Uncle Allen had met him while selling oleomargarine. Oluf was a skilled baker who had graduated to traveling salesman. With his sample cases full of margarine he traveled through the northeastern states demonstrating and selling his goods in large plants and small neighborhood shops. Uncle Allen brought him home one evening and introduced him to my mother.
He was a Dane, a big, yellow-haired, outgoing man in his late forties, and a widower. He had emigrated to the United States after his wife’s death. There was a son who was married and living in western Pennsylvania. Oluf had the venturesome business spirit my mother admired. He had borrowed from the banks to buy three or four houses in Pennsylvania and considered himself a developing American success story. He was a man of high good humor, well-pressed double-breasted suits, manicured nails, and glossily polished shoes. He had risen above the labor of bake ovens, traveled from city to city, talked business deals with bankers. My mother, looking at him, saw a man with a future.
And though I did not know it at the time, she loved him.
I did not. Though I liked Oluf’s jovial spirits and ate his pastry with gusto, the possibility of having a new father scared me. My great terror then was of losing my mother. I had constant nightmares, ghastly nightmares in which she was dead and Doris and I were left alone. Her marrying, I thought, would be another way to lose her, though I never told her so.
Oluf’s work kept him on the road much of the time. During his absences he wrote two or three times a week to my mother. The graceful flourish of his handwriting contrasted oddly with the fractured grammar and exotic spelling of his prose. Still, his discomfort with the mysteries of English did not diminish his power to make himself felt when he took up the pen. Through the comical spelling, eerie grammar, and devil-may-care punctuation a distinctive voice emerged, full of sweetness, despair, earnestness, love, and loneliness, all expressed in a graceful Scandinavian lilt.
The first note of fear was sounded in a letter he wrote her from Boston May 9, 1932. He had visited his home office that day. Back at his hotel that night he wrote her about it.
“Dear Elizabeth,” he began. “Today I have been together with our Manager all day, and he told me that it look like I will have to go June first. Business is so bad and getting worse for us, he let four salesmen go here May first so now there is only seven left. Last year there was seventheen. Well it don’t help to worrie, like you said, I have to start a bakery somewhere, do you want to help me if I get one?”
The following week he called on customers in Providence and Newport, then came back to Boston and began his letter with bad news.
May 21, 1932:
“Dear Elizabeth: Just was at our office, they showed me letters they had written to Swift trying to keep me, but Swift said no, so I am out.”
He was answering a letter from her in which she said Aunt Pat was going to find her a job.
“How in the world could Pat get a job for you? You know jobs today don’t hang on trees.”
And then, the abrupt switch to a more pleasant subject that typified his instinct to look on the bright side:
“New Port is the nicest place I ever seing.”
And in the next sentence, the relapse into fear:
“Do you know Elizabeth down in Baltimore is a baker who wanted me affoul bad last time I was there maby I will take the job for a while, how would you like that, would you come and see me, or I come and see you. Business is affoul bad, now they are going to stop this office and only keep three Salesmen, last Summer they hat 32 men here, how people are getting over next vinter, I can’t untherstand. Again thanks for your letter you are a sweet Girl, I will Kiss you when I see you, how is that, love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
By the summer of 1932 President Hoover’s mere “depression” had become “the Depression” with a capital D. Campaigning for reelection, the President declared, “Prosperity is just around the corner.” Oluf, however, was adjusting his goals downward.
May 26, 1932:
“Dear Elizabeth, I will try to see that Baker in Baltimore on Monday June 6, today I was offered a job here with a Baker he would pay me 45 dollars per week, I told him I would think it over but oh how working in a Bakeshop in the Summer months is hard work.”
Then, a burst of romantic teasing:
“That Widow in Pittsburgh has heard about I loosing my job, now she offers me all there is in this world if I will come and run her shop, but I don’t think it will be so great, do you, no I know, you say no, oh how worm it is here this days, and today we hat a Storm a bad one to, a Cann of Blue Berries exploted today in a shop and I got it all over my Close, how is that—not so good,
“Love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
My mother was writing back to him letter for letter. She kept his stored away for years, not because she realized they constituted a personal history of the Depression, but because she valued them among her most precious treasures. What she said in her letters to him is all lost except for echoes and resonances in his replies. It was not a conventional lovers’ correspondence, despite Oluf’s frequent attempts to strike the chord of passion. He in growing fear, she in her mid-thirties, impoverished, widowed with small children, both were using the mails to shelter them against loneliness.
Earlier that year Aunt Pat had her first child, a daughter she named Kathleen. By mid-June Oluf had retreated to his properties in western Pennsylvania and wrote a “Dear Friends” letter to the whole family:
“Pat you are an affoul bad Girl, not to write me any before, you know I am out of work, and have been for some time, nearly all Echerson Co is out, and soon Swift and all their large Packing Co will be out, I never know how hard times is till when I got back to this town trying to borrow mony, I am glad Allen is working, be sjure to hang on to it, Pat I told you a Child is word a Berl of Gold….”
He had a job though: “demonstrating and selling Pomosin, a New Product from Germany.” He had also traded his car for an old Buick—“a Buirich Carre”—and was about to set out in it on a selling trip with his son Niels.
“Not working, do you know I am lost, and now all the Insurance People down here comes to see me, they all thinks I am full of mony or something, I say full of Balony, but now I will try this job first, I may land on the poor House but then I wont be the first, nor the last.”
Two weeks later:
“Dear Elizabeth, Monday morning Niels, my Son and I started out selling Flavors and Speices, we made during the week 37 dollars, but we spent 34 dollars you know what I mean, Hotels and Meals, so I wouldent say it was so good…. The worst truble is this Bakers think I am going cracy, coming down selling Speices, this morning in Pittsburgh a Baker we called on there, said when he seing me, say what is this World coming to, now Oluf comes and wont to sell Speices, I felt so bad about it, so I said to Niels come on lett us go Home….”
July 9, 1932:
“Dear Elizabeth, I got Home last Night late, and I sendt in my Resignation. That job was no good, by selling that Stuf I would have spoiled my Name amongst the Bakers….”
They had not seen each other for three months.
“Yes I would have liked to see you now but I will later on, and then you and I will make up for all lost time, then I will be kissing you till you tell me, oh Oluf you are good will you do that? you better say yes, because I am almost sjure of it…tell me in your letters all the news, I like to hear it from you, oh all the Taxces and Bills I got to paid and have no Mony, but then I don’t worrie, love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
He was having trouble now meeting the mortgage payments on the houses he had bought, and he hoped to solve the problem by selling one. It was August, nearly five months since they had last seen each other. The long stretch of joblessness had started him reflecting philosophically about friendship.
August 11, 1932:
“Dear Elizabeth, Thanks very much for your letter I received today, yes I wich I was down near you, and we would go out for a ride, I am sj
ure it would make you cool, here it is wery neice Weather, and cool at Night, oh how I sleep when I am here at my Home, you know it is so quiet, compared with when I use to be in the Citys all noise, and so worm, I don’t hear from anybody but you, how funy People are, only when they thinks they can get something out of a Person then they are, or I mean they let on to they are Freinds, but they soon change, you remember some days I received up to twenty letters, and now, not any, only you stick to me, you are a good Girl….
“I begin to think I was going to sell a House this morning, but the Party diddent have any mony, now I have three Houses empty, nothing coming in, and Taxes to be paid, well it will come out OK, I hope so, I always tell People not to worrie, so I won’t eather, now good Night with love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
Well it will all come out OK, I hope so.
With the country reaching the modern equivalent of the Dark Ages, “Well it will all come out OK, I hope so” was a declaration of boundless optimism. It was a season of bread lines, soup kitchens, hobo jungles, bandits riding the highways. Suicide was epidemic among men who felt their manhood lost because they could no longer support their families. Unemployment stood at 25 percent of the work force. There were 85,000 businesses bankrupt, 5,000 bank failures, 275,000 families evicted from their homes.
President Hoover’s campaign slogan—“Prosperity is just around the corner”—had become a sardonic national joke. Even among people like Oluf who wanted to believe it, enthusiasm was muted down to, “Well it will all come out OK, I hope so.”
October 6, 1932. It was now seven months since they had seen each other:
“Dear Elizabeth, Thanks very much for your letter I received yesterday, I see you were feeling a little blue that evening, yes I wich I could have been with you, I am sjure you would have feelt alright. Yes I will be down there for your Birthday unless something happening, there was a man here today he wonted to hire me, to call on Bakers in Pittsburgh, but it was all on Commission and no salary, so I said no….
“I got a wery neice letter from the People today where Niels rents his House from, they asked me to paid Nielses rent from August so on til next Spring, but I am not even going to answer that letter, they said in the letter that you Mr. Oluf is the cause of Niels being in this World, and it was up to me to take care of him and his Familie, say I wonder who is to blame for I being here in this World, who ever it is, never helpt me, and who is to blame for you Elizabeth being here,—say that is what I call Balony, but that it what the Vorld is fuld of.”
During their long separation their letters were creating an intimacy between them far deeper than they had known when they walked out together in Newark. There their relationship had been entirely correct and according to the canons of courtship. The most passionate moment, to which Oluf alluded now and then, occurred during a walk that took them near the neighborhood hospital, when they seem to have kissed.
“We are having such a neice Day,” he wrote in the autumn of 1932, “just like Spring, I went out for a warlk this morning, do you remember when you and I went for a warlk, I mean to the Hospital….”
Distance and loneliness encouraged hopes of a more passionate relationship when they met again, yet Oluf’s most romantic compositions were constantly being interrupted by cries of terror.
In October:
“If I don’t come to your Birthday this year, please don’t worrie, because when I do come I will kiss and love you that much more, yes I will keep on till you put your Arms rown me and tell me I am good, can I love you to much? You better say no, tell Pat I will answer her letter when I get to feel a little better, what makes me sick is all this jobs I am to have, but never gets any, I was up to see my Dochtor to day, he tells me I am OK, in very good Health I know I am, if I only could get a job.”
The election of Franklin Roosevelt in November did not raise his spirits.
November 11, 1932:
“Precident elesktion came out I think OK, it don’t matter if it is Republican or Democrate in times like this…. Butter Prices are down where they were a year ago, and till they go back up rown 30 cents pr lbs, they never will hire me to demonstrate Margarine, now I am down and out again, and I don’t like to keep on borrowing Moony from the Banks, because I got to paid it back sometimes sooner or later.”
Desperate to pay his bankers, he went back to the bake ovens that month.
November 19, 1932:
“Dear Elizabeth…. I wont to come to you wery, wery bad, and I will, and when I do come you will be so glad with me, I know you will, but I borrowed doring the Summer over 1,000 Dollars from the Banks and was down and out again, then Metz came along, and told me about this job, and I went and got it, but oh how I dont like it, it is absolutely no good, to much work, I mean to long hours, we got to go to work tomorrow Sunday all day, and again Monday morning, and every morning at one A.M. til next day rown two or three Afternoon, but I must stand it for a while….”
Two days later:
“…this hours, it is day and night, work all the time, Yesterday we work all day till ten last evening then we started again at two this morning, now it is three Afternoon I just got home, now Elizabeth don’t worrie, get along the best you can, and always think and say, someday Oluf will come, and I will….”
These lines were the closest to a promise of marriage he had written. She wrote back immediately urging him to look for an easier job more fitting for a man of his age and achievements.
November 25, 1932:
“No, Elizabeth I tried all over to get a job, I vill bet you I spendt over five Dollars on Stemps, sending letters to every one of this Bakers, who offered me jobs with big mony when I was traveling, but only one of them answered, no there was two, one in Newark and one in Boston, but they said they diddent have anything just now, the rest of them wouldent even spend a two cent Stamps on me, and they all were my Friends, well such is Life, no you musent think I would stay here in this dumpe one day ef I could get an other Job…now it is three a clock Afternoon, and we got to go to work at elleven this evening, isint it some Life, vell I hope soon vill change to something better…I will get to you some day, don’t worrie, love to you all from Oluf.”
Five days later he had good news.
“Yesterday I received a Box of Cigares from a wery good Baker in Philladelphia, so maby my Freinds begin to come rown again, I wrote him to day and Thankt him, and said ef he needed a man lett me know and I would come down there.”
Ten days later:
“I got a letter from that Baker in Philadelphia to day, but it was the same story, he like very much to have me, but not now, vell there vill be something comming soon, I think so….
“Say isent it funny doing a Persons Life all there comes up, one thing after an other, and then it is nothing, as long as we have our Health….”
In the middle of December she wrote that she had sent him a Christmas present.
“You shouldn’t send me any Precent, not in times like this,” he replied. “I am sending a litle so you can by something for the Children for Christmas and I hope you vill all have a neice Christmas, and I wich I could be there with you, but I will someday, good Night with love to you all from Oluf.”
Her gift arrived December 20.
“Dear Elizabeth, Thanks wery much for your letter and the Packets I received today. I wont open up for it til Christmas I never du with any Precent, My Wife used to open up for everything before the day and I always scoled her, say you are a sweet Girl now Elizabeth, the way you write me, and I like it, you vill see when I come down to you, we know each other, and we vont be afraid, now I never was of you, but you was a little of me, and you should be them days becouse you diddent know me, but now you do, and I can almost feel how sweet it vill be when I put my arms rown you….”
He also had good news.
“To day a man came in our shop from Gumbert Co in New York, he said to me, vhat in the World are you doing here Oluf, I told hem, then he said, write to our Company
and I think they vill heire you, so that is vhat I vill do, and I hope I vill get a job, but it vont be til in January, vell again I wishes you a Mery Christmas and Thanks for all your kindnes to me….”
January 4,1933:
“I got a letter from this People in New York to day, but the same Story, they vould like very much to have me, but the Depression is on, oh how I do wich it soon vill be better so I can get a job, but rown here it is getting worce insted of better….”
Four days later his spirits were high and he was counting his blessings.
“This job here has been a great experience for me, you know vhat I mean, I use to be a Baker but it is eight years ago since I was working at it and a Fellow forgot all about working in that time, but now I am fearly good ad it again, I am loosing in waith now, I can feel it when I get dressed up on Sundays, but that is OK, because I was to fatt, don’t you think? Elizabeth isent it funny all a Person goes tru during a Life time you have going tru lots, but I think I a litle more, because I am older, but again as long as we have our Health everything is OK, and we shouldent complain….”
In mid-January another job prospect failed.
“That Baker never answered, and I spoce never will, it is funny how it goes.”
The end of January:
“I did write Jelke Co, and hat an answeer, I did write Echerson Co, but it is the same Story, they sjure would like to have me, but the Depression is on, it is affoul, I wont to come down to you, and you wont me to come and here I am more than 400 Miles away, and it is all from that Depression.”
February 1,1933:
“Business is getting worce insteadt of better….”
February 9:
“That Baker in Baltimore never answered yet, it is funy, he is the one who offered me 125 Dollars per week ef I only whute come to hem, and it is not much over a Year ago, now he wont even spend a three cent Stamp on me, I mean telling me he cant use me, or something, the same day I wrote to hem, I wrote to one in Boston, he offered me 50 Dollars per week a Year ago, but I dont think he will spend a Stamp on me, well such is Life, I think I wrote over fifty Letters to differens Bakers about a job, but only two answered me telling how sorry they where they couldent use me….”