Established on 04.12.2022 by Dr. Larry and Joyce '56 Piper
Joyce Knudson Piper '56 and her husband Dr. Larry Piper were inspired to create the Randolph and Linnea Knudson Endowed Scholarship in memory of Joyce’s parents whose support and sacrifice encouraged Joyce to pursue a college education at Concordia College. Joyce was the first in her family to attend college and needed to work, sometimes several jobs, to cover the cost of her education. Joyce and Larry hope that the Randolph and Linnea Knudson Endowed Scholarship helps students achieve a Concordia College education, particularly those from rural areas and planning for a career in elementary education.
The Randolph and Linnea Knudson Endowed Scholarship is awarded by the Office of Financial Aid to one or more students of any class majoring in education. Preference will be given to students majoring in elementary education and students from rural areas.
Randolph Arthur and Linnea Carolina Knudson
by: Joyce Knudson Piper '56
[A story of my family and background written to honor the memory of my parents. It documents my mother’s Swedish heritage and was extracted from “Memories of Mom,” which I wrote in 2020. Full text is available in the Concordia College Advancement Office. I am pleased to share it with the students receiving the Randolph and Linnea Knudson Endowed Scholarship.]
Linnea Carolina Anderson’s life was tragically short! She was born and spent her childhood in Sweden, immigrated to the United States and settled in Swift, Minnesota, when she was 17 years old, married a Norwegian American at age 22, had six children by age 32, and died of colon cancer when she was 43 years old. I had lived almost 20 years when she died and have many fond memories of the life we shared together. I have drawn freely on various sources to stir my memory and to document historical facts where possible and I am grateful that others have recorded their memories. Any mistakes in interpreting the facts or events of Mom's life are mine.
The Olaf Anderson Family Record, copied from church records at Offerdal, Sweden, in 1985 (Teska), indicates that Mom was the oldest daughter and fourth child born to Olaf and Sigrid Anderson, who were married November 17, 1901 in Sweden. They lived in Rödön, a parish and former municipality in the province of Jämtland, and a nineteenth-century industrial community about twenty kilometers northwest of Östersund, the provincial capital (Rödön, Sweden). Their four oldest children were born there.
According to Mom's Pedigree Chart, Olaf was a factory worker at Hissmofors (Nyqvist, 1963), an area on the Indal River, near the town of Krokom, where the swift river current made early factories possible. A railroad connecting Krokom and Östersund opened in 1882 and by 1900, there was a hydroelectric power station, sawmill, and paper pulp mill at Hissmofors. And there was a tobacco company, match plant, and dairy at Krokom. But by 1909, the tobacco company and match plant were no longer in operation (Snusdosa).
Mom's given name was Karolina Linnea. But she preferred Linnea - the name of the national flower of Sweden. Perhaps that is why her parents chose to give the name to her. She was one of eight surviving children born to Olaf and Sigrid Anderson.
In 1909, a few months after Mom was born, Olaf and Sigrid moved their family to a small farm they purchased near Tann three kilometers northwest of Alsen, a parish and former municipality 50 kilometers northwest of Östersund (Alsen, Sweden). Alsen is on St Olaf s Path across Sweden to Trondheim (St. Olavsleden). As noted earlier, Mom 's older brothers were born in Rödön but her younger brothers and sisters were born in Tann. Her brother Albin's memory of life on the farm is included in The Heritage of Olaf & Sigrid Anderson (Teska).
Uncle Albin describes the farm and the log house they built. He remembered the living and working conditions there and his boyhood jobs picking up rocks and tending the goats. Grandpa farmed and supplemented the family income as a lumberman in the nearby forests while grandma kept house and added to the family income as a laundress by washing clothes in the local streams. Dirty work clothes were not often laundered and required a lot of physical energy to clean before hanging them out to dry. She used flat rocks as a scrub board to clean them.
Mom was baptized and confirmed at Alsens Church. They walked about two miles from the farm to Alsen to attend church and school. Her formal education was completed in Sweden before she came to America. At that time, six years of schooling in Sweden was mandatory, but some "folkskola" also had grades 7 and 8 (Education in Sweden). She may have completed eight years of formal education in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Marie Nelson was a life-long friend and lived nearby. She immigrated to America and briefly lived and worked in Minnesota. After a short period, she became a Lutheran Deaconess and worked at the Immanuel Children's Home in Omaha, Nebraska. She and Mom exchanged letters and visited as often as possible. So, after Mom died, I continued to write her. She moved to Spokane, Washington in 1966 where she later retired and lived until her death in 2003. She never married. She and her family were well-loved by the Anderson Family. In her last letter to me, written in 2001, she confirmed that the family had moved to Tann when she and Mom were infants and told me they were baptized together. She also wrote that her mother and Grandma Anderson baked holiday cookies together. My sister Del told me that Mom and would often ski to school together when they were growing up.
I had the opportunity to visit Sweden in August 1962. I visited with Anton, Mom's oldest brother and his family. I was met in Östersund by my cousin, Sven, who took me to Anton and Brita's home in Rise, near Tulleråsen in Offerdal Parish (Tulleråsen). Aunt Brita had a nice meal, including fresh fish caught by Anton, Sven, and Arne during a recent fishing trip to Norway. It was midsummer, so the sun was still shining when we went to bed. I had a hard time going to sleep. The event I remember best was the visit we made to the site of Mom's childhood home near Tann. Located in the middle of a field, the remains of the building were surrounded by green hills and wildflowers. As we approached the old log house, I imagined the flowers blooming near the door had been planted by my grandmother years ago. Inside were the remains of a ladder that led to the bedrooms. The place seemed small for a family of ten. Leaving the old farmhouse, we traveled to Alsens Church where Mom was baptized and confirmed. It was and still is an active church. I could envision my grandparents bringing their children to baptism and the family worshiping in its beautiful sanctuary. Conversation with my Swedish relatives was easier than I had imagined since my cousins had studied English in school. Mom did not study English in school but had to learn it after she arrived in Swift, so I was surprised to learn it was then a requirement in Swedish schools. Mom told me that she studied hard to qualify for her citizenship papers. It was a proud and happy moment for her when she passed and received her papers and the miniature U.S. Flag.
In 1926, my grandparents decided to move to America, joining grandmother's sisters and their families who had settled in Swift, Minnesota years earlier. Anton was already married and did not travel with the family, but he and his family did come later. The plan was for Grandpa and the older boys to go first and establish a "homestead" in Swift. Then Grandma would come with the rest of the family.
Mom was 17 years old at the time of the move. It was a long, hard trip that probably was completed in six stages or legs. The 400-mile trip from Östersund to Göteberg likely was made by train. There, they boarded the Svenska Lloyd's SS Patricia and traveled to England. Then they were transferred to the Cunard's SS Alaunia for the voyage to Quebec. Most likely, they traveled by train through England to Southampton; however, the exact details of the trip through England are not known. The reverse side of her document was date-stamped by the London Immigration Office, September 1926, but the British ports of landing and departure were not recorded. The North Sea crossing from Göteberg would have landed in Newcastle or London (The Ships List) and the voyage to Quebec would have departed either London or Southampton (RMS Alaunia (1925)). Trips within England would have made by train. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it is assumed they landed at Quebec and then continued 1200 miles to Winnipeg by train where they then took another train to Warroad. Their trip was similar in many respects and no doubt inspired by that taken 23 years earlier by grandma's sister Elizabeth and her family (Family of M. M. Landin, 1983).
During the trip, grandma traveled with her three girls and the two youngest boys. Uncle Albin wrote that Mom and grandma became seasick while he and Emil had fun exploring the various parts of the ship. Mom told me that grandma, lacking in language ability, would simply hold out her hand containing money when asked for payment. When they arrived in Warroad, they were taken to a nearby wooded area known as Swift. Albin also wrote that they stayed with M. M. Landin, then rented a house from Omar Morris, and then a few years later bought the farm southeast of Swift (Teska).
My cousin Berit told me Anton and his family immigrated in 1929 but decided not to stay in Swift and eventually returned to Sweden. That must have been difficult for them! But they prevailed and managed very well in their new homeland. Mom was never to return to the country of her birth, never to see her grandmother again who died one year following their departure. Mom's parents never had the opportunity to return either but carried on many of the customs of their Swedish homeland. All gradually grasped the English language except grandpa who clung to his native tongue. Grandma spoke with a Swedish accent and taught her grandchildren a few words of her native tongue.
Once the Anderson Family was settled in the new home in rural Swift, Mom worked as a housekeeper for the Claude Blevins and other families in Warroad. She worked for them during 1928 to 1931, the only paying jobs she ever held. Since she never learned to drive a car, I think she must have lived on-site. Hopefully, she went home to her parents on the weekends because many social activities involved her parents and their home. Relatives lived nearby and there were lots of interfamily visitations. Also, barn dances were popular at that time. Clearing the hay away in the loft of a big barn made a perfect setting for square dancing. When I was older, I remember being allowed to join them on occasion. That is where I learned to schottische and polka. Mom corresponded with some of her friends in Sweden, and she apparently spent some of her free time studying to improve her English.
At some point during her employment, Mom started dating my dad, Randolph Knudson, whose parents also had a farm near Swift. They may have met at a dance in Swift. Dad was older than Mom, had dark hair, a slender build, and was good-looking. I can see why she would be attracted to him and likewise he to her, a beautiful Swedish girl with lots of dark curly hair, lovely blue eyes, and a great figure. Dad had probably completed eight years of schooling and had worked on the farm at home and at various odd jobs. During 1929 to 1931 he began working in other locations, staying with relatives when he could. He worked in Minnesota and North Dakota during the summer and fall of 1931, picking potatoes and thrashing grain for various farmers including relatives in Warren, Minnesota and Union, North Dakota.
Though separated by his work circumstances, their romance blossomed. In 1931, they wrote frequent letters to each other and Dad would head home for a weekend when possible. They were married by Rev. A.H. Larson on January 1, 1932, at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Swift. According to a local reporter, "The church was prettily decorated in pink and white together with Christmas trees and a bell and was filled to capacity". The lovely bride wore a long aqua dress which I still have. The groom was dressed in a suit and looked very handsome. Their attendants were her sister, Martha Anderson, and his brother, Orrel (Jim) Knudson. The notice of their wedding that appeared in The Warroad Pioneer stated that the bridal party was served a delicious lunch at the Anderson home following the wedding ceremony. Times were hard and there wasn't a honeymoon for most couples, but they might have experienced a chivaree - a noisy mock serenade (made by banging pans and kettles) to a newly married couple (Chivaree). Then a party usually followed.
They made their home in various places, one of the first was the Erick Mattson farm. I remember when our house was on Grandpa Knudson's land, and it was moved over the railroad tracks, then along Highway 11 to County Road 2 and south to the farm they had purchased. It was there that Dad maintained a dairy and grain farm and together with Mom raised six children.
Mom was a wonderful mother. She had six children between 1932 and 1941 during the tender years of 22 to 32. I had my first child at age 38, so I have great admiration for her inner strength and patience during those busy years. Carroll, her youngest, was the only one born in a hospital! For the other births, she was attended by the local midwife - Mrs. Edel Toombs of Warroad (Roseau County Historical Society, 1985) - who insisted on a one-week stay in bed following a delivery. I was born at Grandma Anderson's. The men had to wait outside! Auntie Astrid was still single, so she came to stay during Mom's recovery. Marie also wrote in her last letter, "In 1932, when I was packing to go to Omaha to deaconess school, I saw you in a bed upstairs - such a pretty baby!"
Dad was kept busy supporting his growing family. Besides farming, he took various jobs such as cutting ice blocks on the Warroad River for ten cents a block. Collecting surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale was common before the era of widespread mechanical refrigeration (Ice cutting). It was necessary in Swift because electricity did not come to our rural area until 1941. Managing a home was quite different than with today's conveniences. Wood was burned for cooking and heating. A daily supply had to be cut and brought to the cookstove in the kitchen. An icebox or "refrigerator" with a pan underneath to catch the water from melted ice stood on the front porch (Icebox). Inside items such as dairy products and meats were kept cold.
Mom and Dad were very industrious! They planted and harvested a large vegetable garden and picked and canned vegetables and wild berries. It seems like the basement was always filled with quart jars of berry sauces and jams-blueberry, raspberry, cranberry, and pin cherry. One bin held the potatoes and another, filled with sand, preserved the carrots. Oh, how we feasted on the sweet com when it was ripe. In late fall, the pumpkins and squash were harvested and stored. Fall was also the time to butcher the fattened pig. The only shopping trips were to get sugar, flour, coffee, and seasonings! And sometimes soap! I do remember the big box of red delicious apples Dad would bring home at Christmas. The wooden boxes made good shelves for our bedroom, places for which Mom made curtains to conceal our treasures.
Mom was an ordered person! There was a time for everything that had to be done! Monday was wash day! Before we had a basement, water was heated and poured into two big tubs in the kitchen. One tub was for washing dirty clothes by hand using a scrub board and the other tub was for rinsing. A hand-operated wringer was used to remove excess water from the clothes. There were sorted piles of clothes everywhere and it was an all-day affair! Then baskets of wet clothes were carried to the clotheslines. In the winter, the clothes froze stiff as a board and it was necessary to carry them inside to finish drying on a clothes rack in the living room. After they dried, the clothes were sprinkled and rolled into balls in preparation for ironing. As a child, I hated Mondays! It was so messy that my sister and I took refuge upstairs.
Tuesday was the day to iron clothes! It meant that several sad irons had to be heated on the cookstove. Sad irons were thick slabs of cast iron, triangular and with a handle, heated in a fire or a stove; they were also called flat irons (Clothes iron). The ironing board was set up and a long day of ironing and starching began which meant lots of standing for Mom. Shirts and dresses and most everything had to be ironed, even sheets, dishtowels, and underwear! What a blessing for Mom when the basement was finished, and electricity came to the farm!
Wednesday was bake day and we loved it! On school days, we would hurry home to find a big wooden board covered with cinnamon rolls. They are still a favorite when I go to a bakery. I did attempt to copy Mom's recipe when my children were young.
Thursday was a catch-up day! It was time for a break! Perhaps, she would finish up a leftover chore, go to Ladies Aid, or write a letter to Marie Nelson, her best friend.
Friday was the day to go to town and shop! She would take her eggs and go to Warroad. The merchant would buy the eggs and she would use the money to buy necessities. She might also visit with family and friends. In the late spring, Grandma and Elof might drop by as they ran their errands and drop off a big bouquet of lilacs they had picked from their front yard.
Saturday was cleaning day! And as we grew older, Mom put us to work cleaning and waxing the floors and dusting everywhere. Big homemade rugs covered the living room and made great places to slide when the floors had been cleaned and waxed. The rugs were made from rags on Grandma's big rug loom. We loved them because they were in every room and kept our feet warm in the winter. Saturday night was bath time! In the winter we got water for our bath by filling the round laundry tub with clean snow and melting it on the cookstove. It was then placed near the kitchen heater so one could keep warm while bathing. In the summer, the tub was filled with water and left outside in the sun to get warm. I remember it was wonderfully soft to wash my long hair in, especially if it was rainwater. Everyone bathed in the same water. So, Carroll was first, I was the last child, then Mom and Dad would bathe last. They kept the bathwater warm by putting in fresh hot water from the cookstove's water reservoir. But I have a feeling that the water was beginning to look a bit gray and grimy by the time Mom and Dad bathed. I loved Saturday night following our bath time and we had been tucked into beds covered with lots of blankets. In the winter, I could see my breath! But once in bed, it was cozy and music from the Grand Ole Opry drifted upstairs as we fell asleep. A chamber pot (also called, thunder jug or slop jar) was kept nearby to avoid trips to the outhouse during cold winter nights.
Sunday began with church and Sunday school! M. M. Landin was a charter member of Zion Lutheran Church in Warroad. In 1926, he led the effort to build Immanuel Lutheran Church in Swift (Roseau County Historical Society, 1985). My siblings and I were baptized at Swift. I was also confirmed there. In the late 1940s when services were discontinued at Swift, M. M.'s son, Carl, bused the children to Warroad for Sunday school. Our parents came later. When I was older, I was asked to teach a class at Zion. After church, Mom would fix a delicious dinner featuring either chicken or a beef roast.
After dinner and the dishes had been done, it was time for visiting either at Grandma's house or at one of the other relatives. If someone in the family was celebrating a birthday, every family baked a cake to share with the others. Can you imagine a table covered with a half-dozen birthday cakes? The uncles and aunts had the opportunity for a lot of good visiting while the cousins played outside. And there was always plenty of good coffee! By my standards today, the coffee was on the weak side, but it was a favored beverage at breakfast, lunch, mid-afternoon snack time, and dinner! At night, Dad liked milk with bread soaked in it.
Mom and Dad were especially busy as Christmas approached. Mom baked lots of spritz cookies, fruitcakes, and "pepperkaka", and making 100 cakes of thin bread with Grandma and her sisters in the wellhouse at Grandma's house was an annual ritual. They never had a lot of money, but they never failed to order special gifts from the Montgomery Ward Catalog. We could hardly wait to open those mysterious big packages under my parent's bed.
Dad was responsible for procuring the lutefisk which was preserved on ice and stocked by local stores during the Christmas season. "A legend has it that Viking fishermen hung their cod to dry on tall birch racks. When some neighboring Vikings attacked, they burned the racks of fish, but a rainstorm blew in from the North Sea, dousing the fire. The remaining fish soaked in a puddle of rainwater and birch ash for months before some hungry Vikings discovered the cod, reconstituted it and had a feast." (Lutefisk) It was the main entre served with Swedish meatballs and white gravy at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve.
We always made room for a big Christmas Tree. On Christmas Eve, Dad would hitch up Babe to the sled, go out into the woods behind our home, and select a perfect spruce tree. We loved digging out the old trimmings and decorating it that afternoon. I can still remember the fragrant spruce odor that filled the room and the lighting of the candles for a brief time. When electricity came, colored electric lights replaced the candles.
Christmas Eve was usually shared with family (as many as two dozen people) at Grandma's house. After we had enjoyed the Christmas feast, my cousin Adeline and I organized the grandchildren for a program that included memory verses learned in Sunday school and traditional Christmas songs. We always closed with Silent Night. Then we went home and hung our stockings by the chimney near the wood heater in the kitchen where Santa could find them.
Christmas Day finally arrived, and we checked out stockings with gusto! They were filled with fruits and nuts and books from Dad's Aunt Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte was a faculty member at St. Cloud State Teachers College in St. Cloud, Minnesota from 1912-38 and President of the Alumni Association in 1919 and 1936-38 (Cates, 1968). She never married, was always involved in education, and never forgot her family. We loved all the books she gave us every year. We ended the day with relatives as we celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior.
We rode to school with Dave Fast in his car. Later, Carl Landin was our bus driver, a position he held for 38 years. Our school was a modem, two-room school with a library and two restrooms. Grades 1 - 3 were in one room, and grades 4 - 6 were in the other room. Mother had to fix lunch for us each day. It was usually a sandwich made with homemade bread and jam and a cookie. We sometimes carried it in syrup buckets. In those days, syrup was sold in one-gallon tin buckets which were kept for this purpose.
When I was in the fifth grade, contagious diseases were going through the community. I remember that Del and I caught scarlet fever and had to be restricted at home for at least two weeks. During the day, Mom put us in our parents' bed where she could keep a close watch over us without repeatedly going upstairs. She must have been very worried about us! I do not recall seeing a doctor. Even when I had pneumonia, she treated me at home by messaging my chest with mustard and placing a hot cloth on it.
Very rarely was one ill enough to visit a doctor. There was a big jar of cod liver oil in our cupboard. At the end of a meal, Dad would take a tablespoon out and ask each one of us six children to march around the table to him and swallow his portion. In the 1930s, home remedies were common! All sorts of household items of medicinal and nutritional value were peddled by the local Rawleigh Products salesperson who called on farmers, took their order and then delivered the products. Cod Liver Oil is a source of Vitamin A and D
We sometimes made weekend trips to visit the Edgar and Lois Johnson Family at Willow Creek, some ten miles from Swift, near Rocky Point. Aunt Lois was Dad’s sister. The visit often included berry picking in woods near their home and we enjoyed playing with our cousins. A trip of greater distance that I recall was made in 1937. We joined Dad’s brother, Jim, and his wife, Anna, and their family and we traveled in Uncle Jim’s pickup truck. We went to Union, North Dakota, to attend the 65th Wedding Anniversary Party of Dad and Jim’s maternal grandparents. Jim fixed benches in the bed of the truck to sit on and a canopy over the bed for protection. Four adults and five small children made the trip. The adults took turns sitting in the front with the driver. I recall Mom seated with her back against the cab of the pickup truck, bumping along with us kids. She probably enjoyed the break from her daily routine and especially all the visiting and good food prepared by Dad and Jim’s relatives there.
Mom and Dad were happily married for twenty years. Their lives were filled with joy and hardship which they weathered together, trusting in their Lord to sustain them. Mom did have some health issues the last few years of her life. According to her Death Certificate, she had chronic nephrosis and mitral stenosis. During the last year of her life, she was seen by Dr. K. L. Nelson of Warroad who found she had colon cancer. Cancer screening and diagnosis technology was not well developed, and modern colonoscopy procedures were not available until 1970
On August 3, Dad took Mom to the Warroad Municipal Hospital. Since I was the oldest, he asked me to accompany him and stay with her overnight. Even then I was in denial and thought we would be back home in a few days. I kept watch over her during the night. The nurse on duty came in periodically and administered morphine. At one point, Mom awakened and complained of the pain she was experiencing. What seemed like a short time later, the nurse returned, checked her pulse, and pronounced her dead! Her pain was over! She died at 3:47 a.m. August 4, 1952. I called Dad who came to the hospital immediately and we drove home to give the sad news to the other children and the relatives.
Mom's funeral was held at Zion Lutheran Church in Warroad at 2 p.m. on August 8, 1952. She was buried at Warroad's Riverside Cemetery in a lot adjacent to that used to bury Uncle Jim after he was killed in a hunting accident in 1945. When I think of my mother, several special moments flood over me. One was when she taught me the 23rd Psalm. It has remained my favorite! A special hymn, Children of the Heavenly Father, reminds me of her, too! It is a Swedish Hymn and was also a favorite of her father. God took her home where He had prepared a special place for her. And one day, I believe, I will see her again.
Epilogue
Seven months after Mom died, Dad married Mom's cousin, Anna Knudson, who had been married to his brother, Jim, for thirteen years before she was widowed in 1945. Jim and Anna had five children. In 1953, Floyd, the oldest of their children was almost 20 years old and soon would be serving in the Army. I was 20 and a student at Concordia College in Moorhead. So, in the combined family, there were nine children living in our farm home in Swift. Anna was a wonderful companion for Dad and a caring mom for my younger siblings. In a January 1987 "Meet Your Zion Neighbor" article of a newsletter from Zion Lutheran Church in Warroad, "Anna says that bringing up all her children was the best time of her life." Dad and Anna were happily married for 30 years. Dad died in 1983 at age 75 and Anna died in 2000 at age 94. They are buried at Riverside Cemetery in adjacent family lots. Dad is buried beside Mom and Anna is buried beside Jim.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank my sister, Del Cirelli, my brother, Ron Knudson, and my cousins, Berit Nilsson and Marilyn Bakken, who answered questions I had about certain events or with whom I discussed various parts of the manuscript. And, to my cousins, Karen Anderson Teska and Marjorie Landin Steinhauer, and my cousin's wife, La Vonne Knudson, whose family histories I consulted and were important motivators for my work. Also, my husband, Larry, who typed my handwritten manuscript and then reviewed and edited it. In addition, he researched and documented certain events and inserted digital copies of photographs in the manuscript.
About the Author
Joyce Piper was born and raised in rural Swift, Minnesota, a small community in Roseau County on the shore of Lake of Woods, not far from the northernmost part of the United States. She attended elementary school in Swift and graduated from high school in nearby Warroad in 1950. Afterward, she worked in Warroad and attended the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis one semester before enrolling in Concordia College at Moorhead, Minnesota, where she majored in elementary education, participated in drama, and received her BS Degree in 1956. Joyce then enjoyed a twelve-year career as an elementary school teacher in Colorado Springs, San Diego, Honolulu, and Monterey, California before becoming a military wife in 1968. She and her husband lived in Texas, Germany, and Virginia before retiring in 1980 to their current location in Bryan, Texas. They have three children and six grandchildren and are active members of Bethel Lutheran Church in Bryan where she still enjoys singing in the Sanctuary Choir.
November 2020
[A more complete biography of Randolph and Linnea Knudson, written by Joyce, can be found in their file in the Office of Advancement.]