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January 1
THERE IS A SKIFF OF snow on the ground, but the weather hasn’t turned bad yet. The year may show many changes as our family and homestead grow. We hope to plow more acres and start on our house, and, of course, I hope to have a healthy new baby soon.
The first service in Dr. Olsson’s new stone church was today. It is near the bolagshuset. People at the Salemsborg church were talking about Dr. Olsson’s strict beliefs. I believe it will cause strife among the people in the future.
January 4
Our son Anders Wilhelm was born in the dugout today. He is named after Carl’s little brother, Johan Wilhelm. Willie has dark hair like mine and strong lungs. His cries fill our small dugout. Carl wanted to go out in the middle of the night last night to get Moder, but I told him the trip could wait until daylight because it could be hours before the birth. It is not far to her house if he takes the horse, but the wind has been blowing the snow, and I did not need them to get lost. Moder got here at dawn, in time to help with the delivery and look after Christina when she woke up. Carl was so happy to get a son. At the moment I’m just thankful that the baby is healthy and I survived the delivery.
January 23
Bundled up the children for the ride to Salemsborg Church. Willie was baptized today by Pastor Dahlsten. Since it was so cold in the church I unwrapped the baby just long enough for the short ceremony, then quickly bundled him up again. My family was present as sponsors, meaning they promise to raise our child if something would happen to Carl and me.
My routine and spare time have changed with a new baby to take care of beside the milking and other chores. Christina watches him if I need to be outside for something. There is not much she can do except run and get me if Willie cries. I think she is feeling a little threatened by Willie. After he is down for a nap, she wants to crawl into my lap for a moment of undivided attention. I spend a lot of time washing diapers. I only have a few that I made from old flour sacks, so I must boil water and wash every day.
February 25
My sisters got here yesterday from Chicago. Fader and Moder met them at the depot in Salina. I couldn’t believe how much Sara and Emma have changed, but it has been three years since I saw them. They had so many stories about the city of Chicago and the families they worked for. They both could speak better English than me, even though I have been practicing with Adelaide. Sara and Emma last saw Christina when she was three months old. She was shy around them at first, but Christina warmed up to her aunts quickly after Emma gave her a lump of sugar. It is so good to see them again.
March 3
Carl was very solemn when he came back from Salina today. He didn’t say anything, just handed me a letter he received from his parents and walked off toward the creek. Enclosed was a death card trimmed in black bearing the news that Carl’s brother Anders Magnus had died. He was just 24.
Christina has a cold this week. I made a mustard plaster for her chest, and I covered it with a piece of wool flannel. The mustard can blister a child’s tender skin, but it usually does the trick to draw the cold out of the body. I hope the baby does not get Christina’s cold. When one of the children get sick, I worry so. I wish there was a doctor in our area.
March 20
I spent the day cutting up potatoes to plant tomorrow. It was so nice today, just a soft, warm breeze and a clear blue sky. I wish spring weather could last forever. Christina found a nest of baby bunnies today. They were so tiny they didn’t have their eyes open yet. She wanted to pick them up, but I told her the momma bunny would not take care of them if she touched them.
March 21
Planted the potato eyes and some more vegetables today. A shower of rain passed over us this evening. That was perfect timing. I hope we get a good crop this year.
Carl’s family will be joining us soon. Svärfar and Svärmor will bring Emma, Emanuel, Johan, and Elenora. They range in age from eighteen to eleven. They will be crossing the ocean on the Cunard Line steamer to New York, then taking the train to Kansas.
I never thought we’d see Sven Magnus and Katarina Andersson come to America. Svärfar owned part of the original land that King Carl the Twelfth of Sweden gave Halfward Bryngelsson (Svärfar’s ancestor) back in 1716. They live in a mansion by our standards. Tenants farmed Svärfar’s land for him. I imagine he plans to buy a vast tract of land in Kansas and build a large home.
All of their older children are immigrating to America, so maybe that is the reason they decided to leave Sweden. The four oldest daughters are married and have children. Lena and Olof Danielson, Anna and Edvin, and Clara and Otto Peterson are going to settle in this area. Sara Lisa and Johannes Brentson have already settled in Iowa.
April 6
I had five stray longhorns near the dugout today when I came back from the field. I was hoping they would wander on by themselves, but when one steer climbed on top of the dugout, I lost my fear of those long horns and sprang into action. My children were inside the dugout, and I could imagine what could happen if the roof caved in from the weight of the cattle. I screamed at the top of my lungs, snapped my apron in the air and ran straight toward them. Of course, when they bolted off, they scattered into the newly-plowed field, making five paths across the worked ground.
Charles and Emma Lamkin have filed on the land west of us along the river. Erick and Fader have neighbors to the west of them now too—the Thomas Husted and the Magnus Fager families have filed homestead claims there.
Carl heard that Bothilda Hessler has arrived to live on the homestead claim her brothers had filed for her. I did not know until today that she will be marrying Måns Peterson.
April 19
The fieldwork continues. Carl is breaking more sod for corn, rye, and wheat. With more animals, we need more feed. Carl will be spending most of next week at the Robinsons’ to help plant their corn. I hope we can get our corn planted first. I have been outside to help as much as I can. Moder comes to watch the baby and Christina, or I set the cradle outside so I can keep an eye on Willie.
May 4
Carl’s parents and family have arrived. They stayed in Illinois for a short while before getting back on the train for Kansas. Carl met them at the depot in Salina. While they were in town, Svärfar applied for his citizenship papers and filed a homestead claim on the section northeast of us. Svärmor is not impressed with Kansas, the weather or our home. She about fainted when she saw the dugout.
Svärfar and Svärmor will be living with us while Carl and his brothers build a dugout for them. All the men and boys can sleep outside, but that will be six more people to feed and find bedding for. It seems Svärfar did not realize the cost of paying for the family to travel to America, and now he is short of funds to build a real house. Anna and Edvin are not here yet. They are coming by covered wagon instead of spending the money on train tickets. It is good to see Carl’s family again.
May 20
Carl’s family has moved into its own dugout. Our home seems so large now. It was good to have them here to visit, but I’m glad to have my place back to the four of us.
The weather is slowly warming up, and the garden and corn have sprouted. If I can keep the jackrabbits out of the garden, I will have a better stand. Last night they ate down a whole row of peas. I believe I’m ready for some rabbit stew.
June 4
We finally have enough stone to start building our house. We have been collecting sandstone rocks whenever we come across them in the field or the creek. It has been hard to find enough rock nearby.
Yesterday Carl picked up the last wagonload of local rock. There is a rise of hills two miles south that has an outcropping of stone. The rains last week loosened the sod enough that it was easy to dig out the rocks with a spade and pick.
The cellar is dug. It will be used as storage for our preserved food, and as a root cellar for our vegetables and fruits from the garden. We also need a place for shelter from tornadoes, the cyclone winds that Kansas is known for. We’ll have one entrance to the cellar from outside on the north, one from the porch on the south and one inside the house. After the stone walls are in place in the cellar, and the floor is laid for the house, I want to move into the cellar. We’d have more room than in the dugout, and the cellar floor seems drier than the dugout floor. We have had water seeping up from the floor of the dugout this spring. It is always muddy and doesn’t want to dry out. It will be so nice to get out of the damp ground and live on a wooden floor when the house is done.
Our house will measure sixteen feet square. Imagine all the space we’ll have. It will consist of one big room with a loft above it. We hope to add on more rooms as we have the time and money.
Carl bought glass for three windows, a door, shingles, and more lumber when he was in Salina last week. One window will go in the middle of the west wall, one in the middle of the south wall, and a little window in the west end of the loft. The front door will go in the southeast comer of the house.
Carl also bought a big cooking stove with the money he received from selling some of last year’s wheat. It will go on the west wall, just to the right of the window so I can gaze out at our farm while I’m cooking.
We’ll have a ladder on the east wall to get up into the loft, which we’ll use as storage and for an extra bedroom. I’d like to add a porch to the south eventually. Then I can sit and watch the children play while I’m sewing, snapping beans or whatever needs to be done.
June 12
Rock by rock we are slowly building the walls. We are mixing a plaster of sand, clay, and lime to cement the rock together. Benjamin and Mr. Lapsley are helping today. Adelaide came over to watch the progress and help me fix the meals for the extra hands.
As I stood inside my partially built house tonight, I tried to imagine what it will look like when it is done. I want to put up red gingham curtains that I can tie back during the day and braid some rag rugs for the floor. The old hides have worked well in the dugout, but I want our new home to look like a real house, like the one we had in Sweden.
June 16
We had a hailstorm today. It made me sick to my stomach to watch our crops get beaten down. The wheat field is half as tall as it was yesterday. It was almost ripe, so we can still harvest it, but it will be a stooping, back-breaking job since the stems are bent or broken off. We will have to rake up the crop instead of binding it in bundles. The young corn leaves were shredded so the yield will be decreased. The plants are young, so the crop was not destroyed. The potato vines were broken, but the potatoes were already developing underground so they should be fine. The vine plants had started to sprout, and I might have to replant again. I got them in late this year. I’m worried about the tomato plants the most. The stems are so pitted from the hail that they might not survive, and it is almost too late to replant them.
We lost two chickens that were caught in the storm and got pelted to death by the hailstones. Carl was over at the Robinsons’ when the storm hit. Their crops were damaged too. We didn’t need this, God. We were counting on that food and income.
July 14
A census taker stopped our work today. He wanted information about our family for the 1870 census. The census taker listed our names in Saline County, Walnut Grove Township, as Swenson, Charles—age 30, Anna—26, Christine—3 and William—1/2 year.
He put Carl’s name in the American version—Charles Swenson. We tried to correct his mistakes when he wrote them down, but we couldn’t get him to understand our Swedish. I told him my name was Maja Kajsa, not Anna, and our daughter’s name is Anna Christina. And he had Carl’s age wrong too. Oh well, it won’t matter a 100 years from now what they put our names down as in 1870.
August 3
Svärmor is having a fit. The snakes and fleas are about to drive the woman insane. I remember our first year, and how we survived, but she doesn’t seem to want to even try. I try to help her out, but her attitude tries my patience at times. If she keeps spending all of Svärfar’s money on food, instead of raising it herself, they are going to be in that dugout a long time.
August 22
We moved out of the cellar and into our house today! We have so much room compared to the dugout. And clean floors, not mud. Bright sunshine pours through the clean glass windows. The stove gleams, ready to use in its corner space. Next, Carl will have to build some furniture to fill up our house. I want a big table, with a bench on either side, to go in the southwest part of the room. I need a bin near the stove for the chips and kindling. A cupboard on the north wall would be handy for my cooking utensils and food supplies. Our bed will be in the northeast end, with a trundle bed to pull out for the children. And we need a wardrobe or dresser for our clothes. That can go on the east wall beside the loft ladder. I thank the Lord we finally have a real house after two years.
September 5
Rainy day. Nice to spend time inside for a change. We have been so busy this summer, with the crops and garden, and building our house. Two years ago I was out on the prairie all by myself. Now my family or Carl’s drop by for coffee or a visit almost every day.
It has been fun to preserve food with my new stove and to have a big cellar to store it in. Granted the house gets hot, compared to the cool dugout, but I am so happy to have a wood floor to stand on and a stove and oven to cook with. It is worth the discomfort.
Our crop yields were down because of the June hailstorm, but the garden recovered fairly well. I’m glad the hail didn’t come later in the season.
November 2
First snow today. It came down slow and silent, gigantic flakes drifting from the sky at their own pace. So different than the snows we get during a blizzard. I am just about done with the rag rug I started before corn snapping. Seems like it took quite a while to tear the old clothing into the strips for the braid, but now as I sew the braid around in an oval it is going faster. This rug will go in front of our bed.
My next project will be a new cloak for me and altering some of Christina’s clothes for Willie. I hate to spend our money on material, but my cloak is threadbare and I need a warm coat when I am out in the winter. Moder offered to watch the children the next time Carl goes to town, so I can go along and pick out the material. I have not been to Salina in almost a year.
Carl ordered lutfisk from the general store for our Christmas dinner, so he needs to pick that up along with supplies we will need for the winter. It is such a long trip that he goes only when absolutely necessary. We will pick up supplies for our families also.
December 24
Our first Christmas Eve in our new house. It looks so festive with cedar boughs hanging above the windows. The air is scented with a freshness that reminds me of Sweden. The ljus krona is sporting a fourth branch this year for Willie.
Both sides of the family came here tonight for the smorgasbord since we have the biggest house of the family. Everyone brought food to share, and we had a wonderful time. Each Christmas gets better in America.
December 25
When we left for Salemsborg Church this morning for Julotta, Carl’s family headed in the opposite direction for Bethany Church. I’m glad we celebrated Christmas together last night.
