storyteller

I love this music on my space of Neil Diamond singing Morningside.  It’s a story of an old man’s forgotten legacy using the metaphor of a strong table built with pride, gone unclaimed by his children.  It could be the theam music of my space.  I guess for a few days, it will be.

It’s been a while since I have been to a dance.  I’d like to blame that mostly on fact that I live in the middle of a desert waste land and there’s little opportunity.  But my lack of attendance at a dance also has something to do with my lack of dancing ability (See my list titled “I wish I could”). 

However, this past Saturday night, I found myself at a community dance.  We went as a family to this town of about 300 – 400 people called Oak City.  The outdoor dance, with a live band (Lawrence Welk style) was the culmination of “Oak City Days”, their annual celebration. 

After we arrived, and before I knew it, I found myself out in the middle of a hundred other people with my cute daughter, Clarissa.  We were facing another couple in our “Square” of four couples preparing to do the Quadrille. 

So as I stood out there under the stars, without a clue of what I was doing, I thought of my 2 Greats Grandpa, John Smith (Jock).  On a full moonlit night back in the summer of 1852, he too stumbled into a square dance, the Cotillion, as the pioneer company he was traveling with showed this Scotsman how to dance American style.  In spite of the fact that I was as clumsily as ever, Clarissa showed me a good time as we stumbled through to the end of the dance. 

I was so intent on trying to follow the voice of the “caller” that it wasn’t until the dance was over that I thought of the occasional school and church dances I had attended as a teenager.  Back then my awkward dancing combined with my paralyzing shyness made me a big klutz with the young ladies.   Quickly, I shut out the memory of those poor girls dashing for the bathroom when they saw I finally had gotten up my nerve to ask for a dance.  I wonder how Jock fared out on the dance floor?  Maybe that’s where I inherited my two left feet. 

I watched my younger children as they struggled to “enjoy” themselves at the dance.  Besides the intimidating crowds, the Big Band era music wasn’t what they had expected.  Mommy (my Beautiful Wife) encouraged our young children to be brave and to go ask someone to dance.  I watched as Cory searched the crowds for the right one to ask.  First he had a false start.  The song was almost over when he was ready to make his move. 

Momma was his coach… “Now you will have to wait for the next song… You need to get your nerve up and ask right at the beginning of the song.” 

In his reply, Cory’s voice sounded timid to me, but his words had the confidence I would have wished for at any age.  “I have my nerve up… It’s just taking me that long to find the right girl to ask.” 

Then it happened.  Cory was off winding through the towering crowd of mostly adults, like a cat closing in its prey.  I have never seen a little girl’s face suddenly turn happier.  Those two owned the dance floor for the rest of the night. 

I couldn’t be more pleased.  If it is hereditary, Cory gets his dancing and ladies skills from his mother. But I’d like to take credit for something, so maybe he gets his good luck from me.

 

This morning we took two of our daughters to the high school for their first day of classes for the year.  Actually for one of my daughters, this is her first day of public school ever. (But that is another story for another time.)  As I watched my two “High School” daughters, get up extra early on their own, I could see the anticipation in their eyes of what they might expect on the first school day of the year. 

 

Now, I know that I am a guy, but I’m not that stupid.  (I do have other daughters who have been through this as well.)  They are certainly more interested in the social aspect of a new year than they are in the academics.  But I have studied the history of education and schooling as it pertains to our family, and I don’t take the opportunities for a good education, which my children have, for granted like they do.  

 

My 2 Greats Grandpa, John Smith, or Jock as he was called, had no education.  In the Scottish coal mining community of the 1820’s where he grew up, family survival necessitated another strong back to carry the coal out of the pits.  So Jock was cheated out of the few meager years of schooling that was offered to the Scottish children.  Throughout his life, Jock was reminded what a disadvantage he was in because he couldn’t read or write.  Once, after working for years to satisfy the requirements of the Homestead Act, Jock missed the posted filing date, and his neighbor jumped his claim, leaving Jock with only a notice of eviction from his own farm.

 

Jock made sure the schooling for his children in the 1850’s and 60’s was better than he had… a little better any way.  But public schools didn’t exist in the Utah territory of the mid 1800’s.  So only those who could afford too, sent their children to school.  Jock could afford to send only one of his children.  Robert, Jock’s oldest son attended.  When he couldn’t make it for some reason, his next younger brother, James would take his place for the day.  My Great Grandpa, Adam was 3^rd in line.  So it took him a few years of substituting for his older brothers before he learned to read and write.  But Adam learned to write very well.  His handwriting was beautiful.  It puts mine, and most handwriting I have seen now days to shame.

 

The story is the same with many of my other ancestors.  My 2 Greats Grandpa, Johann Tillack had immigrated from Prussia to Australia.  He donated the land and petitioned his Lutheran Church to get the first school started where he lived outside of Melbourne in 1873.  That school still exists and thrives today, and is called the Bayswater Elementary School. 

 

So with the new school year starting, school stories from my family are on my mind.  Parents raiding the cellar for vegetables to send with their children as their part of the teacher’s salary… a Baptist church from the South setting up free schools in the poor Utah communities as a way to proselyte among the Mormons…  school teachers boarding with the families of his students as part of his salary. My dad said that changing from 4^th to 5^th grade was a big deal.  He said that instead of just moving over a row in the same class room, you got to change rooms to the older class in the school. Grades 1 through 4 in one room, and 5through 8 in the other room. 

 

So I will watch my two “High School” daughters boarding the school bus each morning, while thinking of my Grandpa, George Haroldsen, hitching up the sled and going around the rural neighborhood on the cold Idaho winter school days to give them a ride to school. 

 

While listening to my children complain about how hard their school work is, or of how much homework they have, or of the many other problems caused by the school or teacher, I will be thinking of my parents, and their parents, and theirs… on back as far as I have information.  They wanted their children to get a better education than they had…(and we got it), to have better opportunities (and we got that too.)  That’s the same thing I want… for my children to learn more… to get more education… to be able to have more opportunities than I have.

 

Yes… the start of a school year is exciting to me as well as to my children.  It’s not only a time to look forward to new beginnings and new opportunities.  It’s also a time to look back, with thankfulness, for the opportunities that I now have… a fulfillment of someone else’s dreams… my parents… and their parents… and theirs.                      

It’s a funny thing to me.  Nothing is so personal and yet so public at the same time.  It’s among my earliest memories of pondering a subject.  Where did it come from?  How did I get it?  Who else has it?  This subject has continued to be intriguing to me throughout my life.  So this is how my family name evolved.

 

Back in Norway, or “The Old Country” as my Great grandpa (Christian) would say, the father’s first name became the last name of his children.  So my 4 Greats Grandpa Christoffer’s name was added to my 3 Greats Grandpa Harald’s name.  So he was known as Harald Christoffersen.  Of course the sen meant Harald was Christoffer’s son.  Well this naming practice changed in the mid 1800’s.  Harald’s children used the last name of Haraldsen.  So Harald’s son, Christoffer (named after his grandfather mentioned above) became Christoffer Haraldsen.  But his children including Christian were the first generation to continue using the same last name.  Similar naming practices were followed in other countries, like Ireland where the Mc in Mcfadden meant the son of Fadden.

 

So then as a 12 year old boy, Christian immigrated with his widowed mother and surviving sisters to America in 1876 through Ellis Island.  While being processed to enter the country, an immigration official “Angloized” the family name into the more English sounding Haroldsen.  As I think about it, the one family heirloom my family could bring from the Old Country, their name, was in essence “vandalized” or at least thoughtlessly dinged with the careless mark of that immigration official.  But now of course it is carefully protected (with the immigration official’s mark and all) from the miss use from careless spellers, and bad spellers (like me).  Yes, I even know of some Haroldsen’s who are offended when they see their name misspelled.  Little to they know that technically, they themselves misspell it compared to the original spelling.

 

Not long after this Norwegian family arrived, Christoffer’s mother married another Scandinavian named Lars Villiamson.  Lars hadn’t had a son of his own, and so when he married Christoffer’s mother, he offered to teach him to farm and give him a farm as an inheritance if he would take his name and be known as Christoffer Villiamson.  Christoffer agreed to this and learned and earned a farm from his stepfather.  But he always regretted forsaking his own father’s name, saying he had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.  Nine years later, while applying for a marriage license, the clerk told him that his name hadn’t ever been legally changed from Haroldsen.  So at that time he assumed the Haroldsen name once again. 

 

So if naming practices in Norway had changed a generation earlier or later, I would have been a Christoffersen.  If Christian hadn’t felt loyalty to his own fathers name, I would have become a Williamson.  (yes, Villiamson was also “Americanized”)

 

If this seems confusing, be thankful you didn’t live in one of these Utah communities back in the late 1800’s.  The Scandinavians tended to gather into the same settlements and of course attend the same churches.  Counties like Sanpete and Cache County were full of men with the same name.  The story goes that in church, the bishop (like a pastor) would call on Brother Jensen to come to the front to give the closing prayer.  50 men would begin to stand.  Seeing his mistake, the bishop would clarify, “Would Brother Lars Jensen please come and give the closing prayer.”  Then there would still be 10 or 12 men standing looking at each other wondering “which” Lars Jensen.  So then the bishop would resort to the less formal nickname and just ask, “Saddlebags” to come pray. Of course there is a story behind every nickname as well. But they really did have to use nicknames just so they knew who they were talking about.

 

With an understanding of my own last name, I have wondered at many of my other family names.  I have tried just as hard to learn about my Tillack family name from Prussia.  But to no avail.  I know some names evolved from occupations and some from farms or villages of residence.  But I haven’t found a good source of information in learning about name origins.  I wish there was some expert who has written a book on the subject.  But if so, I haven’t found it.  As hard as this is to try to sort out now, I pity the poor sole who takes it upon himself in a hundred years from now to sort through all the computer nicknames they find on what will be then “old documents.” If one of my posterity were to find a copy of my space, he/she may spend days trying to discover where “Storyteller” came from.  Of course, when I sign up on some other sight and Storyteller is not available, I’ll have to resort to some other nickname or add a lot of numbers to my nickname.  Over a lifetime I could well have hundreds of different nicknames I’ve been known by in cyberspace.  I’ll try to keep it simple (for posterity sake) and maybe choose something next time that no one else would want.  Heck I could make it descriptive to add meaning as well.  Something like “Badspeller” is probably available.  If not I could just misspell it.

I grew my first garden when I was about 10 years old.  It was a great garden.  I had alot going for me.  Plenty of fertile soil, lots of water available, perfect weather conditions all summer, and beginners luck.  I was too young and naive to know how much work I was setting myself up for.  But by the end of the summer, I had done a pretty good job supplying the family table and I had aquired the nickname of "Farmer Jones."

 

That was the beginning of a life long love of gardening for me.  And I have tried to grow gardens ever since.  Though, not all of them have been the same success as my first garden.  Not long after I was married, I had a beautiful garden growing when a cold front came through and hard froze my garden on the morning of the 4th of July. 

 

It seemed like when ever I got my garden established, we would have to move and start over again.  This was a real set back for the perennials like the berries.  I used to joke to my Beautiful wife that  every time I got my favorite, the strawberry, going good, we would suddenly have to move.  Sadly, it wasn’t a Joke though.  We could count on moving after my strawberry patch was doing well.

 

My best garden was about 8 years ago.  That summer, I had plenty of good fertile soil, abundant water, lots of free time to work on it, great weather conditions for gardening, and lots of dumb luck.  That year I tried to grow everything offered in the seed cataloges.  And everything I planted grew well.  Even with our large hungry family, we couldn’t eat everything we grew that year.  Yes, even my favorite, the strawberries, grew like they were in then Garden of Edon.  But then the curse kicked in and by the next spring, my job made us move, kicking and screaming all the way. There are million dollar homes on top of that garden plot now.

 

Well, like I said, that was 8 years and two moves ago.  Now we live in a desert waste land that won’t grow anything.  I didn’t know that when I first moved here.  We spent many dollars and many hours on fruit trees, all kinds of berries plants, and of course all the regular garden vegetables.  For four years, I have been torturering and killing every kind of plant I could get my hands on.  If plants could talk, they would call my yard the death camp or the killing fields.  I think the only reason my beautiful wife hasn’t objected too loudly to all the money I have wasted trying to grow a garden here is because she is hoping that I will eventully be successful with the strawberries, which of course will envoke the "Strawberry curse" causing us to be forced to move soon after.  Yes, she hates living here.

 

But this summer has been alittle different.  I have scaled back my gardening plans to container gardening.  At first, this was a disaster as well.  When I finally realized that I couldn’t do anything with this soil to help it, and when I started setting up my containers with potting soil and peat moss from out of the area, then things were different.  Now my small container garden is productive and happy.  I am once again eating vine rippened tomatoes picked directly from my garden.  

 

And Yes, Beautiful Wife, it is still hopeful that sometime in the not too distant future, my strawberry plants will start to produce, envoking the Strawberry curse, "Forcing" us to move.

 

But for the last few days, while enjoying the fruits of my labors, I have been thinking about other areas of my life.  I have been wondering if there are other failures which I could scale back and put into smaller containers.  As I sit here eating this perfectly vine rippened tomato, with juice dripping from my chin, I realize that a small scale success is alot easier to swallow than a large scale failure.  And who knows, after the "Strawberry Curse" kicks in and we "Have" to move, maybe I’ll find more fertile soil in other areas where I can expand my dreams once again.