God Is With Me

I haven't talked a lot yet about my faith in God. He showed me so many times that He was there with me. I have carried my faith with me all through life. I'm not going to bore you with all the times that I've seen God's hand at work, but I'll tell you a couple. Mormor i Groende lived a pretty lonely life. It's how it was those days, living out on those farms. Morfar would go to Kisa once a week with his horse Stjärna and the buggy, but Mormor only went part of the time. They used to say that in her whole life, she went to Linköping twice and that was only seven Swedish miles. Well, when we showed up at her house, she used to say, "Where is your mama? When she got married, she said she'd come see me every week, and she hasn't been here for so long." Her daughter, Moster Maria, lived further away so she couldn't expect her to come home so often, but AnnaLisa, Moster Maria's oldest girl, used to spend summers at Groende.

This is a little statue of a praying child that Mom kept all her life.

Many times, Margaretha and I were sent to walk to Groende and visit with Mormor for a while. Well one day, we were doing to take Lennart along on this visit. It was the first time we had taken him on one of these walks. Mama said we were responsible for him, and since I was the oldest, of course, the biggest responsibility was mine. Mama said we had to be home before dark. Well, Mormor was so happy to see us and especially she was so happy to see Lennart. We had so much fun and time went so fast. All of a sudden the time came to me, and I said we had to go so we could make it home before dark. Off we went but Lennart was tired by then and didn't walk so fast. Well, we were maybe a fourth of the way home when we got so scared because we just knew we wouldn't make it home before dark. I said we should pray, so all three of us got down on our knees at the edge of the road and asked God for help.

While we were still on our knees, we heard a rumble and racket coming up the road. After a minute, we realized it was a motor, but we didn't know who it could be because nobody up there had a tractor or a private car then. Well here came a truck! It was a man who had been hauling timber out of the forest there in Groende. His name was Rolander. Mama and Papa knew him and we had seen him many times and knew who he was. He stopped and said, "What are you kids doing out so late? Jump in here and I'll give you a ride home." We jumped into the truck and we were all excited because we hadn't ridden in a truck before, especially Lennart. He was really excited and could hardly sit still. So we did make it home before dark. It has puzzled me many times since then that Rolander didn't have a load of lumber on his truck. Never did he drive out of the forest without a load but this time his truck was empty. You can say what you want about that story but we were all so sure that God had answered our prayer, little children though we were.

Another time, I was really upset. Mormor had died, and it really hit me. I was 14 years old. First God had taken Morbror Kalle and then Farfar and then my brother Henrik and now Mormor. Morbror Kalle died in 1929 and Mormor in 1937 so in those few years, four of the people I loved the most were gone. I got kind of mad at God. I wasn't going to believe in him anymore. I was the rebellious kid anyway. Then one night I had a dream. I dreamt I was walking home from Mormor's house. There was a little hill you went up and when I got up to the top of that hill, the whole sky looked like a big ship! There were portholes in the sides and I could see the big smokestacks high up in the sky and there was the railing around the edge of the ship. Behind that railing there were all kinds of people waving at me. I saw Henrik and Farfar and Morbror

Kalle and Mormor all standing together waving at me. And I saw others, neighbors and other people we knew who had died. They all waved at me and they looked so happy. As I woke up, it was the middle of the night still, but I sat straight up in bed and the whole room was lit up. I looked around and saw the door to our room -- it was painted blue. And I looked at Margaretha, sleeping in the same bed. She was fast asleep and hadn't seen anything. Little by little the light faded away around me, and it was pitch dark again, as I was still sitting straight up in bed. I crawled back under the blankets and I knew that was God telling me, "Don't worry. They're all here with me."

Boberg Kids Take First Prizes

Now I think I have to go back to Kisa again for a few other stories. I’ve forgotten to tell you about the kinds of competitions that farm kids had at that time.

When we were young we all belonged to the youth group for the political party that Dad was in, Bondeförbundet. The youth group was called Svenskalandsbygdensungdomförbund, the Swedish Rural Youth Association. I've talked a little bit about the meetings and dances that we had but we did more than that. We had what we called Studiacircln. There was always some kind of study circle going on. We studied all kinds of things, languages, math, current events, all parts of life. We also had a lot of competitions. One time Sara and I entered a competition in how to hoe a turnip field. Turnips were planted using a machine and it let out too many seeds so there would be too many plants in a row. We crawled on our hands and knees and hoed out part of the seedlings, so there was the right space in between. You always had to make sure you chose the healthiest biggest looking plants too. Then you pushed the dirt up around the little things so each plant stood straight up when you were done with it. Well, Dad was, of course, again, very particular about how this was done, so we had learned how to do it right. So Sara and I entered this competition that our club had. After we finished our rows, the judges went out and looked them over and then they went inside to discuss what they had seen while those of us who had competed stood outside.

Well, this competition was at Gustav Jonsson's farm. There was a little boy in that family who was too small to compete but he was standing around with us and Ragnar i Gräsvederna said to him, "Why don't you go inside and see what you can hear? See who won." The little boy crept in and then came back out and said, "Gun won!" Ragnar i Gräsvederna said, "Nah, that can't be! You heard wrong." The little boy insisted he had heard right and it was true. When the judges came out, they said I had taken first place and Sara had come in second. Papa had come along with us that day because he knew Gustav Jonsson personally. Papa didn't judge; he just came along. The other kids kind of grumbled that they had chosen us just because Dad was there. But when you won in your club, you went on to the District competition, so Sara and I were entered there. This competition took place in a completely different field and there were completely different judges. When this competition was over, Sara had won and I had come in second! Well, some people grumbled again, but the man whose field it was he told them, "You come see! There are no plants that stand up as straight as in the rows that the Boberg girls hoed."

All that grumbling made me say I was never going to be in a competition

like that again, but then one year, they had a competition in our club and Rut and Greta i Herrefall came and they wanted to go, just to watch and see how it worked. They asked me if I wouldn't just come along to watch too, so I went. When we got there, everyone was just standing around waiting. By the rules of the club, there had to be a certain number of people for it to count as a competition and they didn't have enough people yet but with us there would be enough. We said we couldn't because you had to crawl on your hands and knees and we couldn't do that in our skirts. Well, there was a boy at that farm who we knew from school and he was sent to get some of his work pants and we were talked around and the competition happened. When the results came out, I had won again. Guess if I wasn't happy going home then! When I got home, Mom and Dad had already gone to bed but I went in and woke Dad up and told him I had won. That was a sweet victory.

Another time when I was home with Lennart, we joined in a competition about cutting grass in a meadow. The boy was to cut the grass and the girl was to rake it. There were all kinds of rules about how close to the ground the grass was to be cut and about how it was to be raked in particular patterns and patches. That competition was up in Misterfall. They had a great big meadow and each set of participants got a certain lot to do. When we got done, Lennart and I had won. Again people grumbled. They said it sort of wasn't fair because we were brother and sister and we were used to working together. I think again we had benefitted from Dad's teaching. He always had a particular way things were to be done. Things needed to be done just right. And even though we maybe didn't know it as kids, he had reasons for all these methods. They made the plants grow better or they made the farm more productive and in the end, they made life easier.

Linköping's Children's Hospital

Mom with a row of babies

After that I took a job in Linköping's Children's Hospital which was one of the best in the country at that time. It was a big building that was part of a bigger hospital. The Children's Hospital building had separate floors for different specialities. On the bottom floor was where women came in and had their babies. There were a few private rooms but most of it was one big room. The second floor was for the smallest children, babies to 18 months of age. Then the third floor was for older children, from one and a half through 14 to 15 years old.  And there was a small sort of story up above that even where mothers could stay when they were nursing babies, but that wasn't a full floor, just a few rooms and a little kitchen. I liked the work here. At first, I was on the floor where babies were born. Mothers stayed in the hospital at least ten days then so we had a roomful of babies to take care of. We weighed them every day when we bathed them along with checking their temperatures and everything else. As part of our continuing education, we were required to go down and watch at least two babies being born. After witnessing that a couple times, I almost decided that I didn't want any children.

I think Mom is kneeling down on the balcony here. The
original is such a tiny photo that it's hard to tell.

This was the first time that I worked in a large organization and that was a bit of a lesson for me. There were so many nurses and doctors and it took quite a bit to all get along. The nurse who was in charge of one of the floors there, Sister Deece, didn't get along well with the personnel, and I didn't like her much either. There was a bit of a well not a disagreement exactly but sometimes the nurses with more education (they'd be RNs here) they looked down on us barnsköterska because we didn't have as much training as they did. Well, one time one of the doctors' wives was in having a baby and she was in one of the private rooms. She was given the wrong thing at one point and one of the other nurses told Sister Deece that I had done it, so Sister Deece came and chewed me out. I told her I wasn't on duty in those rooms that day and I hadn't even been in there. I suggested she ask the mother if it was me, so we went in there together and the lady said she had never seen me before. So it wasn't all happy times but I always learned a lot.

This hospital is also where I met Anna Pettersson! I was working at night

Anna Pettersson

one time and I sat there kind of glum for some reason. Anna worked on another floor but she came to where I was working and wanted me to go with to the dining room. We were not allowed to go alone to the dining room, especially in winter, because we had to go along all through the basement to get there and it was a little scary. Well, I agreed and off we went. Anna told me later that when she first saw me she wished she hadn't come to ask me because I looked like

such a sour puss! As we walked, Anna was telling me how nice it was to work on that other floor so I asked for a transfer. The manager on the other floor was a Sister Anna. She was very strict and ran a tight ship but that was ok with me. She was always fair and we all got along well.

One time there was a child there who needed to see an ear specialist.

This is a photo from one of Mom's albums, showing

the kind of equipment they used when she worked there.

They used to have some kind of mini-ambulances to take patients to these kind of appointments but there was none to be found this time. This ear doctor was right across the street from the Children's Hospital, so it was decided that I and one of these girls who worked to become an RN that we would carry him to the appointment. We had to walk around back through a gate there. The sister had given the gate key to the other girl and I was carrying the baby. It happened that this gate was right next to a little chapel where families would have the 

"singing out" ceremony after someone died. I've told you about that before. Well, we made it to the ear doctor and then were ready to head back to the hospital and there still was no ambulance to take us back, so we set out to walk back the same way we had come.

Later that evening, I was sitting and feeding a baby in the same room where a mother was feeding her baby when Sister Anna came in and scolded me for not returning the gate key. I reminded her that she had given the key to the other girl and that I was carrying the baby. I said I did not know where the key was but I could go look for it. After I was done feeding the baby, I was ready to set off and some of the other girls tried to tell me that I shouldn't go out by that funeral chapel in the dark alone. I said I wasn't afraid of that and set off. When I got to the gate, sure enough there was the key in the lock, so I took it back to Sister Anna.

Birgitta and Sören

Well, I didn't like that too much. I didn't like being blamed for things that I had not done. But years later, when Birgitta, Brita's oldest daughter was going to be a nurse, she had to work on different floors to learn how to care for the different age groups and it happened that Sister Anna was still working there and Birgitta got acquainted with her. Sister Anna told her how well she and I had gotten along and said that if Birgitta became as good a nurse I was and she was doing well. I thought that was pretty nice when Birgitta told me that.