Myrtle Siebert's Blog
January 7, 2020
Success in Early Reading
On July, 2013, my friends and I are sorting used books in a large gymnasium preparing for our book sale in aid of scholarship and bursaries for local students. Grandson, Tait, six years old, sits on the floor under a sorting table going through a pile of children’s books. He’s not finding anything interesting.
My retired kindergarten teacher friend approaches him to make a suggestion. Then she turns to me.
I explain that Tait, who is having a few days for his “summer holiday” with me, is struggling at school with reading. He’s a kind, considerate, classmate who has many friends – teachers love him – but that doesn’t help with what he needs to learn.
She tells me, “Sometimes little boys find reading harder than girls do. They need to be allowed to try reading just anything, whether you approve or not, simply let them read.” And so we did; the strategy took hold.
Lego was important in Tait’s home. Big construction projects were always under way, pieces scattered wherever one stepped. Siblings and friends worked at building cooperatively and with the addition of cars and ramps new creations grew. Little sister coveted a pink Lego set in her room. Then, at a birthday party Tait was introduced to Minecraft!
With clever appeals to his parents they agreed to have a trial Minecraft game membership on two of the tablets in the house. Membership expanded until each child had the program and still I had no idea what they were talking about.
One day I arrived in their town and I witnessed this new passion: the three siblings with a best friend from school sat around the room, each with a tablet on their knee. As I listened to the conversation and then peeked over a shoulder, I gleaned that together they were building a castle, with a separate room for each child according to personal specifications. There were stairs, hallways, a basement, built-in defense mechanisms, a moat, extended gardens, and so it went. I was astounded at how well they worked together, planning how common spaces would be used and what they would look like.
That’s when the light came on. If this was his current interest maybe there were instruction books. Yes there are. At the local bookstore I picked two hardcover Minecraft how-to books. There was a set available but I wasn’t sure this idea would work. It did; those treasured books on how to create spectacular buildings are still on Tait’s bedroom shelf.
More thoughts bubbled up. On Amazon.ca I found fiction books based on the Minecraft game. Tim Winton has an enormous list to his name and I began to purchase and send them. These proved popular. Instead of the age appropriate magazine subscriptions I had sent the previous year I sent each child a loaded Chapters card for them to make their own choices.
This took me to a large Chapters store where I sought a clerk who knew kid’s books. Fortunately the young man understood what I needed and was very familiar with the choices. He showed me several different series about animals that turned out to be well-loved by the girls. The most dependable author he showed me for Tait was Mark Cheverton.
Each book in the Cheverton series’ is numbered 1, 2 and 3. One is even called The Gamekeeper Series, referring to the Minecraft game. Once more Amazon was my further supplier. Cheverton uses some frightening titles, for example, The Great Zombie Invasion: The Birth of Herobrine Book One. Next in the series is Attack of the Shadow-Crafters, then Herobrine’s War. If I had not had such good advice I would certainly not have chosen such titles for a boy of nine.
A long-time friend visited overnight and when her son came to pick her up to go home we were talking about Tait’s reading and my search for more authors that would interest him. “Try Rick Reardon’s Percy Jackson series,” he said. “They’re far out but the kids love them.” Given that this young man writes fantasy stories I believed him. He was right.
Percy Jackson became Tait’s favourite character as he explored Greek mythology of other worlds, such as in The Mark of Athena, book 3 of The Heroes of Olympus series.
The best part of this simple story is that during the November Parent-teacher interviews Tait’s progress in Grade 5 reading was a highlight. He’s seeking books to take home from the school library now and has even loaned one of his precious books to a good friend. On a science research project about clouds he and his partner used words in an innovative and humorous way. They showed the clouds speaking with comic book style balloons to hold the words.
The most satisfying part for this grandmother was to see Tait in grade 7, devouring every new book he can get his hands on and when there is nothing new available he goes to his own bookshelf and chooses one to reread.
The fun part for me now is to survey the loaded bookshelves in his room!
My retired kindergarten teacher friend approaches him to make a suggestion. Then she turns to me.
I explain that Tait, who is having a few days for his “summer holiday” with me, is struggling at school with reading. He’s a kind, considerate, classmate who has many friends – teachers love him – but that doesn’t help with what he needs to learn.
She tells me, “Sometimes little boys find reading harder than girls do. They need to be allowed to try reading just anything, whether you approve or not, simply let them read.” And so we did; the strategy took hold.
Lego was important in Tait’s home. Big construction projects were always under way, pieces scattered wherever one stepped. Siblings and friends worked at building cooperatively and with the addition of cars and ramps new creations grew. Little sister coveted a pink Lego set in her room. Then, at a birthday party Tait was introduced to Minecraft!
With clever appeals to his parents they agreed to have a trial Minecraft game membership on two of the tablets in the house. Membership expanded until each child had the program and still I had no idea what they were talking about.
One day I arrived in their town and I witnessed this new passion: the three siblings with a best friend from school sat around the room, each with a tablet on their knee. As I listened to the conversation and then peeked over a shoulder, I gleaned that together they were building a castle, with a separate room for each child according to personal specifications. There were stairs, hallways, a basement, built-in defense mechanisms, a moat, extended gardens, and so it went. I was astounded at how well they worked together, planning how common spaces would be used and what they would look like.
That’s when the light came on. If this was his current interest maybe there were instruction books. Yes there are. At the local bookstore I picked two hardcover Minecraft how-to books. There was a set available but I wasn’t sure this idea would work. It did; those treasured books on how to create spectacular buildings are still on Tait’s bedroom shelf.
More thoughts bubbled up. On Amazon.ca I found fiction books based on the Minecraft game. Tim Winton has an enormous list to his name and I began to purchase and send them. These proved popular. Instead of the age appropriate magazine subscriptions I had sent the previous year I sent each child a loaded Chapters card for them to make their own choices.
This took me to a large Chapters store where I sought a clerk who knew kid’s books. Fortunately the young man understood what I needed and was very familiar with the choices. He showed me several different series about animals that turned out to be well-loved by the girls. The most dependable author he showed me for Tait was Mark Cheverton.
Each book in the Cheverton series’ is numbered 1, 2 and 3. One is even called The Gamekeeper Series, referring to the Minecraft game. Once more Amazon was my further supplier. Cheverton uses some frightening titles, for example, The Great Zombie Invasion: The Birth of Herobrine Book One. Next in the series is Attack of the Shadow-Crafters, then Herobrine’s War. If I had not had such good advice I would certainly not have chosen such titles for a boy of nine.
A long-time friend visited overnight and when her son came to pick her up to go home we were talking about Tait’s reading and my search for more authors that would interest him. “Try Rick Reardon’s Percy Jackson series,” he said. “They’re far out but the kids love them.” Given that this young man writes fantasy stories I believed him. He was right.
Percy Jackson became Tait’s favourite character as he explored Greek mythology of other worlds, such as in The Mark of Athena, book 3 of The Heroes of Olympus series.
The best part of this simple story is that during the November Parent-teacher interviews Tait’s progress in Grade 5 reading was a highlight. He’s seeking books to take home from the school library now and has even loaned one of his precious books to a good friend. On a science research project about clouds he and his partner used words in an innovative and humorous way. They showed the clouds speaking with comic book style balloons to hold the words.
The most satisfying part for this grandmother was to see Tait in grade 7, devouring every new book he can get his hands on and when there is nothing new available he goes to his own bookshelf and chooses one to reread.
The fun part for me now is to survey the loaded bookshelves in his room!
Summer Birthdays
One more birthday of note passed this summer. Being born in July is rarely as much fun for school children as it is for birthdays during months other than July and August. I remember very little celebration or party for my own July date – most families with school-aged children were away then for their family summer holiday. The true fact is that I had no friends in school with whom to celebrate until I was well into high school. Even then, I returned to the Rock Bay camp from whichever home I was boarding, to be with my parents and little sister during the summer. The trip took an hour over a dusty rutted gravel road so even a new school friend I may have made would not have been able to be with me for the Big Day!
There were memorable birthdays that I have chronicled in Beyond the Floathouse. I remember that when I was three my mother hosted a tea party on our float. Several of my cousins came and both grandmothers were present too. I have a picture of all of us taken with Mom’s faithful Brownie Box Camera.
The second memorable birthday was spent in Paris when I turned twenty-one years old. You may not have been aware the 14th of July is France’s Bastille Day and as my friend Kay and I watched the military parade on the Champs Elyse we thrilled at a salute of planes flying overhead. It felt as though the parade was just for me!
As I approached sixty years of age, I began planning an event to acknowledge that important day. My neighbor Mary prepared a simple huge tossed salad for our lunch to which I added assorted preferred protein accompaniments (prawns, crab, chicken, nuts) and appropriate dressings. Dessert followed, from a choice of two of the most decadent cheesecakes to be found within the greater Victoria area. A highlight of that day was that each long-time friend assembled, spoke about our personal association, how we had met, and what we had done together, all recorded on a cassette to enjoy later.
My message goes out as an inspiration to school-aged children and older people who have been saddled with a birthday that occurs (ed) during the school summer holiday. Some of my experiences have been good with it. A 21st birthday in Paris with a parade, my own choices of friends and food for my 60th.
The best possible birthday was the day my daughter brought home a brand-new baby on my 70th birthday! I was visiting the family in Calgary awaiting delivery of grandbaby number two. I discovered that daughter Linda, while spectacularly pregnant, had been able to orchestrate a birthday party for me that began when Tessa Rae, named for me, arrived home. Out came the balloons, the banner across the kitchen, my sister and her boys arrived. Later I learned that before she left for hospital, in early labor the evening before, my daughter had delivered notes under the doors of those who were staying at the house, giving each instruction of what to do to help her.
But there have been two more memorable birthdays. For my 80th birthday I organized a huge party of thanks to all the people who had made it possible for me to manage to live in this big home without my husband: the house designer, the roofer, plumber, electrician, financial manager, banker, gardeners, as well as close neighbors and a very select few close long-time female friends with my son, daughter and grandchildren. The summer day outdoors on the patio was perfect where alcoholic and fruit drinks were served by a hired bartender and a pork loin cooked on the barbeque.
One more birthday celebration occurred this July in the gourmet dining room aboard a Danube River cruise ship with Tessa, her sister and brother with their parents, and my other daughter. Who knows what July 2020 will bring? Don’t give up; the best may yet be coming!
There were memorable birthdays that I have chronicled in Beyond the Floathouse. I remember that when I was three my mother hosted a tea party on our float. Several of my cousins came and both grandmothers were present too. I have a picture of all of us taken with Mom’s faithful Brownie Box Camera.
The second memorable birthday was spent in Paris when I turned twenty-one years old. You may not have been aware the 14th of July is France’s Bastille Day and as my friend Kay and I watched the military parade on the Champs Elyse we thrilled at a salute of planes flying overhead. It felt as though the parade was just for me!
As I approached sixty years of age, I began planning an event to acknowledge that important day. My neighbor Mary prepared a simple huge tossed salad for our lunch to which I added assorted preferred protein accompaniments (prawns, crab, chicken, nuts) and appropriate dressings. Dessert followed, from a choice of two of the most decadent cheesecakes to be found within the greater Victoria area. A highlight of that day was that each long-time friend assembled, spoke about our personal association, how we had met, and what we had done together, all recorded on a cassette to enjoy later.
My message goes out as an inspiration to school-aged children and older people who have been saddled with a birthday that occurs (ed) during the school summer holiday. Some of my experiences have been good with it. A 21st birthday in Paris with a parade, my own choices of friends and food for my 60th.
The best possible birthday was the day my daughter brought home a brand-new baby on my 70th birthday! I was visiting the family in Calgary awaiting delivery of grandbaby number two. I discovered that daughter Linda, while spectacularly pregnant, had been able to orchestrate a birthday party for me that began when Tessa Rae, named for me, arrived home. Out came the balloons, the banner across the kitchen, my sister and her boys arrived. Later I learned that before she left for hospital, in early labor the evening before, my daughter had delivered notes under the doors of those who were staying at the house, giving each instruction of what to do to help her.
But there have been two more memorable birthdays. For my 80th birthday I organized a huge party of thanks to all the people who had made it possible for me to manage to live in this big home without my husband: the house designer, the roofer, plumber, electrician, financial manager, banker, gardeners, as well as close neighbors and a very select few close long-time female friends with my son, daughter and grandchildren. The summer day outdoors on the patio was perfect where alcoholic and fruit drinks were served by a hired bartender and a pork loin cooked on the barbeque.
One more birthday celebration occurred this July in the gourmet dining room aboard a Danube River cruise ship with Tessa, her sister and brother with their parents, and my other daughter. Who knows what July 2020 will bring? Don’t give up; the best may yet be coming!
August 27, 2015
Looking for Grandmother Gunhild, the Girl
It was with great excitement that cousin Liv and I set out to find the place my grandmother had lived as a child. Liv had said the women I had called Nano, or White Nano because of her hair colour, must have lived just a short distance from her home. Liv and Magne make their home on the banks of the Asdal River, near Arendal in Norway. Liv had identified the place and told me she would take me there. I was visiting with Liv and Magne after the grand, long delayed reunion of the Forbergs in Bo, Telemark, in June 2002.
Liv explained that after we last talked she had read further in the Aust-Augder farm record book. Each of the provinces or districts in Norway has maintained a record of all of the farmland holdings and their owners for as long back as that can be determined. Thanks to a Norwegian-speaking researcher in Salt Lake City it was in one of those bygdboks that in 1998 I discovered relatives still living on the farm my grandfather had left over 100 years before.
Liv said that Grandma Gunhild’s father, Ole Gunnulfson, had come from the Tisehold area, perhaps even from Rise, where the book said his family had lived for a time. I assumed there must have been some significance in the place because my father’s middle name was Rise. I’ve since learned that Ole’s second wife, my grandmother’s mother, was Ingeborg Bjornsen Rise Arendal.
We set out to walk to the place - Liv’s present home was very close to Grandma Gunhild’s former residence. By calculating from the farm records that told when the Gunnulvsons lived there, we were able to determine that young Gunhild would have been 6 years old when her family settled in to the house. Her father, Ole Gunnulfson, had taken a job at the municipal office just over the hill from this home. We were able to see where the pathway would have been that Gunhild used to walk to school and her father walked to work.
Sooner than I expected Liv and I came upon the house. It sat facing the road on the rise of a little hill with a large exposed mossy rock surface in what would have been the back yard. Fine grass grew around the house and there were trees that in my grandmother’s time would have been seedlings or newly planted.
The house appeared pleasantly compact with a tile roof and smallish windows spotted in the wide shake walls. Around the back its graceful roof line had been marred by an additional level that did not show from the front. We could see another floor had been added after completion of the original structure.
Our research showed that the young Gunhild had lived here until she was eighteen years old and began her career in the world of work. Between this time and her immigration to Canada with my grandfather, in 1909, we were able to find little information about her. I knew from a notation in the census files and from a picture showing her with students, that just before she left Norway she had been teaching young women destined to become housekeepers or to work in small inns. We can only assume Gunhild, at 30 years of age, had decided married life with Einar in the unknown remote wilderness was a better choice than remaining a spinster in Norway.
As we approached the house it appeared empty, deserted, un-lived-in and, I thought it looked sad. But the door stood open and a car we had been unable to see from the front stood in the driveway. We approached the door and called “Hello.”
From within emerged a woman, perhaps younger than Liv, then in her fifties. Here was a woman with the appearance typically considered a Scandinavian person. She was about my height, with a solid body, but not overweight, broad shoulders, and a sunny complexion with blond hair and blue eyes. Once she was assured we would do no harm she opened up to us in welcome and told us the story of the house.
This woman’s parents had bought the house several years after Ole and his family had left Asdal. The farm book would be able to show us the year but we couldn’t establish the exact date ourselves without having it before us. All we had learned about Gunhild’s parents, Ole and Ingeborg, was that with their younger children, Gurine and Evind, they had left Asdal bound for an island where her father worked with indigent people and supervised the poor laws. I found letters from the girls to their sister Gunhild along with her family history chart that she had left.
Our host had been born in this house along with several of her siblings. While they lived there her parents had built the upstairs floor that was visible only from the back of the house and she showed us around inside.
What I appreciated most was that she was able to describe for us the configuration of the room and its décor when she had lived here as a very young child. From her explanation we had a sense of what it had been like for Gunhild. I especially reflected on the location of the wood box, something I had known as a child living in a wood-fire-heated house. Also significant to me was placement of a built-in “day bed” between the door and the stove. In many homes of the time a day bed was where an outside worker or a senior family member laid down for a few minutes rest at midday or during the afternoon. Even in the homes of both sets of my elderly grandparents there was always a single cot or pillow-backed settee where a person could rest in a fully stretched-out manner. More than once it was where I had slept as a child during my afternoon nap or later, used for a “sleep-over.”
As we took our leave and expressed our thanks for her time, the home-owner explained she and her husband lived in a big new house on the adjacent property. This modest home my grandmother had known in her childhood was currently being painted and re-decorated before the next renters took possession. It pleased me to know the building had stood the test of time.
Liv explained that after we last talked she had read further in the Aust-Augder farm record book. Each of the provinces or districts in Norway has maintained a record of all of the farmland holdings and their owners for as long back as that can be determined. Thanks to a Norwegian-speaking researcher in Salt Lake City it was in one of those bygdboks that in 1998 I discovered relatives still living on the farm my grandfather had left over 100 years before.
Liv said that Grandma Gunhild’s father, Ole Gunnulfson, had come from the Tisehold area, perhaps even from Rise, where the book said his family had lived for a time. I assumed there must have been some significance in the place because my father’s middle name was Rise. I’ve since learned that Ole’s second wife, my grandmother’s mother, was Ingeborg Bjornsen Rise Arendal.
We set out to walk to the place - Liv’s present home was very close to Grandma Gunhild’s former residence. By calculating from the farm records that told when the Gunnulvsons lived there, we were able to determine that young Gunhild would have been 6 years old when her family settled in to the house. Her father, Ole Gunnulfson, had taken a job at the municipal office just over the hill from this home. We were able to see where the pathway would have been that Gunhild used to walk to school and her father walked to work.
Sooner than I expected Liv and I came upon the house. It sat facing the road on the rise of a little hill with a large exposed mossy rock surface in what would have been the back yard. Fine grass grew around the house and there were trees that in my grandmother’s time would have been seedlings or newly planted.
The house appeared pleasantly compact with a tile roof and smallish windows spotted in the wide shake walls. Around the back its graceful roof line had been marred by an additional level that did not show from the front. We could see another floor had been added after completion of the original structure.
Our research showed that the young Gunhild had lived here until she was eighteen years old and began her career in the world of work. Between this time and her immigration to Canada with my grandfather, in 1909, we were able to find little information about her. I knew from a notation in the census files and from a picture showing her with students, that just before she left Norway she had been teaching young women destined to become housekeepers or to work in small inns. We can only assume Gunhild, at 30 years of age, had decided married life with Einar in the unknown remote wilderness was a better choice than remaining a spinster in Norway.
As we approached the house it appeared empty, deserted, un-lived-in and, I thought it looked sad. But the door stood open and a car we had been unable to see from the front stood in the driveway. We approached the door and called “Hello.”
From within emerged a woman, perhaps younger than Liv, then in her fifties. Here was a woman with the appearance typically considered a Scandinavian person. She was about my height, with a solid body, but not overweight, broad shoulders, and a sunny complexion with blond hair and blue eyes. Once she was assured we would do no harm she opened up to us in welcome and told us the story of the house.
This woman’s parents had bought the house several years after Ole and his family had left Asdal. The farm book would be able to show us the year but we couldn’t establish the exact date ourselves without having it before us. All we had learned about Gunhild’s parents, Ole and Ingeborg, was that with their younger children, Gurine and Evind, they had left Asdal bound for an island where her father worked with indigent people and supervised the poor laws. I found letters from the girls to their sister Gunhild along with her family history chart that she had left.
Our host had been born in this house along with several of her siblings. While they lived there her parents had built the upstairs floor that was visible only from the back of the house and she showed us around inside.
What I appreciated most was that she was able to describe for us the configuration of the room and its décor when she had lived here as a very young child. From her explanation we had a sense of what it had been like for Gunhild. I especially reflected on the location of the wood box, something I had known as a child living in a wood-fire-heated house. Also significant to me was placement of a built-in “day bed” between the door and the stove. In many homes of the time a day bed was where an outside worker or a senior family member laid down for a few minutes rest at midday or during the afternoon. Even in the homes of both sets of my elderly grandparents there was always a single cot or pillow-backed settee where a person could rest in a fully stretched-out manner. More than once it was where I had slept as a child during my afternoon nap or later, used for a “sleep-over.”
As we took our leave and expressed our thanks for her time, the home-owner explained she and her husband lived in a big new house on the adjacent property. This modest home my grandmother had known in her childhood was currently being painted and re-decorated before the next renters took possession. It pleased me to know the building had stood the test of time.
November 24, 2014
Making Maui Memories
November 2014
As many people do while making preparations for the Christmas season I was thinking yesterday about the fun I had with my daughter’s family two years ago on Maui.
I had enjoyed that vacation with my grandchildren during the week before Christmas and arrived home just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve with the rest of my family and create the Christmas turkey feast the next day.
Because we always lived beside the ocean it was a goal of my husband and me to have our children ‘waterproofed’ and it pleases me to see that these parents have set a similar goal. While away with them I had witnessed once more the good that regular swimming lessons can do, even if you live in Alberta. I was delighted to find the grandchildren are turning out to be ‘water-babies’ too.
Having spent so many Christmas seasons in ‘the Islands,’ Maui itself holds a special place in my children’s memories of Christmas; my grandchildren are now having a similar opportunity to experience its delights.
When our children were little my husband held a sales position within the logging industry, which meant he travelled a great deal, often spending several nights a week away from home. Anyone who knows that business, will acknowledge the month of December is generally a slower time, with many logging camps shut down for unfavourable weather conditions or simply their scheduled crew holidays.
We were never a family that went away during the school’s summer holiday time. Instead we chose the Christmas school break for our vacation.
When the kids were 4, 6 and 8 we tried our first warm vacation – Maui was the choice. It turned out to be a fabulous change from winter at home, an opportunity to extend the summer swimming lessons and best of all, the telephone didn’t ring.
We treated those weeks as true family time and came home and back to school with a better understanding of each other. Because of the assignments the children completed for their teachers we learned together a great deal about the history, traditions and industries of the Hawaiian people. It was a good experience for all of us and for 12 years it was an accepted family tradition.
Some will ask, “How could you be away from home during that celebration time?” We could for the benefits I’ve mentioned, we could because we had a very small nuclear family of only our parents. Having Christmas on Maui differed from ours at home only by the day’s temperature and its activities.
Here was our typical Christmas Day:
Christmas morning open stocking, eat breakfast and clean up the dishes, then open the few packages from grandparents we had brought along. Next came my dressing a turkey and packing a lunch; just before we left for the beach I put the turkey into the oven.
When we arrived back at the cabin at sunset with sun touched, sandy, salt-crusted skin everyone had a shower, maybe even a dip in the pool. Then it was into pyjamas for the children, followed by a celebratory dinner. It was the same meal as we served at home but with less fuss and scrambling to meet an unspoken deadline for its service. The next day for our lunch sandwiches we had turkey meat and cranberry sauce. And so our vacation continued, back to a different beach each day.
As many people do while making preparations for the Christmas season I was thinking yesterday about the fun I had with my daughter’s family two years ago on Maui.
I had enjoyed that vacation with my grandchildren during the week before Christmas and arrived home just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve with the rest of my family and create the Christmas turkey feast the next day.
Because we always lived beside the ocean it was a goal of my husband and me to have our children ‘waterproofed’ and it pleases me to see that these parents have set a similar goal. While away with them I had witnessed once more the good that regular swimming lessons can do, even if you live in Alberta. I was delighted to find the grandchildren are turning out to be ‘water-babies’ too.
Having spent so many Christmas seasons in ‘the Islands,’ Maui itself holds a special place in my children’s memories of Christmas; my grandchildren are now having a similar opportunity to experience its delights.
When our children were little my husband held a sales position within the logging industry, which meant he travelled a great deal, often spending several nights a week away from home. Anyone who knows that business, will acknowledge the month of December is generally a slower time, with many logging camps shut down for unfavourable weather conditions or simply their scheduled crew holidays.
We were never a family that went away during the school’s summer holiday time. Instead we chose the Christmas school break for our vacation.
When the kids were 4, 6 and 8 we tried our first warm vacation – Maui was the choice. It turned out to be a fabulous change from winter at home, an opportunity to extend the summer swimming lessons and best of all, the telephone didn’t ring.
We treated those weeks as true family time and came home and back to school with a better understanding of each other. Because of the assignments the children completed for their teachers we learned together a great deal about the history, traditions and industries of the Hawaiian people. It was a good experience for all of us and for 12 years it was an accepted family tradition.
Some will ask, “How could you be away from home during that celebration time?” We could for the benefits I’ve mentioned, we could because we had a very small nuclear family of only our parents. Having Christmas on Maui differed from ours at home only by the day’s temperature and its activities.
Here was our typical Christmas Day:
Christmas morning open stocking, eat breakfast and clean up the dishes, then open the few packages from grandparents we had brought along. Next came my dressing a turkey and packing a lunch; just before we left for the beach I put the turkey into the oven.
When we arrived back at the cabin at sunset with sun touched, sandy, salt-crusted skin everyone had a shower, maybe even a dip in the pool. Then it was into pyjamas for the children, followed by a celebratory dinner. It was the same meal as we served at home but with less fuss and scrambling to meet an unspoken deadline for its service. The next day for our lunch sandwiches we had turkey meat and cranberry sauce. And so our vacation continued, back to a different beach each day.
March 7, 2014
More on Learning to Write
When each unit of work was complete I felt great satisfaction watching the teacher, my mother, address a returning envelope:
Elementary Correspondence School, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.
Mom eventually taught me to write the address, but first she taught me to print. She showed me how to hold the fat, red pencil she had whittled to a point, using her whetstone-honed paring knife. The thick, soft lead required frequent sharpening as I practiced the steps, according to her instruction. The blank paper I used was a pale oatmeal colour with a characteristic pulpy texture. My practice, combined with her persistence, proved fruitful: I slowly learned to correctly shape the letters of the alphabet. Then, when I could form the letters more or less consistently, she promoted me to working on paper with lines.
Although stiff and rough, this new paper had alternate solid and dotted lines. It allowed a pupil to more accurately establish the correct height for each letter. Capital letters were printed two spaces high, but the smaller letters, the ones without a ‘leg’ going either up or down, required only one space. Teachers began using terms such as ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ long after I had learned to write.
For practice, Mom assigned printing of a whole row of one capital letter, and then a whole row of that same letter in the non-capitalized form. If some of my shapes were a bit ragged, I could try another row, following a tried and true adage, “Practice makes perfect.” I’m not as sure about that as I may have been then. Allowing one day for learning each letter of the alphabet, meant my perfecting the printing of all 26 characters took weeks of dedicated effort.
When I had mastered the shaping and heights of each letter, my next writing lesson consisted of printing within the lines on standard lined paper, without the dots. We called this smoother paper ‘foolscap’, and the resulting letters were considerably smaller.
I had barely perfected the forming of printed words when my mother insisted that I begin ‘writing.’ Since that early time I have never really stopped doing it. During my school day the practice of writing sometimes had a greater purpose than simply perfecting the forming of the letters and words. Although our contact with other people was rare, and always cause for celebration of some sort, Mom was also teaching me the importance of etiquette, and that included creating my own “thank you” notes. After each Christmas and birthday, the requisite personal letters of thanks were sent.
So began a lifelong practice of writing letters. To this day, the habit continues. I still enjoy writing and sending a hand written and addressed, stamped letter, or card. With determination I attempt to make time to do it, because I know that in our busy email and text-message entrusted lives, the infrequent arrival of a “real letter” will add a bright spot to the recipient’s day.
By third grade I was considered to be ready to write script, and the esteemed Mr. MacLean entered my life. His penmanship methods were taught to all pupils in British Columbia from the 1920s to 1960s. I suppose the goal was for all schoolchildren to emerge from Grade 8 with uniformly legible handwriting. It would have been a miracle had it happened so easily. I am apparently one of the system’s failures.
Marching across the top of every blackboard in BC schools was Mr. MacLean’s version of both the large and small letters. I first observed this when I began school at Rock Bay. The Elementary Correspondence School had established a strict MacLean system for answers to the lessons. As pupils, and for every subject, we were required to write out our answers, in full sentence form, once for practice, and then rewritten in our best handwriting. The latter was submitted by mail for correction - and handwriting counted! As an early-developing writer, my handwriting met the expected standard. It no longer does.
My mother also taught me most of what I know of grammar and spelling. My spelling is still not consistently accurate. Even during high school when a teacher attempted instruction on the parts of speech, and offered examples of the rules for their use, my thoughts returned to the little rhymes and songs Mom had learned when she was a child at school. There was a light-hearted common sense about them, as long as you could remember the rhyming words, and it seemed so much less complicated than the explanations in the grammar textbook.
Among the songs she taught me was one about “a, e, i, o, u.” There were spelling rhymes too. “I before e, except after c,” has served me well when writing cheques to The Receiver General of Canada. I’ve since learned that Spell-check is dependable only if I am able to program the computer to acknowledge the appropriate version of the English language. Additionally the program does not correct for word usage. So, like many writers, I’m still learning to spell.
My apprenticeship in writing has taken me from learning my letters in Mom’s stuffy floathouse kitchen, to creating essays in high school, producing university term reports, formulating policy books, revising and initiating the writing of high school textbooks, compiling family history, and now writing memoir. Seventy years later I’m still learning to write. This creative practice called writing is truly the ultimate challenge.
Elementary Correspondence School, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.
Mom eventually taught me to write the address, but first she taught me to print. She showed me how to hold the fat, red pencil she had whittled to a point, using her whetstone-honed paring knife. The thick, soft lead required frequent sharpening as I practiced the steps, according to her instruction. The blank paper I used was a pale oatmeal colour with a characteristic pulpy texture. My practice, combined with her persistence, proved fruitful: I slowly learned to correctly shape the letters of the alphabet. Then, when I could form the letters more or less consistently, she promoted me to working on paper with lines.
Although stiff and rough, this new paper had alternate solid and dotted lines. It allowed a pupil to more accurately establish the correct height for each letter. Capital letters were printed two spaces high, but the smaller letters, the ones without a ‘leg’ going either up or down, required only one space. Teachers began using terms such as ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ long after I had learned to write.
For practice, Mom assigned printing of a whole row of one capital letter, and then a whole row of that same letter in the non-capitalized form. If some of my shapes were a bit ragged, I could try another row, following a tried and true adage, “Practice makes perfect.” I’m not as sure about that as I may have been then. Allowing one day for learning each letter of the alphabet, meant my perfecting the printing of all 26 characters took weeks of dedicated effort.
When I had mastered the shaping and heights of each letter, my next writing lesson consisted of printing within the lines on standard lined paper, without the dots. We called this smoother paper ‘foolscap’, and the resulting letters were considerably smaller.
I had barely perfected the forming of printed words when my mother insisted that I begin ‘writing.’ Since that early time I have never really stopped doing it. During my school day the practice of writing sometimes had a greater purpose than simply perfecting the forming of the letters and words. Although our contact with other people was rare, and always cause for celebration of some sort, Mom was also teaching me the importance of etiquette, and that included creating my own “thank you” notes. After each Christmas and birthday, the requisite personal letters of thanks were sent.
So began a lifelong practice of writing letters. To this day, the habit continues. I still enjoy writing and sending a hand written and addressed, stamped letter, or card. With determination I attempt to make time to do it, because I know that in our busy email and text-message entrusted lives, the infrequent arrival of a “real letter” will add a bright spot to the recipient’s day.
By third grade I was considered to be ready to write script, and the esteemed Mr. MacLean entered my life. His penmanship methods were taught to all pupils in British Columbia from the 1920s to 1960s. I suppose the goal was for all schoolchildren to emerge from Grade 8 with uniformly legible handwriting. It would have been a miracle had it happened so easily. I am apparently one of the system’s failures.
Marching across the top of every blackboard in BC schools was Mr. MacLean’s version of both the large and small letters. I first observed this when I began school at Rock Bay. The Elementary Correspondence School had established a strict MacLean system for answers to the lessons. As pupils, and for every subject, we were required to write out our answers, in full sentence form, once for practice, and then rewritten in our best handwriting. The latter was submitted by mail for correction - and handwriting counted! As an early-developing writer, my handwriting met the expected standard. It no longer does.
My mother also taught me most of what I know of grammar and spelling. My spelling is still not consistently accurate. Even during high school when a teacher attempted instruction on the parts of speech, and offered examples of the rules for their use, my thoughts returned to the little rhymes and songs Mom had learned when she was a child at school. There was a light-hearted common sense about them, as long as you could remember the rhyming words, and it seemed so much less complicated than the explanations in the grammar textbook.
Among the songs she taught me was one about “a, e, i, o, u.” There were spelling rhymes too. “I before e, except after c,” has served me well when writing cheques to The Receiver General of Canada. I’ve since learned that Spell-check is dependable only if I am able to program the computer to acknowledge the appropriate version of the English language. Additionally the program does not correct for word usage. So, like many writers, I’m still learning to spell.
My apprenticeship in writing has taken me from learning my letters in Mom’s stuffy floathouse kitchen, to creating essays in high school, producing university term reports, formulating policy books, revising and initiating the writing of high school textbooks, compiling family history, and now writing memoir. Seventy years later I’m still learning to write. This creative practice called writing is truly the ultimate challenge.
February 13, 2014
First Steps in School
When I was a child, from birth to 9 years of age, our only neighbours were my paternal grandparents and my bachelor uncle whose house and his bunkhouse sat on one large raft with a stiffleg to the shore, only a few yards along the beach from our float. Both floathouses were attached to the beach part way up Port Neville inlet. The only child within a twenty minute boat ride away was my baby sister, Judy Lee born the previous January in 1943 meaning a regular school with a classroom and a designated teacher was never an option for me.
So it was that in September of 1944, just six weeks after my sixth birthday I began grade one. My first school experience was at home at our kitchen table, with my mother as teacher. Not in the usual manner of a mother parenting a child while supervising crayoning or singing counting and alphabet songs, but as the designated teacher of my first officially taught school lessons.
Although there had been few opportunities for socialization with other children my own age there was no doubt I was ready for school. An early learning system was not common then, even in the towns and cities. Instead I had the benefit of a loving, attentive family who had prepared me with books and crafts for my first more formal learning.
Mail and supplies were delivered to the Port Neville government dock by the Union Steamship SS Cardena every two weeks. Late in August of that first year a huge parcel of school supplies arrived from Victoria’s correspondence school. A significant event, I took great sensual pleasure in examining everything it contained. It was exciting to smell the new paper, pencils, erasers, and books that spilled out of the package. As I did at the beginning of every school year thereafter, I enjoyed handling each of the new and always changing school related items. Mom began by sharpening one of the fat red pencils with her well-worn paring knife, while I examined new crayon colours, wondered at the small metal box of paints with its own paintbrush and reviewed the possibilities through its pictures of the new-to-me books, all in anticipation of being allowed to use these wonderful precious new tools. From that day onward I looked forward with anticipation to each new chapter of my learning.
On ‘school days’ I sat up to the red laminated kitchen table, on a structure the correct thickness to lift me into the right position for writing and reading. We had tried various pillows and boxes and finally settled on the perfect arrangement. A wooden box that had come into the house the Christmas before, filled with what we knew as ‘Jap’ oranges, was placed on one of the kitchen chairs. It was my designated seat until I grew some, and then the orange box was replaced by the big blue Doctor’s book. The surface of my desk was a forerunner of Arbourite, and its edge was finished with a thick band of shiny chrome. As soon as breakfast was over, and the dishes were done, I took my place at that table.
My teacher was punctual about following the school year according to the schedule sent from Victoria, just like other children did in a ‘real school.’ We began work each morning at nine, and except for our lunchtime break, we seldom finished before three. What did happen, however, was that I sometimes worked through the lessons more quickly than the time suggested for each part of the lesson package. It meant that over the months I got ahead for my age. By the end of the second school year I had finished Grade 2, and was already working on Grade 3 lessons. In this way I edged through four grades of school in three years, meaning that when I entered Grade 5 at Rock Bay School I was a year younger than the other pupils beginning Grade 5. The age difference followed me all through school, to the point that I entered university at age sixteen.
As she was strict in maintaining the school day she was also determined to have me present myself at the table/desk properly dressed and groomed. My widow’s peak hairline has always been a particular annoyance in its desire to fall forward and over the years many techniques have been tried to tame it.
“Come on Myrtle, let me comb your hair before school.” It was half past eight on Monday morning, and my mother stood before me, armed with brush, comb, two elastics, and a bottle of green goop.
“Hop up there and I’ll get those stray bits out of your eyes,” she said. Mom was not a tall woman, barely five feet, and she found it easier to stand behind me when she did my hair, while I sat on a chair where I would wiggle less. Lately, she had taken to styling it in French braids and was currently perfecting her technique. First came the part, a straight line from my forehead down the centre of my head. It sometimes took a few tries for her to get it right, at least to her standard.
Next she gathered up a small triangle of one side of the shorter hair in front and combed some of the green jell through it. By having me tip my head back against her bosom, she could divide that hair in three and begin braiding. We both knew that this first part was the most difficult, for both of us, but also when done well, (and that meant pulled tightly) it meant the braids would stay in place and look fresh for several days.
“Owe, that hurts,” I would wail.
“Hold still now, while I get these bits behind your ears, I know it pulls, but I won’t need to do this again tomorrow. That will mean you can be ready earlier to go with your dad to meet the boat.” Tuesday was Boat Day.
Soon she was working on the other side of my head, and the whole agony began again. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally pulling up sections of longer hair at the back of my head, and working down to the neck. It was nearly over. Sometimes she pulled a few stray hairs while attaching the elastic at the end of each braid. My own daughters probably don’t realize that the soft, covered elastics they sometimes use to make their own ‘ponytails,’ became available long after I used such things in my hair!
“There, it wasn’t that bad this morning was it?” She was re-assuring herself I thought, but at least it was over for today, and I was ready for school.
Myrtle Siebert, February 2014
So it was that in September of 1944, just six weeks after my sixth birthday I began grade one. My first school experience was at home at our kitchen table, with my mother as teacher. Not in the usual manner of a mother parenting a child while supervising crayoning or singing counting and alphabet songs, but as the designated teacher of my first officially taught school lessons.
Although there had been few opportunities for socialization with other children my own age there was no doubt I was ready for school. An early learning system was not common then, even in the towns and cities. Instead I had the benefit of a loving, attentive family who had prepared me with books and crafts for my first more formal learning.
Mail and supplies were delivered to the Port Neville government dock by the Union Steamship SS Cardena every two weeks. Late in August of that first year a huge parcel of school supplies arrived from Victoria’s correspondence school. A significant event, I took great sensual pleasure in examining everything it contained. It was exciting to smell the new paper, pencils, erasers, and books that spilled out of the package. As I did at the beginning of every school year thereafter, I enjoyed handling each of the new and always changing school related items. Mom began by sharpening one of the fat red pencils with her well-worn paring knife, while I examined new crayon colours, wondered at the small metal box of paints with its own paintbrush and reviewed the possibilities through its pictures of the new-to-me books, all in anticipation of being allowed to use these wonderful precious new tools. From that day onward I looked forward with anticipation to each new chapter of my learning.
On ‘school days’ I sat up to the red laminated kitchen table, on a structure the correct thickness to lift me into the right position for writing and reading. We had tried various pillows and boxes and finally settled on the perfect arrangement. A wooden box that had come into the house the Christmas before, filled with what we knew as ‘Jap’ oranges, was placed on one of the kitchen chairs. It was my designated seat until I grew some, and then the orange box was replaced by the big blue Doctor’s book. The surface of my desk was a forerunner of Arbourite, and its edge was finished with a thick band of shiny chrome. As soon as breakfast was over, and the dishes were done, I took my place at that table.
My teacher was punctual about following the school year according to the schedule sent from Victoria, just like other children did in a ‘real school.’ We began work each morning at nine, and except for our lunchtime break, we seldom finished before three. What did happen, however, was that I sometimes worked through the lessons more quickly than the time suggested for each part of the lesson package. It meant that over the months I got ahead for my age. By the end of the second school year I had finished Grade 2, and was already working on Grade 3 lessons. In this way I edged through four grades of school in three years, meaning that when I entered Grade 5 at Rock Bay School I was a year younger than the other pupils beginning Grade 5. The age difference followed me all through school, to the point that I entered university at age sixteen.
As she was strict in maintaining the school day she was also determined to have me present myself at the table/desk properly dressed and groomed. My widow’s peak hairline has always been a particular annoyance in its desire to fall forward and over the years many techniques have been tried to tame it.
“Come on Myrtle, let me comb your hair before school.” It was half past eight on Monday morning, and my mother stood before me, armed with brush, comb, two elastics, and a bottle of green goop.
“Hop up there and I’ll get those stray bits out of your eyes,” she said. Mom was not a tall woman, barely five feet, and she found it easier to stand behind me when she did my hair, while I sat on a chair where I would wiggle less. Lately, she had taken to styling it in French braids and was currently perfecting her technique. First came the part, a straight line from my forehead down the centre of my head. It sometimes took a few tries for her to get it right, at least to her standard.
Next she gathered up a small triangle of one side of the shorter hair in front and combed some of the green jell through it. By having me tip my head back against her bosom, she could divide that hair in three and begin braiding. We both knew that this first part was the most difficult, for both of us, but also when done well, (and that meant pulled tightly) it meant the braids would stay in place and look fresh for several days.
“Owe, that hurts,” I would wail.
“Hold still now, while I get these bits behind your ears, I know it pulls, but I won’t need to do this again tomorrow. That will mean you can be ready earlier to go with your dad to meet the boat.” Tuesday was Boat Day.
Soon she was working on the other side of my head, and the whole agony began again. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally pulling up sections of longer hair at the back of my head, and working down to the neck. It was nearly over. Sometimes she pulled a few stray hairs while attaching the elastic at the end of each braid. My own daughters probably don’t realize that the soft, covered elastics they sometimes use to make their own ‘ponytails,’ became available long after I used such things in my hair!
“There, it wasn’t that bad this morning was it?” She was re-assuring herself I thought, but at least it was over for today, and I was ready for school.
Myrtle Siebert, February 2014
February 12, 2014
Searching for Grandmother Gunhild, the Girl
I remember the excitement I felt as we set out to find the place my grandmother had lived as a child. Cousin Liv had said my grandmother, the women I called Nano, or White Nano because of her hair colour, must have lived just a short distance from where Liv and Magne made their home on the banks of the Asdal River, near Arendal in Norway. Liv had identified the place and told me she would take me there. I was visiting with Liv and Magne after the grand, long delayed reunion of the Forbergs in Bo, Telemark, in June 2002.
Liv explained that after we last talked she had read further in the Aust-Augder farm record book. Each of the provinces or districts in Norway has maintained a record of all of the farmland holdings and their owners for as long back as that can be determined. Thanks to a Norwegian-speaking researcher in Salt Lake City it was in one of those bygdboks that in 1998 I discovered relatives still living on the farm my grandfather had left over 100 years before. Liv said that Grandma Gunhild’s father, Ole Gunnulfson, had come from the Tisehold area, perhaps even from Rise, where the book said his family had lived for a time. There must have been some significance in the place because my father’s middle name was Rise. I’ve since learned that Ole’s second wife, my grandmother’s mother, was Ingeborg Bjornsen Rise Arendal.
We set out to walk to the place - Liv’s present home was very close to Grandma Gunhild’s former residence. By calculating from the farm records that told when the Gunnulvsons lived there, we were able to determine that young Gunhild would have been 6 years old when her family settled in to the house. Her father, Ole Gunnulfson, had taken a job at the municipal office just over the hill from this home. We were able to see where the pathway would have been that Gunhild used to walk to school and her father walked to work.
Sooner than I expected Liv and I came upon the house. It sat facing the road on the rise of a little hill with a large exposed mossy rock surface in what would have been the back yard. Fine grass grew around the house and there were trees that in my grandmother’s time would have been seedlings or newly planted.
The house appeared pleasantly compact with a tile roof and smallish windows spotted in the wide shake walls. Around the back its graceful roof line had been marred by an additional level that did not show from the front. We could see another floor had been added after completion of the original structure.
Our research showed that the young Gunhild had lived here until she was eighteen years old and began her career in the world of work. Between this time and her immigration to Canada with my grandfather, in 1909, we were able to find little information about her. I knew from a notation in the census files and from a picture showing her with students, that just before she left Norway she had been teaching young women destined to become housekeepers or work in small inns. We can only assume Gunhild, at 30 years of age, had decided married life with Einar in the unknown remote wilderness was a better choice than remaining a spinster in Norway.
As we approached the house it appeared empty, deserted, un-lived-in and, I thought, sad. But the door stood open and a car we had been unable to see from the front stood in the driveway. We approached the door and called “Hello.” From within emerged a woman, perhaps younger than Liv, then in her fifties. Here was a woman with the appearance typically considered a Scandinavian person. She was about my height, with a solid body, but not overweight, broad shoulders, and a sunny complexion with blond hair and blue eyes. Once she was assured we would do no harm she opened up to us in welcome and told us the story of the house.
This woman’s parents had bought the house several years after Ole and his family had left Asdal. The farm book would show us the year but we couldn’t establish the exact date ourselves without it. All we had learned about Gunhild’s parents, Ole and Ingeborg, was that with their younger children, Gurine and Evind, they had left Asdal for an island where her father worked with indigent people and supervised the poor laws.
Our host had been born in this house along with several of her siblings. While they lived there her parents had built the upstairs floor that was visible only from the back of the house and she showed us around inside.
What I appreciated most was that she was able to describe for us the configuration of the room and its décor when she had lived here as a very young child. From her explanation we had a sense of what it had been like for Gunhild. I especially reflected on the location of the wood box, something I had known as a child living in a wood-fire-heated house. Also significant to me was placement of a built in ‘day bed’ between the door and stove. In many homes of the time a day bed was where an outside worker or a senior family member laid down for a few minutes rest at midday or during the afternoon. Even in the homes of both sets of my elderly grandparents there was always a single cot or pillow-backed settee where a person could rest in a fully stretched-out manner. More than once it was where I had slept as a child during my afternoon nap or later, used for a ‘sleep-over.’
As we took our leave and expressed our thanks for her time the home-owner explained this modest home my grandmother had known in her childhood was currently being painted and re-decorated before the next renters took possession. It pleased me to know the house had stood the test of time. She and her husband lived in a big new house on the adjacent property.
Myrtle Siebert, October, 2013
Liv explained that after we last talked she had read further in the Aust-Augder farm record book. Each of the provinces or districts in Norway has maintained a record of all of the farmland holdings and their owners for as long back as that can be determined. Thanks to a Norwegian-speaking researcher in Salt Lake City it was in one of those bygdboks that in 1998 I discovered relatives still living on the farm my grandfather had left over 100 years before. Liv said that Grandma Gunhild’s father, Ole Gunnulfson, had come from the Tisehold area, perhaps even from Rise, where the book said his family had lived for a time. There must have been some significance in the place because my father’s middle name was Rise. I’ve since learned that Ole’s second wife, my grandmother’s mother, was Ingeborg Bjornsen Rise Arendal.
We set out to walk to the place - Liv’s present home was very close to Grandma Gunhild’s former residence. By calculating from the farm records that told when the Gunnulvsons lived there, we were able to determine that young Gunhild would have been 6 years old when her family settled in to the house. Her father, Ole Gunnulfson, had taken a job at the municipal office just over the hill from this home. We were able to see where the pathway would have been that Gunhild used to walk to school and her father walked to work.
Sooner than I expected Liv and I came upon the house. It sat facing the road on the rise of a little hill with a large exposed mossy rock surface in what would have been the back yard. Fine grass grew around the house and there were trees that in my grandmother’s time would have been seedlings or newly planted.
The house appeared pleasantly compact with a tile roof and smallish windows spotted in the wide shake walls. Around the back its graceful roof line had been marred by an additional level that did not show from the front. We could see another floor had been added after completion of the original structure.
Our research showed that the young Gunhild had lived here until she was eighteen years old and began her career in the world of work. Between this time and her immigration to Canada with my grandfather, in 1909, we were able to find little information about her. I knew from a notation in the census files and from a picture showing her with students, that just before she left Norway she had been teaching young women destined to become housekeepers or work in small inns. We can only assume Gunhild, at 30 years of age, had decided married life with Einar in the unknown remote wilderness was a better choice than remaining a spinster in Norway.
As we approached the house it appeared empty, deserted, un-lived-in and, I thought, sad. But the door stood open and a car we had been unable to see from the front stood in the driveway. We approached the door and called “Hello.” From within emerged a woman, perhaps younger than Liv, then in her fifties. Here was a woman with the appearance typically considered a Scandinavian person. She was about my height, with a solid body, but not overweight, broad shoulders, and a sunny complexion with blond hair and blue eyes. Once she was assured we would do no harm she opened up to us in welcome and told us the story of the house.
This woman’s parents had bought the house several years after Ole and his family had left Asdal. The farm book would show us the year but we couldn’t establish the exact date ourselves without it. All we had learned about Gunhild’s parents, Ole and Ingeborg, was that with their younger children, Gurine and Evind, they had left Asdal for an island where her father worked with indigent people and supervised the poor laws.
Our host had been born in this house along with several of her siblings. While they lived there her parents had built the upstairs floor that was visible only from the back of the house and she showed us around inside.
What I appreciated most was that she was able to describe for us the configuration of the room and its décor when she had lived here as a very young child. From her explanation we had a sense of what it had been like for Gunhild. I especially reflected on the location of the wood box, something I had known as a child living in a wood-fire-heated house. Also significant to me was placement of a built in ‘day bed’ between the door and stove. In many homes of the time a day bed was where an outside worker or a senior family member laid down for a few minutes rest at midday or during the afternoon. Even in the homes of both sets of my elderly grandparents there was always a single cot or pillow-backed settee where a person could rest in a fully stretched-out manner. More than once it was where I had slept as a child during my afternoon nap or later, used for a ‘sleep-over.’
As we took our leave and expressed our thanks for her time the home-owner explained this modest home my grandmother had known in her childhood was currently being painted and re-decorated before the next renters took possession. It pleased me to know the house had stood the test of time. She and her husband lived in a big new house on the adjacent property.
Myrtle Siebert, October, 2013
February 11, 2014
My Grandfather's Pipe
My Grandfather’s Pipe
Myrtle Siebert, October 2013
In August of 1998, and after three years of family history research, I made my first trip to Norway where I met 18 second cousins and three elderly ladies who were first cousins of my deceased father. Hosted by families – the grandchildren - of two of my grandfather’s brothers I walked the farm he had chosen to leave and explored the old church and cemetery that held the names and seat of his Forberg relatives.
I will never know why he left his birth place. It was likely a desire for a better life, because with large families and the scarcity of what farmland produced, life was not at all easy. But his determination not to live his life as a farmer was more likely the reason. He had left home to work in a nearby forested area before deciding to emigrate.
I had only recently learned then that he was the eldest of four brothers and according to the rules of the country at the time he would have inherited the large Forberg family farm. This was apparently not a role he wanted, so he left the farmer responsibility to his next eldest brother whose grandson, Einar, now runs the Forberg farm that I was visiting. At the farmhouse I saw the family heritage displayed: the original home he had left, carved boxes made by a younger brother who did not marry, wooden trunks, bowls and implements decorated with rosemaling and the family bible my grandfather had returned to Norway after he decided not to move back ‘home.’
In a roundabout way this brings me to my present conundrum. I am the eldest grandchild of the eldest son and my father, Einar, was the eldest son of our Canadian Forberg ancestor Einar, he who emigrated in 1896. Dad had no sons, only me and my younger sister, but he did have a brother, Ingolf. Rules of inheritance have changed since then and in Norway a daughter is now eligible for a primary inheritance. Had my grandfather remained in Norway, as the eldest grandchild I could now be running that Forberg family farm.
My difficulty is over deciding who should inherit my grandfather’s Norwegian pipe. It has come to me from my sister who no longer wants to devote space to it. In fact, I was not aware she had it! In my memoir Beyond the Floathouse, Gunhild’s Granddaughter, I have written,
I remember Grandpa Andy as an elderly gentleman, and recall being absolutely mesmerized by the process he went through each evening to prepare and smoke his pipe. On special occasions he would use a traditionally carved long Norwegian pipe festooned with red tassels attached to a cord from which the pipe hung on the living room wall.
I watched him lift it from the wall hook and pack the bowl with a particularly pungent brand of tobacco which he smoked only rarely. Seeing him hold the bowl almost at arm’s length, suck in to get a fire started enough that we could smell the smoke, was an even more fascinating procedure for a little girl of six to observe.
But let me return to Ingolf Forberg, who did have a son, Cory Forberg. Cory has both a son and a daughter and they have children. Should the Norwegian pipe go to Cory’s young son or is it more fairly placed with my own son Eric Siebert, who has no children of his own? Another alternative is his sister’s son Tait Ackermann? After some discussion with my friends who study genealogy, the consensus seemed to be that by following the modern view of inheritance my son Eric had the right to have his great-grandfather Forberg’s pipe.
Myrtle Siebert, October 2013
In August of 1998, and after three years of family history research, I made my first trip to Norway where I met 18 second cousins and three elderly ladies who were first cousins of my deceased father. Hosted by families – the grandchildren - of two of my grandfather’s brothers I walked the farm he had chosen to leave and explored the old church and cemetery that held the names and seat of his Forberg relatives.
I will never know why he left his birth place. It was likely a desire for a better life, because with large families and the scarcity of what farmland produced, life was not at all easy. But his determination not to live his life as a farmer was more likely the reason. He had left home to work in a nearby forested area before deciding to emigrate.
I had only recently learned then that he was the eldest of four brothers and according to the rules of the country at the time he would have inherited the large Forberg family farm. This was apparently not a role he wanted, so he left the farmer responsibility to his next eldest brother whose grandson, Einar, now runs the Forberg farm that I was visiting. At the farmhouse I saw the family heritage displayed: the original home he had left, carved boxes made by a younger brother who did not marry, wooden trunks, bowls and implements decorated with rosemaling and the family bible my grandfather had returned to Norway after he decided not to move back ‘home.’
In a roundabout way this brings me to my present conundrum. I am the eldest grandchild of the eldest son and my father, Einar, was the eldest son of our Canadian Forberg ancestor Einar, he who emigrated in 1896. Dad had no sons, only me and my younger sister, but he did have a brother, Ingolf. Rules of inheritance have changed since then and in Norway a daughter is now eligible for a primary inheritance. Had my grandfather remained in Norway, as the eldest grandchild I could now be running that Forberg family farm.
My difficulty is over deciding who should inherit my grandfather’s Norwegian pipe. It has come to me from my sister who no longer wants to devote space to it. In fact, I was not aware she had it! In my memoir Beyond the Floathouse, Gunhild’s Granddaughter, I have written,
I remember Grandpa Andy as an elderly gentleman, and recall being absolutely mesmerized by the process he went through each evening to prepare and smoke his pipe. On special occasions he would use a traditionally carved long Norwegian pipe festooned with red tassels attached to a cord from which the pipe hung on the living room wall.
I watched him lift it from the wall hook and pack the bowl with a particularly pungent brand of tobacco which he smoked only rarely. Seeing him hold the bowl almost at arm’s length, suck in to get a fire started enough that we could smell the smoke, was an even more fascinating procedure for a little girl of six to observe.
But let me return to Ingolf Forberg, who did have a son, Cory Forberg. Cory has both a son and a daughter and they have children. Should the Norwegian pipe go to Cory’s young son or is it more fairly placed with my own son Eric Siebert, who has no children of his own? Another alternative is his sister’s son Tait Ackermann? After some discussion with my friends who study genealogy, the consensus seemed to be that by following the modern view of inheritance my son Eric had the right to have his great-grandfather Forberg’s pipe.
