Gunnar Brolin and Farbror Folke

"In later years when Tant Almida was getting too old to do the Sunday

Gunnar Brolin, 1940

School, we had a new teacher in Kjettestorp named Gunnar Brolin and his wife was Lisa. They started up a new Sunday School in Kjettestorp School, and then almost all the kids who came to school also came to Sunday School. They came from Misterfall and Vimantorp and all the other little places. Lisa and Gunnar Brolin were very active in church and helped the pastor with the youth group, what we called Luther League. We always enjoyed going to the Luther League activities. Lisa Brolin organized the first Luciafest that we had. I don’t remember who the first Lucia was; maybe it was Margit i Blåsten. I know Sara was Lucia once. I never was Lucia but I was an attendant many times. They had a long row of attendants and star boys.

Aside from church and Sunday School, another big religious influence was  Farbror Folke. He was not married the first time he came home on furlough. My

Kisa Luther League, 1940. Gunnar Brolin is sitting in the chair at the far right. Standing

behind him at the edge of the photo is Margaretha. Behind her is Astor Karlsson and next

to him is Sara. Mom is right in the middle behind Kyrkoherde (Pastor) David Myrgård.

dad always stayed Lutheran, but he supported his brother all he could. When a missionary came home, they needed to raise support again before they could go back out. Dad wanted to have a meeting in Kjettestorp to help with this. The way I remember it, it was Dad and Ragnar who did all the work for this meeting to support Folke as a missionary. I don’t remember Folke helping in any way with the preparations. Dad and Ragnar cut birches and put them up by the front door and the back door and all over up the driveway and up the staircase to the hayloft. Then in the hayloft, they set up benches. People came from near and far. They all wanted to hear this local boy who had been so so far away in the world. He had been to Mongoliet! “My stars that’s so far away.” They had a good meeting there.

I know this is later than the events Mom describes here, but I
just found it and wanted to share. It's a letter Folke wrote from
Peking, the second time he was on his way to Mongolia. He had
taken his fiancee, Anna, with him and she became sick with
dysentery before they reached Mongolia. He's writing to her
parents to tell them he's getting her the best possible medical care.

Then one time, Folke was going to Österbymo. The Pentecostal church in Österbymo was named Bethel, and it had supported him before he went so he was going back to report sort of. We were all going to hear him too -- Mom and Dad and all us kids and Ragnar and Midi and Hildegard, everybody went. When I’ve thought of it afterwards, it was pretty strange that we all left. This pretty much never happened. There was always one person left on the farm. I think maybe the neighbor’s hired man looked after our place. But it was an important meeting because they had chartered a bus and we all went on a bus. I can’t say I remember too much about the meeting really, but I do remember going home. We got a little ways down the road and then it was discovered that Henrik wasn’t in the bus. So the bus had to find a place to turn around and we headed back. On the way, we met him. He came walking. Dad asked, “Did you think you were going to walk all the way home?” and Henrik said, “I thought someone would come pick me up eventually.”

In later years, I thought of how Farbror Folke took the Word literally. When the apostles are commissioned to go out and preach, they’re told that if they’re not received well in a place where they stop, they should shake the dust of that place off their feet and go to another place.

These meetings usually talked a lot about sin. If you do this, it’s a sin and if you do this other thing, that’s a sin. I thought at the time that I didn’t know before that we all sinned so much. I thought we were mostly pretty nice and well behaved."

Sunday School

This is Almida Törnvall in 1914, so she's
a bit younger here than when she
started the Sunday School

"I think I mentioned that the local Lutheran church didn’t have any Sunday School at that time. Well, when we got a little bigger, Almida Turnvall who lived in Stenstugan she belonged to the Alliansmissionen and she wanted to start a Sunday School.  My dad supported her because he thought it was a good idea for the neighborhood kids to learn more about the Bible. On Sunday mornings then, all the kids around Kjettestorp and Vimantorp would go to her house. We would set out and walk about two miles to her house. She had about two hours of Sunday School. We sang songs, and she gave us bible verses to memorize so we could recite them the next Sunday. This lady was very hard of hearing. She had a device that looked like a horn of plenty; it was a metal horn. When you were going to answer her questions, you put your mouth close to that opening in the horn so she could hear us. I remember the first time that I got to go to Sunday School.  I begged Mother to let me go and Brita was so angry. I was about five years old. Brita stomped her foot on the floor and said, “Won’t I ever be able to go anywhere without having to drag along little kids?!” But Mama had decided that I could go if I wanted to. She put a summer hat on me that was a hand-me-down; it must have been Brita or Sara’s the year before. Mama had a trick every summer; she bought some kind of paint that

One of the ways Mom taught me Swedish

was through children's songs. She created a

little songbook in her handwriting and it

includes "Himmelriket tillhör barnen"

they had in stores; she would paint the old hats and they looked new, all freshened up in a new color. Well, this hat was actually too small for me, so oh, that hurt my head. When I got back home I was so glad to get rid of that hat. Well, Tant Almeda had a two-hour Sunday school.  She’d have a recess in the middle there when she always treated us to some homemade cookies or apples or even candy. You know candy wasn’t so easy to find in those days. I loved Tant Almeda’s pepparkakor best.

Well, when Farbror Folke came home from Mongolia, he was getting involved in our Sunday School. He was instrumental in getting us new song books. We had songbooks called Sionstoner för Barn. (Zion’s tones for Children) The Pentecosts had their own songbook and that was called Sionstoner but the one we used in Sunday School was made especially for children. The Pentecostal movement was strong

This is a copy of the newspaper Mom describes from 

December 1938. She kept it with her "Swedish papers" :)

right then in the late 20s and early 30s. They did more contemporary music and the young people loved that a little faster pace. One song I remember from that songbook that we used to sing went “Himmelriket tillhör barnen! Oh det är en härlig sång! Skulle jag från Jesus då bort på syndens vägar gå? Nej, till himlens glädje ställer jag min gång.” Roughly translated, it means, “The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. Oh what a beautiful song! Should I then as a child stray onto a sinful path? No, to heavens joy, I’d rather go.” We would also get a sort of little newspaper called Barnatidningen Senapskornet. (The Children’s Paper The Mustard Seed) There were always stories in there about children. Of course, we all had to share because it was one to a family.

Sometimes Farbror Folke would come with us to Sunday School but then we didn’t walk; we’d go on bicycles. Where they got all the bicycles, I don’t know. They must’ve borrowed some. Papa, Mama and Ragnar had bicycles. There was one time we went when I was going to ride a bike by myself, but Margaretha was too small for that so she was going to ride behind Farbror Folke. When we were going home, she got her foot in the wheel and oh how she cried. That foot hurt her for quite a long time after.

This is another page from
Barntidningen Senapskornet

One time the Sunday School was invited to a family. It was going to be a party out in the yard. In those days, when they had refreshments, the grown-ups always went first and the kids had to wait. This was a party for kids and still they had to sit there and wait. The family had set up benches in the yard made of two saw horses and a board across it. On those benches, the sawhorses were never out at the ends of the boards; they were a couple of feet in. Well, I remember there was one old gramma. I thought she was old anyway. She came with a coffee cup in one hand with a sugar cube on it.  She came and sat down on the outer edge of one of those benches and started to drink coffee like they did in those days. She put the sugar cube in her mouth and poured the coffee on the saucer and drank from the saucer. I guess that cooled the coffee off a little bit. As she was doing this, it happened that all the grown-ups had gotten their refreshments and the call came that now it was the children’s turn. Well, all these kids had sat on that bench on pins and needles hoping that there would be something left for them. They were so excited that they all jumped up at once. The bench flipped up and the old lady landed on the ground with saucer and cup and coffee flying all around. We all put our hands over our mouths so as to not laugh out loud, because kids weren’t supposed to laugh at grown-ups."

If you want to hear Mom sing, "Himmelriket tillhör barnen", click below :)

Traveling Ministers

While this photo is much later than the stories Mom tells here, it is a gathering of the Boberg
family in salen. The back row is Sara, Ingemar, Lennart's girlfriend, Lennart, Astor, Henrik,
and Brita. On the couch, are Mom, Elin holding Christina, Thor holding AnnCathrine,
 and Margaretha. On the floor are Birgitta, Gunilla, Thorbjörn and Ingalena.

"When people couldn’t come to church, the church came to the people.

They had preachers who came out in the country to the villages. Farfar belonged to something called Evangelilska Fosterlandstiftelsen. It was an offshoot of the Lutheran church. In fact they worked together with the Lutheran church. At times preachers from this group would stay at our house, and they would stay and have a service on Sunday. When the preacher was coming, there were preparations to be made. They put in benches. They made them out of low sawhorses and boards that were kept just for that use. Those boards were all sanded down and finished off. They were all shiny, so they probably varnished them. There were two benches in front of the kitchen door in salen and then there more benches over on the other side of the room where the sofa was. When we knew a preacher was coming, the word went out all around Kjettestorp. Sometimes people even came from Grönede and Vimantorp, even though Vimantorp used to have preachers who came from something called Alliansmissionen, the Allied Mission. They had preachers too, and we sometimes went to Vimantorp. But back to the meetings in salen.

When a preacher was coming, Dad had to go to the train station in the morning and pick him up, and he stayed in hörnkammaren, the guest room. Then when evening came, they didn’t take us kids in until the last minute just before the meeting started. We came in from the kitchen, us kids, we sat on the front bench and then there was Midi and Hildegard and Mama and Papa. We had several preachers that I remember. There was one named Karlsson who just loved to sing. He played the pump organ and sang. When Karlsson came, there were a lot of people, standing up even, so other people must have liked him too. Us kids could stay awake when he was there preaching. Then there was one named Marcusson. He was the son of a family named Marcusson from Kisa. They were all such good singers. He had a younger brother named Sigge who used to sing in church quite often.

In later years, the last one that I remember was named Friklund. We had so many funny stories about him. He had lived in Norrland a long time. I remember one time he came in the springtime. The nettles had just come up.

There was a certain kind of nettle that when it was about three, four, five inches long, you would cut them off and Mama would cook them like spinach. Then she chopped them up and made a white sauce and mixed it all together. I thought it was so good. Well, this pastor Friklund was talking about how wonderful Mama’s cooking was. We were having a dinner in salen and us kids were, for once, allowed to eat with the grown-ups there in salen. The preacher was talking about, “Oh I have never tasted such good spinach! In Vimmerby, where I live now, they say they cook spinach out of nettles! I sure would never have anything to do with that.” To be a little kid who had picked the nettles, it was pretty hard to keep from laughing. In those days, kids didn’t laugh at adults, especially not ministers. We would have been sent from the room, so we really didn’t want to laugh out loud, but we all laughed when we talked about it later.

Another one of these times, I begged Mama to let me taste real coffee. They used to put hot water in a cup and they’d put cream in it and they called it silver tea. That’s what us kids drank when the adults drank coffee. Well, I wanted to taste real coffee so bad. Mama said it was ok, but I had to finish whatever she gave me. How I wished I hadn’t asked for it. The pastor Friklund had worked up north with the Lapplanders, and he taught us how to sing "Old Man Noah" in Lapplander language. If it’s really correct, I don’t know but what he taught us was," (to hear Mom sing it, click on the video below :)

I Jesu Namn

"I think I’ll talk a little bit about our religious training. I’ve always believed

This is the church in Kisa where Mom and her family

attended when she was a kid. Many generations have

baptized, married and buried in this church.

in God. We were taught as long as I can remember about God. At mealtimes, for example, before we ate, we always said, in unison, “I Jesu namn, till bords vi gå. Välsingna Gud den mat vi få. Amen.” It means, “In Jesus’ name, we go to the table. God bless the food we receive.” Then when we were finished eating, also in unison, we said, “God är Gud. Tack för maten. Amen.” “God is good. Thank you for the food. Amen.” Then we went to Mother and Dad, and the girls curtseyed and the boys bowed, and we shook hands with both Mother and Dad and said thank you for the meal. 

The other daily thing was that there was always some adult there to say evening prayers with us. Sometimes in the summer, they worked late in the fields. If rain was approaching and they were harvesting, Mother and Dad might be out working very late, but there was always some adult in the house with us. Often it was Hildegard. Our evening prayer was, “Gud som haver barnen kär, se till mig som liten är. Vart jag mig i värden vänder, står min lycka i Guds händer. Lyckan kommer. Lyckan går. Den Gud älskar lyckan får. Amen.” “God who loves the little children, look after me who is so small. No matter where in the world I go, my happiness is in God’s hands. Happiness comes. Happiness goes. Those who love God will find happiness. Amen.” Then afterward, Hildegard taught us to say, “Dear Jesus, forgive me my sins of today and help me to be a good girl or good boy (whichever it was) tomorrow.”

Thor Boberg was a Kyrkovärdar, church elder. He's at the
bottom of the photo here helping take the offering.

We didn’t get to church every Sunday and the closest Lutheran church didn’t have any Sunday school. When I tell you about the preparations it took to go to church, you’ll see why we didn’t get there every Sunday. Papa and Mama and Ragnar could ride bicycles but Midi and Hildegard never learned how. And babies or very little children couldn’t go on a bike either. This meant that for all of us to get to church, we needed to go with horse and wagon. First on Sunday morning, like every other morning, we had to take care of the chores in the barn. Feed the cows and pigs and chickens and horses and see that they had water. We had to milk the cows and feed the calves. All of this took at least an hour, maybe an

Thor Boberg taking offering.

hour and a half, depending on how many people were helping. Then you had to get the horses ready. You had to brush them until they shone. Then they had to be put in front of the wagon. We usually had a wagon with two horses and a tongue in between. Then it was a long way to Kisa, seven kilometers. It took an hour by horse and wagon. (end of tape two) 

We stopped before we got down to church and put the horses in a stable

This is a photo from Thor Boberg's funeral,
January 2, 1966

owned by an older couple. They charged a little bit. Dad liked to have the horses by themselves, not with a bunch of other horses. This old couple was named Samuelsson and when we were little kids Mrs. Samuelsson always came out with cookies. Then we walked down to church. When I was a little, church lasted two hours. Then we had to do everything in reverse. We walked back to the Samuelssons and harnessed the horses to the wagon again and drove home. The horses and harness and wagon had to be put away and then it was just about time for evening chores. You can see it almost took all Sunday to get to church."