Erna:
I grew up in an idyllic world, like having two sets of parent’s as did Aksel. Used to tease my parents about that their cherub, Aksel, had arrived for a visit. As a two years old, sitting on Uncle Chris’s lap, he spilled ashes in my hair from his pipe. Can still remember how fast he brushed the ashes out of my hair and his verbal reaction. My brother, Robert, and sister ,Anna, and I stayed with Tante Anna and Uncle Chris while mamma and papa were visiting the Washington families.
These memories of Uncle Chris are a combination of his son, Aksel, and mine, Erna. Theofil Christian Jensen was born January 21, 1897 at Ubynedey-Havndal, Denmark to Hans Peter Jensen and Johanne Olesen Jensen. He was the eldest of eight children. All eight children immigrated to United States as young adults. This story consequently involves all of his siblings.
Aksel:
Moster Oline was living with her father on the farm. Dad’s mother, our grandmother, was not in good health after the birth of Chris, Andy, your dad, Peter and Oscar. Muster Oline took Chris, age 3 to 4, home to the farm where he lived until he came to America with Uncle K.P. Olesen, his mother’s brother. After he was confirmed and went through the eighth grade he went to work in a store, more like a grocery store for about two years. He didn’t get to grow up with his brothers and sister, Bodil. (He often mentioned this, missed knowing his family. Papa- Peter, and Uncle Chris became very close in their older years.)
As far as I remember Uncle K.P. Olesen came to US to Darr, NE, where Hans Foged’s lived, having known each other in Denmark. KP worked on the construction of the courthouse in Lexington then went to Everett, Washington. He worked at a logging camp, it was heavy work, after hurting his back he studied to be a chiropractor at Palmers in Davenport, IA. He established a practice in Everett, WA, which his nephews, Axel and Andy, took over and continued the practice until their retirements. KP returned to Denmark in the fall of 1911 to visit family and this is when Dad, Chris, asked KP if he could come to America with KP. The way my dad told me was they left Esberg, Denmark and sailed to Liverpool, England and then sailed to New York. They were sailing at the same time that the Titanic sank but were not close enough to help.
They again went to Darr to Hans Foged’s place a mile west of Darr. Dad stayed there until he got a job at Allen’s Ranch. I don’t recall how long he worked there but rented a place north of Cozad, NE with another Dane until he joined the navy in the winter 1917-18. He took boot training at the naval base in Chicago. He was a cook on a troop transport ship, U.S.S. Alaskan, the ship sailed to France and brought soldiers back to USA. He crossed the Atlantic eight times by the time he was discharged. He returned to Cozad for a while then returned to Denmark for a visit in 1919 where he met his two youngest brothers, John and Ville, for the first time. Ville was still in diapers. He returned to Cozad and rented land from Jim Smith and as I recall when brothers, Andy and Oscar came over they lived with him. Oscar then got a job in a blacksmith shop in Cozad. Then your dad, Peter, came to Nebraska, worked on a dairy in Omaha and then attended Nysted Folk school for a term. He came to Cozad and began farming for Jim Smith when my folks got married on December 12, 1923. Peter, Oscar and Andy continued to rent from Jim Smith. The winters are difficult on the Nebraska prairies. Pete, Andy and Oscar went to town one day, a ground blizzard blew in plugging the roads. They started for home but got stuck a mile east of Cozad and had to leave the car. Andy went back to Cozad and Pete and Oscar walked nine to ten miles on home as they had cows which needed to be milked and other chores also. They arrived home about 9:00 p.m. that evening, started a fire to warm up and then did the milking. Oscar and Andy moved on to Chicago while in the meantime John and Martin Nielsen lived with Peter a number of years.
Erna:
Chris married Anna K. Nielsen on December 12, 1923. Aksel was born October 22, 1924. Tante Anna was in poor health so uncle Chris wrote to Anna’s sister, Marie, to come help. Marie was at the folk school in Solvang, CA at the time. So Marie cam home, she and little Aksel developed a life long bond. So Marie was at Tante and Uncle Chris’s which was Marie’s and Anna’s family home, homesteaded and tree claimed in 1879 by their father, Niels Christian Nielsen. Marie and Pete met, took Aksel along on their dates, and married August 25, 1927.
During the same winter that Oscar and Peter were caught in a blizzard so were Chris and Marie . That same winter before Christmas Dad and Marie went to town to shop. Well the wind came up and blew the roads shut. They got as far as Anton Jensen’s farm, Marie’s cousin, now the Richard Jensen home. Marie stayed with them while dad walked home with what groceries he could carry in a gunny sack over his shoulder. He had to walk 1/4 mile north, 3 ½ east and ½ mile south to the place.. Mom and I were okay, I was only seven weeks old but dad was tired like Pete and Oscar were when they had the same experience.
In 1927 Marie sold her half of the farm to Chris and Marie and Peter bought the quarter section across the road to the east. That farm had been under ditch irrigation but did not have filing so it took my parents until 1947 to get ditch irrigation. It was sad, the west side of the road could irrigate and the east side was dry land.
Our grandfather Nielsen settled northeast of Cozad in 1879 as did many other Danes. In the 20’s their children were adults. The Cozad community has always been a melting pot of the world. In the 20’s the Klu Klux Klan spread across United States. Uncle Chris, being a WWI veteran, was still considered a “foreigner,” had a cross burned on our grandfather’s farm. Uncle Chris never spoke of it, though the culprits were not totally unknown.
In the late 30’s and early 40’s Peter, my father, rented Chris’s alfalfa ground. Aksel was old enough to work in the field, his first job was to scatter rake. Aksel recalls how my mother always came with afternoon lunch. With the growth of the hay mills the hay crew was no longer needed except when the mill could not keep up due to weather conditions. I recall one summer where Aksel and Robert stacked, Peter ran the stacker cart and Uncle Chris and I swept. The boys didn’t think we sweepers could bring them down but we did. If we were haying for Uncle Chris then Tante brought out the afternoon coffee, she drove out in the blue Ford pickup, mamma always walked. We felt grown up when we received our own pint jar of coffee and an equal share of the sandwiches and cake and it also meant we were doing an adult job.
Uncle Chris and papa farmed across the road from each other from the late twenties until they retired. They began farming with horses and moved to tractors. Uncle Chris was a John Deere man and papa went for Farmalls. Their main crops were corn and alfalfa and the equipment was two row. They owned a number of pieces of equipment jointly. According to the latest Successful Farming magazine, the sharing of equipment is again becoming common. Farming was different then, everyone milked some cows, had chickens, some geese and ducks, grew a big garden and had fruit trees along with rhubarb, the wild plums and chokecherries.(Have descendants of my grandmother’s rhubarb in my garden.) A great deal of vegetables, fruit and meat were canned. After REA, electricity, came to the area in September of 1940, many things changed. The families still bought groceries and clothing with the egg and cream money. During WWII we had rationing books but our food supply was plentiful because so much of it was grown at home. Everyone had a separator which had to be carefully washed everyday, if this was your chore you have never forgotten it. A family had a good living off of a quarter section, 160 acres, with diversified farming. . Both farms had pastures with creeks meandering through them enabling them to have livestock also. The mention of pastures brings back the memory of the prairie hay pasture in the northwest corner of the farm. I was along with papa and his crew harvesting the hay on the north side of the creek and Uncle Chris was across the creek. Papa hollered to Uncle Chris to watch out for rattlers, Uncle Chris didn’t take him seriously, papa threw the snake to him which he had killed the previous day, that got Uncle Chris’s attention.
Just the cost of family health insurance prevents a farmer from surviving on a small farm. Hopefully a member of the family has an off the farm work which pays health insurance. Neither family had health insurance until the mid fifties and then it was reasonably priced. Uncle Chris had a heart attack in the early fifties, being bed ridden for many weeks. Back in those days the doctor made house calls out in the country.
Aksel and my favorite times were the birthday parties and Christmas Eve. For many years we celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents while we children were younger. Recall the candles on the tree, dancing around the tree and our parents singing in Danish, and how the two couples greeted each other in Danish on Christmas Eve. Christmas on the farm could be a book onto itself. No blizzard was ever bad enough to cancel the Christmas celebration. The ideal family life is having siblings married to siblings, in this case, two sisters married to two brothers. The birthday parties were always adults and children along with cigars and a wonderful coffee party. There were usually seven families, all of Danish descent except for one family. Consequently the language spoken was English. We children usually received a birthday card with a dollar enclosed from each family. This was a big deal, my Betsy Wetsy doll by Ideal cost a dollar. When I was three Tante and Uncle Chris gave me a big doll with a pink dotted Swiss dress, and it sits on my dresser at this time.
Tante and Uncle Chris lived in the middle of the section so we shared a mailbox by the intersection of our two driveways. Aksel would get the mail, mail time always coordinated with forenoon coffee time. He would stop in for a visit and coffee when they weren’t too busy. This routine continued until mamma no longer lived on the farm. When I was home I was always disappointed when he didn’t stop.
Uncle Chris was active in the community organizations. He was president of St. Johns Lutheran Church from about 1942-46. In 1943 they met Howard Christensen in Cozad when he came to preach, he was hired to be the preacher at Cozad when he graduated from the seminary at Grand View College.
Tante belonged to the Ladies Aid and Danish Sisterhood and Uncle Chris was a member of the Danish Brotherhood Lodge. He was on the board of the Cozad Co-op while Marvin Burgess ran the gas station. He was active in the American Legion and served as commander around 1945. He also served on the Dawson County draft board in the sixties.
Uncle Chris liked cars, especially if they belonged to the Ford family. He took excellent care of his cars, whither an earlier Ford or later Mecurys. When he traded cars others were anxious to buy the trade-in. He also kept his equipment and buildings in top notch shape. Have often wondered how those Jensen men learned so many skills.
Tante and Uncle Chris liked to travel, primarily by car, first in a Ford and then Mercury. The major trip for the family, Uncle Chris, Tante Anna and Aksel was to Denmark in 1938.
Aksel:
I’ll try to tell what I remember – My folks and I went to Denmark from May to September 3, 1938, we went with the Danish Brotherhood tour. We left Cozad on May 18, 1938. You (Erna), Nanna, Robert and parents, Peter and Marie Jensen, took us to the train at Cozad that day and we met the rest of the people on the tour in Omaha. Left Omaha that evening to get to Chicago the next morning, saw some sights there that evening, went to Washington D.C. and did more sightseeing. Had dinner at the Danish Consulate that evening and got to New York the next morning and did more sightseeing then got on the ship that evening. We were on the ship M.S. Pilsudski and it left at midnight. My folks and I had a cabin for three persons. The second day I really got seasick because of a bad storm. I was sick for five days, flat on my back, could not hold food down, well I did not eat any thing. We were on the ship for nine days, got into Copenhagen in the afternoon, and Uncle KP was there to meet us. We toured with the Danish Brotherhood for three days then went to Lemvig and got to meet my grandparents. We stayed there for about two weeks then went to Havndahl and stayed with Moster Oline. We stayed with her there and visited with Dad’s relatives there.
Erna:
After having been in Denmark in 1938, they built a new house on the farm in 1939. They lived in the one room wash house while the house was being built. The wash house did not seem small to me but then I was only four and Aksel was in the eighth grade. During this spring Aksel got the measles and the wash house was not a place for a sick child.
Aksel:
I was at your place when we had the measles. Robert and Anna had the measles also so your mother had me come and share the bed with Robert. I guess I was at your place about two weeks. Erna got sick when the big kids were recovered so Marie had a month of the measles.
Erna:
Tante and Uncle Chris traveled extensively in United States when Aksel was old enough to take care of the farm. For example one trip to northeastern United State had a detour to Foley, Alabama, where my brother Robert was stationed. When I was in college they would always bring me a special souvenir like a very pretty blouse. They also took trips to Washington state to visit the six families. In 1956 both Nebraska couples traveled to Washington for a very special family reunion. Previously either Peter or Chris were missing because one of them stayed home with the farms, now the sons are adults so there was freedom. I had just graduated from college and was privileged to accompany my parents on this trip. For two weekends there was major partying, one weekend picnic at Uncle John’s and the next weekend was a formal dinner at the Lake Serene Community Building. It was an unreal experience to listen to the constant round of stories from the seven brothers and their sister. Uncle Chris being the eldest was 59, Andy -58, Peter – 57, Oscar nearly 56 , Axel – 54, Bodil about 52 and John in his 40’s and Ville in his 30’s.
In the fall of 1956 Tante and Uncle Chris moved to Cozad, only Robert was aware of the budding romance, Aksel and Gwen Maline were married in November of 1956. Eventually two granddaughters appeared, Jane Marshall lives in New Jersey and Carol Voss lives in California. These girls along with Robert’s Karen, John and Kathy kept the neighborhood hopping. They visited Uncle Pete and Aunt Marie frequently. Pete bought a play house for them. They would camp in the yard. One day they hid their pizzas in the tent and the dog, Buster, ate them and the girls thought John had eaten them..
Uncle Chris always had a beautiful flower and vegetable garden. When they moved to Cozad the yard needed much fertilizer, he supplemented the garden with manure from the cattle pens. He came out to the farm on a regular basis. In addition to the gardening Tante and Uncle Chris played a lot of cards especially pinochle, 3, 4, and 5 handed. They enjoyed having card parties. Tante did handwork and Uncle Chris built model ships and other projects after moving to town.
Tante spent many years in the Cozad nursing home which was only a block from their house. Uncle Chris visited her several times a day until she died in June of 1973. He continued to live at home, gardening, building ships and serving coffee to his frequent visitors. He died in September of 1975.
Uncle Chris as a man, was one of the seven brothers, three were short and slender, two were short and stocky and two were taller and stocky as I remember them. He was one of the shorter slender ones. He was an in charge type of person. The two Nebraska Jensen men married the two Nielsen sisters and strongly suspect their “old country gentleman” ways were occasionally challenged. Our grandmother Nielsen had purchased her daughters a 1916 Buick with a starter, and two independent strong women continued to develop. Uncle Chris, as did his siblings, arrived in US with little and had to learn to survive economically. They all worked and were successful. Uncle Chris and Tante, like my parents were conservative. My definition of their conservatism is “Buy not if you don’t have the money.”
Uncle Chris’s enjoyed company – in fact the cookie jars were never empty. My brother and I as teenagers gave Tante cookie jars for Christmas for two consecutive years and we felt a wee bit guilty as if we were hinting for cookies and we were. Uncle Chris was a kindly, friendly person though my suspicion is that one did not cross his path, personally did not have the nerve to challenge his authority.
Very few children have the privilege of growing up with a wonderful set of parents and an aunt and uncle who were backup parents. Uncle Chris always called me “Bitte” even after Carol and Jane arrived on the scene. During WWII the grandparents died in Denmark. On a summer day when both papa and Uncle Chris were two rowing (cultivating corn), Uncle Chris received a telegram from the Swedish Red Cross telling of their father’s death. He brought it in to show mamma, got on his tractor, drove up in the field opposite to where papa was working. I watched them talk for about half an hour, they got back on the tractors and continued working. I never could understand how they could just keep on going.
The End.
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