one hay field stood a hay stack that was fun to climb and slide down the sides a few times on the way.  One morning they stayed a little too long and suddenly heard the school bell ringing and ran madly -- but they were late.  When Marian asked why the five of them (there were two neighbor boys that walked with them) the older boys said some dumb thing like the cows were out or something.  To their amazement, she didn't believe it and they had to stay after school -- she had seen the reflection of the sun off the bottom of their dinner buckets as they were sliding down the stack!

I chuckled after reading this story and had NO problem whatsoever in believing it.  Grandma was nothing if not sharp as a tack.