Chapter 26. We work

Ed Appleseth

To do what needs to be done – to work – is likely part of my genetic structure. I come from an upline of business owners and farmers, pioneers and homesteaders. I offer a few of their stories. [There are many more accessible via our ancestry.com trees.]

On my dad’s (George) side:

- George’s father: Edward Appleseth established a produce business in Clarkfield, MN in 1918 – at the ripe age of 25 years old -  that he continued to operate until he died in 1955. Ed homesteaded for a couple of years in northern Minnesota before settling down in the produce plant. 

A 1951 Clarkfield Advocate full-page ad reveals, "In the early days the present produce station housed the egg and poultry business, along with the tire vulcanizing and sales service... Where the present Jean and Walt's cafe is location was in the beginning used for the cream station... James operates the Produce plant and, at present, George does the trucking, but plans to attend college this fall. Roy is in charge of the farm near Boyd." 
Aunt Jean commented, “other people would go to church, talk politics, watch baseball games; not the Appleseths, they were all work, work, work.”

- George’s grandparents: “The Appelseth story: A time of pioneering” is told in a centennial special article of the Clarkfield Advocate. It was written in 1984 by Inga (Mrs. Russell Johnson), the youngest child of Johan (1859-1930) and Johanna (1860-1912), who immigrated from Norway to America in spring of 1884.

Their life adventure involves a three-week steamboat trip, arrival at Ellis Island, travel to Chicago, and then on to Minnesota. Next up was work as a farm hand and carpenter for Johan and as a household laborer for Johanna, with marriage in fall of 1884. Residence at Johan’s brother Ole’s place followed until they could purchase land, first 40 acres and later 80 acres at $9 an acre. There was the building of a sod dug-out and barn next, followed by eventual pay-as-you-go five-bedroom wood house three miles south of Clarkfield. They made their own farming implements; Johan raised chickens and cows and did the field work, walking behind a horse-drawn cultivator or walking plow.

Johanna spun wool fleece into yarn, knitted socks and mittens, cooked for her family and the threshing teams, butchered cows and pigs and chickens. Together they birthed 11 children, 5 of whom grew to adulthood. 
Inga concludes the article with “Our parents were sustained by their faith, and in spite of their hardships, they looked forward to a brighter future for their children.”

On my mom’s (Adeline) side:

George Hubbard house, Wethersfield 1637

 -Adeline’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather: Way, way back in the Puritan days, George Hubbard (1594-1683, my 9^th great grandfather) and wife Mary (Bishop, {1605-1676}, married in 1624 or 1627) immigrated from England with their two children Mary and John (John is my ancestor, born circa 1630 or 1633), to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633. More of their story can be read here. In short, they traveled inland, endured a bitter cold winter and subsisted on acorns and malt and grain. George surveyed the Wethersfield area in 1639 and ultimately purchased land for Wethersfield from the Indian chief Sowheag of the Mattabsestts, Wongunks  or Blackhills Indians in 1639 (signed confirmation of the purchase on 16 June 1665 in Guilford, CT). George settled in Milford, CT in 1639, moving in 1650 to Guilford. CT.

Adolph Hartfiel, 1865-1939

-Adeline’s grandfather: Adoph Hartfiel (1865-1939, my great grandfather) came to America with his parents in May 1873. His family lived on a farm in Faribault County, MN until May 1878, when they moved to Yellow Medicine County. The year before, Adolph's father, Wilhelm. had visited the county and filed homestead claims. Grandma tells the story of Wilhelms’s three sons –

Emil Hartfiel, 1861-1891

Emil, Adolph (both eventually husband to Emma, my great grandmother), and Theodore – while in their early to late teens, lived in separate shanties one winter to be able to keep adjacent homestead claims. The neighbor ladies baked bread for them. Tougher times were just ahead. In the fall of 1880 “one of the famous prairie fires swept over the vicinity and destroyed all the possessions of the Hartfiels except the house. During the “snow winter” the family ran short of provisions and like many of their neighbors were obliged to manufacture their flour from wheat in a coffeemill. Hay and straw supplied the fuel, and Adolph remembers that during that winter he was obliged to carry straw on his back a distance of half a mile that the house might be kept warm.” (History of Yellow Medicine County, published 1914)

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: 

if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

- ANNE BRADSTREET, Meditations Divine and Moral

Though life seems rather crazy in our 1998, we too work. We do what needs to be done (enduring far less hardship than some of our forbearers’ hardship).

We work our jobs.

We work our relationship.

We tend our family.

We relax and recreate.

Thankfully, there is some normalcy, and some play mixed in with the work.

We continue our family tradition of taking a Minnesota state park camping vacation – this trip is to northern Minnesota iron ore country. We enjoy time together in August: for many years our camping time away happens solely in the first couple of weeks of August, after summer soccer ends and before school sports practice begins. But we cut our leisure short by a day or two due to an unhappy eldest son with typical adolescent desires to be with friends rather than family, and who is also kinda depressed about a girl. It brings his sister down, which then affects the younger boys - normal family stuff, I think?

We have a ‘typical’ Sunday: during a late summer 1998 Sunday afternoon Gregg and I watch racing on TV and go to a church softball game at the park, Gregg fishes with Danny (age 10) and friend, Mark (13) watches TV, Becky (15) goes to a friend’s house, Seth (17) sleeps after most likely being up all or most of the night gaming.

We continue learning. I persist with my childbirth education teaching, and educating myself: I go to a small group gathering where childbirth educator author and visionary Suzanne Arms gives a presentation on the future of birthing in America. I relate what she says about birthing and stressors to my ‘problems’ – egoic me can make most anything about me. In greater kindness to self, maybe I’ll say here that I keep trying to understand self.

August 3, 1998

Suzanne says we have done our society a great disservice in separating mom and baby so much after birth and in the first year, and medicating babes with drugs used during labor - it causes the wee ones to pump out stress hormones too many and too soon, and screws up their little mechanism that is able to shut off the stress hormones when it gets to be too much.

Personally, I believe that is some of my problem, as there was much separation between my mom and me when I was a baby, and there was little tenderness through my growing up (along with mom being heavily drugged for my birth, and bottlefeeding me).

I believe that contributed to a messed-up regulatory system of cortisol and adrenaline: which causes some damage to brain cells and neurotransmitters; which also affects emotions; which predisposes me toward depression, anxiety, and lower impulse control.

That doesn't give me license to not work at mastering my impulses; with God's help I will move the direction of self-control and service. But, it does help me understand things a bit better.

I continue to work at fighting the depression within and attempt to piece together what effects my childhood environment had on me. Looking back, I realize that maybe there were similar emotional struggles within my mom, though it seemed to manifest – in her 1960s childrearing years – as anxiety that was primarily treated with tranquilizers (I believe anxiety and depression are close cousins). Seems like the anxiety contributed to some separation from intimate relating with me and all her kids.

I’m pretty sure there was a hefty dose of separation around my birth too. I read, in some of the literature I’ve found among mom’s stuff: that upon admittance to the hospital in 1957, a laboring mom was first given a combination of morphine and scopolamine “twilight sleep” that took away memory of the labor, then she was offered an anesthetic or sleeping pill, and then a “saddle block” spinal anesthesia to relieve any pain of late labor and pushing (that often caused an inability to push and necessitated use of forceps). She was drugged up, indeed.

Grandma & Grandpa's house (P. Just's) during our childhood visits

To complicate matters, when Mom was laboring with me, Dad needed to take firstborn Cindy from Brookings, SD to Clarkfield, MN for Grandma (Ursula) to take care of her. As he traveled, he encountered a snow storm. Mom casually mentions, in a 1995 birthday note to me that Dad barely got back for my birth. “Course I was in the hospital all day before you were born.” Some anxiety from the beginning, I'd say.

At least he got back for the birth.

I don’t really know what effect those specific events had or have on my present emotional struggles. I can merely speculate. 

So I work with what I know or have or am. 

I continue to experiment with depression medication: taking myself off occasionally and paying attention to emotions and relational dynamics. Off the Zoloft (SSRI-selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) I feel more irritable, and acknowledge the irritability and abruptness to Gregg, and express my appreciation of his love and tenderness.

August 11, 1998. Note to Gregg:

Thanks for being willing to work at accepting me - a very imperfect woman and wife.....I've totally given up my delusion of being the 'girl of your dreams'....I'm accepting that I'll never be enough for you - ONLY GOD will...and ONLY GOD will be enough for me too. 

Though it can sometimes be difficult to be wholly attentive at my paid work as secretary to the Director of the St. Olaf Bookstore, out-of-the-home work is mostly a good distraction and brings some needed affirmation. I appreciate and record some words from Dan, my boss, at my first-ever performance evaluation.

I am needing to hear these positives.

August 18, 1998

"Your diplomacy in facilitating communication between me and my reps, vendors, staff, college colleagues has been excellent."

"Your communication skills including not only use of language both written and verbal, but sensitivity and tact, are superb."

"Your workplace style and behavior are above reproach, in fact a model for others to emulate. You're all business at the appropriate times and yet 'one of the gang' at others."

"Your ability to maintain a high standard of productivity regardless of where I am, is a testament to your understanding of your position as it relates to mine and others on my staff."

"You think well on your feet and can change direction with no advance warning. You fit in well assisting me as a change agent on both campuses."

"Aside from the specifics already discussed, what I value most highly about your performance is your ability to assimilate information quickly and turn out a quality product with dispatch."