MEMORIES FROM LITTLE IOWA PARSONAGE

Abstract

MEMORIES FROM LITTLE IOWA PARSONAGE1 BY CAROLINE MATHILDE KOREN NAESETH TRANSLATED BY HENRIETTE C. K. NAESETH That was what the parsonage at Washington Prairie was called at the beginning: a small log house with three rooms and an attic, built in 1854, which little by little was changed and enlarged until it burned in November, 1872. There we children grew up in a happy home. Spoiled we were not; everything was simple and unpretentious. The food was plain. Bread and milk for the children for breakfast , and porridge and milk for the evening meal for all was the rule, during the first years at any rate. At that time one had to be self-dependent in many ways. I remember, for instance , with what interest we children watched the maid work at candlemaking. The wicks were fastened on sticks and dipped in hot tallow, and then hung between the ropes of one of the old beds with rope bottoms. Stick after stick as long as there was room, to be dipped again when they had stiffened, and that was repeated until the lights were thick enough. Afterwards we got candle molds, which made the task less burdensome. Our first kerosene lamp was a gift, a little glass lamp accompanied by a bottle of kerosene. Some 1This reminiscent sketch was written at the request of the Reverend D. C. Jordahl, for publication in the Folke kolender for 193S. Caroline Mathilde Koren Naeseth, Mrs. C. A. Naeseth, is a daughter of Dr. Ulrik Vilhelm Koren, who came to America as a pioneer minister in 1853 to serve a large district in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. The house she describes was built at Washington Prairie, Iowa, some seven miles south of Decorali, after her parents had lived for a year with families in the Little Iowa congregation, later called the Washington Prairie congregation. The experiences of this first year are related in Mrs. U. V. Koren's Pioneertiden. A new house was built on the same site two years after the one here described burned in 1872, and the family home remained at Washington Prairie through the years when Dr. Koren served as president of the Norwegian Synod and until 1941, when his son, the Reverend Paul Koren, who had assisted and succeeded his father, retired. 66 LITTLE IOWA PARSONAGE 67 time later we got a hanging lamp in the parlor; then the room was light and festive. To my first memories belongs our custom of gathering in the parlor for morning devotions. My father sang well; for a while we had maids with good singing voices, and we children enjoyed the singing. We had bound pamphlets of prayers and hymns for morning and evening, which were called "The Mercy Seat." Our copies burned, I believe, and I have never seen any since, and wonder if any exist. Later our morning devotions were held at the breakfast table; in the evening before the children's bedtime there were devotions in the parlor. In the first years there were three or four Sundays between each church service, and on Sunday Mother read to us from a book of Luther's sermons. When we were old enough we memorized the gospel texts for each Sunday, later also the Epistles. Christmas Eve was the great festival, and the Christmas tree was an important part of it. It was difficult to get Christmas fir the first years. Mother has told us about the first Christmas tree she decorated; she had a little oak bush brought in from the woods, and she took white paper and painted that green. She was fond of painting, and had brought water colors from Norway. Then she cut the paper in strips and wound it around the branches. The first Christmas tree that I remember was something we called the "pyramid." This Mother had obtained through German friends. A round rod in the middle passed through several shelves which grew smaller toward the top, and the whole was bound together by four corner rods so it formed a kind of pyramid. On the top shelf stood a doll, dressed like an angel. The pyramid was decorated with lights and other things...