Read Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1:
The Beginning
Chapter 2:
My House
Chapter 3:
Holidays
Chapter 4:
School
Chapter 5:
Recreation
Chapter 6:
Lois and Ray
Chapter 7:
Motherhood
The Story of Lois Ann Meyer Bergeson
Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother, Aunt, Grandmother, and Great Grandmother …
By Lois Bergeson (Reprinted with Permission)
CHAPTER 8: Music and Cooking
How did you learn to cook?
I really didn’t cook when my sister was home. Mother relied on her for Saturday baking. I had the cleaning detail. I washed every floor in the house, dusted baseboards and other things. This was all in the four roomed house. I did know how to fry meat and peel and cook potatoes. When my sister left and Mom went to see her I got thrown into cooking cold. I am sure I wasn’t very good.
Did you have to help in the kitchen?
My sister and I always had to do dishes. We had two dishpans. The one was filled with hot water from the tea kettle to wash. The second was filled up with clean dishes and then scalding water was poured over them to sterilize. Then they were wiped and put away in the pantry. Setting the table for meals was usually my job. We all ate together. Our prayer, “Come Lord Jesus be our guests, May this food to us be blest. Amen” was always the first thing before any food was served. The family all remained at the table until everyone was finished eating. Dad was always last. We watched every last bite. We sighed when he reached for another slice of bread.
Do you remember any disasters when cooking or baking?
I only started cooking and baking when my sister went out west. I still was mostly the cleaner. I got into cooking when Mom went away for a week. Then it was meat, potatoes and a vegetable. I learned to make custard because we had cracked eggs. The men ate it all without grumbling too much. The menu got a little stale. One day Dad came in and showed me how to fry raw potatoes. That was a nice change.
We had a kerosene stove with a portable oven that we used in the heat of the summer. Our bin of flour stood back by the part of the stove where the fuel was. One day Mom asked me to make matrimonial cake. It is much like the sour cream raisin bars of today, minus the sour cream. The product came out beautifully. I was so proud of how it looked. First bite was not so great. Somehow, some drops of kerosene had gotten into the flour. The whole beautiful pan of cake had to be thrown as well as 25 pounds of flour! My brothers never let me forget my attempt at baking.
Did you have a garden? Did you can?
On the farm we always had a big garden. We kids weeded and helped pick beans and peas. We had rows of carrots, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, cucumbers (Mom loved pickles), sometimes beets and sweet corn. We liked most of the vegetables, especially corn-on-the-cob. We learned, when planting, to not have the cucumbers by the squash. They cross pollenated so the vegetables tasted like each other.
Mother canned rows and rows of vegetables, meats, and sauces. We all got involved in canning corn. We would sit on the screened in north porch and husk corn. I could never get the silk off as well as Mother wanted. That was an all-afternoon job. We were very happy when we were done.
When Ray and I were married, because of my experiences, I thought I should have a garden. I didn’t have a chance until we were settled in our house on Pacific Avenue in Ortonville. Still, our lot was not big enough to accommodate much of a garden. I decided to rent a plot in Big Stone City and later in the north part of Ortonville.
Ray had a bad taste in his mouth for gardens. All he could remember was picking potato bugs or weeding carrots when he wanted to play baseball. One day he said to me, “I will buy anything you want to eat. Just, please, don’t have a garden!” He said that every time we wanted to go someplace, I couldn’t go because the beans were ready. We didn’t have a garden, other than flowers by the house, after that. Truthfully I wasn’t that crazy about canning. It was just that I thought I should. We learn habits from home.
What food did you cook that Ray especially liked?
Ray liked my vegetable beef soup with dumplings. He never complained about anything I made as long as it wasn’t fancy. He loved anything chocolate that I baked. I found out the first meal I made when we were married that he didn’t like custard. He finished that meal and then bluntly told me I didn’t need to make custard again! I was a bride. I cried. In thinking about it later, I realized that he could tolerate very few spices. I think it was the nutmeg on top that turned him of
Did you have your own stereo and tapes?
There wasn’t such a thing, only phonographs, but we didn’t have one. When Ray and I were getting ready to set up housekeeping, I saw a console mahogany phonograph and decided to buy it. Ray insisted on paying half. It was our first piece of furniture. Together we bought our first record. It was “Rhapsody in Blue.”
When our boys got to be teenagers there were plenty of tapes and cassettes of the current popular singers like the Beatles, The Monkees and others. By the time Mike was that old, there were wires under the carpets and up the stairs to pipe Harry Chapin through the whole house. All of that was a far cry from Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, and Bing Crosby that were Ray’s and my favorites.
Did you have to take music lessons?
My sister took lessons and was church organist when she was a teen. I wanted to learn to play the piano so badly, but the music teacher moved away. There was no one to teach me. I tried to teach myself so I acquired many bad habits. When I was a junior in high school, this same teacher moved back to Waubun. I again begged for lessons. I did go for a while, but she said I could play for my own enjoyment, but would never do anything publicly. I still kept trying. When we lived in Paynesville, the pastor’s wife took me under her wing and had me accompany the junior choir quite often. When I taught kindergarten, I played for all our little songs and no one kicked me out. I did use what little knowledge I had.
I have sung all my life, starting when I was so little I stood on a chair to sing, “Oh Mother How Pretty the Moon Looks Tonight,” a song Mother taught us that her mother had taught her. I sang in church, at 4-H meetings, grade school, high school and college. I sang at weddings and showers. In college I wanted voice lessons so badly. I found a willing instructor, but the scheduling didn’t work out. I did get voice lessons when I was in Redwood Falls. The music teacher, about my age, helped me so much with proper breathing and in other ways. At my age, I still love to sing. The pipes aren’t the same, but I will stay in choir until I can’t make it up the stairs to the choir loft.
Do certain songs bring back memories?
Of course all the “oldies but goodies” always make my foot tap. My son got me an iPad and put on the app for many of my favorite singers and also many new ones. I enjoy them all. I usually have a session with them for a half an hour at bedtime.
Do you remember your first dance?
I can’t remember my first dance or how I learned. I think it just came naturally. We had many wedding dances at the Flom hall. I usually got to go while my dad did business downtown. My older brother was an excellent dancer and would take me with him. Even when I was in college, he and his girlfriend would pick me up. We would go to the Crystal Ball Room in Fargo. That was a great place to dance. We never knew where my brother’s talent came from until I found out through genealogy searching, that our great grandfather was a great dancer. That whole family was musical.
Did Ray sing or dance?
Ray’s mother was very musical. Unfortunately she did not pass that talent to her children. Ray prided himself on his dislike for music. He told the story of being such a clown in junior high music class that the teacher said she would pass him if he went to sit in the superintendent’s office in that time slot. He and the superintendent had a great time talking sport during that hour.
I only heard him try to sing once. We were newly married. I heard him singing in the shower “Over These Prison Walls I would Fly.” I teased him so about his choice of song that I never heard him sing again. That is, until we were in the Fairway View Apartment. He would meet up with another ex-airforce guy. They would break into song with “the Airforce” song. Ray realized that I liked more classical music. His idea of a joke when we were in the car, was to turn the radio to “Whoopie John” music as loud as he could!
As for dancing, he prided himself in the fact he had never bought a dance ticket. This was hard on me, as I loved to dance. One time he WAS on the dance floor. Our granddaughter had a dance after her wedding and banquet. We were watching the young folks having a good time. Mark came up to me and said that the next dance was for the parents and grandparents. I told him Ray would not get out there. Mark disappeared and soon the very lovely maid of honor came up to Ray and held out her hands. He stood up and he was instantly transferred to me. We were on the dance floor. With a little help from me, we actually danced the dance. As they called off the years of marriage, the last ones on the floor were the grandparents, who had been married the longest. A picture was taken of us to prove Ray had danced. That over, a pained Ray was ready to go sit down. Not so fast! Our daughter-in-law grabbed Ray for a dance with her. I got to dance with our son. Okay, now we sat down. Ray told me he had such a headache from all the stress and loud music!
Through the years, I sang at a lot of functions and Ray never commented until one time he heard a song and said, “That is your song.” So he did listen. Really Ray liked gospel music. It reminded him of his grandfather. We went to hear, Danny O’Donald three times and had his CD. When Ray was in the nursing home, every night I would have devotions with him and then would sing his favorite gospel hymns until he fell asleep.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
