104. August 1928 Part 1

A letter in which Jonas Victor tells about the early years and how hard his wife Anna Greta worked, sewing.  Another letter tells of all the garden she raised and canned for food for them  It is one of the few about her life.  Roselyn


Omaha, Nebraska
August, 1928


Dear Brother Albert,
     I received your letter--many thanks.  It is always nice to get a letter from you.
     I am now in Omaha, 200 miles north of my home in Randolph. Kansas.
     
(Then some writing about a long ago debt when his wife's estate in Hamra was settled.  It seems he was owed some money, but says he does not remember.)
          
     I have had so much income, so I did not need the money.  God has blessed us with so much.  If it had been during the first 13 years, I would probably have remembered.  During that time it was difficult many times.
     We had grasshoppers twice.  They ate all the harvest.  We had cattle, but they were not worth much.  Some years we had a little harvest, so we had the food we needed.  We lived in a poor house, but it was better than others, who had to dig an earthen cave or live in a sod house.  
     We had money and Mother (his wife Anna Greta) made butter, which we could exchange for what we needed.  When I look back, I can see that God helped so much.  Thanks be to God's holy name.
     During this time, my wife sewed clothes for the children--caps, sweaters, coats, waistcoats and trousers. She made everything with her hands.  She was busy late in the evening, many times after midnight.
   She wrote to her mother about our life here.  Her mother wanted to help her with sewing.  My wife answered that the biggest help would be to have a sewing machine.  Her mother sent $88.58 cents.  I do not remember, but I think that a dollar was not more than three Swedish crowns.  My mother-in-law had enough money, so she could send without any trouble.