Babies & Log Cabins

Last week we bought a dresser off of craigslist for the baby. This ended a months long saga of me being disproportionally stressed about not having a dresser for all the baby's clothes and a place to put the diaper changing pad. Aaron, being the rational man that he is, kept saying that I should hold off until a good deal popped up. After checking Craigslist and the Facebook yardsale pages daily for way longer than my normal attention span, I became convinced that we should just shell out and buy one in a store. The idea of not having a dresser ready to go when the baby came was a huge deal for me.

Around this time I got an email from my Aunt Cecelia who is serving a mission in the Family History Library. She sent out a link to a digitized copy of a family history book. I read through the stories of my not-so-distant ancestors and came to the conclusion that I'm spoiled rotten. I'm going to share some stories about my Grandma, Great-Grandma, and Great-Great-Grandma from when they were at the same stage of life as me.

Great-Great-Grandma Anna Sophia
Anna Sophia and Gustaf Johnson were Swedish Immigrants who settled in the Idaho frontier. They had 10 kids. Here's some excerpts from a history written by my Great-Grandpa, Gustaf Henry Johnson.

"Early in June Gustaf received word that a son had been
born to him. With fifty dollars in his pocket, he hastened back to Hyde
Park. The child was named Gustaf Henry. He was born in a lean-to
at the home of Sam Seamons, a kind friend who cared for the mother
and the baby. The family moved into their home and remained in
Hyde Park until the spring of 1887."

After that, Gustaf moved his little family to Idaho to try farming with his brother, Olaf. Let me say here that I have always loved that I have ancestors named Gustaf and Olaf.

"The brothers hauled logs from the mountains and built a cabin for Gustaf
in the vicinity of the present location of the Archer (Idaho) Meeting
House. The door was of cottonwood lumber which swelled and shrank
according to the humidity. The cabin consisted of one large room
divided by "factory cloth" into kitchen and bedroom. Poles served for
roof and ceiling and were covered with straw and dirt. One opening
in the kitchen and one opening in the bedroom covered with canvas
served for the windows. The bedroom floor was of cottonwood lumber;

one-half of the kitchen had a board floor, the rest was dirt." 

The farm thing flopped pretty hard that year, so Gustaf travelled to a slightly bigger town where he lived in shoeshop and worked for the winter. Anna Sophia stayed behind in the cabin with baby Henry. It hit -40 degrees a few times that winter and Anna only had a straw mattress, a blanket, and two quilts. She worried that the baby would die if he got uncovered during the night.

Dang.

This next part that Great-Grandpa Henry wrote is pretty great. This is talking about how his younger siblings were born. 

"...The matter of being born

in those days was a comparatively simple affair. When the time drew

nigh, the little mare was hitched to the cart and was rushed down the

road as though headed for a fire. Neighbors always had a way of knowing

that a new arrival was expected. A Mrs. Stevens from Jarnigan and

a Mrs. Cook who lived at Eagle Rock were the midwives who served

the family during these years. The midwife came and performed the

essential delivery and came back at intervals during the next two weeks

for the follow up work. The fee for the complete service was $10.00,

but even $10.00 was real money in those days. Usually Father did the

essential chores about the house and the neighbor women also came in

to help. It is surprising how precocious young children were even in

those days. We figured out where babies came from. It was very simple.

The midwife brought them in her black satchel."

Great-Grandma Esther
Esther grew up in a pretty well off family in Sweden. Gustaf Henry met her when he was there serving his mission, and she moved to America to marry him a few years later. They were married in 1910 and moved into a 2 room house where they had 3 of their 8 children. They then moved to a farmhouse where they frequently had to house hired farmhands. Esther had to feed the six to ten men on top of taking care of her kids. She also had to chop all the wood needed to cook, clean, and warm the house. They did eventually get running water, electricity, a telephone, and a furnace in the 1920's... but then the Great Depression hit. They had 7,000 sacks of potatoes that were completely worthless- no farmers could sell any of their produce. They gave the potatoes away to neighbors to use as pig feed and had to sell their remodeled house and move to a smaller farm with no electricity, well water, bathrooms, or furnace. Esther's 8th child was 1 year old when that happened.






Grandma Johnson
Grandma Johnson had her first two kids while Grandpa was serving in the Air Force during WWII. He was transferred all over the country every few months and they constantly thought that he was going to be deployed to Europe, even though he never was. Grandma lived near wherever Grandpa was stationed when she could and lived with relatives the rest of the time. They even lived in a converted chicken coop for a bit after Uncle Jerry was born. Grandma was living with her in-laws when Aunt Jean was born. Grandpa wasn't able to come see them until 10 days after she was born, and was only able to stay for a few weeks before heading back to the base.

Grandma and Grandpa with baby Jerry

That level of instability and uncertainty is hard for me to imagine. I am quite settled with a house and more than what we need to be comfortable. I am quite attached to my Aaron and imagining him only being able to see me and Elliot every few months is saddening. He would miss so much! Grandpa wasn't in the delivery room for the first two kids, and had to pretend to be an assisting doctor to get into the delivery room for their third kid. I'm glad that we live in a day and age where the expectations for fathers have changed and Aaron will able to be with me every step of the way.

My dad was born (kid #7) after a particularly bad winter. They had blizzard after blizzard and the roads would get blocked with snow. Grandma kept having false labor pains and would have to make calls to get the snowplow to come and clear the road to the farm so that they could get to the hospital, only to get sent home. That happened three times before my dad was finally born in March. Yet another reason to be grateful for Arizona weather...


All of this really puts things into perspective. "I have so many cute baby outfits in bags instead of a dresser" doesn't really seem like a hardship anymore. We are truly living in a world with comforts that are absurd when you take a step back. A lot of things that I thought of as "needs" in order to get ready for the baby really are not that important. Does that mean that we should get rid of all our earthly possessions? NO! But I for one am going strive to be more grateful for all the things I have.