Nordic American Voices Nordic Heritage Museum
Interview of Joy Haglund Webber, Barbara Jane Webber Bly, and Katherine Webber Hawthorne March 15, 2014 Fir-Conway Lutheran Church Conway, Washington
Interviewers: Gordon Strand
Gordon Strand: [0:01] Today is March 15, 2014. We are at the Fir-Conway Lutheran Church in Conway, Washington conducting an interview for the Nordic American Voices oral history project of the Nordic Heritage Museum. My name is Gordon Strand, and I am joined here today by… And if you would identify yourself- your name, what year you were born, and where you were born, and how you relate to each other.
Barbara Jane Webber Bly: [0:29] I’ll introduce us all. This is our mother, Joy Laverne Haglund Weber. She was born in Mount Vernon, Washington, in 1925. My name is Barbara Webber Bly, and I was born in Everett, Washington, in 1954. This is my sister Katherine Webber Hawthorne, and she was born in 1965. Okay. From Everett, Washington.
Gordon: [1:04] Okay. Whenever you want to start… Could you talk about your family, and who was the immigrant in your family, and what do you know about why they came?
Joy Haglund Webber: [1:14] Well, my dad went up to Canada and ran the camps up there. I don’t know why he did at that time. But then after he came down, he opened up the store at Avon, across the river right there. And he was there for quite a few years. Then after…
Gordon: [1:42] What was his name?
Joy: [1:44] [Laughter] E…
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Barbara: [1:49] Emmanuel.
Joy: [1:50] Emmanuel.
Barbara: [1:50] Emmanuel Olaf Haglund. And he went by Manny.
Gordon: [1:54] Manny Haglund.
Joy: [1:55] His family was actually from Stanwood, up in that area. So, his mother, I think, and all the relatives up there. So… but anyway…
Barbara: [2:11] Let’s see. We were looking yesterday- Kath and Mom and I… Grandpa Manny Haglund was born in Hudson, Wisconsin, right, Kath? That we looked up. And then his family emigrated from… came from Sweden to the United States. He was born in Wisconsin, and then they moved to Stanwood. Our grandpa was born in 1888. Our Grandpa Haglund. So, my mother’s father.
Gordon: [2:46] 1888.
Barbara: [2:48] 1888. Mm hmm.
Katherine Webber Hawthorne: [2:50] And I remember… Was it Grandma Haglund? Yeah, Grandpa’s mother. She came… I thought she had a job in New York, and did some housekeeping.
Joy: [3:02] Oh, right.
Katherine: [3:03] Maybe to make money to come you know, out here. Do you remember anything about that?
Joy: [3:09] Yeah. I do now that I hear it.
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Katherine: [3:11] Yeah. And she worked really hard.
Barbara: [3:15] Do you know what Grandpa’s father did? Do you remember what he did?
Katherine: [3:21] He was a bricklayer.
Barbara: [3:23] Was he a bricklayer?
Katherine: [3:24] Yeah.
Barbara: [3:25] So did…
Katherine: [3:25] He worked on the prison in Bismarck.
Gordon: [3:28] Oh.
Barbara: [3:29] Wow.
Katherine: [3:30] North Dakota. Yeah.
Barbara: [3:31] So they were in North Dakota maybe then, for a period of time before they moved here.
Katherine: [3:34] I just remembered that now.
Gordon: [3:35] But you mentioned Wisconsin is where your father was born, correct?
Barbara: [3:41] Yes.
Gordon: [3:44] So, they must have been there, too.
Barbara: [3:45] Uh huh. Probably all those stepping stones with the Scandinavian cultures as they
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came out from Sweden. And then you said yesterday about Grandpa’s mother... What was it that you were talking about? What else about Grandpa’s mother? Or was it Grandma’s mother that we were talking about?
Katherine: [4:10] In what respect?
Barbara: [4:12] That one of them was up in Granite Falls for a period of time?
Katherine: [4:18] Oh, that was… Yeah. Mom’s grandmother, Anna Olson. For some reason, the family took her in and cared for her. So maybe she was failing and they… for some reason, maybe they were related… Do you remember that?
Joy: [4:38] I can’t remember what or who.
Gordon: [4:41] When you were growing up, what did your father talk about- his family, and why they came? Did they ever talk about why they came from Sweden, or anything like that?
Joy: [4:54] I don’t recall anything like that. I’m sorry.
Gordon: [4:59] Did you know them- your grandparents?
Joy: [5:01] Pardon me?
Gordon: [5:01] Did you know your grandparents?
Joy: [5:04] Any of them, did I know? I don’t think I knew any of them, did I?
Barbara: [5:09] Yeah.
Katherine: [5:11] Remember? Here’s the Haglund family. And the Sandbergs in Stanwood. And Uncle Joe, and Julius, and Grandpa, and Emma.
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Joy: [5:22] Mm hmm.
Katherine: [5:23] Do you remember anything?
Barbara: [5:24] Yeah, so there’s my grandma. So the Haglund homestead is in Stanwood, and it’s still standing. The house that they lived in. And then our grandmother was Hildur Elizabeth Sandberg Haglund. So that was my mother’s mother. And she was born in Cedarhome, which is part of Stanwood.
Gordon: [5:50] Right.
Barbara: [5:51] And she was Swedish, also. And so then… let’s see. I know that my grandmother, around the turn of the century… Hildur was born in 1892. And then our grandfather, like I said, was born in 1888. So our grandfather, when he grew up, he was an accountant, and he was hired by… What was Henning’s first name?
Joy: [6:26] Peter.
Barbara: [6:26] Peter Henning. He lived in that house when you go up the hill from East Stanwood. A beautiful brick place. It’s been there forever.
Katherine: [6:38] There’s a book written about him.
Barbara: [6:41] Yeah. And he helped put the railroad in up in the Fraser River Valley.
Katherine: [6:45] But I do remember Grandma and Grandpa both went to Edison school in Seattle.
Barbara: [6:50] Did they? Yeah, I know Grandma did. Yeah.
Katherine: [6:52] Yeah. And Grandpa did, too.
Barbara: [6:56] And I remember Grandma telling me that she was in school when there was that
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large earthquake down there in Seattle, and how frightening that was for her to be in school down there.
Gordon: [7:10] What year would that have been approximately?
Barbara: [7:13] I would guess it was probably… maybe in the early 1900s. 1910, 1912. Maybe around there.
Gordon: [7:23] Okay.
Barbara: [7:24] Also, Grandma had also her little best friend die from the…
Katherine: [7:27] Oh, the Spanish Flu.
Barbara: [7:27] The Spanish Flu. Yeah.
Gordon: [7:32] So Hildur was a Sandberg.
Barbara: [7:35] Yes.
Gordon: [7:36] And they were from the Cedarhome area, correct?
Barbara: [7:39] Yes.
Gordon: [7:39] Okay. And what do we know about that family origin, then?
Barbara: [7:45] Well, we know…
Katherine: [7:48] Kirby did all that research.
Barbara: [7:49] Yeah.
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Katherine: [7:50] Do you remember anything about why they came here?
Barbara: [7:56] I don’t remember why they actually came here. We have a cousin, Kirby Sandberg, who has done a lot of history- a lot of the history of our family- the Sandberg family. But we do have relatives that are living in Finland that are Swedish-Finns, of course, and are still there. But Grandma, when she was raised, they had the first car in the area here in Stanwood.
Katherine: [8:28] That was Grandpa.
Barbara: [8:30] Oh, Haglund?
Katherine: [8:31] Haglund. But I do remember there was a story that I was told about the Sandbergs- Grandma Sandberg- that they had the farm, and where exactly is that? Because they gave part of the farm for the cemetery…
Barbara: [8:45] In Stanwood.
Gordon: [8:46] Oh, okay.
Joy: [8:47] Yeah, that’s on the other side of the freeway.
Barbara: [8:51] Yeah. It was considered East Stanwood.
Joy: [8:54] Yeah. Up above.
Barbara: [8:56] It’s off of 300 th , I believe. Off the freeway. Yeah.
Katherine: [9:01] And the story went that her first husband died, and he was buried behind the barn in Stanwood.
Gordon: [9:10] Your grandmother, you’re talking about.
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Katherine: [9:11] Yeah. Our… Mom’s grandmother.
Barbara: [9:13] So it would be our great-grandmother.
Katherine: [9:14] Great-grandmother. Yeah.
Gordon: [9:16] Okay.
Katherine: [9:18] And somehow then, she met up with Frank. I never did hear how…
Barbara: [9:23] Frank Sandberg.
Katherine: [9:24] How they met. Do you remember hearing that?
Barbara: [9:27] No. No. And mom just doesn’t remember that as much. Our great-grandmother, you said… What year was it that she was born? Caroline Sandberg was her name. She was the one whose first husband died. And like Kath said, part of the family has a cemetery, that they donated the land. It’s called Pleasant…
Katherine: [9:53] I think it’s Pleasant Hill.
Gordon: [9:54] Pleasant Hill.
Barbara: [9:55] Pleasant Hills. Are you familiar with that?
Gordon: [9:56] I’ve seen the name. Yeah.
Barbara: [9:57] Yeah. And they’re actually buried there. So… yeah.
Gordon: [10:03] Okay. Was she an immigrant, then? Caroline?
Barbara: [10:05] Yeah.
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Gordon: [10:06] She was. A Swede-Finn, you said?
Barbara: [10:08] Yeah.
Gordon: [10:09] So, from Finland?
Barbara: [10:11] Swedish.
Gordon: [10:12] Swedish. Okay.
Barbara: [10:13] Uh huh. And she then had our grandmother- my mother’s mother. Hildur.
Gordon: [10:20] Hildur.
Barbara: [10:21] Right.
Gordon: [10:23] So what were the traditions you had growing up in the home?
Joy: [10:31] I was born in that building over the freeway in…
Barbara: [10:39] Mount Vernon.
Joy: [10:40] Mount Vernon. It used to be a hospital. I was born, I guess, in that. Then all that I can remember is when my dad had the store in Avon. And that’s where we were for a few years.
Katherine: [11:05] Do you remember… What did Grandma used to make for the holidays, or things?
Joy: [11:13] I was so little, I don’t think I remember. I only heard about it.
Katherine: [11:15] She baked a lot… An award-winning baker.
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Barbara: [11:18] Yeah. And she did some…
Joy: [11:20] That was in Everett. After we lived in Everett. Her cakes. She...
Katherine: [11:29] Prizes.
Joy: [11:29] Prizes.
Barbara: [11:31] For the fairs and things like that. She won a lot of awards in the different fairs for her bedspreads, and some of her…
Katherine: [11:39] Crochet.
Barbara: [11:40] Yeah. Mm hmm. But our grandmother, Hildur, she was born in Cedarhome, raised… We have a photo of her beautiful homestead with the family in front of the homestead in a car, and my grandma standing there, and her brothers are in the car. And before my grandparents married, she worked in a boardinghouse as a server in the little restaurant in the boarding house. And then my grandfather came back from Canada where he was actually… What did you say? The camp…
Katherine: [12:18] The Accountant.
Barbara: [12:19] And this is for Mr. Henning, he worked, up in Canada. So he was the accountant, and he ordered all of the…
Katherine: [12:27] Supplies.
Barbara: [12:28] Supplies, and did all the books and everything.
Katherine: [12:31] I think he gave out the paychecks and things, and he said there were fights over the money.
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Barbara: [12:37] Oh, yeah.
Katherine: [12:38] He said it was really rough.
Barbara: [12:40] Yeah.
Gordon: [12:41] This was a logging camp, you said?
Barbara: [12:42] No, railroad. He put…
Gordon: [12:44] Oh, railroad.
Barbara: [12:44] He helped put the railroad in. Yeah. And dynamite…
Joy: [12:47] My dad… When they were making the freeway through, up there. But that was a long time ago, of course, when they put the road through. He said one time when they… you know, were…
Barbara: [13:11] Working on it?
Joy: [13:12] Yeah. And it fell down, and killed one of the workers, I remember.
Katherine: [13:17] The dynamite blew up somebody. And he said he’d never forget those screams as long as he lived.
Gordon: [13:22] Oh.
Katherine: [13:23] Yeah.
Barbara: [13:23] He talked about… it was sixty below zero up there when he worked, at one time.
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Gordon: [13:29] Must be way up there.
Barbara: [13:31] It was…
Katherine: [13:32] Fraser.
Barbara: [13:32] Well, it was right around Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise, in that area that he was.
Gordon: [13:39] So he was working for Peter Henning Sr. The original, not… Yeah.
Barbara: [13:43] Yeah.
Joy: [13:44] And wasn’t he the bookkeeper for a while, too?
Barbara: [13:47] Mm hmm. And then during that time, our grandmother was working down in Cedarhome at that little boarding house. And then my grandfather came back to Stanwood, and they met.
Katherine: [13:56] But I do remember there was something about Grandma, that she always wanted to open a restaurant.
Gordon: [14:02] Oh, yeah?
Katherine: [14:03] Yeah. That was her dream.
Barbara: [14:06] And I became a registered nurse, and I can remember when I was in high school, and I decided to become a registered nurse, and I told my grandma, and she goes, “Oh, Barbara, I always wanted to be a registered nurse.” [Laughter] Isn’t that interesting?
Katherine: [14:20] Yeah. And then you have her guitar. She played the guitar.
Barbara: [14:0222] Yeah, I have her old guitar. She played the guitar.
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Katherine: [14:25] And Grandpa played the fiddle.
Barbara: [14:26] Mm hmm. Yeah.
Katherine: [14:28] I remember that.
Barbara: [14:29] Right. And then…
Katherine: [14:31] Talk about the barn dance.
Barbara: [14:33] Oh, yeah.
Katherine: [14:33] He’d walk through the woods with the fiddle. I remember him talking about that.
Joy: [14:38] From Cedarhome they would go all different places every week, I don’t know. Through the woods.
Gordon: [14:49] Through the woods.
Joy: [14:50] There was this trail that they could walk on. I guess every Saturday night, they did that.
Barbara: [14:57] They did.
Katherine: [14:59] Do you remember him talking about… They would gather the twigs to make brooms.
Joy: [15:04] No, I don’t remember that.
Katherine: [15:05] And he said they would pick berries, and make like that pudding.
Barbara: [15:11] Oh, yeah.
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Katherine: [15:11] And that would be their dessert, all through winter.
Barbara: [15:14] I can remember Grandpa, when we were little kids, he would come, and we lived in Everett. We grew up right next to the Evergreen Cemetery. Back in the early sixties and fifties, it was all woods right in that area. And Grandpa would show us all the plants that were edible, that you could eat. And it was so neat, because people didn’t know anything about that. I mean, we never learned. Our grandpa would go through the woods, and show us all the edible plants that we could actually eat, and we did, as kids. We’d go down there.
Katherine: [15:48] And remember with the old sleigh bells, what he’d say?
Joy: [15:52] No.
Katherine: [15:53] They had the old sleigh bells off the sleigh from… I’m sure it was a carriage in Stanwood.
Joy: [15:58] I remember that. Yeah.
Katherine: [16:00] And he’d go, “ Jul, jul igen . It’s Christmastime again.”
Gordon: [16:05] [Inaudible 16:05]
Katherine: [16:06] Yeah.
Joy: [16:06] We came from Everett. And the snow on the roads… And there was one hill in there around Stanwood where we had to go, and we would go down, and go up where we were going to the house. And it snowed. Of course, the roads were just terrible. And so here we went up that road. They had all come out to the house, and all helped push them up to get them out of the road. [Laughter]
Gordon: [16:38] How did you… Whey did they move to Everett?
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Joy: [16:41] For work, I suppose. My dad had the store at Avon.
Gordon: [16:48] What kind of a store was that?
Joy: [16:49] A grocery store.
Barbara: [16:51] General store.
Gordon: [16:51] Okay.
Joy: [16:52] Uh huh. And after he came back from Canada, and when he was working up there, that’s what he did.
Barbara: [16:59] That’s a picture of it.
Katherine: [17:00] That’s a picture there.
Barbara: [17:01] Here’s a picture of it.
Gordon: [17:02] Oh. This was again… This was in Avon, which is kind of north?
Joy: [17:06] It’s right across the river. The bridge in Mount Vernon.
Barbara: [17:13] And our grandfather is here in the little car that’s right here.
Joy: [17:16] I think it’s still there.
Barbara: [17:17] Yeah.
Katherine: [17:17] And he would make deliveries to all the other stores, and things.
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Barbara: [17:22] I can tell you one of the stories he told me about the deliveries that he made. He said he would deliver groceries to this woman who was way out in the woods. And he one day went out, and he had all the groceries in a wooden box. And he got up to the fence that was surrounding the place, and he opened up the fence, the gate, and their dog came viciously to attack him. I mean, it was a huge dog.
[17:54] And it came viciously to attack him, and my grandpa said he took that wooden box, and all he could think that he could do was to hit that dog in the snout as hard as he could. And that dog just whined when he hit that dog. And of course, cowered off. The woman wasn’t there, so he left the groceries, and he told the woman after that, “I’ll never deliver groceries to your house again.”
[18:21] So… He also told me some stories about the fact that he used to take his wagon, and he’d drive from Stanwood- from Cedarhome, all the way to Granite Falls for the barn dances- to Darrington for the Barn Dances.
Joy: [18:36] He’d walk through the… Yeah.
Barbara: [18:39] Yeah. And then…
Joy: [18:41] The trails.
Katherine: [18:42] And I remember our cousin… Mom’s cousin Dolores.
Barbara: [18:46] Jones.
Katherine: [18:47] She said that… “Auntie Hilma told me that when the boys were young, they had the best horses in the area, and they were the first to have a car. The family was highly respected.”
Barbara: [19:01] This was the Haglund family.
Katherine: [19:03] And that was that picture, here. This is the car.
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Gordon: [19:07] Her father, and…
Barbara: [19:08] Yes.
Gordon: [19:08] And Dolores’ father were…
Barbara: [19:10] Brothers.
Gordon: [19:11] Brothers. Okay.
Joy: [19:12] My husband.
Barbara: Yes, and then, let’s see…
Gordon: [19:20] But the store didn’t survive, then? Or did you sell it?
Joy: [19:23] My dad decided… I don’t know why he wanted to leave from there. Do you remember hearing?
Barbara: [19:29] It was probably the Depression, Mom.
Katherine: [19:31] I thought it was the Depression.
Gordon: [19:32] Oh, okay.
Katherine: [19:33] And he left that little dog, I remember him talking… Lady, wasn’t it?
Joy: [19:37] Yeah.
Barbara: [19:40] One of the things that Grandpa said is he had the store, and his brothers… He had, what, four brothers? Were there four of them?
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Joy: [19:48] Yeah.
Barbara: [19:50] And so on Christmas Eve, he’d be closing up the store. And just as he was closing up the store, here comes all of his four brothers to buy Christmas presents. [Laughter]
Katherine: [20:01] They were quite the jokesters. They were really funny, weren’t they?
Gordon: [20:05] Typical men, right?
Barbara: [20:06] Yeah. And our grandfather that said he never… His father, he…
Katherine: [20:13] Magnus.
Barbara: [20:14] Yeah. Magnus Haglund. He was… My grandfather never, ever was punished. He had such a…
Katherine: [20:25] Command of respect.
Barbara: [20:26] Yeah. That all he would do is look at those five boys. And if he looked at them, they would stop what they were doing, because he was such a… He just had that respect.
Joy: [20:37] They knew the line.
Barbara: [20:38] Yeah, the respect. Even our grandfather, when we were kids. I mean, if he looked at you, you stopped whatever you were doing. [Laughter]
Gordon: [20:46] So, what did Magnus do? He was the immigrant, correct?
Barbara: [20:49] Yes.
Katherine: [20:49] That’s the thing. We don’t know too much about him.
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Gordon: [20:52] Oh, you don’t? Joy, did you meet Magnus?
Joy: [20:56] I wasn’t born until we moved to Everett.
Gordon: [21:00] Oh, I see.
Katherine: [21:00] She said he died in ’26.
Joy: [21:01] No, I was born…
Katherine: [21:04] Yeah. You were only…
Barbara: [21:06] A year old.
Katherine: [21:06] A year old when he died.
Gordon: [21:08] Oh, okay.
Joy: [21:09] Yeah. That hospital that hangs over the freeway...
Gordon: [21:12] Yeah.
Joy: [21:14] That was the old hospital. That’s where I was born.
Gordon: [21:17] Okay.
Joy: [21:17] We were living in Avon.
Katherine: [21:19] They seemed like they were fairly well-to-do.
Barbara: [21:22] Yes.
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Katherine: [21:22] By what they wrote, and the way they dressed. Grandpa was really sharp dresser.
Barbara: [21:28] Yeah.
Katherine: [21:29] He had good taste.
Barbara: [21:30] In this book that he put together when he was up in Canada, that’s actually part of the Nordic Heritage Museum.
Gordon: [21:39] Yeah.
Barbara: [21:39] Floyd Jones had a copy. This was our grandfather’s log and journal. I can remember, there was a picture in here of him, and he was not a very large man. He was maybe five- six, five-seven, and he probably weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds or so. But I know that he was like one hundred and eighty pounds when he was up in Canada. So part of it was to keep warm, you know, in that frigid weather up there.
Gordon: [22:08] But he was this account or the bookkeeper?
Barbara: [22:12] Mm hmm.
Gordon: [22:13] So he had some skills in that regard.
Barbara: [22:14] Mm hmm. And that’s what he did at the Avon store.
Katherine: [22:17] And that’s what Mom was so good at.
Barbara: [22:18] Yeah.
Katherine: [22:18] Because she kept my dad’s books. Because my dad was a self-employed artist.
Gordon: [22:25] Right.
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Katherine: [22:26] So there’s genetics there.
Gordon: [22:28] Tradition. Genetic, yeah.
Katherine: [22:29] The one thing I do…
Gordon: [22:31] Good with numbers.
Joy: [22:33] Yeah. Right. A lot.
Katherine: [22:34] But the one thing I remember about my grandmother Hildur- Grandpas’ wife- that she was very… The family was really mechanical. And that she worked for Boeing during the war, and my cousin, too. She was a Sandberg. Betty Jean. And they worked in one of the buildings there in downtown Everett.
Joy: [23:00] Yeah. Down on the waterfront.
Katherine: [23:01] Yeah. On the parts for the planes for the war.
Gordon: [23:04] Oh, in Everett. Okay. On the waterfront.
Katherine: [23:07] Yeah.
Barbara: [23:07] Yeah. And then our grandfather during the war worked in a shipyard in Everett.
Joy: [23:10] And what’s funny, we work upstairs in the same building now. [Laughter]
Barbara: [23:15] Yeah. It’s a market.
Joy: [23:17] Yeah. It’s a store. [Laughter]
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Gordon: [23:21] Tell me about… You said she was a master baker. So where did she get her awards? Was it fairs?
Joy: [23:28] In Everett, where she would enter them. And she always got the head award.
Gordon: [23:34] And where did she learn this?
Joy: [23:37] I suppose up here in Cedarhome.
Gordon: [23:40] From her mother?
Barbara: [23:41] And the boardinghouse.
Joy: [23:42] When she was growing up. Yeah.
Katherine: [23:45] Talk about… I don’t know so much, because I was younger, but the sylta that Grandma would…
Barbara: [23:50] We’d have… Every Christmas morning we’d go over to our Grandma and Grandpa’s house for Christmas breakfast, and we’d have a smorgasbord. And my Grandma would make all the… many of the traditional Swedish…
Katherine: [24:04] Cookies…
Barbara: [24:05] Yeah. We had sylta . We had of course the rice. Yeah. All the different cookies. It was just… yeah, Grandma was a wonderful cook.
Joy: [24:20] She won all these awards in Everett for her cakes.
Katherine: [24:25] Yeah. Mom has the cake plates.
Gordon: [24:29] What about Christmas Eve? What did you guys do growing up, Christmas Eve?
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Barbara: [24:32] Well, Christmas Eve, Kath and my dad- Mom’s husband- he was Danish. The Jensen family.
Katherine: [24:45] And a little Swedish.
Barbara: [24:46] Yeah. A little Swedish, even though he denied that. [Laughter] He was very proud of his Danish…
Gordon: [24:52] Oh, those Danes.
Katherine: [24:53] Typical Dane.
Barbara: [24:53] Yeah. Uh huh. So we would go over to my dad’s mother’s and father’s house, and we would have Christmas Eve there. And of course, when we were kids, our dad had grown up with his Danish grandparents. So when we were kids, we always wanted to put up our Christmas tree early, but our dad, his tradition of course was the old country tradition where they put... Went out on Christmas Eve, got the tree, and put the candles on the tree, and had Christmas Eve, and celebrated Christmas after. Finally after years of doing it the way dad did, we finally got to have our Christmas tree up earlier for all of us kids.
[25:43] But yeah, our grandmother- our Grandma Webber… So, her maiden name was Elna Inge Jensen. And our great uncle- her brother- was Arnie Rudolf Jensen, who was the watercolorist here in the Pacific Northwest. And then our dad was Bernard George Webber, and he went by Bernie Webber. And he also was a watercolorist here in the Pacific Northwest. And Dad died about seven years ago.
Gordon: [26:13] Yeah.
Barbara: [26:14] Yeah. And so Arnie and our Grandma Elna- their dad was an artist. He also was a musician, and had an orchestra that they played for- the radio in Seattle. It was, you know, available for people to listen to on the radio- the music. And then he played the violin. He was quite a
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violinist.
Joy: [26:46] He was from…
Barbara: [26:46] He was from Copenhagen.
Gordon: [26:49] So they were the immigrants? The great-grandparents?
Barbara: [26:51] Yes. So all of our great-grandparents were really first generation.
Gordon: [26:59] Right.
Katherine: [27:00] And they owned the brickyard in Denmark. We have paintings of it. They did paintings.
Gordon: [27:06] Where was that? I’m sorry.
Barbara: [27:08] Copenhagen.
Gordon: [27:09] Copenhagen. Oh.
Barbara: [27:10] Yeah.
Katherine: [27:10] And both Grandma and Grandpa painted.
Barbara: [27:13] Oh… Mary did, too?
Katherine: [27:15] Mm hmm.
Barbara: [27:16] So, our great-grandparents were Jens and Mary Jensen. And they immigrated here to the United States. One of the reasons they left Denmark was because great-grandma Mary- her parents did not want her to marry Jens, because she was of a higher class. They were wealthier. Then
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she married him, and they left and came to the United States. So… do you know more about that? And then when our grandmother was born… Our grandmother was born here in Tyler, Minnesota.
Gordon: [27:54] Okay.
Barbara: [27:55] So, Elna was born in Tyler, Minnesota. And then our uncle Arnie, who was the watercolorist, was born in Tyler, Minnesota.
Katherine: [28:06] I just remember when they were young, they all went back.
Barbara: [28:09] Yes. And that’s what I was going to say. So, they were born here. Then the family moved back to Denmark again and lived there for… I have it written down someplace, but for a number of years. And according to Grandma, my great-grandmother, who was Mary Jensen, she had at least two other children that died after childbirth in Denmark. And then they came back to the United States again, and then they had a younger sister and a younger brother that were born here.
Gordon: [28:45] Any reason? Do you know why the moves?
Katherine: [28:47] Because they missed the United States. That’s why they came back- that they really decided that they loved it here and wanted to come back. And I remember hearing the story that at the Jensen’s house, some of them- grandma and some of them were speaking Danish. And Grandpa said, “No, no, no. We speak English now. We’re in America, and we speak English. We’re not going to do that anymore.” So I thought that was an interesting point.
Barbara: [29:25] Yeah.
Joy: [29:27] Right.
Katherine: [29:27] They loved it here.
Barbara: [29:28] But he was an artist, too. So Jens Jensen was Arnie and our grandma Elna’s father. He was an artist. So you said Mary was an artist, too?
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Katherine: [29:40] Mm hmm.
Gordon: [29:41] His wife? His mother?
Barbara: [29:42] His wife. Right.
Katherine: [29:43] And then Grandpa did the murals at the train station. Was that in Minnesota? And they’re still there as far as we know.
Barbara: [29:50] Oh, really?
Katherine: [29:52] Mm hmm. He was a muralist.
Gordon: [29:53] What train station? What town? Tyler, or something else?
Katherine: [29:58] I don’t know. I’m sure we have it written down somewhere.
Barbara: [30:03] Yeah. I wish that we had kept more records like of Mom’s family. See, when we were kids, our grandparents- my mother’s parents were like fifteen years older than our father’s parents. So there was another generation from my mother versus my dad. So when I was in eighth grade, my mother’s father Manny, he turned eighty years old when I was in eighth grade. So he was… Yeah, very much elderly compared…. So we kids didn’t get a lot of that.
[30:42] I think our grandparents, too- our Grandma Hildur, she never spoke Swedish. In fact, back in 1967, we had three Swedish scouts come from Sweden for the World Jamboree, which was in Idaho. And they stayed with us for a period of time. And they would speak Swedish, and my grandpa Manny would speak Swedish to them, but my grandma never would. She was always embarrassed about it, because she didn’t feel confident about speaking Swedish. So it’s just… you know, a lot of that, I don’t… We were really not sure. I wish we were.
Katherine: [31:25] I remember, too, before I forget, that grandma played the piano, too.
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Barbara: [31:31] Yeah. Uh huh.
Katherine: [31:32] So she was quite musical. She taught me how to play a little bit.
Barbara: [31:34] Grandma Hildur. Yeah.
Katherine: [31:35] Yeah.
Gordon: [31:36] So how did you meet George? George, right?
Barbara: [31:39] Bernie.
Gordon: [31:40] Bernie, I’m sorry.
Barbara: [31:41] Well, we know how. According to Dad and Mom, the story is that the war had just ended, and Mom was working at one of the banks in Everett, at the Everett Trust and Savings Bank as a teller there, and my dad came home from the Army Air Corps, and was driving down the street, and my mother was on the corner of Colby.
Joy: [32:09] Waiting for the bus.
Barbara: [32:10] Yeah. Waiting for the bus. And my dad pulled over and stopped and said hi. [Laughter]
Katherine: [32:16] You were with Marguerite, weren’t you?
Joy: [32:18] Yeah.
Katherine: [32:18] That’s what you always told me.
Joy: [32:19] Yeah.
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Barbara: [32:19] Yeah. And so our mother had a lot of photographs done. She was really a beautiful young woman. There was a photographer who was quite a well-known photographer in Everett. Her name was Julian. She took full life-size photos and many different portraits of my mother and used those. Then apparently there was a fire, I think, wasn’t it, Mom? In her studio? And they lost the whole… All of those beautiful pictures.
Gordon: [32:57] Oh.
Katherine: [32:58] A lot of them. We still have some.
Barbara: [33:00] Yeah, we have some of them. But that’s how our parents met. And then what happened was that when Mom and Dad got married in 1949, they moved down to L.A., and Dad went to L.A. Art Center down there, to art school.
Gordon: [33:21] So he probably had a GI Bill, did he?
Katherine: [33:23] Mm hmm.
Gordon: [33:23] Coming from the war.
Katherine: [33:24] Yeah.
Joy: [33:24] He was down there in Oakland first.
Katherine: [33:27] Yeah. Arts and Crafts.
Joy: [33:30] Yeah. He went to school there.
Barbara: [33:31] Right. And then he came back. Then they moved back here when Mom and Dad were pregnant with their second pregnancy, which was twin boys. They moved back up to Everett. And then Dad started working for Kane and Harcus Printers as their artist- their staff artist in
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Everett. Then he after that branched out into his own business, which he was in commercial art for all the years he supported all ten of us kids- our whole family on commercial art, in the sixties and seventies and eighties. Then in the eighties, he started much more of his… did fine art, of course- watercolors, oil paintings. He would do all these…
Katherine: [34:23] Portraits.
Barbara: [34:25] Murals and portraits. And he would put together scale models of buildings. He was just…
Katherine [34:32] Multitalented.
Gordon: [34:33] Where are the murals? Are they still up?
Katherine: [34:36] Hospitals, schools.
Barbara: [34:37] Providence Hospital in Everett. All the school districts have a painting of… a historical painting that Dad did of the school and the history surrounding the school with portraits of different teachers and significant people that were…
Katherine: [34:57] Founders of the towns.
Barbara: [34:58] Yeah, of that particular area school. He has paintings. The city of Everett has paintings of every one of the mayors that our dad did. And I brought along… He has done a lot for Paine Field. He was the airport commissioner. And this is a historical picture of what our dad did of Paine Field.
Gordon: [35:21] Hold that up a little higher.
Barbara: [35:22] Of Paine Field. And you can see…
Gordon: [35:27] Move it over.
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Barbara: [35:28] This way?
Gordon: [35:29] Up… there you go. Oh, yeah.
Barbara: [35:32] And so, he was… like in the late thirties and forties, he would fly airplanes out of Everett- out of Paine Field in Snohomish.
Katherine: [35:44] He took Mom up.
Barbara: [35:46] Yeah, he took Mom up before they were married.
Katherine: [35:48] And they flew over Grandma and Grandpa’s.
Gordon: [35:50] Oh. [Laughter]
Barbara: [35:50] Yeah, upside down. [Laughter]
Gordon: [35:54] Oh, I bet they loved that.
Joy: [35:57] They were aware of it.
Gordon: [36:02] Did he, as I understand it, get his interest in art or his training from an uncle, then?
Katherine: [36:08] That was Arnie.
Gordon: [36:09] Arnie. What about… Who was… Do you know anything about that?
Katherine: [36:14] Well, we should go back, because Grandpa Jensen- Jens- was a faux finisher, and he did the murals. And he did house painting. The Webber side- the Austrian side, and Irish- they had a paint store and sold wallpaper. So the Webbers hired Grandpa Jensen to work for him.
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Barbara: [36:44] In Everett, right?
Katherine: [36:46] Yeah. So that’s how Grandma and Grandpa met. George and Elna met through the…
Gordon: [36:51] Oh, okay.
Katherine: [36:52] Through the families working together.
Gordon: [36:55] Yeah. Yeah.
Katherine: [36:56] So then Arnie, he went to the Chicago Art Institute back in the twenties? The early twenties, maybe.
Barbara: [37:03] Mm hmm.
Katherine: [37:06] And so he and Dad… He was almost like his dad.
Barbara: [37:10] Yeah.
Katherine: [37:11] He really nurtured him.
Barbara: [37:13] The art kind of just came down through the generations. Arnie and our grandma Elna, their youngest brother died when he was nineteen. He was hit and killed on Broadway in Everett. And they said he was even more of a superior artist than Arnie was. So you know, it’s just interesting. Then we have, of course, our dad, because Dad was a nephew of Arnie. And grandma. And then our sister Liz is an artist. Kathy is an artist. I do watercolors, too. All of us…
Joy: [37:54] I’m an artist. [Laughter]
Barbara: [37:55] Yeah. And actually Mother is.
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Katherine: [37:56] She is.
Barbara: [37:59] Mother is really extremely artistic, and just has a lot of really tasteful talent. And so combining all of that, we all have a lot of artistic ability. We have one brother that’s done lots of beautiful, beautiful stained glass. My daughter has done some pottery that was… She did some statues that were from Everett High School when she was in school that actually went to the national museum for exhibitions. And so it’s just kind of come down through the generations for us.
Gordon: [38:35] Nature and nurture.
Barbara: [38:36] Yeah. The genes, you know. [Laughter]
Gordon: [38:38] Yeah, I was curious… Have you been to Denmark or to the homesteads there at all?
Katherine: [38:45] No.
Gordon: [38:46] No? It would be interesting to see what the history is there, of some of those.
Barbara: [38:49] Yeah.
Gordon: [38:49] You might find some interesting…
Katherine: [38:53] Yeah. Records?
Gordon: [38:53] Artists, too, I’m willing to bet.
Barbara: [38:55] Oh. Yeah, I’m sure. Yeah. I would be really surprised, yeah, if we didn’t.
Katherine: [39:00] Yeah.
Gordon: [39:01] So, what else can you tell us about your dad, and your husband? What other
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interests did he have? What about his interest in his traditions or heritage?
Barbara: [39:15] Oh, I think he was really geared towards his Danish heritage the most, because his grandparents lived in Everett on Hoyt.
Katherine: [39:26] And remember Grandma’s apple…
Barbara: [39:28] No, on Rockefeller Street.
Katherine: [39:29] Grandma’s apple cake.
Barbara: [39:30] Yeah. Danish apple cake.
Katherine: [39:31] Yeah. That was one thing that was a big thing with Grandma. On Christmas Eve when we’d go over there for dinner, she would make that Danish apple cake, and would serve it with whipping cream and a maraschino cherry. And to us, it was just…That was Christmas, you know. Part of it.
Gordon: [39:51] What else did she serve?
Barbara: [39:53] Grandma? Sometimes duck.
Gordon: [39:54] On Christmas Eve.
Barbara: [39:55] Duck.
Katherine: [39:57] Roasted duck.
Gordon: [39:58] Oh, roasted duck.
Katherine: [39:59] It’s a Danish tradition.
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Barbara: [40:00] And of course, we had pickled herring. And on Mom’s side, we had lutefisk.
Joy: [40:06] That was Swedish.
Barbara: [40:09] Yeah. Swedish. And we liked it better because it had the cream sauce and not just the butter that the Norwegians had. [Laughter]
Katherine: [40:16] I ate the potatoes.
Gordon: [40:18] Yeah.
Katherine: [40:19] I passed on the fish. [Laughter]
Barbara: [40:21] Oh, gosh. Yeah. So, let’s see…
Katherine: [40:24] It didn’t smell that good. [Laughter]
Barbara: [40:27] [Laughter] And so our dad, after he worked as a commercial artist, he was very involved in many, many art projects around. He kind of became involved, also too, with the Navy. And so when the naval base was put in to Everett, he did these painting renditions of the naval base in Everett. Then when the Jackson submarine was… what did they call it- christened, he and Helen Jackson went back to… It was Bangor, wasn’t it?
Katherine: [41:05] Mm hmm. Maine.
Barbara: [41:06] Uh huh. For the christening of the Jackson submarine- nuclear submarine. And so Dad had done a beautiful painting of the submarine with a portrait of Henry Jackson. And then that is actually hanging in the submarine now. He was very involved with the Navy- did many, many things for the Navy base, and took a number of submarine rides to and from. Yeah. It was… [Laughter] So he was really involved in a lot of the history of the area.
Katherine: [41:41] Political.
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Gordon: [41:42] That seemed to be his subject matter then, to a large degree.
Barbara: [41:45] History. Yeah. And that’s what Arnie did, too. It was a lot of historical paintings of different areas, but not as much as Dad. Dad did really…
Katherine: [41:56] Concentrated more in the area, where Arnie traveled more through the country a little bit.
Barbara: [42:02] Yeah, he would go down with Dr. Chase from Everett on his yacht, and they would go down into California and those places all along the coast. And they’d paint these beautiful, beautiful paintings. I think I might have brought… I brought some different ones of Arnie’s, too.
Katherine: [42:22] I remembered one thing about… Well, Arnie talking about his mother. Wasn’t that with the ingredients and the recipes?
Barbara: [42:30] Oh. Yeah.
Gordon: [42:33] Oh. Wonderful. Yeah.
Katherine: [42:34] Remember?
Barbara: [42:34] Yeah. These are just a couple, and I have more. Of course, many of us have different paintings of Arnie’s and Dad’s- Bernie Webber and Arnie Jensen. And then my sister Liz, and like I said, Katherine does beautiful, beautiful work.
Katherine: [42:54] Well, I have the painting of Arnie’s that he did. I loved it. They were roosters and chickens that were in the backyard at Grandma and Grandpa Jensen’s. They had them…
Joy: [43:06] They were on Rockefeller in Everett.
Katherine: [43:08] Rockefeller. So he did some paintings of those.
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Barbara: [43:12] Here’s Mukilteo in the old days.
Katherine: [43:14] Did they have them… They must have had them for the eggs?
Gordon: [43:17] Oh, yeah. I think I’ve seen that one.
Katherine: [43:19] Did they have them for the eggs?
Gordon: [43:19] In a book or something.
Joy: [43:21] That could be. Yeah. Probably.
Katherine: [43:21] The chickens.
Gordon: [43:24] This one is what, now?
Barbara: [43:26] This one here is the San Juans.
Gordon: [43:28] Oh, the San Juans. Okay.
Barbara: [43:29] Yeah. So he would do… He’d take a lot of trips, like I said, with Dr. Chase. He called him Doc Chase.
Joy: [43:39] Doc Chase. Yeah.
Barbara: [43:40] Yeah. And go up…
Joy: [43:41] They’d go out in his yacht.
Barbara: [43:44] Ed Chase. Yeah. From Everett. And Arnie was a member of the American Watercolor Society. And both Dad and Arnie were members of the Northwest Watercolor Society. I
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don’t know what year they joined. It would be interesting to know, because it would have been pretty early on. One of the things that I think is so interesting that I have to talk about, because I was just thinking about it the other day- Arnie and Dad would go out when Dad was like a teenager, and Arnie would take him out, and they’d go different places and they’d paint different scenes like Pilchuck, Whitehorse, barns, boats on the way to La Conner- all those different things.
[44:34] Once they were up in the mountains, and Arnie… It was a very, very hot day, Dad said. They both had their easels up and were painting. Arnie goes, “Oh, Bernie,” he says, “What I’d like to have right now is a nice cold beer.” And at that second, Dad looked down at the river, and there was a bottle of beer in the river. He takes the bottle of beer and goes, “Here, Arn,” and gives him the bottle of beer. [Laughter] Dad said it was just like there was no hesitation. [Laughter] “Here, Arn.” [Laughter]
[45:09] But they would paint a lot, and they had the Northwest Watercolor society- the groups would go out and paint. And Arnie and Dad would go with them every year when they did that. Sometimes they’d go up to Index to my mother’s parents’ cabin in Index, and they would paint up in the Index area, too.
Katherine: [45:29] Before I forget, Arnie and Helen- weren’t they in a ski club- Baker?
Barbara: [45:34] Yes, they were.
Katherine: [45:35] They were really big into skiing. And Mom’s brother Bill Haglund, he was in a ski club, and he was one of the first skiers around to do acrobats.
Gordon: [45:46] Oh, really?
Barbara: [45:46] Yeah. To do somersaults and do…
Katherine: [45:48] He was kind of edgy.
Barbara: [45:49] Yeah. So, anyway… So, let’s see.
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Gordon: [45:55] You were talking outside in the kitchen area about Index. What were the stories that you had about Index?
Katherine: [46:02] Start with Hugo.
Barbara: [46:05] Why don’t you go ahead?
Katherine: [46:06] Oh. Mom’s Uncle Hugo- that’s her mother’s brother.
Gordon: [46:10] Uh huh. Danish?
Katherine: [46:13] No, this is Swedish.
Gordon: [46:14] Oh, Swedish.
Katherine: [46:14] Back to the Swedish.
Barbara: [46:16] Yeah.
Katherine: [46:17] And so he was a mayor of Index. He loved it there because he was a big fanatical fisherman. And so then he…
Gordon: [46:26] Hugo… Would be his last name… Jensen?
Katherine: [46:29] Sandberg.
Barbara: [46:29] No, Sandberg.
Gordon: [46:30] Oh, Sandberg.
Katherine: [46:30] Hugo Sandberg.
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Gordon: [46:22] Yeah.
Katherine: [46:33] Actually, we have a picture of him right here.
Barbara: [46:37] We have several… yeah.
Gordon: [46:40] Uh huh.
Joy: [46:41] Is that him? This one? The second one?
Katherine: [46:44] Yeah.
Joy: [46:45] Yeah. In there.
Katherine: [46:47] And I don’t know how many years they lived there. But he was a watch repairman. And you tell the story, because I had never heard that in detail.
Barbara: [46:55] Oh, his wife Betty Sandberg… So that would have been our mother’s aunt and uncle. Anyway, Hugo was a watch repairman, so Betty would take the Index stage line from Index once a week. She’d go to Seattle, pick up all the watches and clocks in Seattle at Frederick and Nelson and the other department stores; she’d bring them back on the bus up to Index, and Hugo would repair them, and then she’d bring them back the next week.
Gordon: [47:27] On the bus?
Barbara: [47:28] Uh huh.
Gordon: [47:28] Oh.
Barbara: [47:30] Yep. [Laughter]
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Gordon: [47:31] Oh, that’s fascinating.
Barbara: [47:33] Yeah, because she probably took the Index stage line to Everett and took the Interurban down from Everett down to Seattle.
Gordon: [47:41] Interurban. Yeah, you mentioned that.
Barbara: [47:41] Uh huh. Yeah.
Gordon: [47:43] Okay.
Barbara: [47:44] Yeah, so they lived up there. When they… Hugo and Betty, and then their daughter Betty Jean, they lived up in Index. So then Mom, Manny, and Hildur- parents- bought a little place up in Index just a few doors down, and my parents still have that place in Index now. And so they would go up- my mother would meet… the whole family would meet. Because of course, you talked about traditions. Mother always said that the biggest tradition of the Swedish families was family. Getting together as a family. Cooking…
Katherine: [48:21] I remember you talking about how the guys would go out and smoke a cigar. Grandpa… do you remember that?
Joy: [48:30] [Laughter] Yeah, I can remember them doing it. Yeah.
Katherine: [48:32] And she said how much fun it was, because they would just talk. There weren’t any distractions.
Barbara: [48:39] And then Grandpa, I remember Grandpa saying that the women would talk and talk, and the men would be all ready to go. And the women said, “Yes, okay, we’re ready to go.” And then they’d start talking, talking, talking again, and the men would go… “Okay.” [Laughter] But family was the most important thing. Mother talked when we were kids constantly. She’d get together with all of their family members. All the cousins. Like Dolores and Helen Sandberg, and Betty Jean.
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Katherine: [49:18] Did you remember when you’d go to Carlsons’ for Christmas?
Joy: [49:23] Oh, every Christmas Eve.
Katherine: [49:24] With Helen and Dolores, and you would all…
Joy: [49:27] Yeah. No, Dolores went to Sandbergs’.
Katherine: [49:28] Oh, okay.
Joy: [49:29] Out at the beach. At Sundin’s.
Barbara: [49:29] Sundin’s.
Katherine: [49:32] Yeah.
Gordon: [49:33] Sundin’s, yeah.
Joy: [49:35] Yeah.
Katherine: [49:35] And so you went to Carlsons’, and you said she would do everything…
Barbara: [49:39] Grandma Carlson.
Katherine: [49:39] All the meats. Yeah. And prepare everything, and cook it all in the wood stove. These fabulous meals.
Joy: [49:49] Yeah.
Katherine: [49:49] And you said that…
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Joy: [49:51] And that house is probably still there. And that barn and everthing.
Barbara: [49:54] Beautiful, beautiful place.
Katherine: [49:55] Yeah.
Barbara: [49:55] Yeah.
Katherine: [49:57] And I remember how you said Dolores and you would be sharing the davenports because you’d always be sick at Christmastime.
Joy: [50:07] [Laughter] Well, see, now…
Katherine : [50:09] Yeah.
Barbara: [50:11] Grandma Carlson was Hildur…
Joy: [50:12] Yeah.
Katherine: [50:13] You know.
Joy: [50:14] Yeah. I remember now.
Barbara: [50:14] Hilma Haglund’s mother. So Hilma was married to our Grandpa Haglund’s brother, Joe Haglund. So it was Hilma. And Hilma had a store in Stanwood- a little store in the fifties, sixties. And she had beautiful things. You know, like a gift store, wasn’t it, Mom?
Joy: [50:40] Something like that.
Barbara: [50:41] Yeah.
Joy: [50:41] Yeah. I wasn’t up around there too much. I was busy with the family, I suppose.
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Barbara: [50:46] But I think she did a lot of rosemaling and things like that, too. A lot of painting of china.
Joy: [50:54] Yeah.
Katherine: [50:55] What did Uncle Joe do?
Joy: [50:58] He had the store, probably. He had the…
Katherine: [51:02] Took care of the store?
Barbara: [51:04] Did he work at the store, too?
Joy: [51:07] I don’t… That was in Cedarhome.
Katherine: [51:09] Ali had the quarry, right?
Barbara: [51:11] Yeah.
Katherine: [51:12] The quarry.
Barbara: [51:13] Yeah.
Katherine: [51:14] Uncle Ali.
Barbara: [51:15] Ali was another of our grandpa’s…
Katherine: [51:17] That was Dolores’…
Barbara: [51:19] That was Dolores Jones’ father.
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Katherine: [51:21] Father.
Barbara: [51:22] Yeah. So he was a Haglund, too.
Gordon: [51:23] That was Ali?
Barbara: [51:23] Ali.
Katherine: [51:24] Uncle Ali.
Barbara: [51:24] Ali Haglund.
Gordon: [51:25] Hilma… Who was Hilma, now?
Barbara: [51:28] Hilma was married to Ali, and Manny our grandpa…
Gordon: [51:31] So, Hilma was…
Barbara: [51:32] Married to Joe, who was also a Haglund. A brother.
Gordon: [51:36] Oh, so Hilma wasn’t Dolores’ mother, then?
Barbara: [51:40] No. Aunt.
Gordon: [51:41] Aunt.
Katherine: [51:41] She was married into the family.
Barbara: [51:42] Yeah.
Gordon: [51:43] Gotcha.
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Katherine: [51:44] One of the brothers.
Joy: [51:45] Both of them each had one daughter. Isn’t that the way it was?
Barbara: [51:47] Yeah. Mm hmm.
Joy: [51:49] Helen and Dolores, each one of them- their mother only had one child. Yeah. The one girl.
Barbara: [51:456 Yeah. So Ali and Ellen Haglund had Dolores.
Gordon: [52:06] Okay.
Barbara: [52:06] Haglund Jones.
Joy: [52:07] They lived up in the toolies for a long time.
Barbara: [52:11] And Joe and Hilma Haglund had Helen Haglund, who is mother’s first cousin. So Dolores, and Helen, and Mother were all first cousins. Yeah.
Joy: [52:25] Yep.
Gordon: [52:26] Have you been involved in any of the lodges- the Scandinavian lodges, any of you? Was that part of the family heritage? Sons of Norway? Danish Brotherhood? Danish Sisterhood?
Katherine: [52:39] I thought Arnie was into that, wasn’t he? But we never got into that.
Barbara: [52:45] No. I think, you know, I don’t remember that there was that much… It was more Swedish. And then Danish, yeah. Our great-grandparents died before… I think before even I was born.
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Gordon: [53:04] Yeah. You didn’t meet them.
Barbara: [53:05] Jensens. Yeah. He died before. So… yeah.
Gordon: [53:15] Very rich history.
Joy: [53:16] Yes.
Barbara: [53:16] Yeah.
Gordon: [53:18] Lots of family. That’s a lot of memory.
Barbara: [53:21] Then my husband, too- like I said, he’s from the Silvana area, and he was the Hilmos and the Johnsons in the Stanwood and Silvana area. And I know that his great-grandfather was a builder, and built many homes in Stanwood.
Gordon: [53:40] Oh.
Barbara: [53:40] And then they had a family farm- the Hilmos- that my husband’s great uncle had until maybe about fifteen years ago. And that’s on 300 th down there, too. That’s where our grandfather Manny’s only sister was married to… Was it Clyberg? Clayberg?
Katherine: [54:07] Oscar.
Barbara: [54:08] Yeah. Oscar Clayberg?
Joy: [54:10] Sounds right. Yeah.
Barbara: [54:10] Yeah. Clayberg.
Joy: [54:13] That was on the road…
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Barbara: [54:15] Yeah. And he was Norwegian.
Joy: [54:16] That you go out to the freeway.
Barbara: [54:17] Yeah. 300 th , I think.
Joy: [54:18] Uh huh.
Barbara: [54:20] Yeah. And so my husband’s family’s farm was just a little bit down the street from my great-great uncle’s farm.
Katherine: [54:32] I remember when we went to lunch there with Grandpa, and Grandpa wanted… Oscar had an old milk can.
Barbara: [54:40] Several of them.
Katherine: [54:41] Oh, Grandpa wanted one so bad, and he asked him, which really wasn’t like Grandpa. He was so quiet. Oscar, you could just tell, it was like he gave him one of his teeth or something. [Laughter]
Barbara: [54:54] Oh, he wouldn’t part with it. And Thelma, his daughter said, “Oh, come on, Dad. Give Manny that milk jug.” And Oscar… “No. I want to keep that.” [Laughter]
Joy: [55:08] He was kind of a…
Barbara: [55:11] Yeah. [Laughter]
Joy: [55:12] He wasn’t like the rest of the family, really.
Katherine: [55:14] He did get it, though.
Joy: [55:16] Yeah. He was different. [Laughter] Different Scandinavians, I guess.
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Gordon: [55:24] Well, we’re all… Nobody’s alike, you know. We all have our…
Joy: [55:27] Yeah. Idiosyncrasies.
Gordon: [55:28] Yeah. There you go.
Joy: [55:30] Yeah. Gosh. Yeah.
Gordon: [55:33] Well, this has been very good. Is there anything else you want to fill in? Your dad- his artwork is in the city hall in Everett?
Barbara: [55:43] City Hall.
Katherine: [55:44] Banks.
Barbara: [55:45] Banks. Many banks. The school district in Everett. The Navy base in Everett.
Gordon: [55:55] Oh, that’s right. The Navy base.
Katherine: [55:56] And the street’s named after him.
Barbara: [55:58] There’s Paine Field. There’s Bernie Webber Boulevard off of Mukilteo Speedway that leads into Paine Field was dedicated to him after his death.
Katherine: [56:11] And it kind of has a little… almost a museum collection of his work at the Navy base.
Gordon: [56:17] Really? Good. Okay.
Barbara: [56:19] And also, hospitals, like I said. There have murals at the hospitals.
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Joy: [56:23] Oh, yeah. You walk in the hospital, and…
Barbara: [56:25] Mm hmm. It’s beautiful. And at the courthouse, there’s a huge mural that our dad did there. When I was a kid, he did a mural where he was on scaffolding, and did a mural in the medical-dental building on Broadway… I mean on Colby in Everett. Colby and California. And then he also did a huge, huge mural in Mariner High School up on scaffolding, doing murals. He also worked for Northwest Progress- Catholic Northwest Progress as the artist on staff in the sixties. So there’s a lot of work there that he did.
Gordon: [57:09] So he made a living with his art.
Barbara: [57:11] He did. Yeah. He really did.
Gordon: [57:12] That’s not always the case.
Barbara: [57:14] No. He really did. Yeah.
Katherine: [57:18] And thinking that… Yeah, because I do a lot of Halloween art, and I was influenced greatly by the Danish side, which is kind of funny when you think about it, but our Grandma Elna would- probably because of her mother’s tradition- she would make an actual like life-size stuffed witch, and she would use like a lithograph printed witch face. And then she would have a cauldron with treats in it, and have the trick-or-treaters come in and get their candy.
Barbara: [57:51] And cornstalks and everything around there.
Katherine: [57:53] Yeah, they had a ghost hanging up.
Barbara: [57:55] She made a ghost. Yeah.
Katherine: [57:56] Yeah. And our aunt Edie, her sister, would do the same thing in her house. That was a big tradition, because we’re really into Halloween. [Laughter]
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Gordon: [58:07] Yeah.
Barbara: [58:09] And really, the interesting thing about the Jensens, too, is that my grandmother had told…
Katherine: [58:15] Psychic.
Barbara: [58:16] Yeah. They were very psychic. And my grandmother talked about once when they returned to Denmark, and they were at a large gathering, like a church gathering with a lot of people out in the field, in the grass, around the woods. And that her mother looked up, and said, “Oh, aren’t they beautiful?” And apparently she saw these deer that were passing through all the people, and no one else saw them.
[58:45] And then down in the Evergreen Cemetery, too, my great-grandfather apparently, after Great-Grandma died, he died just a couple of months after Great-Grandma did. They were so joined together. And he was down in the cemetery looking over the whole Cascades. Because at the Evergreen Cemetery in Everett, it has just a beautiful, beautiful panoramic view of the Cascade Mountains. And some of the things that he saw- some of the different psychic things that he saw during that time when he was down there, too, brought them so close together.
[59:28] Even Grandma had that one vision, too, after Dad’s brother died. He was what, thirteen months old? He woke up one middle of the night, and there was a woman standing at the end of the bed, saying that he was being taken care of.
Joy: [59:46] Is that the boy that was killed in downtown Everett?
Barbara: [59:48] No, that was Dad’s brother Paul, who had spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and he died when he was thirteen months old.
Gordon: [1:00:01] Oh.
Barbara: [1:00:01] They would take him on the Interurban down to Children’s Hospital, and have
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the spinal fluid removed, and then he would be conscious again. Then they would go back home, and then of course the brain would fill up with the spinal…
Gordon: [1:00:13] Oh.
Barbara: [1:00:14] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:00:15] I remember something about Grandpa Jensen, too- that he was very religious. It was Uncle Ray that told me- Dad’s brother- that when the mountains… They were down at the graves, and he was with him. And the mountains were clouded over, and he said that God is like… Faith is like the mountains, where you can’t see the mountains, but we know that they’re there. That’s like God- even though we can’t see Him, you know, he is there. And I found Grandma sent all the pictures and things over from the house years ago for Dad. I found a lot of poetry. So he wrote poetry, too.
Gordon: [1:01:03] He did? Huh.
Barbara: [1:01:05] I also have a painting that he painted of Silver Lake in Everett, back probably… I would guess it’s the thirties, maybe. Just one little house on Silver Lake in Everett. Now, of course, the whole place is surrounded.
Gordon: [1:01:18] Yeah.
Barbara: [1:01:18] But it’s just… It’s a very different view of Silver Lake versus what you would think. It’s just a little oil painting that our great-grandfather did. Yeah.
Katherine: [1:01:21] And I do remember, too- Grandma Jensen at their house on Rockefeller had the garden. And wasn’t that… When she did have the heart attack, she was picking leeks, wasn’t it? Because she would make leek soup.
Barbara: [1:01:48] I didn’t know that.
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Katherine: [1:01:49] So I don’t know if that’s a traditional Danish soup.
Barbara: [1:01:52] They used to have pickled pigs feet a lot.
Katherine: [1:01:55] Pickled pigs’ feet. Sardines.
Barbara: [1:01:59] Yeah, sardines.
Katherine: [1:02:00] And smoked oysters.
Barbara: [1:02:02] Uh huh. They had a lot of different things like that. Yeah.
Katherine: [1:02:05] And Grandpa, I guess, at the table, would say some really distasteful things. He was really…
Barbara: [1:02:15] This was Dad’s dad?
Katherine: [1:02:15] Yeah. Grandfather.
Barbara: [1:02:18] Oh. Okay.
Katherine: [1:02:19] Grandpa Jensen.
Barbara: [1:02:20] Okay.
Katherine: [1:02:21] That he would say things, and I always heard that Grandma would get so mad at him, because it wasn’t appropriate.
Gordon: [1:02:29] Oh. This was the religious guy?
Katherine: [1:02:31] Yeah. But more like just, you know…
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Barbara: [1:02:33] Joking, probably. Yeah.
Katherine: [1:02:35] About food and things.
Gordon: [1:02:36] Oh, I see.
Katherine: [1:02:37] He was using his creative sense of humor. [Laughter] In a bad way.
Barbara: [1:02:42] [Laughter] Our dad was like that, too. He was a lot of fun. I mean, he would…
Katherine: [1:02:47] The life of the party.
Barbara: [1:02:48] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:02:49] Of Rotary. [Laughter]
Barbara: [1:02:50] Yeah. In fact, one of the… Maybe I shouldn’t tell the little story about Dad… Bernie being over at Arnie and Helen’s… Arnie’s place, and one time when he was a boy, Helen had her little slippers by the toilet, and Dad peed in the slippers instead of in the toilet. He was that kind of a little prankster, you know.
Katherine: [1:03:12] Like an imp.
Barbara: [1:03:13] Yeah, a little imp, you know. [Laughter] But he was a great dad. It’s amazing that he was able to support twelve people on his artwork.
Gordon: [1:03:26] Yes, that is amazing.
Barbara: [1:03:26] You know, a family of twelve. It really is.
Gordon: [1:03:30] And this is the guy that picked you up at the bus stop, huh?
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Barbara: [1:03:34] Yeah.
Joy: [1:03:35] That’s right.
Gordon: [1:03:36] Yeah.
Joy: [1:03:36] Downtown Everett. [Laughter]
Gordon: [1:03:38] Downtown. On Colby, you said.
Joy: [1:03:39] Yeah. Right on Colby there by the bank. First National it was, on the corner, by the bus.
Katherine: [1:03:48] We didn’t mention, too, that Uncle Arnie was in a band, and he played… Was it the trumpet and the clarinet?
Barbara: [1:03:58] Yeah, I know he played the trumpet.
Katherine: [1:04:00] Yeah. So there’s a lot of musical talent, too.
Gordon: [1:04:05] Like a dance band?
Katherine: [1:04:07] I think so. There’s pictures of them.
Barbara: [1:04:09] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:04:10] And it was the old speakeasy at Lake Stevens. That’s where those old lamps came from. He did some kind of a trade off with artwork. And then he also did the paintings in the old Everett Theater.
Barbara: [1:04:30] Yes. He did the murals on the walls. I was going to mention that, too, and I forgot. So it’s good that you did that.
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Katherine: [1:04:35] Yeah. Arnie was a sign painter.
Barbara: [1:04:36] A sign painter. Mm hmm.
Katherine: [1:04:38] We forgot to interject that.
Barbara: [1:04:39] Yeah, he’d paint signs on walls, on cars, on trucks. All of that.
Katherine: [1:04:45] Wasn’t it the sign up to Canada? “Welcome to Beautiful British Columbia,” or something, that he did.
Barbara: [1:04:50] Yeah.
Joy: [1:04:51] Oh, yeah, the signs…
Katherine: [1:04:51] Or, “Follow the birds.”
Joy: [1:04:52] …When you drive to Canada, you see those signs every so many miles: “Welcome to…” What?
Katherine: [1:05:03] I think it was British Columbia.
Joy: [1:05:04] Yeah. British Columbia, yeah. Or what? Yeah.
Barbara: [1:05:07] And Arnie painted those.
Joy: [1:05:09] Yeah. Arnie did that. He had one or two kids that came with him, and they’d go every so often and re-do those signs.
Katherine: [1:05:18] And Dad would go way up on these tall ladders and do paintings and things for Arnie. I remember Dad said how careful Arnie was. Dad was safe.
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Gordon: [1:05:34] Was that the Everett Theater, you said? Inside?
Barbara: [1:05:36] Yeah, actually on the walls there were all these… It was really interesting. Almost like… art deco.
Katherine: [1:05:44] Art Deco.
Barbara: [1:05:45] Yeah. Art Deco.
Katherine: [1:05:46] Or Art Nouveau.
Barbara: [1:05:47] Yeah. Of like music notes and like guitars and musical pieces and stuff.
Katherine: [1:05:54] Instruments.
Barbara: [1:05:55] Yeah, musical instruments.
Katherine: [1:05:56] They were gold leaf. They were beautiful.
Barbara: [1:05:59] Yeah. I don’t know whether they’re still there or not.
Katherine: [1:06:01] I thought they were.
Gordon: [1:06:02] Yeah. That theater has been restored, hasn’t it?
Barbara: [1:06:03] Yes. Yes, it has.
Gordon: [1:06:08] Yeah. Huh.
Barbara: [1:06:08] Yeah, so…
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Katherine: [1:06:11] I’m trying to think of what else…
Barbara: [1:06:12] Yeah, so Arnie supported himself on his sign painting, and then he did his fine art.
Gordon: [1:06:17] Fine art.
Barbara: [1:06:18] Yeah, uh huh. On the side.
Gordon: [1:06:20] But still, related.
Barbara: [1:06:22] Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Gordon: [1:06:23] You can be creative.
Barbara: [1:06:24] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:06:25] Mm hmm.
Gordon: [1:06:25] Well, you have a very rich tradition. I mean, this is wonderful.
Barbara: [1:06:30] We’re sorry we don’t know more about what brought our families over here. But you know, we kind of thought, well, gee, we do have a lot of history here. And I really wanted at least to be able to share that. At least before we forget.
Katherine: [1:06:48] Before we start to forget.
Barbara: [1:06:48] Yeah, because I’m going to be sixty this year, and it’s like, oh my gosh, you know? Then that’s gone.
Gordon: [1:06:56] You will get a DVD copy of this, and you have your own kids, and that will be invaluable.
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Barbara: [1:07:04] Mm hmm. That will be great.
Gordon: [1:07:07] Yeah.
Joy: [1:07:07] Oh.
Gordon: [1:07:07] I just wish I had something like this. I mean, that’s why I got into this, because my dad died when I was eighteen, just graduating.
Katherine: [1:07:16] Wow.
Gordon: [1:07:17] I never asked the questions.
Katherine: [1:07:19] Yeah. Even with Dad, you know- he was eighty-three when he died.
Barbara: [1:07:24] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:07:25] And you know, it was a while after he passed, and, “Oh, I should ask Dad about that.” It’s like, oh my God, he’s gone. Like, you know, it’s just kind of…
Barbara: [1:07:36] Yeah.
Gordon: [1:07:37] Very similar.
Katherine: [1:07:38] And you think now I can’t ask him.
Barbara: [1:07:41] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:07:42] I can, but…
Barbara: [1:07:43] Yeah.
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Gordon: [1:07:43] Yeah. Well, thank you so much.
Katherine: [1:07:46] Thank you very much.
Barbara: [1:07:46] Thank you.
Gordon: [1:07:47] Yeah.
Barbara: [1:07:47] This is appreciated.
Katherine: [1:07:48] Yeah, prompting us to look into it further.
Gordon: [1:07:50] Yeah. Maybe someday we can get copies of some of the photographs and things like that.
Barbara: [1:07:57] Oh…
Gordon: [1:07:58] You know, but… Probably not a good thing to do today, but…
Barbara: [1:08:01] Yeah.
Gordon: [1:08:01] Yeah.
Katherine: [1:08:02] Yeah, but at least bringing them kind of spurred some memories.
Gordon: [1:08:07] Oh, absolutely.
Katherine: [1:08:07] Yeah.
Barbara: [1:08:08] Yeah. And any time, I mean all of us have a lot of the different pieces of art. So, a good representation of…
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Joy: [1:08:17] Yours was what? What was grandpa? His heritage?
Barbara: [1:08:25] Oh.
Katherine: [1:08:26] Danish.
Barbara: [1:08:26] Danish.
J: [1:08:27] Danish. And mine was Swedish.
Barbara: [1:08:29] Right. Yeah.
Joy: [1:08:31] And you were both. [Laughter]
Katherine: [1:08:32] Yeah.
Gordon: [1:08:32] Yeah.
Barbara: [1:08:33] And my husband’s Norwegian. [Laughter] So…
Gordon: [1:08:35] Right.
Barbara: [1:08:36] Thank you.
Gordon: [1:08:37] Thank you.
END OF RECORDING.
Transcription by Alison Goetz.
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