BLOGS

This consists of several paragraphs from other, windier letters. My cousin Dan suffered a great deal of damage from the accident (drunken driver) but is doing well today. Aunt Ida was one of the few to write things down. Hope you enjoyed:

I must have been a pretty good sized kid before I knew that throwing rocks at the swallows did NOT cause a cow to give bloody milk. Whenever a cow gave that Great Grandpa would ask: “Whose been throwing rocks at the swallows?” We would slowly head for home. We would all have been guilty because that seemed to be a favorite pastime.

On Grandmas home place (Olberg) in Switzerland one of their means of income was digging and selling peat. It is a fuel of rotted vegetation underground, dug out in square and dried. And was then sold to burn in stoves. I believe peat is a very early stage of coal.

It wasn’t until after grandma died that we found out that Emil Sporei, the jockey who comes to our church, was Swiss. (we thought he was an Indian). Anyway in talking to him Grandpa found out that Emil’s dad had a store in Zug (Switzerland). And Emil used to go with horse and wagon to Grandma’s place which is called OLBERG to pick up wagon loads of peat.

When grandpa and Grandpa were in school in Switzerland, grade school only went as far as the 7th. The boys and girls were in different class rooms, both taught by nuns. Grandpa was a whiz in Math. He could add, subtract, and multiply big numbers in his head. In the U.S. in private schools you have to pay tuition and the public schools are tax supported. In Switzerland ALL schools and Churches are tax supported. No collections were taken up in church.

Madeline (fresh from Switzerland) was quite the dame. She learned to drive and bought herself a model T pickup. Boy, after that she was seldom home. She’d go to the factory and everywhere and anywhere. Drove like a maniac and scared everybody off the road.

One time she was helping someone buzz wood out in the driveway. Got a finger in the saw and buzzed it off. She hopped into the pickup and went to the doctor at Cloverdale. He asked her where the finger was as he would try to sew it back. She said the dogs ate it.

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