Grandma and Art Got Me off the Farm

By Ethel Christensen

Abandoned by her father and rejected by her mother, 4 year-old Jennie is taken without explanation from her kindergarten class and driven through the night to live with her grandparents. They live on a farm where gophers pop out of the ground, turkey gobblers give chase, the bathroom is in a little house near the woods, and which is austere and culturally limited. Almost from the beginning she tries to run away back to live with her mother in Minneapolis.
But her grandparents, although undemonstrative, steadfastly support her. Grandpa helps her with her homework at night sitting around the kitchen table lit by a kerosene lamp, she sits on his lap, while riding the binder, and curls up with him on the sofa at nap time. She helps her Grandmother with the chickens, picking eggs and feeding the pigs. But conflicts arise. Especially with her aunt , Hilda who is spiteful and humiliating. Jennie wants to run away and find her father in Canada but all her attempts fail.
As far back as in kindergarten, Jennie liked to draw. So in first grade when she was asked to draw the picture placed on the blackboard in front of the class, she worked hard to copy the exact likeness. The picture was The Last Supper. After that, she became known as the class artist.
Hilda felt Jennie was wasting her time drawing and discouraged her. Reading, another of Jennie's interests, was also considered wasteful.
All through high school Jennie continued to be the school artist. During this time she became attached to Frank, a future farmer with a kind, uncomplicated view of life. He loved her but knew her dream was to leave the farm and go to study art.
After graduating from high school Jennie is offered a job in Washington, D. C. Her grandmother slips her thirty dollars and urges her to leave at once, before Aunt Hilda can interfere.
Her new life in the city is a shock and a revelation. Jennie discovers art galleries, takes her first real art lesson using pastels, and begins to acquire a new set of goals and values. Two years later, she returns to Minneapolis and enrolls at the University of Minnesota in art. Life is a struggle as she has to work to support herself and pay for her education. While working at one of the her jobs, she meets Jim, a young psychology student who is using the G.I. Bill to attend university. Soon they marry, unknown to either Jennies' mother or her aunt Hilda. Jim is very supportive of Jennie's interest in art.
Between leaving the farm and starting university a series of tragedies occurred. Her grandparents diedfirst her grandfather, then her grandmother. Earlier a favorite uncle shot himself. Another uncle died under questionable circumstances and her mother becomes committed to a mental hospital while her father remained a mystery in spite of efforts to locate him.
After graduating from university, she paints and exhibits her work, exploring new directions of expression. It is not easy to find success. When galleries are either hanging her work upside down or
failing to pay her, they disappear from sight. Her first real success comes from entering a painting in an exhibition in New York. Titled Subjective-Objective, the painting and received first prize.
From then on Jennie's goal to become an accomplished artist plays an important part in her life.
Still, she couldn't forget the farm where her uncle now lives. One day, she decided to go back to the place she'd grown up and had wanted to escape. Seeing the faded wallpaper on the upstairs hall the stippled paint walls, the empty bookcase, Jennie becomes aware she has slowly moved from the austere and culturally limited setting of the farm to a new world, one of painting, art, and intellectual interactions. She'd left the farm and could not return.

Back in Toronto, Jennie walked into their condo, past th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 19, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462836796

Ethel Christensen

Ethel Christensen was raised on a farm in Minnesota by grandparents. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with degrees in art. She has been an active painter all her life, exhibiting widely in the U. S. and Canada. Her professional life involved teaching art at all levels from kindergarten to University. She has a daughter, a son-in-law, and two brilliant grandsons.

Book preview

PART I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to thank my husband, Clifford for his continual support of my

painting and the writing of this book. His insight and knowledge guided me in the conception of the idea and it’s portrayal into story form.

Also I am grateful for the computer expertise of my son-in-law, Martin Green and his two brilliant sons, Stephen and Jeremy whom I relied on through every mishap.

Finally, I want to thank my daughter, Melanie, whose own interest in writing got me started on this adventure.

1   

KIDNAPPED

A big Norwegian climbed down from the hillside farm and headed for

the ocean. Crossing the blue water. he made his way by ship and then by oxcart to Minnesota. Asked if this was the place he wanted to be, he said, You bet!

A few years later, two sisters traveled the same route from Norway. Sleeping in their basket was a small baby, their little sister. It was a bewildering journey for them seeing all those people in a strange land. Bravely they traveled on to Minnesota arriving by train at a little town called Moorhead.

Many years later when the little baby had grown into a pretty young lady, she married the grandson of the big Norwegian. She’d said Ya, when he asked, and he’d said pretty good, when she accepted.

They had a beautiful granddaughter called Jennie.

She’s a bastard, everyone said, and that was my beginning, a little girl who liked to draw.

You’re a little artist, the teacher said as she knelt beside me on the floor of the nursery school. Neat piles of scrap pieces of coloured paper and a pot of paste sat on the low table nearby.

In that year, 1929, I turned three years old. I had bangs across my forehead, straight hair an inch below my ears, and a round cheerful face with green eyes. Across my cheek, a smudge of paste covered freckles. Another gob of paste had landed in my hair and crunched it into a tangled mess while I cut and pasted on my picture.

If you do a good job we’ll hang your picture on the bulletin board, the teacher said, smiling as she walked away.

I looked at my picture trying to arrange the reds with the orange shapes and the blues with the green ones. I liked the colours, especially the brighter ones and I liked to work by myself in the corner of the big room. Leaning over my work, I cut another shape when a voice said, How did you make your picture so pretty? A little girl, prettier than I, was standing beside me. She asked, Can I have it? and reached for the picture.

But I shook my head and kept on pasting more pieces. As I worked I thought about making a special picture for Mrs. Shedara, my babysitter.

Just then the teacher came over to collect my work. Looking at me, she smiled and said, I think you’ll be a real artist someday.

Not knowing what a real artist was, I couldn’t wait to ask Mrs. Shedara and my mother, too. Maybe they would tell me. Other children, many older, played near the small tables scattered with coloured paper, crayons, and paste, I watched. Being with other children was still new to me.

Just then a teacher came over to where I sat.

Smiling, she gave me a tiny paper umbrella. When you’re finished I’ll hang your picture in front of the room on the bulletin board, she said.

I pushed the top of the umbrella open and close, pretending it was a hat, then a tree. I made a bird fly across the table, then pulled the top shut quickly, watching the sides fold inward as the pinks and yellows flashed before my eyes.

I wondered when my mother would come to pick me up and take me home. I had to wait for her a long time, it seemed and I was tired. Then again, maybe Mrs. Shedara would come and pick me up. Mrs. Shedara said she’d like me to be her little girl if my mother ever let me go.

As I waited and played with the little umbrella, three tall strangers were standing in the doorway looking in my direction. Curious, I saw they wore boots, two of them wore black hats and all were dressed in big coats. One was a woman. They looked intently at me with unsmiling faces, then moved towards me. I sat very still, barely breathing.

They stopped, admiring a picture one of the little girls held up for them to see. Nice, the man said as he patted her on the head and continued walking towards my direction, faster now.

I was scared and huddled over my picture colouring harder and harder. Maybe if I didn’t look up, they’d miss me and go to someone else.

Now they were getting nearing, still staring at me. The woman was getting close.

I wanted to hide. I looked for the teacher. Maybe I could hide behind her, but the teacher was walking with the strangers, my coat in her hand.

Suddenly two long legs were standing close almost touching my picture. I looked up seeing faces I’d never seen before.

Jennie, come with us, said a man and a woman nodded adding, You’re going to live with us. Would you like that?

No. I started up, ready to run, clutching my picture, scrambling to run to the exit.

Take your umbrella and come with us, the tall one said. He was gentle, his voice soft.

My mother is coming, I cried. But none of them paid attention so I began to pull away, kicking and pushing against them.

You’re coming with us, said the woman, grasping my hand firmly.

They gathered my belongings and the tall one carried me out to a car. Kicking and screaming, I tried to slip out of his arms, but they held me firmly.

Where’s my mother? I cried looking back at the teacher, my cheeks wet with tears.

I wanted to say good-bye to my mother and father. Nobody seemed to care whether or not I wanted to go with people who were complete strangers. I didn’t go back to my house, either.

Within minutes, I was sitting in an unfamiliar car with three new people traveling somewhere. The tall one, Derrick, sat in the backseat beside me. I sat in the corner, as far away from him as possible. Looking up, I watched the houses go by, many many houses. Then, nothing, only land, sometimes a few trees and lots of sky.

I want my mother, I dared to say. I wanted to go home and home was not where I was going.

Handing me a doll, Derrick said, ‘Here’s a present for you. You can keep it." But the doll was not like Muffin, my own doll with the patchwork apron and braided hair.

The sky was getting darker as the car moved forward over the roads and past houses I’d had never seen. Where are we going? I finally asked.

Derrick pulled me closer, To a farm, he said. With cows and chickens, and kittens. Have you ever seen a cow?

I could only stare at him. As the motion of the car lulled me to sleep, I thought of my mother, my nursery school and my little paper umbrella. How far away were they now? When I awoke hours later, the two people in the front seat were talking in low voices but I could hear most of what they said. They were talking about my dad.

He ought to be put in jail. He chased her with a butcher knife! the woman said.

She called the police, I heard them say. I guessed they were talking about my mother.

Listening, I started to cry, but not so loudly that they heard me. They said I’d never get to see my father again or my mother either. I knew I’d miss my father. I’d miss the Sundays he took me to the park. Once he’d bought me a balloon and treated me to ice cream. Then I thought of playing on the sidewalk by the apartment and running to the store for my mother and wanted more than ever to go home, not to wherever the people where taking me.

Just as I was dropping off to sleep for the second time, I heard one of the adults say, He’s a bastard.

Just like his daughter, said another. I didn’t know what she meant but her voice didn’t sound friendly.

Much later into the night I felt the car stop and someone lifted me into his arms and carried me into a house. Then I heard voices and soon I was curled up under a pile of covers in a big bed with dark walls all around.

The next morning I awoke to learn about my Aunt Hilda, Uncle Al, Uncle Derrick, my grandparents and the farm. I discovered I had an Uncle Knute, and an Aunt Ella, too.

2   

THE BEGINNING

At the beginning, on the dewy spring morning, I wanted to run away

from the farm. My grandparents were nice, but they were strangers, new in their ways. And I wanted to go home to my mother.

The farm with acres and acres of land was a lonely place. The land was so vast that I thought everything I saw from the front yard of the house belonged to my grandparents. Later, someone told me that the little houses in the distance belonged to Uncle Derrick and to Uncle Knute, who helped grandfather with farming.

Grandpa was really old, but tall and straight as a fence post, quiet and reserved. He wore bib overalls and a straw hat and chewed snuff. When asked a question he was likely to shake his head rather than say anything. Mostly, he just worked on the farm.

The others, Uncle Derrick and Uncle Knute, were straight, too, and like him, had skin weathered from years of working outdoors in the fields. Uncle Derrick was the soft-spoken one and Al the one who smoked constantly. And soon, I found out that my third uncle, Uncle Knute didn’t act like anyone else in the family, mainly because he drank a lot.

Uncle Al worked in Minneapolis. Grandma said he was a baker and was coming for a visit soon. Aunt Ella lived miles away on a farm. She had children, the oldest a cousin, Kate. Grandma said they didn’t visit very often because they had car problems, namely, the car sometime didn’t have gas and sometimes didn’t have tires. Also, Aunt Ella was religious.

Aunt Hilda, the one with the black hat, lived on the farm but she was finishing high school and came and went, busy with friends. She was the shortest and youngest in the family with hair curled tight framing her face and big glasses.

Grandma was the backbone in the family. Even with her hair in a bun and her long dress, usually with an apron, she could imitate people with sarcastic accuracy. Not favorably either. I soon discovered that Grandma had a mind of her own.

Being in the country was different from the city and I wasn’t sure I liked the place. I could run all over the place, but there were no sidewalks. Instead of tall buildings, I had a big yard surrounded by a grove of trees and, beyond, a pasture full of bumps and puddles. Way beyond was a big hill, bigger than any I had ever seen. Then covering everything almost as far as I could see was black dirt.

The best part of being on the farm was the barn where newborn baby kittens with their eyes still shut played, tiny pigs lined up to eat their dinner from the mother pig, and calves, so new they wobbled on thin legs. I liked the garden with the little sprouts thrusting forth from the seeds my grandmother planted. And baby chicks that burst out from their shell were unlike anything I had seen in the city.

From the beginning, I followed my grandfather when he worked around the barn and fixed the machinery, He was soft-spoken and kindly, never critical of anyone. When I asked him about my mother and when I could see her, he replied, Don’t worry. You’ll see her soon.

My grandfather always was doing the chores, and I always wanted to help. The warm smell in the barn, the kittens running around, the cows swishing their tails and chewing their cuds were new experiences for me. But when he cleaned the barn, I stayed at the side, well away from the wheelbarrow.

Don’t want you getting in my way, said Grandpa, lifting the two handles of the wheelbarrow and pushing the heavy load out of the barn over to the existing pile of manure. Doing the chores was actually cleaning out the manure from around the cows and horses.

Back into the barn he would go. Again he would reappear, repeating his task. As the morning continued, he’d pause between the loads to rest his back and look around, checking the wind.

Gotta have a pinch of snuff, he’d say, pulling a little round can from his pocket and taking a pinch.

I smelled the can once but decided I wouldn’t ever again.

Grandfather said he would haul the manure over to the fields and sprinkle it over the land in the spring. By then, the manure would be hard and brown with bits of sticks and leaves that had blown around the barn during the winter.

In the evening I ran along with Grandma to the barn to watch her milk the cows. She sat beside the cows squirting the milk into their pails as the kerosene lanterns hung on the posts lit the barn with soft shadows playing against the walls. Meanwhile kittens dashed in and out around the feet of the cows.

I laughed when Grandma, sitting beside the cow squirted a stream of milk in their direction. I’ll get them, she said, splashing milk all over their furry coats. Soon, the kittens were busy licking and washing, one paw then another.

Want to try milking? Grandma asked.

I shook my head. I was a little afraid of walking behind the cows and horses. Besides, walking was difficult. Cow manure peppered the straw from one end of the barn to the other.

But Grandma persisted, I’ll help you, she said and guided me as I squatted beside her.

I touched the cow carefully. The white teats felt warm and sticky. My head hardly came up to the middle of the cow’s stomach, the cow was so big. Just then, she turned her head, grass stuck in her mouth, and looked at me with big brown eyes as she swished her tail in my face.

Don’t be scared, said Grandma, leaning in towards the cow. I moved closer to Grandma, pulling to get the milk to come out of the cow’s teat. Nothing happened.

Pull harder, like this, and when Grandma pulled, a stream of milk hit into the pail.

I shook my head, afraid to try again to milk cows who kicked and swished their tails. I’d seen a cow step into the pail while Grandma was milking and almost tip her over. Grandma even took a pitchfork to the hide of one cow who wouldn’t move over in the stall.

Besides the barn, I had the chicken coop and the pig pen to explore. I tagged along with my grandmother, throwing feed out on the ground for the chickens and picking the eggs from inside the hen house. Grandma had black marks on the back of her hands from the chickens pecking at her when she tried to reach underneath them for the eggs.

Then I helped carry the eggs up to the house. As for the pigs, I only dared to stand on the lower rung of the fence and watch them eat and roll in the mud, laughing at the baby pigs trying to get milk from their mother.

In addition to all these new things, I spent much of my time making believe, partly because I was alone so much of the time and partly because I could imagine pictures in the clouds, the shape of the tree against the sky and in the shadows. Even the paint Grandma sponged on the walls of my room, creating patches of colour looked like the shapes of sheep or hills and rock and faces of people. Making believe the shapes were real became my habit.

When the sun went down, and shadows fell on the wall, I spent hours creating stories from the shapes changing with the light. After awhile I’d fall asleep, dreaming of going home.

While playing imaginary games with the cloud shapes, I noticed a difference in the skies in the country. The sky was big, not squeezed in between tall buildings and when clouds drifted by on sunny days the sun was so bright I had to squint my eyes.

Miles away, lived neighbors but they seldom visited. I was used to seeing lots of people in Minneapolis, in my building, on the street, in the park and at the grocery store down the street where I was sent to get milk. I missed those faces and it made me sad to think I’d never see them again.

The first time I had to go to the bathroom, my grandmother showed me a little house with two holes in the bench. Standing on tip toes I could barely see the holes but Grandma lifted me up so I could sit on the hole. The hole went into darkness and I didn’t want to look down but Grandma held me around my waist while she pulled down my panties.

My bum will fall in, I screamed and grabbed Grandma around her neck. I want to get down. Let me down, I shouted. Tears started down my face. I was so afraid.

It’ll be alright, said Grandma. You’ll see. Afterwards when I was safely back on the ground, Grandma told me she’d find a little box so I could climb up and go to the bathroom by myself.

At that point, I didn’t want to go to the little house ever again.

The house was called an outhouse. A wooden door that didn’t quite fit had a hinge that sometimes worked. Instead of a box I piled up Sears Roebuck catalogues in order to reach the top of the bench being careful to avoid the spider webs in the corners. The outhouse was dirty and I was scared every time I went to the outhouse, day or night.

When the weather turned cold I had to go the bathroom inside in a little pot with a cover, so that the smells didn’t get out to the rest of the room. Every few days I had to carry the pot outside and dump the contents over near the woods. I’d much rather live in the city where the bathroom was right beside my bedroom.

Washing up wasn’t very nice either. My grandmother gave me a basin of water and told me to wash. Everyone often washed in the same water and when it was too dirty to use, they poured the water into a pail that stood underneath the wash stand by the kitchen door.

Having a bath was a more involved affair and occurred infrequently, in the kitchen by the cook-stove. Grandma heated kettles full of water on top of the cook-stove, dragged a round aluminum tub from the closet and put chairs around the tub. She hung blankets of various descriptions over the chairs. Grandpa was told to turn his chair so he wouldn’t glance in the direction of the tub. Then I slipped off my clothes and stepped into the warm bath. When I finished, grandma took her turn in the round tub.

Will Grandpa take a bath now? I asked when my grandmother finished. I’d never seen my grandfather except in his overalls and plaid shirt.

Maybe later, Grandma answered.

I don’t get dirty, said Grandpa, who’d overheard the question. I believed him since I never saw him take a bath.

When the weather turned warm I took a bath in the garage. After Grandma set up the round tub in the corner of the garage and filled it halfway with warm water, I sat down in the tub and started to scrub my skin until it glowed. After I finished, Grandpa said he would take a bath.

Grandma closed the door of the garage and left me to take off my clothes. The tub was just big enough that I could sit down with my knees pushed up against my chest. At first, I worried that someone would come along and open the door and see me naked. Looking around at the walls covered with tools and boards I soaped and squeezed the water over my arms and shoulders. Then I started singing and completely forgot about anyone opening the door.

When Grandma called, It’s Grandpa’s turn, I jumped out and grabbed a towel.

Grandma washed last. All three of us used the same water though Grandma added more warm water when she took her turn in the tub.

I was bothered that grandmother never seemed to wash her dress. Blue-flowered and tied at the waist, her dress was spotted with dirt and flour from cooking, torn from working in the garden or carrying pails of feed for the animals. I wanted to ask if she had another dress but didn’t dare for fear she’d be angry. I didn’t want to touch her because I imagined dirt coming off on my hands. Besides, in the family we didn’t touch each other.

Though my grandmother did wash clothes, the wash days seemed an endless event of backbreaking hard work. I had to help carry pails of water into the house from the well. The water was heated on top of the stove for a long time. Then, the wash tub was filled and a washboard set in the tub against one side. After the clothes soaked in the water, my grandmother started scrubbing the items of clothing one by one.

Here’s how you do it, she said, scrubbing the clothes against the board with her brown home-made soap.

I tried, but the clothes were heavy. I pushed harder until my grandmother said, I’ll rub. After I’ve rinsed, you can catch them when they come through the wringer.

So I caught the wet clothes while my grandmother turned the crank on the wringer. Pay attention, Jennie, she said. You could get your hands caught in the wringer.

Has that really happened? I asked, fearfully pulling the clothes through the wringer.

Oh sure, said Grandma. A neighbor lost her arm catching it in the wringer.

You mean she only has one arm now?

Sure as tootin, said Grandma. The wringer just squeezed the arm right off and fell into the washtub.

I cringed at the horror.

Grandma said, They asked her if she wanted to keep the arm for show, but she said no, it wasn’t worth that much to her anymore.

Grandma! I said. You’re making the story up.

Well, said Grandma, Just wanted to scare you a bit and make you pay attention. She laughed piling the last load of clothes into the basket.

Hanging the clothes to dry on the line outside was the best part.

You can hand me the clothespins, Grandma said. I’ll put them on the line. Together we worked from one end of the line to the other, Grandma’s skirt swishing all around and her strong arms raised snapping the clothespins over the wet fabric. When we were finished, Grandma put the empty basket under her arm and trudged back into the house.

I stayed and watched the sheets crisp and white with the wind blowing them dry. The sun helped too, warming and bleaching the clean clothes as they hung on the line. Later I found out that hanging clothes outside in winter was more difficult because they froze almost as fast as we could hang them on the line. First we had to fill a big basket with the wet clothes and put on heavy coats and overshoes.

You take one handle and I’ll take the other, said Grandma, and we carried the basket out to the clothesline. The basket was heavy with the weight of the sodden flannel sheets, Grandpa’s overalls and shirts.

Let’s rest a minute, said Grandma, puffing, white breath pouring from her lungs. She was doing the most carrying. Grabbing the handle again, we lugged the basket to the clothesline.

My fingers were freezing and I could feel my eyes stinging. Blowing into my hands helped to warm them.

Better hurry and get the clothes on the line before they freeze in the basket, Grandma said, weary but determined to finish the job.

We worked like crazy, bending, lifting, slipping the clothespins on the clothes. The warm sun shone on our backs through the crisp winter air.

I’ll finish up. You can go back inside and get warm, she said, finally.

When I left Grandma was leaning over her basket picking up the final piece of clothing.

By the end of the day when Grandma took the clothes off the line outside they were stiff like cardboard but smelled fresh. I thought they looked like sheets of ice lying in a pile, before they started to thaw out.

There was no end of hard work on the farm. In order to iron clothes, irons were heated on top of the cook-stove. Grandma slipped a special holder over the hot iron and carried it to the table where she did her ironing. When the iron cooled, it was set back on the stove to reheat.

Somebody was always carrying something. Grandma carried the most. In the morning she carried pails and pails of milk from the barn to the house. Later pails of slop were carried down to the pigs and pails of feed had to be carried into the barn for the cattle.

Pails of water for drinking and washing were carried in from the well down by the barn and kept in a round earthen crock