Mission to the City: My Experiences During the Great Depression

By Karl Holm and Arnold E. Andersen M.D

The book records Karl Holms personal account of his work in rkenen Sur, a shanty town in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn during the worst years of the Depression. Here, in the shadow of Manhattan, he found life at its grimmest, but life that responded to practical love expressed in the form of shelter, food, and the Christian message. Follow his adventures as a cat led him to a desperately ill man. Follow him on his rounds in the hospitals, reconnecting the ill and dying to their families. Joblessness, destitution, suicide, and murder were only part of his daily life. But there was also grace, love, and an unquenchable spirit. Who knew that he could be a sports reporter writing about crew races? This was a Norwegian-American at his best. Parts of the book, such as the closing account of Christmas Eve, could have been written by Charles Dickens. This is an account to inspire people today as much as then. This book was translated by Arnold E. Andersen, MD, his grandson, with the assistance of Kari Schussler.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512770063

Karl Holm

Karl Holm immigrated to the United States from Norway in 1926 with two of his daughters to find work as a carpenter. Little did he know that, within a few years, he would be called to work with the down and out, the sad and lonely, the jobless and the alcohol dependent, helping to found a “Hoover Village,” which he called Ørkenen Sur or “bitter desert” in Norwegian, in a run-down section of Brooklyn. Here he worked by faith to bring help and hope. He was later recognized by the King of Norway and the Mayor of New York for his work. Every policeman on the beat knew him by name as he made his way to hospitals, to prisons, to the morgue, and to bars.

Book preview

Mission

to the

City

My Experiences During

the Great Depression

KARL HOLM

with Arnold E. Andersen, M.D

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Copyright © 2017 Karl Holm.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7008-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7007-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7006-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016921470

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/30/2016

Contents

Introduction

Preface

The First Trip to Ørkenen Sur

The Hardened Heart

Well-Hidden

The Tie Had to Be Loosened

Saved as A Burning Branch Plucked Out of the Fire

He Could Not Say No

The Scholar

Two Oranges

Harder Than Stone

I Am Disappointed

A Nobleman from Ørkenen Sur

Two Swedish Girls

The Last Visit

Our Unexpected Meeting

The Three Conditions

The Last Journey

At the Norwegian Hospital

The Black Man

Potter’s Field

A Dark Chapter

At the Morgue

Why the Morgue Visits?

The Many Dangers

Changing Days

September 5 and 6, 1932

Christmas at Ørkenen Sur

Introduction

T his book speaks of human joy and suffering, love and misery, suicide, murder, alcoholism, poverty, kindness, crew racing, and the response of one man to human need during the dark days of the early Great Depression in the United States, all of these experiences happening in the shadow of the great city in the borough of Brooklyn. Charles Dickens could have written the last chapter. When former residents of New York City are asked where they come from, they usually just answer, from the City, as if the answer of the City could refer to anywhere else.

Karl Holm was born in 1877 in the area of Southwest Norway called Jæren. He immigrated to the United States in 1926 at the age of forty-nine. He was, by trade, a carpenter. Families in Norway and the United States increasingly began to contact him to try to find and help their loved ones, primarily young men who had fallen off the map and could not be located. Times were very hard. Work was scarce. Karl Holm discovered a number of Scandinavians who were out of work and homeless had migrated to a run-down section of Brooklyn called Red Hook. He named the area Ørkenen Sur, a name taken from the Bible (Exod. 15:22) for a desert probably somewhere in the Sinai Desert near the Red Sea in which the Israelites wandered for a number of years. Ørkenen Sur is sometimes translated by the words bitter desert.

The very rough huts and improvised shelters in Ørkenen Sur were later called Hoover Cities, or simply shantytowns. Here, up to five hundred to six hundred people struggled for mere survival for the simplest housing, often a sheet of metal over their bodies, searching for scraps of food. Unfortunately they also turned to alcohol for solace.

But this was not simply the alcohol found in legitimately made wine, beer, or liquor, ethanol. It was wood alcohol, methanol, CH3OH, a highly toxic and dangerous substance often causing blindness.

Working full time as a carpenter, Karl Holm increasingly found his calling to be his work with the down and out, whether in Ørkenen Sur or in hospitals, prisons, or, worst of all, the morgue, after which he had the grim duty of telling the families of the fate of their loved ones.

I was especially touched by my grandfather’s account of the young woman who committed suicide and the poem she left. Never did I know he could have been a sports commentator by the firsthand account he gives of an exciting crew race in New York harbor. He evokes the poets of the Lake District in England by his description of a week in the country. The last chapter brings a smile of joy and a tear of empathy when he tells how Christmas Eve is brought to Ørkenen Sur.

Karl Holm always combined practical material help with spiritual counseling. A simple bag of grapes or a few oranges could be a message of caring when words did not suffice. He was a man of deep spiritual commitment to serve others. A pastor, friend, or family member usually accompanied him on his journeys.

A lively, older woman, Kari Schussler, made the first more literal translation of the original Norwegian version of this book. Kari, born in Norway, is a friend of my brother Arthur and his wife Nancy. I have tried to rephrase her translation into contemporary English, often hearing my grandfather’s voice in my head since I had grown up in a three-generation home in Brooklyn. I had lived with him and Bestemor (grandmother) Karoline Holm, his rock and support through all his work.

Wherever possible I have tried to match the Norwegian phrases and spelling with contemporary English, acknowledging my limitations but hoping to share his work that speaks to the needs of our society today as well as the down and out in the Great Depression. I have tried to keep the original punctuation wherever possible.

Karl Holm was given Norway’s highest honor to a Norwegian living outside of Norway, St. Olaf’s Order, First Class, as well as a commendation from the mayor of New York. On his business card was listed his occupation: City Missionary.

This book translation would never have been accomplished without the loving care and dedication of Arthur and Nancy Andersen. A few clarifications are noted in parentheses.

Arnold E. Andersen, MD

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(City Missionary) Karl Holm with his Order of St. Olav’s medal awarded by King Haakon of Norway

Preface

T he reason for this little book is to give our folks on both sides of the Atlantic a little insight into the circumstances of our countrymen who live in the shadow of the world-renowned town of New York and especially in the part of the town called Brooklyn. It is easy to understand, in a town where there are many thousands of our people, there will be many for whom things did not work out as they had hoped when they left home. The reasons for this are many and varied.

It seems that some sail against the wind all of their lives. This leads to their becoming tired and resigned, and they give in to chance. Things then go downhill, down to the slums, until one day they find themselves ill in a hospital bed or on death’s door in one of our hospitals.

Others—and they are not few—are of weaker character and lack willpower. These let circumstances work on them. It does not take long before self-respect and willpower are gone. They float as a wreck on life’s ocean even when they are young in age. It reminds me of part of the saying, Give me your tired and poor … Because of this, several years ago we started regular visits to the Brooklyn slum district. Besides this work, we also had our regular job at the shipyard as carpenters.

After we got to know more about the needs among our people and saw especially the need to help them spiritually, we felt a longing in our soul: if only one had the opportunity to offer his whole time for our unhappy countrymen, to hold out to them the help they so badly needed. I prayed to God for it to happen, either for us or someone else who shared this dear vision to go down to our fellow Norwegians. Most people would only give a shrug of their shoulders and move along.

Our wish and prayers were heard. The Bluecross Association (blåkorsforeningen, not the medical health plan) in Brooklyn promised to help us financially, beginning October 1, 1931. These donors are still our trusted friends and have continued to this day, often under