Millie Broberg, “Mom always forgot something before church.”
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Millie Broberg
By Missy Klatt
Millie Broberg of Glenwood City, formerly Millie Fouks, grew up on a dairy farm two miles north of Forest. She was the youngest of five kids born to Stanley and Sabena. On Christmas Eve none of the festivities could start until the milking and all the chores were done. After chores they bundled up and it was off to St. John’s Lutheran Church in Forest for the kids’ Christmas program.
However, right before they were to leave it seems her mom would forget something and have to run back in the house. This seemed to happen every year and amazingly every year after they arrived home after church, Santa Claus had already been there. Millie laughs and says that when she was a mother she did the same thing, forgetting something in the house right before they were to leave for Christmas Eve service.
On Christmas Day they would head over to her mother’s mom’s, Grandma Knoll, who lived about ten miles away on a farm on County road H. Millie relates that sometimes the snow was so bad that her uncle, who lived on the corner of H, would get out his cutter sleigh and he would take them the rest of the way in the cutter.
“We always had goose for Christmas Dinner” remarks Millie. She’s not sure if it was a German custom to have goose but at any rate it was her family’s custom. Millie remarked “I love goose.” Although she admits she hasn’t had it for a long time. It was a large get together at the Knolls’ with perhaps 40 or 50 people. Millie says there were a lot of kids. The kids would all play cards like ‘Go Fish’ or ‘Rummy’.
They would go to her other grandma’s either the Sunday before or the Sunday after Christmas.
“Our Christmas trees always came from our farm” commented Millie. Her dad had planted rows and rows of trees on the farm so every year they went out and cut one down for Christmas. Their ornaments were either homemade or made of glass, which Millie still has some of. Millie wasn’t sure if some of the glass ornaments were brought over with her grandparents from Germany or not but in either case she remarked, “We could never touch grandma’s tree.”
As for presents, Millie remembers that one year she and her brother Stanley, who was four years older, and her closest sibling both got sleds for Christmas. Sometimes she would get a doll or doll clothes. One year her dad made her a doll bed. Grandma or maybe some cousin would give her hankies for Christmas.
Millie also recalls the Christmas programs at school. They lived about ¾ of a mile from the Woodland School, a one room school. Everyone had their piece to say and they sang. All the kids would then get a bag of candy and apples. “We’d get that at church too.” The neighbors would come to her school when they had their program and they would go to their school program. Their neighbor only lived about a ¼ mile away but they went to a different school so Millie and her family got to enjoy two school Christmas programs. She also got another bag of treats there as well.
Millie said that they played outside all the time as kids and in the winter that usually meant sliding. She said they had a little hill by the house but a really nice hill out in the one field.
When Millie was thirteen her and her folks moved and her brother Francis took over the farm. They moved to a farm that used to be her great aunt’s place. It was also near her second brother, Herb’s farm so Herb farmed the land and Millie and her folks just lived in the house. It was here that all her nieces and nephews came to see ‘grandma’ on Christmas so they stopped going to her grandmothers’.
The year they moved it was between Christmas and New Year’s and her mom wasn’t about to cut a tree down so she had a pole lamp and stuck branches on it and decorated it.
After Millie and her husband, Al got married they lived in the cities for a while. In those early years of marriage they would visit her mother-in-law for Christmas and Millie wrinkles up her nose as she recalls that her mother-in-law would make lutefisk for Christmas dinner. However she said that since her mother-in-law had several “German” sons and daughters-in-laws she would make meatballs for them.
Millie and Al then moved back to Forest where they ran the little store in town. Millie had to wait thirteen years before her daughter, Barbara was born so she could pass down some Christmas traditions.
Millie tells of the story that when she and Al moved into the store there was a couple down the road that just had a baby the day before. He was older than Al and she was younger than Millie. “Oh now there is hope for us yet.” Commented Millie. Millie chuckles as she continues, “She (Barb) came along and it turns out she married the kid.” The kid, Jim Eliason was a couple of years older and though they lived not too far apart to start, the Brobergs moved to Glenwood when Barb was about two. Barb and Jim went to different schools and Barb didn’t meet him until she was out of high school.
When Barb was young they would go to Bloomington to Al’s sister’s for Christmas Eve and on the way there and back they would always check out the Christmas lights and decorations. When they got back from dinner they would go to the candle light service at Holy Cross.
They would always go somewhere to cut their Christmas tree when Barb was young. Millie recalls that one year when Barb was five or six years old they went to Conklin’s Tree Farm and John and Darlene Peterson (whom they knew from church) were Santa and Mrs. Santa. Millie said that Barb had rolled down the window and they said what do you want for Christmas Barb and she was just flabbergasted that they knew her name. Millie said it was just perfect.
This year Millie will get help with all her decorating from her pride and joy, her grandkids, Anaka and Landen.