The store and Blåsten

"A little further down the road, there was the store. It was just a little country store, but it had about everything we needed most of the time. It wasn’t so easy to go to Kisa and shop. They’d have to take a horse and wagon and it took an hour to get there. There was a bus in later years. It started in Tranås and went over Österbymo and Tidersrum and Kisa and then it went back later in the afternoon. So even when there was a bus, it look quite a while to get into Kisa. This is why the little store down the road was important to us. It was owned by a man called Anders Karlsson. His wife was named Lily. She came from Vidingstorp. They had one daughter named Maja. She was a year younger than Margaretha but sometimes both Margaretha and I were invited to come play with Maja. And it was so fun. She had everything! And we used to say, “Oh to be you!” and she would say, “I would give away all of this stuff to have some siblings.” She was a lonely child.

Next to the store, in the other house further over, there lived a family

Isidor Lönn, 1938

named Lönn. They had one son; he was named Isidor. They used to say that Mrs. Lönn had been a cook on a ship so Mr. Lönn was not the father of this Isidor. He sort of had the look of a black person: black kinky hair, darker skin, and large facial features. When I was little, I was scared of Isidor. We didn’t see him very often, but we were sometimes sent to the store. I made sure that I didn’t go out of the store at the same time as Isidor was outside their house. I didn’t know any better at the time.

Then when they had drawn in the telephone, they had built in a place there for the switchboard. There was a Fru Andersson who was hired to run the switchboard, and of course, she soon knew everyone around. She even knew where everyone was going. If you called up and said you wanted such and such a number, she would sometimes say, “Oh they’re not home today; they went to Kisa” or somewhere else. Our number was Pinnarpsbaden 3. I don’t know why they called the switchboard Pinnarpsbaden. Maybe that was easier than Kjettestorp, I don’t know. Well, that was just about all of Kjettestorp.

On the other side of this valley, there was a hill, just about like the hill where part of Kjettestorp was on. That hill was called Misterfall.  On the way up to Misterfall, there was Vidingstorp. That was a little bigger farm. In Vidingstorp, the lady’s name was Anna; I don’t remember the husband’s name. They had boys; there was Rikard and Alvar and I think one more, but I don’t remember right now.

Mom and Karin, 1936

When you came up to Misterfall, you first came to Blåsten. That’s where one of my best friends all through school lived. Her name was Karin. I wrote to her as long as I could write.  Her papa’s name was Henning. I can’t remember her mama’s name right now. And they had a gamla Mormor who lived in the kitchen. That kitchen was so dark. There was only one little window. It was so dark in daytime that a kid could hardly see. I don’t know how they saw to cook in there. They had a lamp on all the time, I guess.  Well, in Karin’s family, there were Margot and Ulla who was the same age as Sara, then Karin, then Ingvar who was in Margaretha’s class in school, and the youngest was called Vivian. Vivian was a few years younger than Ingvar. We

Left to right: Ulla Andersson, Gunnar Kranz,

Sara Boberg Bäck, Henrik Johansson Kindeskog

This is their 6th grade photo from 1936.

used to think she was so spoiled because she got everything her way. If she wanted something that the other kids wouldn’t let her have, she screamed. The kids in Blåsten had a lot of toys, but they sat up high on shelves and chests of drawers and they didn’t play with them. Maybe they did play with them when nobody was there, but whenever we were there, the toys were all put up high. We couldn’t play with them, but when Vivian wanted something, we had to give it to her. Papa Henning said, “Låt flickan göra som hon vill. Det de båsta.” (“Let the girl do as she will. That’s the best.”) Interestingly enough Vivian grew up to be a nice person too."

Storängen and the schoolhouse

"Then there was Storängen. That was a farm a little further away. When I was a kid, there lived Farbror Svensson. His wife had died. I don’t know if she died when one of the kids was born or what happened to her. Living there, there was also a man named Johan. I don’t know if he was a brother to Farbror Svensson or if he had been a brother to the wife. Svenssons had two children Edvin and Gerda. Gerda cooked and cleaned for all those guys. We didn’t know the Svenssons too well. They were so far away from our farm. Us kids didn’t run that far. Edvin later married Lydia Andersson i Mellangården.

Mom and Henrik, about 1926

One thing I remember about Farbror Svensson – one time when I was little, maybe four or five, and it was dark, and I didn’t dare go to the outhouse by myself so Henrik was sent to go with me. The outhouse doors had a hook and hasp on the inside so you could lock the door after you went in, but when Henrik opened the door, a gruff voice hollered, “I am in here!” We got so scared that we ran back into the house. Dad was on his way to figure out what was going on when in the back door came Farbror Svensson. “Scrämde jag barnen?” he said. (“Did I scare the kids?”) He had been on his way home, and he needed to go, so he went in our outhouse. I remember being even more scared to go to the outhouse alone at night after that. And Gerda later got a job as a housekeeper for Stinsen in Kisa. I don’t know what the guy is called who clears the train when it comes in? He meets it with his flag and waves it off again? Maybe the stationmaster? Well, that was a fine title when the railroad was new to be the Stins. The job included an apartment up above the station house and Gerda worked there.

Later, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, the old man had died, Gerda had

The front row left to right are Mom, Gertrud Dahlgren,
Karin Andersson and Astor Karlsson. The back row is
Greta Johansson, Brita Lennroth (probably) and Brita
Nilsson. Tack Moster Sara för ditt hjälp :)

a job and Edvin had married Lydia, so the Karlssons moved into Storängen. Astor’s family bought the farm. It was Astor’s papa, his mama Adel and he had three brothers. There was Arne, then Astor, then Bernt and Nisse. Bernt was about the same age as Lennart and they had a lot of fun together those two. Astor was the same age as me; he was in the same class at Kjettestorp school. In our sixth grade picture, we’re both in that picture. Of course, this is the Astor who later married Margaretha.

This photo is in one of Mom's albums and she's labeled it
"Skolresa," in other words, field trip. 

On the other side of the schoolhouse, there was a house for the teachers.  There were two teachers when I was in school. There was Greta Stenmark.  She had what we called Småskolan, school for the little ones. We went three years in Småskolan. Some kids had so far to walk and they went every other day. There were no school busses of course and not many cars. When a car went by the schoolhouse, we all ran to see. They didn’t go very fast then, so we had time to run to the window and look. They used to say when people came with horses and wagons that some horses were so scared of cars that they’d jump into the ditch that’s next to every road in Sweden. Well, anyway, in the other part of the house lived the teacher for the older kids. When we were in school, there were four upper grades. We went every day and we went Saturday too, six days a week. When my dad went to school there, the teacher’s name was Lindvall. Then came another teacher named Erik Johansson. Then Gunnar Brolin. We’ll talk more about school later."

Fredrick, Ada, Anna, Göta, Victor and Mina

Brita Boberg Kindeskog at 15 in 1933.
This must be her confirmation photo.

"Then we have Grässvederna, that was on the way down to the road. In Grässvederna, there lived Farbror Fredrick and Tant Ada. This was Tant Ada’s home farm that she had inherited from her parents. Her parents lived in a little house in the yard. Little houses like that for the old folks used to be called undantagsstugor, set-aside cottages.  Tant Ada had a sister named Anna. Anna didn’t live there all the time because she had different jobs in different places. Anna had had a baby with Farbror Fredrick’s brother who had left for America. He didn’t know he had fathered a child. She was named Göta.  She lived with her grandparents in the little house.

Well, Göta was a little older than Brita but she used to come play too. And how silly they were in those days. I don’t know where they pretended that Göta came from, but they had a birthday party for her once. Mama had bought a special pair of embroidery scissors that were made in the shape of a blue heron or bird like that. In those days all girls learned embroidery. Brita went to that birthday party and when Göta opened that present, she called, “Mama! Titta vad Brita har givit mig!” (“Mama! Look what Brita gave me!”) She ran up to Anna to show her, and Anna slapped her across the face. Göta was not supposed to call her Mama when anybody outside the family heard it. Aren’t we all glad that some things have changed?

Well, Grässvederna was part of Kjettestorp, but Kjettestorp also went

When we visited Kjettestorp with Mom, she always liked

to have us go out the back way from Norrgård and walk

the path down to the schoolhouse. This is in 2000. Mom is 

the one in the hat, Henrik is in front of her, 

and 3-year-old Marcus is the one who wouldn't stay

on the path, so I had to chase him down. Amanda

must be behind mom :)

down into the valley where the school was. Next to the schoolhouse lived an old couple named Victor and Mina. Victor was such a miser. He couldn’t spend money on anything. When they were trying to get electricity to Kjettestorp, it would cost them less if every place in Kjettestorp would pay so much to draw in the lines. Victor said, “You’re telling me that I push a button on the wall and light comes out in the ceiling? How can that be safe??” He wouldn’t be part of it. So Victor and Mina carried around their oil lamps. I always thought that that couldn’t have been very safe for those two old people.

Kjettestorp schoolhouse in 2000. 

Mina, they used to say, was so mean to Victor. I remember one time when I was working for the school teacher. We would get the mail from the store. I’d take the mail to Victor and Mina when I picked up the schoolteacher’s mail. Well, Victor and Mina’s house had a great big window next to the back steps, so you came up by this window. I came there one time with their mail, and I happened to look in and I saw Victor in the kitchen scrubbing something on a scrub board, washing something. When I knocked on the door, I heard Mina hollar, “Gå i ni kammern! Hon kommer!” In other words, “Get in the other room! She’s coming!” Victor was a little deaf so she had to hollar. Then when I walked into the kitchen, Mina stood there scrubbing. “Oh I’m washing a little bit today,” she said. So I gave her the mail, and I curtsied and said goodbye. When I went out, I glanced through the window and she stood by the door to the other room, “Kom ut och tvätt igen! Hon gick!” (“Come out and wash again. She’s gone!”) I couldn’t help but chuckle all the way home."

The Neighbors who got on the Titanic

"Now let’s talk about the neighbors. Neighbors were important in those days in a different sort of way than they are now. We went together with neighbors when there were big jobs that took lots of hard work. And the people who lived near you were mostly the only people you had contact with that often. There was no TV and not much radio and no phones either. Even when we got phones, they weren’t used to just talk, only for important things. The neighbors were the people you had in your life, if you know what I mean.

Anders and Alfrida Andersson and their children,
Sigrid, Ingeborg, Ebba, Sigvard, and Ellis.

When Farfar and Farmor moved to Kjettestorp, you know they moved into Norrgården. In Mellangården, next door, there was a family named Andersson. In time, they were called to America, so they sold their farm to a woman named Fru Birgerson. The Anderssons were going to America, the whole family. I think they had five kids, one very small. They were so proud because they were going on the Titanic. It was beautifully built and bragged about in all circles. They had a party in Kjettestorp for the Andersson family and all the neighbors came to say goodbye.  They used to tell us that our Mormor said, “Don’t go! Just think if the boat sinks!” and they said, “It can’t sink.” That was one of the slogans they had for the Titanic: “It can’t sink.” There was also a woman from Farsbo; her name was Anna Nysten. She went to confirmation with Mom and Dad, so they knew her well. I think they were confirmed in 1906 at 14. I think the ship sank in 1912 or something, so she would have been 19 or 20 years old. Anyway, when

Anna Nysten, 1912, before

leaving for America on the Titanic

they were on the boat and it was in crisis, Anna Nysten got on a lifeboat. There weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone on the ship and it was supposed to be women and children in the lifeboats but Mrs. Anderson would not go without her husband and didn’t want her family to be split up. When the boat that Anna Nysten was in pulled away from the Titanic, she turned around and saw the Andersson family standing together on deck and that was people she had known most of her life. She heard the music playing “Närmare, Gud, Till Dig.” ("Nearer My God, To Thee") They say she never really recovered from the shock of it all.

Fru Birgerson lived in Kisa for a while. They were related to someone who was recruiting people for America. They organized trips. The first trip that was organized with people from Kisa, they met in a building named Columbia. That is now a café and immigrant museum. The man who was the leader of that first group was named Peter Cassel and he was related to the Linde family in Kingsburg, Janet Kelly’s mom and dad. I don’t remember how they were related now. Well, Fru Birgerson rented the farm to another family named Andersson. We called him Farbror Andersson and we called her Tant Anna. They had two children, Lydia and Henning. They were older than us and they had a maid called Tant Maria. They had different hired men through the years. That was in Mellangården.

In Sör, there lived Farbror Axel, and he had a housekeeper it was called, and her name was Lisa. Nowadays, they’d call them sambo, but that wasn’t mentioned years ago. I remember though, that Lisa broke a leg once. I was at least 14 years old then. They called for Mother, of course. Mother saw to that she got to a doctor and got her leg in a cast. When they got back, Lisa wanted to go up and sleep in Axel’s room upstairs. There were two beds up there she

Mom, Margaretha and Lennart

said. But I was with over there and mother said, “Not as long as I’m taking care of you are you sleeping in Axel’s room.” They had one of these little rooms called salen, and mother made up a bed on the sofa, and Lisa had to sleep there. Every morning, I was to go over and cook breakfast for them. I cooked oatmeal and whatever else they had for breakfast. I helped Lisa some and got her something to eat. We took turns going over there, us girls, and helping Lisa get her work done. As long as we did that, Lisa had to sleep in salen. After that mother couldn’t control it."

Note: The Titanic passenger list identifies a family from Kjettestorp, Kisa, traveling as third class passengers. It shows Anders Johan Andersson, 39; Alfrida Konstantia Andersson, 39; Sigrid Elisabeth Andersson, 11; Ingeborg Constanzia Andersson, 9; Ebba Iris Andersson, 6;  Sigvard Harald Elias Andersson, 4; and Ellis Anna Maria Andersson, 2. It lists Anna Nysten, 22, as the only survivor of a group from Kisa. (source: encyclopedia-titanica.org)