1928-8-31 Letter from Olga Eikelid to Olufine Solberg (Olga Mortenson) (Ltr31)

[Olga Eikelid, then living in Bergen, would have been 23 years old, writing to 33-year-old Olufine in Dodson]

[A note from the translator (Arne), "the translation of a text from one language always bring with it a danger that you might miss the message between the lines, even if the translation is technically correct. That is also what makes it so difficult to translate words or sentences directly. A lot of things comes through by the words chosen, and so it is with Olga`s letter as well."]

Landåsveien, the 31.8.1928

Dear Fina! [Olufine later Olga Mortenson]

Good day, and a thousand thanks for the letter I got. I would have written a long time ago, but I have been waiting so (much) for a letter from home, because I wanted to know how they are doing at Skor, before I wrote (back to you). And now finally I got a letter from AGNES.

They are doing fine at home although I'm not with them. Mother [Sigrid, then 55 years old] has recovered to good health, now that she is free from going so often to the meadows.

[Translator's Note: "the reference to "meadows" could be meaningless if you don´t know or consider the topography (landscape formations) of Skor. As you will note from the various pictures, Skaar is located almost at lake level in Skor valley. So are the fields where hay and corn were grown. These fields around the houses were reserved for domestic use in summer, and no animals were kept there. This means that the cattle, goats and sheep were grazing in mountain meadows several steep kilometres walking distance higher. The difference in elevation could be 300 m or more. Since it didn`t make sense to drive the herds down from the mountain for milking, and back up again twice aday, it was common that the women went up to milk and feed the animals "on site". They carried corn and salt up, and full canisters of milk down again. Actually, this was definitely much more of a problem for the families living at the Skaar farms than for Solaas and Solaasgjerdet. Not only did the latter lie closer to the meadows, and also elevated above the valley, but there was even a small creek where the cattle came to drink. Thus the women from Solaas had a much shorter way to go, and they didn`t have to climb the mountain to the same extent. It may well be that Olga`s mother has had problems with her knees or feet after years of climbing the hills with heavy loads."]

KAREN [Eikelid, Olga's sister] shall receive her confirmation this autumn, so now she is working almost as good as an adult, so as to stand (her time) with a certain work. So now the help is good any way we want to take it. I will go home now for a short time during the hardest (harvesting) work, because I will have holiday in eight days. It will not come as I wrote in my letter to Albert. I wrote that it was possible that AGNES [Eikelid, Olga's sister] would go to the sewing school in the winter, and I would have to stay home. But regrettably there will be no sewing school. I would rather stay out, and the way things are developing now, I will have that possibility. But if I stay here during the winter is uncertain. It is so uncomfortable to do the barn/stables when it is cold. I have applied for a position at Damsgård, but I don't know if I will get it. There it's only normal household work. They have three children under confirmation age, the youngest is only three years old. I don't think it is a bad place. I hope I get it. It is worse going to the stables here than home. Last year I froze so much on my hands that I had wounds.

[Translator's Note: "The sewing courses and housekeeping courses where offered to young girls, so that they could learn the practical everyday skills needed either to work as a maid for wealthier people, or as preparation for marriage. They were voluntary, and I recall them dying out sometime around 1975. It wasn`t a formal education allowing access f.i. to university, but rather preparing for life as a worker. As for her work in the stables, I would guess that she had her wounds on her hands from carrying cold water to the animals, breaking ice, distributing fodder, milking etc; - hand work in a cold climate."]

But I have it good otherwise in that respect. I have been allowed to take a course in housekeeping, but mother said I shouldn't (do it) just in the wintertime. It could be another time of the year. You ask me to tell you how people are doing in Skor valley now. There they are like the weather. They can be in the best friendship, then it is totally turnaround as bitter enemies. Yes, you will know that from before. And Guro is the source vomiting out (rumors). As you know she and Anna has often been good friends, but now they want to tear the hair off each other. It came about after the wedding celebration. Guro had been talking to Olga then, she was home at the time. Yes, Anna got more than enough then, as well on the attic as in the barn. But she didn't mention Kristine; she shall have been just as crazy. Her father had come over her, as she was with a boy from Hovlandsdalen, he's still going to school. I will not say what Nils said as he came over them; it was so rude also. Such things will Guro be silent on. You will probably know that Kristine was in Hovlandsdalen this winter; and there she was complained to the priest for the same thing, and still it had to repeat itself at the wedding celebration. I think the youth there home is worse now than other places, you can hardly stay there.

[Translator's Note:, "She was obviously referring to sex ( and probably alchohol as well), when she refers to Anna. She is also angered by the double standards of Guro, since Kristine is obviously a relative (daughter?) of Guro who is messing around., and Olga doesn`t approve of condemning Anna for doing the same thing as Kristine. The passage where she expresses her indignation that Kristine was with a schoolboy is quite amusing these days; but that must have been a double sin in those days. She is also referring to the fact that even appealing to the highest moral instance, the priest, has not caused Kristine to change her ways."]

Now Kristine is with Moses in Skor. She would have liked to go back to Hovlandsdalen, but they didn't want her. Otherwise it is said to have been a lot of fun at the wedding. They started a Thursday night and kept it going until Monday morning. At first I regretted that I was not allowed to come, but now I think it is just as good that it went the way it went.

Margit in Utløebakken is also married now. Olga, Andreas´ daughter, is not married yet. I have spoken to her some time ago. Then she didn't know what time it would be. I don´t know what work she has, but he's free (out of work) and it is said they are living together. Always when she is home, is he following her.

Anna is now in Haugesund with her sister Helene. Her husband was lying almost in death (throes) because of a brain inflammation, but how he's doing now, I don't know. Anna has nobody (as far as I know) with whom she is going. After she went to the sewing school she had one she was writing to in the vicinity, but he supposedly only laughed at her. I have no knowledge of who he was.

You are asking about the wife of Johannes in Skaret. It is she who was at the priest at the same time as he was. After she was there, she traveled soon here soon there. To the city and back again, he had to help her with money to get her away again. Then he also quit at the priest (farm) and stayed home some weeks.

[Translator's Note: "The reference to Johannes and Inger vs. the priest is a tricky one. Olga never writes "farm" in connection with the "priest", it is however evident from the text that they have been working for the priest. In those days, every priest had a farm as part of his parish, mostly located directly next to the church. This was done all over Scandinavia, so that the priest would earn a living locally, and not be dependent on outside help. The priests often had hired hands to take care of the farming, since the priests were considered too noble to work with their own hands. It was also common that sons and daughters of poor families worked periodically for the priest, (or the sheriff or the doctor), in order to get some food, education or pay back debt. Thus the entire text passage obviously refers to working in the household or farm of the priest, even if the word farm doesn`t appear. It would seem that Johannes has been a hired farm hand and Inger a maid in the priest´s household."]

His parents didn't even know his address. Then they didn't know any word of anything before the advertisements of intended marriage stood in the newspapers. But then the mother cried. A time thereafter he came strolling home with wife and child and stayed in Skaret a while. Now then it was somehow bad and she traveled with her child back to the city. He stayed at home. But then she suffered poverty in all ways, and then he had to travel to (her to) bring her back again. Now he is renting the farm from Sivert. But I have no knowledge of how they are doing otherwise. Lina is staying in the hospital, unless she has recently come out. She has supposedly been lying there a couple of months. I have not gotten round to visit her.

She had told Agnes as she left that she would write to me, and I have been waiting for it but not received any letter, so I do not know if she would like it if I went in to (see) her. Yes I feel pitiful for her, a young person having to lay like that.

I have been in to the huge country fair some times. Yes there are a lot of fine work pieces of everything possible there. But it is also easy to get rid of money in there. So I will have to keep away from it now.

Now I must stop my mess (handwriting) for this time. Shall write again, if I get my new job. At the end a friendly greeting to you from

Olga Eikelid. .........

A heartfelt greeting to Albert with thanks for the greetings I became from him. You will see that I come over to you one fine day, if I keep my health. I have always been healthy and strong, and so I am now as well.

[Albert had proposed marriage in a letter just two months past. He wrote Olga just two weeks earlier with detailed instructions about getting to America. I wonder if she had received that letter yet!]

As I am going home, I shall go up to your parents and see how they are doing. -

Be kind and do not let them folks home know what I have been writing about -