Chapter 42: Paul on Couch with Book

Here I am in my cowboy shirt and suspenders again.  The shirt, I'm sure, is a Montana thing.  If we were still living in Washington state or had already moved to Pennsylvania, I don't think such an item would have been found in my wardrobe.  Mom did a fair amount of clothes shopping from the Sears catalog, but, I don't know, this shirt has "local business" written all over it.

Then again......

Perhaps an alternative approach to this post is to note that the Disney production of Davy Crockett:  King of the Wild Frontier, debuted on TV in December 1954.  A year later, more than $300,000,000 worth of Crockett merchandise had been sold.  I don't think, however, that the shirt I'm wearing in this photo falls into the frontiersman category.  Davy wouldn't have been caught dead in such a thing and, moreover, he would probably have kicked Roy Rogers butt, just for fun, given the chance.

Chapter 41: Paul's 6th Birthday

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the downward angle, it would seem that Dad is standing on a chair to take these two pictures.

The girl sitting across the table from me is Sharon, my first girlfriend.  (One word, as I did have a bit of a crush on her.)   She lived around the corner from First English Lutheran Church in the 700 block of Second Avenue North.  She was a year ahead of me in school -- a first grader -- and the youngest of three children.  Surprisingly, I remember her siblings names and approximate ages.  Rita was in the 4th grade and Charles in 6th.  (What I don't recall is the family's last name.)

From an early age, I felt comfortable visiting other people's homes.  I spent a lot more time at Sharon's house than she did at mine.  One memory that curiously sticks in my mind:  looking out the second floor bathroom window -- our bathroom windows weren't frosted either -- which provided a view across the alley of the back sides and roofs of the business along the 700 block of 1sts Avenue North, the largest building housing a Buttrey's grocery store.   I also retain another image of Sharon and I sitting on her front porch.  She read a page to me and then encouraged me to read a page to her, to which I responded eagerly.  I'm not sure how much she had to do with it, but by the time I started first grader, I was already an accomplished reader. 
 .

I remember the radio with fond memories.  Mom kept it tuned to a station that played popular, i.e. pre-rock-and-roll, music.  Joan Weber's "Let Me Go Lover" was a huge hit in 1955.  Sometimes when Dad would try to show us some affection, holding one of us tight in his arms, we'd call out "let me go", and he'd mockingly start to sing the chorus of the song.

In addition to music ("Standing on the Corner" and "The Yellow Rose of Texas" two other songs that I recall hearing frequently, I listened to broadcasts of "The Lone Ranger".  It would be another year before a television found its way into the Nelson household.

Chapter 40: Paul's First Day of School, with Larry in the Wings

Kindergarten, huh?

Looks like the lad standing at the front entrance to Whittier Elementary School in Great Falls, Montana, [same facility still in use] already has a few years of school under his belt.  By the third grade, I had grown so tall that a number of my classmates called me "Daddy". 

Full disclosure:  The first photo was taken on the day before the 1955-56 school year started.  I remember the one-block walk with Dad, the only time my parents ever accompanied me to or from school, even though I had to cross a very busy, though one-way, Second Avenue North.

At a very young age, Larry became a master of the impish, mischievous grin.  I'm not sure of the occasion for this portrait, although from the clothes he's wearing, the photo must have been taken on a Sunday.   And, upon closer observation, in late September or early October, as the leaves are just starting to turn color.   I think that's a 1952 Ford to Larry's left.

The brick building in the right background is the Demolay, whose original purpose was to serve as teen recreation center.  Childhood curiosity led me into the lobby a number of times.

 

Chapter 39: A Visit to Dad's Relatives

The distance between Great Falls, Montana to Dad's hometown of Rockford, Illinois, is 1200 miles.  In July of 1955, Dad drove this entire distance by himself.  Uncomplainingly, as far as I can recall.  Mom didn't get her driver's license until two years after we moved to Warren.  Dad must have really loved to drive.

I have always been enamored of this photo of my grandparents, or Ma and Pa, as their seven children always called them*.   In most of the photos I have of them, they look so stern and forbidding, someone that a 5-year-old would prefer to avoid.  Even a 5-year-old grandson.

*In the Nelson and Luthgren families, the women were usually named first:  Ma and Pa, Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, Signe and George, Ruth and Rudy, Gen and Ed, Millie and Jerry, Edna and Walter.  On the flip side, I have no idea why these couples were the exceptions:  Ford and June, Frank and Stella, Min and Lila.

I was never completely comfortable around Grandpa Nelson.  He spoke English with a thick accent.  When he spoke to me, I'd turn to one of my parents, my face frozen in a mask of confusion, silently pleading for a translation.  My cousins never had this problem, but then they saw him on a much more frequent basis.  If not weekly, certainly once or twice a month at a minimum.  I wasn't even on a once-a-year schedule.

One of the few family portraits from this period of my life.  Larry and Barb look bored, Barb more interested in sucking her thumb, a habit she had developed by this time, and one that would continue well into grade school.  The photo was taken in Iron Mountain, Michigan, where Dad's brother-in-law, Frank Carlson, husband to his sister Stella, was pastor of First Lutheran Church.   Both Frank and Stella were prone to haughty, holier-than-thou airs when practicing their religion  Once we were older, the joke among the Nelson children was that Frank's prayers were as long as Dad's sermons.  Frank could be insufferably long-winded.

Chapter 38: Norbeck's Cabin (North of Helena)

Five decades later, I remember this day with a bold, striking clarity, as if it happened yesterday.  It was the first time in my life when I felt as though my family and I, along with our hosts, had suddenly found ourselves on the only inhabited place on Earth.  I have only  vague memories of the drive from Great Falls and back.  The Norbeck cabin was located an indeterminate (at least it was to me in 1955) number of miles north of Helena, not within view of  U.S. Highway 91. But the visit itself had a most powerful and lasting effect on me.

 

From a Google search, I assume our hosts were Rev. Nels Norbeck, pastor of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Great Falls, and his family.  I suspect the Norbecks also spent time at the Bible camp on Whitefish Lake.  I don't remember spending any time inside the cabin, and, considering the breath-taking scenery on a perfect summer day, we had little interest in doing so.

It was my first time on a horse -- and bareback, no less.  I look quite confident, surprisingly so, considering how tentative I usually was around animals -- dogs in particular.  Wish my legs could get as tan now as they were then.

Larry appears to have just a hint of a question on his face, as though wondering if the horse might turn into a bucking bronco.  The girl holding the reins, the Norbecks daughter, I assume, looks to be about 10 years old.  She exudes the aura of an old hand at this sort of hospitality.

Not having brought her swimsuit along, Mom is content to sit on a low log bench, enjoying the God's-country setting and engaging Nels in conversation while Dad takes a picture of a very contented group.  The boy holding the innertube looks to be a couple of years older than his sister.  Barb must be inside the cabin taking a nap.  She doesn't appear in any of this series of slides.

Many years after the fact, the pond water doesn't look very inviting.  And from the way I've parked myself on the little dock, I might having been thinking the same thing.

Chapter 37: More of Whitefish Lake

In another, yet this time more careful, review of Dad's slides, I discovered that, though he might not have had much of an eye for portraiture, he knew how to frame a landscape composition.  I offer this first slide, an elevated view of Whitefish Lake, as Exhibit A.  (Exhibit B, which gets us ahead of this blog's timeline, is found here.)  The gloomy, not-quite-ominous ambience is more in tune with how I felt during an unscheduled return visit to this area in September 1974.

A view of the cabin where the Nelson family stayed for a week, I assume.  The car, a 1955 Buick, is a relatively recent purchase, one in which Dad must have offered a particularly generous "minister's" deal from a local dealership.  It is the car in which a family of six, four children ranging in age from 7 1/2 to 3 months, moved from Great Falls, Montana, to Warren, Pennsylvania, in July 1957.  I have many pleasant memories from this long trip.  Wish Mom and Dad were still around to offer an alternative perspective.

I assume that's Whitefish Lake, considerably smaller than Flathead Lake, in the background.  Best evidence.  Before returning to Great Falls, we drove through Glacier National Park, which wouldn't have taken us within viewing distance of Flathead Lake.

Chapter 36: Paul and Larry at Whitefish Lake

Vacation time, 1955.  Larry and I are enjoying the stunningly blue water of Whitefish Lake. And I seem to enjoy plopping handfuls of cool sand on my left thigh.

Not sure if this second photo was taken on the same day, but somewhere along the line I snagged myself a cool walking stick.  Something or someone on the lake has caught Larry's attention.

Beautiful backdrop.  But all I care about is my stick.  (Wish I started this project a few years ago.  I could have mined some of Mom's memories from our years in Montana.  Now I need to develop a direct, two-way line to heaven.)

Speaking of....

Where's Mom? And Barb? Dad's obviously the photographer here.

Chapter 35: Carefree Summer Days

I love this photo of Barb and Larry.  An angelic Barb stares intently, solemnly into the camera, looking as though her mind has been transported to a faraway place.  A focused Larry seems to be making an adjustment or tying something the tricycle his sister is straddling.

The building behind them to the right is George's Paints.  The building has since been expanded, a section now extends to the edge of the alley, and extensively remodeled.  According to Google Maps Street View, it houses a business named the Hearing Aid Institute.  Central Avenue, Great Falls' main drag, is a just a block beyond the paint store.  We lived on the edge of the far reaches of downtown.

Cooling off on a hot summer's day?  Perhaps.  Larry and I are running through a sprinkler, at least that's what I assume from how Larry has his arms positioned.  If Dad was still trying to grow a decent-looking lawn, our frolicking around the front yard certainly didn't help.  Partially obscured by a tree trunk, Barb can be glimpsed in the background, sitting in what looks like a large metal bowl.  At a minimum, I hope she's wearing a diaper.  Otherwise, I gotta scratch my head about this family.

Chapter 34: A Summer Sunday in Gibson Park

This is the kind of day I remember from five summers in Great Falls.  A blue Big Sky with not a cloud in sight.  Tall elm trees providing abundant shade.  A lush, welcoming carpet of green. (At least the Great Falls Parks Department knew how to grow grass.)  Colorful flowers beds in full bloom.
It's another family visit to Gibson Park after church.  Why else would the three of us be so dressed up?   That red object I'm holding is a squirt gun.  I have no idea if it's loaded.  Probably not.  If it had been, I'm sure I would have squirted Larry or Barb and Mom, in a fit of impatience, would have demanded I turn it over to her.  It would then disappear into her purse, perhaps never to be seen again.

Three months from my 6th birthday, I'm obviously tall for my age, towering almost two heads over 3-year-old Larry, who is not even a head taller than 15-month-old Barb.  Larry, a pensive, almost melancholy expression on his face, must be pondering this unfair situation.  We looked more than 2 1/2 year apart well into our 20s.  And Barb has perfected the skill of taking a nap standing up.

The above photo, featuring a priceless pose by Barb, is slightly out of focus.  And her left foot is cut off at the ankle.  Below, she isn't particular enthused about her turn in the swing.

And what's going on here?  Larry fall into the duck pond?  As for the shirt I'm wearing, I think it's one that Mom sewed for me.

Chapter 33: Birthday and Graduation

The underexposure brings out an eerie, almost glowing glassiness in Larry's eyes, as if he's practicing for his Village of the Damned screen test.  Mom certainly went all out with the preparation of the cake, which is complete with a yellow "Happy Birthday" candle holder surrounded by what looks like frosted and sprinkled animal cookies.  Wonder if this is an idea she gleaned from Better Homes and Gardens, one of the few magazines -- Time and Reader's Digest being the other two -- to which my parents subscribed during the 1950s and into the 60s.

Somewhat surprisingly, Dad took few photos of the various activities, social and otherwise, that took place at First English Lutheran Church.  One of the exceptions of this informal and casually snapped group portrait of 1955 church member graduates of Great Falls High School.  With their mature, almost matronly appearances, the two young women in the center of the photo look to have graduated from high school the year their classmates were born.

Chapter 32: Radio Flyer

A new wagon?  I suspect so.  It hasn't appeared in any previous slides, and, as far as I can tell, Windows Photo Gallery magnifying tool included, the paint job looks factory-fresh.

Based on the classic 1950s little-boys' short-sleeved shirt I'm wearing, with no jacket, I'd say it's an unseasonably warm spring day.  And look at the abundance of dandelions on the patchy parsonage lawn.  (I'm pretty sure that's a 1951 or '52 Dodge parked in the background.)

\

In the first picture Barb appears awfully patient while Dad snaps some pictures with his Kodak Pony.  In the second shot, though, a puzzled look clouds her face, as if she's asking herself, Is anyone going to give me a ride in this wagon?
,


Steady on her feet and ever conscious of the camera.  What a sweetie!

Chapter 31: Easter Sunday 1955 (Best Guess)

Easter Sunday fell on April 10th in 1955, and from the look of the trees in this series of three photos of a family visit to Gibson Park.  The fact that we're wearing jackets or sweaters is another indication of a spring-like day, as are the dandelions that dot the grass. 

What particularly fasincates me about the first photo is the sidewalk perspective in the upper-lefthand corner.  A picture-within-a-picture, it seems to stretch unbroken, as if Great Falls' grid pattern north-south streets and east-west avenues had somehow disappeared.  The residential streets in this, one of the oldest sections of the city, were lined with rows of mature trees that provided abundant shade. 

If this picture was taken on Easter Sunday, Barb would be 10 days from her 1st birthday.  Her outfit looks to have been provided for either occasion, though more likely the former.  Mom's no longer here to verify, but I recall her saying that all of her children started walking before they were 1.

Chapter 30: Barb's 1st Birthday

Barb look oblivious to both the camera and her angel-food birthday cake, but my big smile and eye contact make up for her disinterest.

A few random observations.

Since just about the beginning of this slide review, we have regularly seen me wearing suspenders.  Guess this item of apparel was more than just a short-lived fad.

I have no memory of the lampshade, which looks like something that ran away from the circus.

The decorative cups and saucers displayed on the wall to the left of the floor lamp are part of a collection that Mom must have had well in place by this time.  They are now on a hutch in the dining room of the house on East Third Avenue in Warren, Pennsylvania, waiting for her three sons to lay claim to them.  As much as I treasure these items, due to their long association with Mom, I'm not sure what JoAnna and I would do with them.  Eventually pass them along to our daughter-in-laws?

Chapter 29: Another Visit to Gibson Park

From the sight of coats, hats, and a kerchief, it appears to be a cool, early spring day in Great Falls.  Posing sweetly and confidently for the camera, Barb looks very stylish in her matching light blue coat and hat.  That's not me between the two people wearing red tops.  I was tall for my age, but not that outsized at age 5 1/2.

Barb's in a much more contemplative mood in this second photo.  

Is that all there is....to a swing? she seems to be asking herself.  Is that all there is? Doesn't someone want to give me a push?

That's not me hanging on the pull-up bar in the background.  First of all, Mom would have quickly discouraged such an activity.

Get off that thing, Paul.  You might fall and crack your head open.

Yes, parents really talked like that in the 1950s.  Another favorite expression, uttered in anger or frustration:  I could wring your neck.

Chapter 28: Around the House

Popcorn time!  But we weren't watching The Lone Ranger.  In 1955, at least at the time this photo was taken, the Nelson family didn't own a TV set.  However, we could have been listening to the radio version of the program

The bookcase behind an angelically smiling Larry is one that remained in the family for many years, as did the books, although I'd ventured that few of them were ever read cover to cover.  Mom and Dad must have belonged to a book club for a period of time.

Larry and I appear very excited about the family's latest purchase, a suitcase, which our billowy pajamas leave mostly obscured.  I must be wearing a bathrobe that Mom made.  No offense to her sewing skills  -- which were quite good; she made most of her own and Barb's clothes -- but it doesn't looks like anything sold in stores.

I have no idea what Barb is noshing on.  A zweibeck?  One of Mom's molasses cookies?  Behind Barb is the entry hallway, which looks much narrower than what my 5 year old's brain remembers.

Chapter 27: Escape Attempt

"Oh, Carl!" Mom urged in an excited whisper.  "Get the camera!" 

She had checked in on Barb and found her with both legs dangling through the slats, as if she'd attempted to escape the confines of her crib.  The bulge of her diaper, apparently, kept her from completing her efforts.  It's a good thing Barb wasn't a skinny baby.

Dad responded to Mom's suggestion, only to shoot another overexposed crib picture.

What impresses me most about this photo is the beautiful wood floor found in one of the parsonage bedrooms.  I imagine this is a feature found throughout the house.

Chapter 26: The Parsonage Playroom

Although not a typical example of the style, the old First English Lutheran parsonage in Great Falls was of a 'four-square' design.  Walking through the front door, you enter a hallway that extends to a stairway leading to the second floor.  To the right are the living and dining rooms, though there is very little separation between these two spaces.  (I have a dim memory that this side of the first floor was all living room when we first moved to Great Falls from Auburn, but I'm sure we didnt' have enough furniture for such an arrangement.)

To the immediate left was the playroom, which was connected directly to the kitchen, the last of the 4 first-floor rooms on a tour.  (The only bathroom was on the second floor.)

The playroom was sparsely furnished.  Outside of the little card table and two chairs, I don't recall any other places to sit.  The room provided an excellent location for the playpen, as Mom could keep an eye on Barb from the kitchen.

It's clear from these two photos that my favorite Christmas gift was the model car that, apparently, I would not let out of my sight.  By 1960, I had become proficient at naming cars by their make, model, and year.  In fact, in Warren, I used to take a chair from the front porch, along with a pad and pencil, sit myself at the corner of West Third and Conewango, and tally the cars that passed by.  Chevrolet always won tallied the highest number.

I recall the service station with great fondness. This toy kept me occupied -- not so quietly, perhaps -- for many hours. I'm sure I made plenty of engine noise for effect.

The sight of the record player in the first pictures reminds me of how often Mom would tell the story of how, even before I learned to read, I could identify each and every record by sight.  It doesn't appear I had much of a collection, though.

Chapter 25: Barbara's First Christmas

From the clothes that Larry and I are wearing, I assume the first two photos were taken on Christmas Eve.  I look spiffy in a red-white-and-blue patterned sweater and a white shirt with the pointy-est collar I've ever seen.  (Watch out, Barbara!)   Larry, on the other hand, looks absolutely adorable in a striped jacket and bow tie.  I imagine that First English scheduled an early-evening service featuring the youth choirs, a long-standing tradition in the Lutheran church.  I'm sure we didn't attend the late service, which probably didn't start until 11:00 p.m.

The other Christmas Eve tip-off is the still-wrapped presents under the tree.  Because of Dad's need to focus on church activities from late afternoon on, we didn't open gifts until Christmas morning.

The woman turning the pages of a book, which appears to be of little interest to the Nelson children, is Dora Donald.  An emigrant from England, Dora served as the church organist and choir director.  She was single, and, as far as I recall, had an active social life, participating in a variety of community organizations and traveling, mostly to California, to visit family and friends.  She lived in a neatly cluttered, 3-room apartment on the first floor of the Maryland Arms on 2nd Avenue North.  I visited her once on my own on Sunday afternoon.  I couldn't have been more than 6, but my parents will allowed me to walk the three blocks to her apartment on my own.

The Nelson family didn't purchase the loveliest of Christmas trees in December 1954.  Or perhaps it was given to us by a member of First English Lutheran Church.  By its misshapen form, which not even an over-abundance of tinsel can hide, it looks ready to lead us a sing-along of "I'm a Little Teapot".

Before the tree was taken down and carried out of the house, the tinsel was carefully removed and replaced into its original packaging, to be used again the following year.  It even traveled with us in 1957 from Great Falls, Montana, to Warren, Pennsylvania, and remained in use into the early 1960s.

Remember the toy gas station and light green model car, which will appear again in our next chapter.

Chapter 24: Bedroom Dresser

(The two words printed on the slide mount.)

An arty shot of Mom and Dad's bedroom in the old parsonage in Great Falls.

I don't know if the furnishings are new, or if Dad was attempting a photographic inventory of the house's content.  I wish it were the latter as I have a difficult time remembering the exact layout of the second floor, which four bedrooms and a full bathroom.  Typical of early-20th century home construction, there was no bathroom on the first floor.

I remember well the attractively designed headboard.  It remained a part of my parents' bedroom well into the 1970s, as did the dresser.  In fact, the dresser is now stored in the basement of the former St. Paul's parsonage in Warren, Pennsylvania, where my brother Dale still lives.  Rummaging through its drawers during a visit 5-6 years ago, I discovered a cache of Dad's pocket-size appointment calendars.  When I looked for them last year, the drawer was empty.   Dang!  Should have claimed them while I had the chance.

Chapter 23: Another Nelson-Hasselquist Get-Together

The Hasselquists: Peter, Gene, Miriam, Gladys, and Lynn in the Nelson living room.  A Thanksgiving gathering for two families whose closest relatives live more than 1,000 miles away.

The Nelsons and Hasselquists solidified their friendship in 1954.  It was the only time I recall my parents having a close relationship with another couple prior to Dad's retirement in 1981.  As a pastor's wife, Mom occasionally bemoaned the limits her role placed on her.  She didn't want to appear to be playing favorites among members of the congregation.  In the 1970s, she socialized with a group of women, none of them members of St. Paul's, who regularly went swimming at the Y.  Enjoying each other's company so much, they branched out into other activities.  Going out to dinner and leaving their husbands at home being a favorite, if I recall.

In the picture below:  Larry, Peter, Gene, Lynn, Miriam, Paul, and Barbara (who, all of 7 months old, appears to be highly amused at whatever Gene is reading to us).  Since I'm no longer wearing a cowboy shirt and Lynn no longer has bows in her hair, I assume this shot if from another end-of-year gathering.

Chapter 22: Miriam Hasselquist's Baptism

A number of thoughts come to mind when I view these two photos.

First of all, Gene and Gladys Hasselquist have chosen Mom and Dad to be their daughter Miriam's godparents, a relationship that, in my experience, has little significance in the Lutheran church and in Swedish-American culture.  I have no idea who my godparents are.   Or Larry's, Barb's and Dale's, for that matter.  Although they kept in contact with Gene and Gladys after moving from Great Falls to Warren, Mom and Dad never sent Miriam birthday cards or acknowledged other special occasions in her life  

Secondly, no one else is present in the church sanctuary.  Perhaps the foursome posed for these two pictures after the baptism service ended.  More likely, both Gene's and Gladys' families lived too far from Great Falls to attend, just as the case would have been at Barbara's baptism earlier in the year.  I'm sure this isolation had much to do with the bond of friendship formed by these two families.

Finally, the sanctuary of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church looks exceedingly spartan:  bare walls, wooden pews, not a stained-glass window in view.