I always admired my Papa

"I always admired my Papa. He was a pretty smart man. He farmed there in Kjettestorp all of those

Thor Boberg, 1915

years, and he made a lot of improvements. They built a new barn and a new storage house. They built a wood shed and a new sheep house. While he was still a farmer, he built a garage up by the barn that could hold two cars and a tractor. And yes, he bought the first tractor that anybody had close by there.

He belonged to a lot of organizations in the town as well. He belonged to Kyrkobröderna (the church brothers). They would meet once a month for bible study and visiting. My dad was involved in all kinds of things at church. He was on the church council and he was also on kyrkofullmäktig. That was a body that also governed the church. Because the Lutheran church was a state organization, they had to have a governing body that was elected by regular voters and that was kyrkofullmäktig. They worked together with the church council. Dad was on both those. He was also what they called a kyrkovärd, a church host. There were several of them, so they didn’t have to be there working every Sunday. They would collect and count the offering, see that the church was taken care of, and be on hand if the pastor needed any kind of assistance. They were sort of like ushers or elders, but they didn’t change like we do at our church now. I always sort of thought of Jon Carlson and Don

Anderson and Gary Olson like kyrkovärd at Concordia. It was a lifetime job. Of course, you could resign, but most were kyrkovärd their whole lives. I think Dad had the title until he died.   

Elin and Thor, dressed for church

He was also president of what was called fattigvårdstyrelsen. That is what comes closest to welfare or social services that we have today. That group would look after people who didn’t have very much. They assisted with money at times. Like Svenssons i Såg, Gerda Svensson, she had a lot of kids. She would come sometimes when she was in a bind. One time she came and my dad gave her some papers to read. She sat there staring at those papers. Sara was in playing the pump organ. Well, still looking at the papers, she started singing the words of the songs Sara was playing. Then Dad realized that she didn’t know how to read. The town had bought a place called Björksnäs. This was a big house but they made it over so several families could live in it. These Svenssons were moved in there.

He was on the school board, and he was on the board of the political party he belonged to which was called Bondeförbundet. Us kids when we were teenagers belonged to the youth group for that party. I remember the first time he let me go to that youth group. He came along, and we rode bicycles. There

A poster for the Bondeförbundet party

from the 1920s. It's my understanding that

it was sort of a farmer's political party.

was a man speaking to us about something that I can’t remember now, then they had refreshments and then Dad got up and said, “Now you and I go home.” There was going to be a dance afterwards and I couldn’t be in on that, so I had to go home with him. Ragnar i Grässvederna told Papa that next time he would look after me so I could stay for the dance. I guess he did. Those kids were young teenagers when we were born so they were young enough to stay for the dances but old enough to be responsible.

I remember being really grateful to Papa was one time when Greta and Rut i Herrefall were babysitting the Gunnar Brolin’s kids. Some boys had heard that they were babysitting, and the boys set out to scare them. I don’t know what they used but they made some kind of bang, and the girls got so scared. Well, the next day here came the teacher up to our place on his spark and said that I had been the ring-leader of the people who were outside the house scaring his babysitters. I hadn’t been anywhere near there. Dad called me in and asked me, and I told him that I wasn’t there. Dad told the teacher, “She’s never lied to me before and I don’t think she’s lying now. You’ll have to go somewhere else to find out who that was.” When the boys who had done this heard that I was getting in trouble for it, they went to the teacher and told him that they had done it. He had them stay for coffee and he let them borrow some of his books. That was his justice, I guess. I didn’t really care though. It just meant a lot that my dad had believed me."