Family Comes to Visit

(Translation for German is at the end of this post.)

The rest of the morning and into a little bit of the afternoon, Mother and I were bustling around getting the house ready for our family. Burnie came over right after Sunday dinner at their house and Mother put him to work. He was happy to help us out, by sweeping the front porch and the sidewalk out to the street. He knew how excited I was to see Uncle Albert and Aunt Helen again, and my Grandma Von Dornum. I was pretty sure Burnie was also thinking about the big tin of sugar cookies that Aunt Helen was supposed to be bringing. Food was always on his mind.

I made certain the guest bedroom was ready. Grandma would be sleeping with Mother, because we had only one extra bedroom, and that was where Uncle Albert and Aunt Helen would stay. Albert was Mother’s younger brother. I think he was about four years younger that she was. There was another brother, Wiard, who was born between them, but he was kicked in the head by a horse and killed when he was seventeen years old. His grave was up in Steamboat Rock, next to Grandma’s husband, Klaas. There was a plot there for Grandma, but I prayed she would live for a long time yet.

Grandma Von Dornum had a difficult childhood and took an extraordinary path to come to the United States of America. She was born Bertha Wilhelmina Fank in Berlin, Germany in 1861. Her mother died when she was a baby; her father was in the army and could not care for her or her siblings. Although her brothers and sisters were sent to live with various relatives, Bertha was cared for by a neighbor for a while but was then placed in an orphanage until she was seven years old. She was taken out of the orphanage by a local man, to work for him in his household, but he did not send her to school like he agreed to. He used her to herd sheep on his huge farm. She had two flannel dresses, a shawl for the winter, and no shoes. In the evening, she had to peel potatoes for the large household. If she peeled them too thick, that was all Bertha got to eat the next day; a stack of boiled potato peelings, as were fed to the hogs. She was twelve when authorities discovered that she had never been to school.

The man was charged in court and had to pay a huge fine; he became quite angry. He got drunk and beat Bertha severely. She began to lose her hearing after this beating. At the school attendance hearing in Berlin, Bertha’s uncle, who was caring for one of her sisters, asked to take Bertha to live with him. The judge refused and she was returned to the man who beat her. When he realized Bertha was starting to go deaf, he did not want her and took Bertha to her uncle. The police found out and went to search the uncle’s house. Bertha was hidden in a rain barrel partially filled with cold water, as plans had already been made to send her to live with her oldest brother, August, who had gone to America. When Bertha arrived at Ellis Island, she was ill and she was rapidly losing all her hearing, probably from the beating and from being in the rain barrel. She was held at Ellis for a year, during which time she helped with babies and made herself useful with other immigrants. She was so useful that her brother, waiting for her in Iowa, had to go to Ellis Island to get her.

Young Bertha Fank was able to help her brother’s family by working in a dry goods store in Eldora, Iowa, which is just on the other side of Pine Lake from Steamboat Rock. Even with her deafness, she worked hard and earned love and respect from the customers in town. She met a young man, Klaas Von Dornum, in Eldora; they married and moved to Steamboat Rock. Bertha kept working in the store for a little while, but then Klaas bought a farm and they moved out to the country. They started a family and raised their children on the farm. Taking care of four children and helping her husband with work around their acreage was a hard, physical life, but she loved living in the country and caring for her family. Grandma was now in her seventies and frail, because being a farm wife had not been easy. I thought her life was so unpleasant in Germany, it was probably better that she did not remember much of it. Grandma told Mother that she felt like her life here was a dream; she was happy and had made a good family with her husband Klaas.

Klaas and Grandma had four children. My mother, Henrietta, was the oldest, then Wiard. Their third child was Uncle Albert and then Hazel, who was the youngest. Uncle Albert married Aunt Helen and moved to a house on the east edge of Steamboat Rock. Mother and Dad married, then we lived in Steamboat Rock until I was in sixth grade. At that time we moved to Des Moines.

Mother’s younger sister, Aunt Hazel, was living in Eldora and teaching school before the Great War. She met a soldier fella at a church social in Iowa Falls and fell madly in love. They got engaged and then he went off to Europe to fight. Sadly, he did not return. He was killed in France. Aunt Hazel was so heartbroken that she vowed she would never love anyone else and never marry. She moved to Chicago to teach. That was twelve years ago, and she’s still not married. Mother told me that Hazel was always a very sensitive and emotional child, and Mother now believed that her little sister never would marry. That always made me feel badly, especially when I saw how happy my parents were. I wanted Aunt Hazel to be that happy, too.

I was so excited for our guests to arrive. Finally, as I was sitting on the deacon’s bench in our entryway, I heard the car pull up. I ran out the front door and didn’t even close it. Mother came behind me, but she closed it.

“Grandma! Grandma! Welcome to Des Moines!” I yelled. I know she couldn’t hear me, but I was sure she could tell how glad I was to see her. The last time I saw her was Christmas, so it had been almost a year.

Uncle Albert helped Aunt Helen get out of the old car right after Grandma. Grandma was walking like her legs were stiff. I knew just how she felt, after that trip we took to Iowa City and back yesterday. I ran out to hold her arm, but first she had to give me a sweet little hug and kiss. “Oh, meine se kleine Enkelin! ” I kissed her back and took her suitcase for her. I didn’t speak German, but I knew she had given me a loving greeting. She also motioned with her hand above her head, so I knew she was also commenting on my height. She was so sweet!

Uncle Albert called to me, “Please take that suitcase into the house for Grandmother, Mable, then come back out here and get this extra box she packed. It’s not too heavy, but she has it all tied up with string like it’s a big secret. She said it was for you.”

I hurried back into the house with the suitcase, ran to the upstairs hall with it, and dashed back out to the car. I wanted to see what was in the box, but Grandma figured out what was going on in my head, and warned, “Berhre nicht die Soirte dieser Box. Es ist fr dich, aber noch nicht. Du wirst es bekommen, wenn du graduierst.”

Aunt Helen said, “Grandma says you don’t get to see that until your graduation!”

That seemed like a long time to wait, but I knew it would be worth it. A thought ran through my head; maybe it was the makings of one of Grandma’s beautiful quilts! She couldn’t hear, but she was an artist with fabric. Her quilts were ab-so-lute-ly exquisite. Mother hated it when I said ab-so-lute-ly, but everyone was pronouncing it like that lately, and I just picked it up. I never said it when I was around her, but I frequently thought it.

When I went around to the back of the car to get that box, I saw something else I had been anticipating! The tin of cookies! I’ll bet Aunt Helen had to put that tin in the back of the car so that Uncle Albert wouldn’t eat them all on the trip down to Des Moines.

I called out to Mother, who was still hugging her mother and brother, “Mother, I found the tin of cookies!”

“Keep the lid on and take it into the pantry, Mable,” she said to me. Then turning to Aunt Helen, she asked, “No cookies until after dinner, right, Helen?”

“Let her have one. Well, maybe two. She’s waited a long time,” was the generous response of Aunt Helen. I loved her! I was a spoiled niece, in addition to being an only child.

I knew I had better help with unpacking the car before I opened that tin, so I grabbed as much I could carry. I deposited everything of Uncle Albert’s and Aunt Helen’s in the spare bedroom and moved Grandma’s suitcase to Mother’s bedroom. There really wasn’t much except for Grandma’s secret box and her big steamer trunk. She was going to be staying for two months; so that trunk was too heavy for me. I knocked on Burnie’s door and he helped Uncle Albert carry it up the stairs.

Grandma, Mother, Uncle Albert, and Aunt Helen all went into the parlor. Mother sent me into the kitchen to make some tea and to put a stack of those delicious sugar cookies on a tray for everyone. She had just been teasing me about waiting until after dinner! Burnie, of course, tagged along to the kitchen because he was also interested in the sugar cookies. He labored to make a symmetrical stack of cookies on the tray, like it was an engineering project, while I heated the water for the tea. Burnie reached up to the top shelf of the pantry for me to get down the good tea service, and the tea tin, also. I scooped the tea into the tea strainer like Mother had taught me and poured the steaming water into the pot. I carried out the tea tray and Burnie followed me with the plate of cookies. We both showed remarkable restraint and did not take any of the cookies to eat while we were in the kitchen. That’s just the way we were raised.

Mother was pleased with the way we prepared and served the tea. She taught me well; I did what I was supposed to do and Burnie really just followed my lead. I was supposed to serve the oldest guest first, so that was Grandma. Then the next oldest. Between Aunt Helen and Uncle Albert, I wasn’t sure who was older, so I was taught to serve the lady first, then the gentleman. Lastly, I was to serve the hostess and then the host. I poured the tea for each person and Burnie dutifully followed me around the room, serving the cookies. We were quite proper. I had done this with the ladies from Mother’s neighborhood club when it was her turn to host the third Saturday afternoon tea that they held every month. I had gotten fairly adept at it, and Mother smiled approvingly at me as we went around the room. It felt a little awkward using this manner of serving tea to my relatives; I felt like we should just all be sitting around the table in the kitchen, laughing and catching up. I wondered if Mother was trying to look more formal because Burnie was here, or if she wanted to impress Grandma. Neither one of those was necessary. I would wait until later and ask her about it, but right now, it was the kids’ turn to get some tea and eat some cookies! Burnie and I finished off the plate of cookies, and Mother was still smiling.

“So how was the trip to Des Moines?” asked Mother, looking at Uncle Albert.

“It was a pretty easy trip. The only place we stopped was Ames. We got a little gasoline and went on our way again. Most of the crops are all in from the fields. The farmers seem pretty satisfied with what they got done this year,” he answered. It was a farmer’s answer.

Aunt Helen added, “That’s the truth. All the farm women are coming into Eldora and spending crop money on things they are going to need to get them through the winter. Warm socks for their kids, hats, mittens, and salt, of course.”

“How do you know that. Helen?” my mother asked. “Mother doesn’t work at the dry goods store anymore. Who’s telling you things like that, about who is buying what?”

“Oh, Henrietta, that young Mr. Hahn who took over the dry goods store from his father is still so nice to your mother. He came by her house the other day while I was there and brought a big box of men’s suiting samples; it was a full of little squares of wool that are outdated. He knows Bertha loves to make quilts, and he thought she could make good use of them. So, he filled me in on all that shopping gossip!”

Burnie burst into the conversation with his own question, “What do they need salt for in the winter? I mean, so they need more salt in the winter than they do in the summer?”

Mother laughed. “Oh Burnie, you are such a city boy! The farm women need salt for all the preserving of food that they do. Salt for the pork and beef, salt for the cabbage to make it into sauerkraut, salt for all sorts of things. They need to make the harvest last all through the winter, so they use the salt to keep the food from getting spoiled.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Hall, that isn’t anything I knew about before. Sounds very thrifty and smart. I don’t suppose it is easy for those farm women to get to town all the time in the winter.”

Mother replied, “No, it isn’t. We used to be stuck on the farm the whole winter. When we were small children, I don’t know how mother kept her sanity through those long winters.”

I had the perfect answer for that. “Grandma was deaf. She kept her sanity because she couldn’t hear all the fussing you kids probably did.”

Everyone laughed heartily at that comment. I offered to refill their tea, and Burnie dashed out to the kitchen to get a few more cookies.

We all had long visit with a lot of old-time reminiscing about Steamboat Rock, as well as Mother giving my aunt and uncle a complete recounting of my state swim meet victories. Mother made me go upstairs and get my medals, so Grandma could see them. Mother spoke enough German to help Grandma keep up with most of what we were talking about, but I wondered if being left out of a lot of the conversation bothered my grandmother or not. It bothered me at school, especially in places like the cafeteria, the locker room, or the gym. Large groups of people all talking at the same time made it nearly impossible to understand what anyone was saying, even if they were speaking directly to me. I was getting better at reading lips all the time, but often it was difficult to join in on the conversations.

Burnie headed back to his house about four o’clock. Mother put me to work setting the dining room table for dinner. She kept going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, planning what serving dishes she would need and who was going to sit where at the table. Our houseguests had gone up to their rooms to freshen up and rest a little.

This gave me a chance to ask Mother about why she entertained in the front parlor today, instead of just having everyone come into the kitchen and get comfortable around the big table in there.

“Mable, I think you will be mature enough to understand why I did that. One thing I wanted to do was let your aunt, your uncle, and your grandmother have a chance to see what a gracious hostess you have learned to be. Also, none of them thought it was a good idea for your father and me to move to Des Moines. They thought we would end up poor. This is only the third time since you were in sixth grade they have come down here to see us. If you recall, we are the ones who always do the traveling to visit them up in Hardin County. The last time they came down here was about three years ago, and we were still struggling financially. We were still fixing up this place. I entertained them in the parlor today so they could see how hard your father has worked to make a nice home for us. Your father has skills that people will pay for, and that has kept us above water in these hard times. Does that answer your question?” She looked right into my eyes.

I looked back, not even blinking, and said, “I am so proud to be your and Dad’s daughter. I love you so very much.”

We hugged again, just like we did this morning after Dad called.

I went upstairs, as Mother asked me to, about fifteen minutes before dinner, to let the others know we would be eating soon. First, I told my aunt and uncle, then I went to Mother’s room to let Grandma know. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to tell her, because I didn’t speak German. As I knocked on the door, I realized how silly it was to worry about that. Grandma was deaf. She couldn’t hear knocking and she couldn’t hear German any better than she could hear English. I was probably going to have to use gestures. I wished I had be able to spend more time around her, but we only went up to Steamboat Rock twice a year. We would always go on Decoration Day at the end of May, to put flowers on Grandpa Von Dornum’s and Wiard’s graves. Then we would either go up on Christmas or Thanksgiving. If the weather was bad for those days, we would wait until Easter to drive up there. I felt a little jealous of Burnie. His grandparents lived on the south side of Des Moines. He saw them all the time.

I opened the door slowly since knocking wouldn’t really help. I didn’t want to surprise Grandma or frighten her by just dashing in. She was sitting on the bed, surrounded by piles of the most luxurious looking fabric I had ever seen! It was silk velvet. I could tell it was silk by the shimmer coming off of it. There was gold, crimson, teal, cinnamon, peach, bronze, ivory, black, deep green, and navy. I didn’t know they made that many colors of velvet. When she saw me, she tried to throw the bed covers over the piles of fabric, like she didn’t want me to see them. Oh dear, I thought, she is going to be upset and I don’t know what to say.

“Bei Donner!” she yelled out. “Sollte das deine Abschlussberraschung sein, kleine Schnffelnde Maus.” She called out to Aunt Helen, “Komm schnell her, Helen!”

Aunt Helen quickly darted across the hall and exclaimed, “Oh dear, Mable, Grandma wanted to surprise you with this velvet quilt for graduation. That’s why she yelled. She’s not angry.”

I felt so bad. I think Grandma saw the look on my face, because she stood up and gave me a hug around my waist. She was so tiny, almost like a little girl.

She said, "Du wirst überrascht sein, meine se Mable. Es wir schn sein, genau wie du.”

Aunt Helen told me what she had said, and I felt so much better. As I gave her another gentle hug, I remembered why I was sent upstairs. “Aunt Helen, would you please tell Grandma that dinner is in fifteen minutes?”

Aunt Helen said, “Bertha, Henrietta hat Mable hier heraufgeschickt, um dir zu sagen, dass das Abendessen in fünfzehn Minuten ist.” She motioned downstairs, used a gesture for eating, and flashed her five fingers at Grandma three times.

I sure was glad Aunt Helen and Uncle Albert could speak German, even though Grandma could barely hear them. It was respectful that they still spoke to her, and that they had learned how to let her know what was going on. Grandma nodded and started packing the velvet back into the box. She motioned with a couple flips of her fingers for me to scoot out of the room. I gave her a little wave and left, smiling as I thought of what a beautiful quilt I was going to be taking to college. Or maybe she meant it for my hope chest? Either way, I thought about what it would feel like to wrap myself up in its satiny softness. What a wonderful grandmother I had.

Dinner was interesting. Some of the conversation was in German and I liked hearing Mother speaking German. Uncle Albert would correct her now and then, and she didn’t really mind. I know she liked Aunt Helen, but she probably would not like it if her sister-in-law corrected her German grammar, because Aunt Helen never did that. I think she knew better.

Apparently, Aunt Helen as having some stomach problems. The doctors in Eldora thought she might have ulcers, whatever those were. I didn’t follow that part of the conversation very well. I thought talking about your stomach at the dinner table was not very polite, but we were all family, and the grownups probably would not be interested in what I thought about it anyway.

Uncle Albert was taking her to a doctor downtown in the morning, and they were hoping to drive back to Steamboat Rock in the afternoon. It was not as far away as Iowa City, and they could get home before it was too dark.

I had no homework left to do, so I decided to go to bed early. No basketball with Burnie tonight. It was getting pretty cold out now, too. If I couldn’t go to sleep right away, I could spend time planning how I was going to approach Coach Johnson about trying out for the boys’ swim.

Translation

“Oh, meine se kleine Enkelin! ” “Oh, my sweet little granddaughter! I have missed you so much. You have grown so tall!”

“Berhre nicht die Soirte dieser Box. Es ist fr dich, aber noch nicht. Du wirst es bekommen, wenn du graduierst.“ “Don’t you touch the string on that box. It’s for you, but not yet. You will get it when you graduate.”

“Bei Donner!,” she yelled out. “Sollte das deine Abschlussberraschung sein, kleine Schnffelnde Maus.” She called out to Aunt Helen, “Komm schnell her, Helen!” “By Tunder!” she yelled out. “This is supposed to be your graduation surprise, little snoopy mouse.” She called out to Aunt Helen, “Come here quickly, Helen!”

She said, "Du wirst überrascht sein, meine se Mable. Es wir schn sein, genau wie du.” She said, “You will be surprised, my sweet Mable. It will be beautiful, just like you.”

Aunt Helen said, “Bertha, Henrietta hat Mable hier heraufgeschickt, um dir zu sagen, dass das Abendessen in fünfzehn Minuten ist.” Aunt Helen said, “Bertha, Henrietta sent Mable up here to tell you that dinner is in fifteen minutes. Come and knock on our door when you are ready and we will all go downstairs together.