Setting the Scene
This is what I know about my mother, June, that she has
related to me. Mom was born in 1924 to a
2nd generation Swedish-American father, and a Swedish immigrant
mother. She had two older brothers, and
there was a fairly large gap between the younger brother and her—maybe seven or
eight years. Her mother emigrated from Sweden when she was only 17 years old,
the first in her family to do so. Of
five children, four of them would eventually leave Sweden. She had indentured herself for seven years to
a family to work as a house maid in Chicago.
She met my grandfather during that time, but she couldn’t marry until
her indenture was completed. Getting
married at age 24 back in 1914 was considered old. Their marriage certificate describes her as “the spinster,
Lydia Thor”! My grandfather was even
older, in his 30s when they married. A
few years into the marriage, they had a baby girl whom they named Lily, but she
died before she turned a month old. My
mother laments the death of her older sister, so I think Lily must not have
been far from everyone’s thoughts in that family. They soon afterward had two boys born within
a couple of years of each other. Then a
space of several years, then my mother.
She says that her father, whom she endearingly called “Popsy-boy” was 50
when she was born, and her mother was in her late 30's. My mom was 5 years old
when the stock market crashed, and the family was plunged with every other
American family into the Great Depression.
My grandparents already had their house paid for, so thankfully they didn’t
lose it, but my grandfather lost his printing business. At some point he found work as a custodian at
a grade school, but it sounds like their lives were seriously impacted
regardless. Her mother seems to loom
large as a very practical, even harsh woman during this time. My mom tells stories about my grandmother not
allowing a Christmas tree because they were too poor to power the lights for
it; that she would not buy my mother white stockings to wear to school for
picture day. The photo itself confirms the story—there’s my forlorn 8 year-old mother
standing in the front row with her stretched out brown stockings, one up to her
knee, the other sagging to her ankle, flanked by all the other girls with nice
white stockings and starched pinafores. My mom tells a story about how her dad
once brought home a pretty dress that he had bought for her, and her mother lit
into him for spending money so extravagantly. She made him take it back. Once,
only once, she told me about the day she heard her mother say to her father, “We
should never have had that kid.” That must have cut like a knife, and I am
certain that, along with a thousand other ways a person may devalue a child’s
self-worth, was the catalyst for my mother’s lifelong emotional problems. Perhaps she said it out of despair for their
financial state, and for the emotional impact and stress that must have had on
the family. I wonder, too, how much my grandmother suffered from her own
childhood problems. I know teenagers are
eager to be on their own, but moving thousands of miles away from home, to
another country and culture, and without much prospect for future contact other
than through the mail? I can’t even
begin to imagine her reasons. There are other stories that shine a brighter
light on my grandmother. My mom tells
how she used to read and mark her Swedish Bible. She didn’t attend church (my
mom says it was because she said she didn’t feel she fit in), but she supplied
bakery for one church’s soup kitchen. I’m
pretty sure she was paid for that endeavor, but still, she baked all day on
Saturday to provide the rolls for Sunday’s lunch. My uncle’s wife told me “Lydia
was very kind. She used to set out milk and bread for the bums who frequented
the alley behind their house. When your uncle and I were first married, we were
going to have to take our clothes to a laundromat. She insisted that we bring
it to her instead, and she washed and hung our clothes to dry.” My mother has said that it was her mother’s
dream to move to Coeur d’Alene Idaho where my grandfather’s brother had moved
and open a bakery/coffee house. They
planned to move when my mom finished high school, but unfortunately those plans
were dashed when my grandmother died of cancer when my mom was 14 years old. That,
too, was traumatic. My mom has expressed regret that she never got to know her
mother as an adult, anger that her mother didn’t seek treatment, and at the end
would not allow my mother to visit her, and great sadness and loneliness after
her death.
I’m certain my mother’s childhood was difficult and
harsh. It’s unfortunate that she wasn’t
able to get the emotional help she needed.
I believe she was left to cope on her own. For her, coping meant
creating another June. A June that people loved and wanted, took care of and
cherished. A June who did everything
right, wore the right clothes, had the right style, had the perfect
family.
