Courting in the Olden Days

 

In the rural Minnesota Lutheran culture where I grew up in the 50s and 60s, it was a sign of serious intent when we came home with a friend of the opposite sex to meet the family. 

In my case Judy was the only girl I ever brought home.  We were serious by that time and my parents were probably relieved, given I was already 25 years old and had never had a steady girlfriend – the common age of marriage was the late teens or early twenties.  Was time getting away from me?  I met Judy, a girl from far off Montana, when I was working in my first job after college.  All three of my siblings met their future spouses while attending Luther college.  They were all from mid-west states, of sound Norwegian stock, and Lutherans.  Being Christian, preferably not a Catholic, was for us an implicit criterion for choosing a life partner.

Lois remembers bringing her boyfriend Jerry Lerum to the farm for the first time and dad asking where his ancestors came from in Norway, checking out his pedigree.  “From Sogne” said Jerry, to which dad replied, “I’ve never heard of anything good coming out of Sogne”.  Of course, he spoke in jest, but it was a bit of a shock for Jerry, and we all laughed about it later, appreciating dad’s wry humor.   Our parents were very pleased and accepting of all our spouses, though grandma Ellen Aaker once got a bit confused telling uncle Maynard about Jerold Lerum.  She said– “he’s a catholic, you know”.  Maynard clarified for her that Jerry was not a Catholic, but indeed he was a democrat – almost as bad!

Sister Jean brought Bill Berg home at Christmas when he had the opportunity to partake in our tradition of a full Norwegian meal with lutefisk, lefsa, and all the trimmings.  As the family sat down to the table dad said he supposed that Bill surely liked lutefisk, being that he was of Norwegian heritage.  Bill was not especially fond of this delicacy, but wanting to fit right in, so he said of course he did.  He took a small portion when it passed by and was able to consume this small serving without gagging, but when dad saw how much Bill “liked lutefisk” he heaped Bill’s plate with another large helping as Bill sagged in the chair.  He made it through the meal like a good sport, but with his belly rumbling through the sleepless night, he wondered if he could avoid another Christmas meal and still stay in good stead with the family. 

While courting is an ancient practice, dating is a relatively recent term which falls into the broad category of courtship and consists of specific social events carried out by the couple when (in those days) the boy asked the girl to go out on a date.  

The earliest usage of the noun "date" is in 1896 by George Ade, a columnist for the ChicagoRecord.^[1]  who used the term "Date Book" - a type of ledger system a cashier might use to track dates with suitors until she married.  “A young man lamented that his girlfriend is seeing other people that are "fillin' all my dates," as in ‘the dates on her calendar’."

In previous generations in our family courting was somewhat different then today and certainly more local.  My father, Arnold, as well as his three brothers, found their future spouses in neighboring towns not more than a dozen miles from home.  My folks met at a “sociable” – a kind of neighborhood gathering with food, ice cream and games, often organized by a church that invited other church communities for an evening of good socializing with friends and neighbors in an outdoor setting in summer time.  Dad’s brothers said that Arnold was infatuated with mom from the beginning.  Being a shy man, I can imagine the time when he got up the nerve to ask her out for the first time; “I spose’ you wouldn’t want to go out with me, would you?”  

They enjoyed going to dances, social events and church together.  They might have gone to movies too, a common dating activity in succeeding generations, but I doubt it. There were a few silent movies in the 1920s, but not many opportunities given that there was no theatre in Kenyon. 

Dad was working in the local gravel pit on a stone crusher and had enough cash to buy his first car – a 1930 Ford model “A” coupe.   Once he came home from work and rushed into the house to get spiffed up for a date with Inez.  In his hurry he forgot to set the hand brake.  When he came out of the house all dressed up, he found the car had rolled down the hill, through a fence, and into the river.   Coming out of the barn his father, Olaf, roundly scolded him (in Norwegian) for being so lovestruck and foolish.

Although there were strong taboos in many cultures throughout history regarding premarital sex, this has become increasingly common with the onset of the sexual revolution.  In movies, television and music, sex within dating has become increasingly accepted as a natural progression of the relationship.

For sure, social mores mitigated against pre-marital sex during the time and place of my youth, but in every graduating high school class there was at least one couple who “had to get married’ – sometimes meaning the pregnant girl would drop out of school and not graduate at all.  However, co-habitation before marriage was very rare and frowned upon.

Looking back another generation, my grandparents, Olaf and Ellen, grew up on neighboring farms and knew each other from childhood.  Though the concept of dating may not have been common in the last decade of the 19^th century, certainly some kind of courting took place. Both born in 1880, Olaf and Ellen would have shared much time together in school, church, neighborhood activities and family meals throughout their growing up years.  Uncle Maynard, in answer to the question about how they ended up marrying supposed, “it just seemed to be the natural thing to do”.  Knowing those fine people in their later years, none of us grandchildren could imagine a hot romance, but it sure would have been interesting to know that story - one that it never occurred to us to ask.  We are not sure if there was a party after their wedding on June 7, 1904, or if they went on a honeymoon – doubtful as it was haying season.  There is a bit of lore that there was a barn dance on the Solberg farm, where Ellen grew up, the same farm where my siblings and I were raised.  Olaf and Ellen Aaker were a wonderful example to their children and fifteen grandchildren - a devoted couple in a marriage that lasted 58 years. 

Reaching farther back into my ancestry there is a story about the wedding of my great grandfather, Nils, to his bride Martha Follingstead, as told in a letter from his father (my great-great grandfather) Knut.  Knut and Mari Aaker are the patriarch and matriarch of the Aaker family in America.  Born in the late 1700s in Telemark, Norway, they emigrated to the wilderness of Wisconsin with six of their seven children in 1845 when Knut was 48 years old and Mari 46. Ten years later they moved to Goodhue County Minnesota, to settle on a farm where a fifth generation Aaker, my cousin Paul, lives today. 

In 1863 Knut wrote a letter to his daughter Asbourg and her husband who remained in Dane County, Wisconsin.  In the letter he mentions his youngest child, my great grandfather, Nils.

“Now comes the news you should have been informed about earlier- namely that Nils was married this winter to a young lady from Vardal, (Norway) - Marthe Maria Olsdotter Follingstad.  She is a quiet and gentle young lady and the most we can say about her yet is that we have good hope, since she has been very inoffensive thus far, and complies with everything according to what we desire.  Yet, we do not know her further; we had not seen her nor she us before she moved home to us on the evening of 26^th February; (1863).  They were married on the day after, and the wedding took place at Lars’s home, since he has larger house space and, moreover, I could not stand the noise.” 

The Aaker Saga says that they were married at Holden church, but a party was probably held at his brother Lar’s house. It was easy to get the whole Aaker clan together on short notice as they all lived on farms within five miles of each other.

What?  Nils brought his fiancé home to meet the family for the first time and got married the next day!  Of course, the first thought I had was to check out the Aaker Saga, our genealogical record, to see when their first child was born. Her name was Malina, born in December, 1864 – so, almost two years after Nils and Martha’s wedding.    

All we know about Martha is that the Follingstads were in the Holden community, as her parents’ graves can be found in the cemetery.  But even if the two families were acquainted, she was apparently completely unknown to his parents when this young lady came into their lives.  What was courtship like back then?  We can only imagine.  I can see my great grandpa Nils, who was 34 years old when he married, feeling as if time was passing him by. He had been eying Martha in a pew across the aisle in Church for some time, and finally got up the courage to ask for her hand in marriage – and he might have said, “and let’s do it tomorrow!” 

All couples have their courting stories.  Just ask the question, “How and where did you two meet?” and follow up with…. “And then what happened?”  And be ready to write it down.

The True Beauty of a Person

 I never knew Gloria Anne Redlin, but I wish I would have.  In 1969 or ‘70 she was sent to Vietnam by Lutheran World Relief to serve as a nurse with Vietnam Christian Service, the same organization we had worked with. We did not meet Gloria because we left before she arrived.  She worked in a VNCS health project that served tribal people who were severely affected by the war.  They say she had a beautiful singing voice, and was a joy filled person to be around.  We recently ran across a VNCS newsletter from 1971, which reported on the tragic circumstances surrounding her death.   In that story, like other deaths that happened in Vietnam in the fog of war, the details and circumstances remain hazy.  There are also bits of information about her death and a memorial to her in her hometown on the internet, as well as a controversial theory about the death of the soldier who was shot at the same time as Gloria.  Here is some of the story of Gloria’s death. 

In the central highlands town of Kontum, on the night of October 13, 1970, she was giving a ride on her moped to an American soldier, returning him to his base.  It was late at night and dark, and as they crossed what was probably a check point, guards from the local Peoples Self Defense Force called out to her to halt, or so they said later.  Apparently, for whatever reason, Gloria did not stop and was fired upon.  The soldier was killed instantly, and Gloria was mortally wounded.  The soldier’s name was Sergeant Louis Janca.  For nearly a week Gloria struggled for her life at the US military hospital in Qui Nhon.  The surgeon who performed surgery said the bullet hit the spine just below the shoulder, meaning that had she survived, she would likely have been paralyzed.  For some days she was conscious and able to talk, and was visited by VNCS friends and colleagues, including close friend Zelma Lewis who was a nurse in the VNCS hospital in Pleiku, as well as Dr. Pat Smith, Pat Niska and Dean Hancock.  On October 20 her condition worsened, and she passed away on October 21, 1970.

There was a large gathering for a memorial service at St Christophers Anglican church in Saigon, and a funeral at Peace Lutheran church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  At the funeral a passage was read from Gloria’s diary, which had been previously sent home to a friend for safe keeping. It was a poignant message and testimony to the person she was.  She had written:

“The true beauty of a person is seen in what they say and what they do for others.  The beauty of a word – a smile – a thought – the radiance of a loving touch, a sincere look of devotion; this is beauty, this is loveliness; this is God shining in and through us. 

I must put you away little book.  I have filled your many pages with my hopes, dreams, fears, memories and observations.  Keep them safely and accurately for me, please.  If I send you away, please take along with you the love I have for my family and friends.  I shall be united with you in less than two years.  But if I don’t keep that appointment, please make very sure everyone realizes that what I came here to do is worthwhile, and after my labors, God’s finger touched me.  And I slept, and nothing is more beautiful or worthwhile than that.”

Brother to a Dragon Fly, by Will D Campbell

 

I’ve checked off another book on the list of those I should have read long ago.  “Brother to a Dragon Fly” published in 1977, should have been on my list of the 50 books to read before I die, but I was not aware of it until Pastor Wayne announced he was leading a discussion of it.

I was pretty much a bystander during the civil rights movement in the South which started during the time I was in high school back in the 1950s, though like most Americans I have learned much about and have great admiration for those who gave themselves to the movement, especially those courageous “front standers” who died in the struggle.  I suspect many others have not heard much about the role of this white Baptist preacher from the South named Will Campbell.  After finishing the book, I wanted to learn more about him, but in searching the name on the internet several NFL and college football players and other celebrities with that name popped up first.  Even the internet keeps him a bit obscure, and apparently Will Campbell would have liked that just fine.

I found a wonderful piece about Will Campbell written after he died by a friend of his, Ken Sehested, who wrote, “John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement said on the news of Will’s passing, ‘He never received the recognition he truly deserved’.  Hearing such I can imagine Will pausing his heavenly choir rehearsal of Red Necks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer, long enough to grouse, ‘Yes, John, that’s just the point. Mr. Jesus didn’t say, blessed are you who find fame for your trouble!’

This book, one of sixteen he wrote, is a memoir filled with stories of the role he had as a trouble shooter and representative of the National Council of Churches, stationed in Nashville during the civil rights movement.  He went wherever there was trouble.  For example, he accompanied the nine black students who walked through angry crowds to integrate Central High School in Little rock in 1957.  He was the only white minister asked by Martin Luther King, Jr to attend the organizing meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 

But the heart of the book is about his relationship with his brother Joe, growing up in a small town in Mississippi during the depression in a family that really was ‘dirt poor’.  Will became a Baptist preacher at a very early age even before any Bible school or seminary.  Joe became a pharmacist, and led a life plagued by demons of addiction and mental illness.  Some of the most poignant stories in the book are about the interactions between Will and Joe, literally through many highs and low of Joe’s tragic life. 

Though Will was on the forefront of a movement supported by many liberals, especially clergy in the North, he did not consider himself a liberal, and did not avoid relating to and trying to understand the Southern red necks of the same culture from which he came.  One story tells of a kind of re-conversion to Christ brought on by an interaction with a profane and honest non-believer who challenged him to re-orient his own faith to see that “if you’re going to love one, you gotta love them all”.  He credo was to understand the difference between belief and faith.  “Belief is passive, faith is active”. So, when he went to “minister” even to Ku Klux Klan members and also questioned the hypocrisy of the white church, he was lambasted by both liberals and conservatives.  There were not many of whom it can be said they were a Southern white supporter of the black civil rights movement who talked to KKK leaders. 

Later he settled on a farm in Tennessee and was a mentor, writer, and advocate for other human rights causes, and he seems to have left the organized church but never his faith.  He was the kind of guy my dad would have called, “common as an old shoe”; someone I would have liked to sit down with for a cold one and just talk.   

 

 

 

Memories of the TET Offensive

 

Early one morning in late February 1968, Judy and I woke up to an eerie and unusual quietness on Cong Hoa street outside of the house where we lived in Cholon, the Chinese sector of Saigon.  We had gone to bed before midnight to the sound of fireworks heard all over the neighborhood, the beginning of the lively festival of TET, the Chinese Lunar New Year’s celebration.  In fact, earlier in the evening we took a drive through one of the busiest districts of the city to observe some of the carnival atmosphere. 

The days leading up to TET flowers filled Nguyen Hue Street in downtown Saigon

We all expected that TET would mean that a cease fire would be observed, as soldiers from both sides would take this traditional break from war and spend time with their families. Little did we know that the sound of fireworks had turned into the sound of gunfire while we slept.

In that early morning hour, we did not know that we were already in the epicenter of the biggest offensive of the war, carried out by the North Vietnam Army (NVA), not only in Saigon but throughout the country – now generally felt to be a turning point in the war, the TET Offensive. 

I had scheduled a breakfast meeting with visitors from the States at the Hotel Majestic, so I jumped on my Lambretta motor scooter and headed out, leaving Judy at the house with our five-month-old baby, Bret.  Strange, I thought, there’s little traffic on the streets so my ride down to the Saigon River wouldn’t take long. Soon enough I started running into barricades and road blocks guarded by ARVN (South Vietnamese) troops, and the occasional sound of small arms fire and a loud boom in the distance.   After several diversions I arrived at the hotel where I met Bill Snyder and Atlee Beechy of the Mennonite Central Committee and quickly learned that the American Embassy, only a few blocks away, and many other sites, were now under attack.

I remember the next days as a time of apprehension, rumors and un-knowing.  We lived with the sound of bombing around the city, but little concrete information as to the scope of the battles.  It was several days until we were able to get out to assess the needs and destruction in some of the neighborhoods around the city.  Our first concern was to verify the situation of our many volunteers and staff stationed in the city and around the country.  We heard via cable from the Vietnam Christian Service (VNCS) teams in Nha Trang, Pleiku, Quang Ngai and then the other smaller and remote places where our people were working.  It was almost a week later that we heard from Hue, one of the cities in Central Vietnam that under-went some of the fiercest battles. In fighting that went on in Hue for almost three weeks over two hundred US Marines and probably thousands of Vietnamese from both sides of the conflict were killed as that beautiful city endured major destruction. 

We were relieved to hear that all seven VNCS staff in Hue were safe!   Indeed, we could report to anxious colleagues and families back home that we were all O.K.  When Ove Nielsen at Lutheran World Relief in New York called my mother and said, “This is Ove Nielsen from LWR in New York” she burst into sobs before he could finish saying “we’ve just heard from Saigon that Judy, Jerry and Bret are safe”.  The reality was that folks back in the States were getting more information from newspapers and evening newscasts then we were right in the middle of it.  The American public was alarmed, and rightly so.

The TET offensive is one of those times and places etched in my mind forever, the sounds, smells, sights, feelings; and the destruction we observed.  Above all it was the solidarity and shared emotions we experienced with each other, both international colleagues and Vietnamese.  And it reinforced our commitment to have a small part in ending this madness, or at least alleviating just a bit of the suffering it caused.

For some of us TET was the beginning of the end of our time in Vietnam as Judy and Bret and other mothers and children were evacuated to Malaysia; and a few staff who could not continue with their projects were reassigned to other countries.  But most “VNCSers” persisted and continued to do social work, distribute aid, bind wounds, and show solidarity with the displaced and traumatized – until it all came to an end when the NVA finally marched into Saigon in 1975.

 

Gustavo

 

 

Gustavo Parajon: Public Health and Peacemaking Pioneer

by Daniel Buttry and Damaris Albuquerque

If you hadn’t known Gustavo Parajon during his lifetime, you might read this book and be skeptical.  You might think, one man couldn’t have been this good, to have changed the lives of so many, been that courageous and showed that degree of compassion for the poor, and yet so humble that he would have been embarrassed by all these accolades.  I knew Gustavo and considered him as a friend, colleague and mentor, and can testify that this book about his faith, work and sojourn through life is true.  He was the most complete example of a follower of Jesus I ever knew. 

On the day I met Gustavo, a week after the earthquake that leveled Managua, Nicaragua, on Christmas eve 1972, he was meeting with a group of evangelical young people and pastors under a mango tree on the grounds of the destroyed Baptist school.  He was encouraging them and sending them out into the city to find out where and what the needs were to bring the few resources they had on hand to help where the need was the greatest.  I had been sent to Managua by Church World Service to organize a relief effort of the churches in the US, and Gustavo greeted me warmly with the smile he always had for whomever he met.  He said let’s take a drive around the city and talk about what we can do together. That afternoon we started talking about how we might put together an organization of the churches of Nicaragua to bring immediate help to the damnificados, the victims of the earthquake, and hopefully beyond.  That organization, CEPAD, still exists and accompanies the poor in Nicaragua today, 50 years later.  The history of CEPAD and Gustavo’s leadership in making it a channel for God’s love to the poor and marginalized of Nicaragua is but one of the stories of Gustavo’s life told in this book.

As a physician trained in US medical schools, including a master's in public health from Johns Hopkins, he could have had prestigious positions in medicine in Nicaragua, but he chose to organize a program called PROVADENIC to bring primary health care and vaccinations to isolated and poor villages in rural Nicaragua.  Judy and I stayed in Nicaragua for over five years and grew to love the people who worked in these two programs. Later I traveled many times to the region and would touch base with Gustavo and hear about the latest challenges he and Nicaragua were facing, which were many. 

Over the next forty years Nicaragua faced a plethora of dauting challenges including earthquakes, hurricanes, corruption, human rights abuses of the Samoza dictatorship, the Sandinista revolution, the “contra” war, and the US embargo.  Gustavo faced all these with compassion and calm, with a special capacity to motivate others. He spoke to the powerful about justice and listened to the poor and those most directly affected. 

In reading this book I learned details I had not known of how he gained the trust of both sides of the war in the countryside and helped bring about reconciliation and disarmament. He was on the National Reconciliation Commission, but while other dignitaries remained safely in the capitol city, Gustavo went into the conflict zones, explaining, “I was afraid of not doing what God asked me to do”.  He encouraged US citizens to come to Nicaragua to see for themselves how US government policy and support of the contras was causing terrible suffering and death in the country, and gave orientation talks to these groups to challenge them to work for justice and truth, always using scripture to back up his points.  The many groups of peacemakers who came and went back home to oppose the Reagan administration’s policies toward Nicaragua might well have averted a wider war and US intervention. 

He was also the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Managua where he used Bible based preaching to inspire many to follow and live out the Gospel, but he used the bible in many other arenas too, such as in meetings with revolutionary Sandinista comandantes, to bring home points about justice and peace, and in meetings with both sides in reconciliation committees in the conflict zones.  Frankly, I have known few others who knew the Scriptures as well and how to apply them to life. 

Gustavo died of a heart attack in 2011.  I think of the scene from the movie “A Man Called Otto”, when Otto is dying of a heart condition in hospital, and the nurse said, “his heart was just too big”.   That cracked me up, but it sort of describes Gustavo’s heart.  It was big and full of compassion, and he must have been tired after all the love he gave out for so many years.  What a way to go, good friend and faithful servant!  I loved you, but, like others in my life, I didn’t tell you that enough when I had a chance. 

Now, here in Albuquerque, we live near his son, David and his family.  David and his wife Laura are both doctors and carrying on the legacy of Gustavo, as are so many others of Gustavo’s family and disciples.  His daughter, Marta, is now the pastor at First Baptist, and wife Joan, an accomplished musician, still sings and sometimes directs a wonderful choir known throughout Central America.

Jim Wallis, the founder of the Sojourners community said about this book, “Please, everyone, this book is a must read if you want to know what it really means to follow Jesus in times like we are in right now”.

Jerry Aaker   Feb.13,2023

 

 

A Short Story

 

A Christmas Storm

Everyone in the family was looking forward to the Christmas tree program, except father.  Arnold was a farmer who knew how to read weather and he could feel it in his bones that late December day, and the feeling was that a storm was brewing.  By early afternoon the temperature had started to drop and the wind was picking up, blowing snow across the open field north of the house, accumulating in small drifts over the cornstalks. 

He remembered the Armistice Day storm of 1940, only three years before, when the temperature dropped 60 degrees in a few hours and dumped sleet and snow so deep it had caught duck hunters on the Mississippi River by surprise. Twelve of them perished, freezing to death before they could be rescued. Sleet fell on Arnold’s turkey flock that night, freezing on exposed heads and suffocating over 200 birds; just a few of the million turkeys that farmers in Minnesota lost to the storm.  That storm made everyone wary of sudden changes in the weather, especially farmers like himself. 

“I don’t know, maybe it won’t be so bad,” said mother, “Look at the sun trying to peek through the clouds there in the West.”  Inez was a firm presence in the family. Her opinion usually weighed more than fathers’, but they were spouses who made decisions together; though not always verbalized and clarified. 

The three children had gone out earlier to the hill below the barn to see if sledding would be good on the new fallen snow.  It was decent sledding, but the temperature was dropping and they came inside when toes and finger tips started to go numb.  Jerry had rolled his sister in snow and Lois came in crying; mad and complaining that she had snow down her back.  Hot coco with a marshmallow on top was always a good remedy for the unfairness of the world and a chilled body.

OK then, father said, “we better do the milking early so we can get going, but I’ll need some help in the barn.”  Ten-year-old Laverne, always reliable and helpful, responded immediately and followed his dad to the barn to help feed the calves and throw down hay for the cows.  It was snowing lightly as they walked to the barn but when they returned to the house over an hour later several more inches of the white stuff were on the ground.  “It’s coming down pretty good now, and cold too”, said Arnold, as he stepped into the kitchen.  Laverne added, “it’s really going to be cold for the pigs tonight, so I bedded them down with straw”.

By 6:30 they were all dressed up for church and ready to leave.  Five-year-old Jerry complained that his new wool shirt was itchy, and Lois, a year younger, had tears in her eyes from the hard combing mother had done to straighten out her snarled hair.  “Uff da”, mother said, “such a skrekkelig guudie”.

They drove down the driveway in the 1938 Ford recently purchased with proceeds from the sale of this year’s turkey crop – no disaster this year!  These were war years and prices were good.  The car swerved a bit as they went around the first curve and down the driveway. Mother, with concern in her voice, said, “maybe we shouldn’t be going out in this weather” to which the two younger ones gave up a shrill protest – no turning back now.  On the way to the church, four miles away, visibility got increasingly worse and the wipers barely kept the windshield clear. 

Arriving, they trudged through the snow up the walk to the church, stomping off their boots before they entered.  Many comments about the weather were being voiced – Roy Voxland said, “Yeah, looks like this will be some snow storm, huh?”  and Leonard said, “Well, I thought the weatherman said it was coming tomorrow!”

Inside, the church was warm and festive. The Christmas tree, fully thirty feet high and covered with hundreds of lights, crowded the side of the church next to the pulpit. The pews were full and as the children processed down the center aisle, parents and grandparents strained to see their own offspring as they assembled in the front. 

Pastor Thorson opened with a word of welcome and a long prayer which included an astronomy lesson on the wonders of the heavens - the constellations, planets and stars.  Having been out in the cold air most of the day, father nodded off just a bit during this relaxed time in the warm building, though he was pretty sure nobody noticed. 

Each of the smaller children had pieces to say from memory, parents craning their necks to see their own, hoping they would do a good job, though a few completely froze and forgot what to say, terrorized as they looked out at the crowded sanctuary.  A blond blue-eyed Mary of about 13 years sat next to the creche with Joseph standing by her side in a bath robe two sizes too large for his frame.

Laverne’s part was to read some verses of the Nativity story from the gospel of Luke. Mother thought his was the strongest and clearest voice of them all.  “Most of the others, you couldn’t make out what they were saying” she murmured to father.  Lois and Jerry, together with all the other four-and five-year-old children, were herded up the steps to the front of the alter to sing “Away In A Manger” directed by Mrs. Langamo, who prompted the children with appropriate motions for each line. Jerry, who knew the words well enough was always one motion behind, but spoke his piece loudly when his time came, “I am a little boy and haven’t got much to say, but I wish you all a very merry Christmas day!”  Lois was so shy she hid behind Joseph to say her piece, barely audible, though mother, sitting 15 rows back, understood her perfectly, having heard the lines dozens of times as Lois practiced at home.

When the little ones cleared the stage, a doll had been placed in the manger and several bathrobe clad shepherds had appeared.  After a few more group songs and solos the program was drawing to a close, and the whole congregation sang “Silent Night”.  This was the part where Mrs. Jacobson and a few others always teared up and found it impossible to sing the words.

All the children then processed down the center aisle to the triumphant singing of “Joy to the World”, accompanied by Mrs. Thorson on the organ.  As they exited through the double doors, they were each handed a paper bag containing hard candy, shelled peanuts and an apple, with instruction not to shell the peanuts in the church.  They rushed down the stairs to the basement to don their winter coats and overshoes, with a few gay comments, like, “Merry Christmas”, and “What you think you’ll git for Christmas?”.  Parents hurried their children along, reminding them to put on their mittens, though several pairs had already been lost.

Outside a full-blown blizzard was underway, gale force winds blasting snow into faces as everyone rushed to their cars.  Some needed a push to get free from a drift, and a couple cars wouldn’t start.  Families helped each other until all the cars were moving carefully in all four directions from the church. The family headed west, following tire tracks and tail lights of those who had ventured out first.  “I can’t see a thing”, Arnold said, to which mother replied, “well, just go slow – and stay in the middle of the road”, though it was impossible to distinguish road from ditch – everything was a white sheet in front of them.  A mile down the road Arnold wondered if he should take the left turn on the road through Voxlands woods, calculating that proceeding straight ahead on the usual route would mean going down the Arlie hill which would have an icy base covered by new fallen snow.  It could be treacherous and dangerous; if the car careened off that steep road it would drop thirty feet into the ditch below.

This alternative road had more curves but the decline was gradual and thus safer.  So, Arnold turned left but soon thought that maybe he shouldn’t have. No tracks meant that no other cars had recently gone this way.  Snow was now up to the bumper, and they still faced a whiteout ahead. Just keep going steadily forward, he thought, a stop would likely mean getting stalled.

The three in the back seat leaned forward, wide eyed and hearts beating fast, sensing the tension of their parents.  For a while, Arnold thought it was going alright as they made slow and steady progress, even traversing the two main curves through the woods.  But in another quarter mile the wind had blown great drifts across the road.  And then they were stuck. Tires spun helplessly as Arnold tried to rock the car back and forth.  Mother took the wheel as father and Laverne got out and tried pushing, to no avail.  “What are we going to do now?” asked Laverne. Lois began to cry in fear and panic.  The fear actually ran through all of them, but mother and father tried to assure the children that “everything will be alright”.  They sat in the darkness for a few minutes, trying to figure out the answer to Laverne’s question. 

The Flom farm was almost a mile back from where they were stranded, but they knew that Lawrence and Esther weren’t home that night, so trying to walk there with the children through waist high drifts in this blizzard would likely be neither fruitful nor wise. In the other direction they were still two miles from home.  Arnold thought of the many times he had walked the mile and half to school in deep snow and sub-zero temperatures when he was young. He could do it, he thought, walk to the farm to get the horses and sleigh, and the rest could stay more or less warm in the car with the motor running.  He looked at the gas gauge; a quarter tank. 

Mother wrapped her scarf around his head so only his eyes were exposed.  Then he assured the family he would be back soon and took off, without so much as a flashlight to guide the way.  Within a few hundred yards he stepped off the road and fell into the ditch.  He struggled to get out of the deep snow and when he did was somewhat disoriented as to which way to proceed; everything was dark and through his squinting eyes he could not decipher any objects to give him direction.  He knew there were trees along the road, within a few yards, but could not distinguish them. But he had to keep going, figuring he had an hour, at the most two, before the car would run out of gas. 

Back in the car everyone was quiet, but the wind was howling outside, piling snow ever deeper all around the car.  The motor was running, but the heater gave only minimal heat.  There was one blanket in the back seat to cover the laps of the children, and mother chided herself for not being better prepared for winter driving.  Toes and fingers were getting cold and the boys were shivering.  Lois climbed into the front seat to be wrapped in mother’s arms for comfort and warmth.

After some time Arnold came to the bridge over the Zumbo river.  He knew where he was now and that he just had to go west from here for another mile and half, heading directly into the wind. Though he had a good overcoat and fur cap with earlaps, the bitter cold penetrated to his skin.  He was walking straight down the road now and all it would take was endurance.  Thinking of the family back in the car kept him motivated to press on.

He trudged on and came to the other bridge over the river, and a pleasant vision came to mind of the times he had gone fishing and swimming just a short distance up river from this bridge.  What a strange thought in the midst of this agonizingly cold slog he was on. He was tempted to sit down for a few minutes of rest behind the embankment below the bridge where he could find respite from the wind. He paused and started down – just a few minutes he thought. But again, he willed himself on, knowing that time was running short.  From here there were just a few hundred yards to the mailbox, and then up the driveway. Trying to go faster now, he slipped and fell twice going up the hill to the barn. 

Exhausted, he almost collapsed as he stepped inside, feeling the immediate rush of warmth and the familiar odor of the barn; the cows contentedly chewing their cuds and the horses, Jiggs and Maggi, standing in their stall. He reached in the dark for the kerosine lantern and lit it, giving him light to harness the horses.

It was bitter cold inside the car and mother realized the children were getting sleepy and she needed to keep them awake somehow. She might have dozed off herself; she wasn’t sure.  She tried to get conversation going by talking about the program at church, telling them they had done so well, asking what they wanted for Christmas, anything – even a joke about pastor’s long prayer.  But the children were not responsive; instead stating the obvious, “Mama, I’m so cold!” “When is Daddy getting back?” “I’m really scared!”  She tried to be comforting and calm. Then the car engine stopped.  A dreadful quiet: it seemed like the wind even paused for a minute.  Mother felt the shudder of fear rising up inside. Where was Arnold? How much longer? Lord, be with us.

Later they realized that, indeed, the wind had died down almost completely, leaving an eerie silence.  Listening for sounds in the silence Laverne was the first to hear it; the swishing sound of the sleigh through snow, the hard breathing of horses, and then father’s voice, “whoa Jiggs, whoa Maggie”, as the two big blacks pulled the sleigh up to the car. Jerry squealed “He’s here! Dad is back!”. They tried to open the car doors on both sides, only to find they were snowed in. With good foresight Arnold had brought a shovel and he immediately went to work, digging the family out of their temporary detention.  What joy to see each other safe and sound as they tumbled out of the car!

It took some maneuvering to turn the sleigh around on the narrow road, but Arnold was a good horseman, and got it done.  There was a pile of straw on the sleigh as well as heavy blankets. Mother and the children quickly made themselves comfortable in the straw bed for the ride home, and father, standing on the front of the sleigh, raised the reins and said, “giddy up, let’s go home”.

Not only had the wind died down but the clouds had lifted, and the light of a full moon revealed a wonderland of glistening white spread out across the countryside.  None of them talked during the ride home, each savoring their own thoughts and feelings of relief and safety. Jerry looked up at the clear sky above where thousands of stars shimmered, and he noticed one star in particular that seemed to have a special glow.  Was that the star the wise men followed, he wondered.  He thought it was, but he kept that thought to himself.

Back at the house they quickly readied themselves for bed. Because there was no plumbing in the house, there was always that unpleasant duty before bed of going out in the cold to stand at the edge of the porch.  But Jerry didn’t mind it that night as he breathed in the cold air and gazed up at the heavens, looking again for that special star as he relieved himself.  Then upstairs to the unheated bedrooms, the boys in one room and Lois in the other, they quickly took off clothes except for long johns and jumped under a mound of heavy quilts.  Jerry laid awake for a long time with images of this night in his head.  He felt safe and happy and fell asleep.

 

 

Many years later an old man sat in his recliner, reminiscing on life and how things had turned out.  A vague recollection came to him of a cold winter night long ago, a Christmas program, a snow storm, horses pulling a sleigh, safety with mother and father. And happiness. Was it true, he wondered, did that actually happen?  Sometimes he thinks it really did.