REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMAS PAST: Vickie Hendricks: “We thought Santa wore a big old fur coat with a sheep lining.”

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By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX — When Victoria (Iverson) Hendricks was growing up on the Iverson farm west of Colfax in the 1930s, there was no such thing as a Santa suit.

“I always had one uncle on my mother’s side who would play Santa,” said Vickie, who celebrated her 98th birthday this year.

“Of course, at that time, there were no Santa suits. So he wore a great big old fur coat with a sheep lining. So that’s what we thought Santa looked like,” she said.

“Then of course, he would knock on the front door, and then all the gifts were on the porch. He left them and went,” Vickie said.

When Vickie says that’s what “we” thought Santa looked like, she is referring to the seven children in the family, or rather, families.

The Iverson farm, where Vickie lives today, has a large farm house that, at the time Vickie was growing up, was the home of three Iverson families.

Three brothers — Ed, Carl and Ingman — and their wives, Mina, Mildred and Gladys— and their children — all lived in the same house.

“We grew up in a different situation than most families,” Vickie said.

“We all ate together. We always did everything together. We always had a busy time. We never made a big issue over any particular thing because we had so many around anyway,” she said.

The Iverson farm has always been “home” to a wide variety of family members.

“Being that all of the siblings of the first generation who grew up here, they all came back, often, and for every holiday,” Vickie said.

When Ed, Carl and Ingman got married, “They moved back. In the (19)30s, there were six adults and seven kids living here under one roof,” she said.

“That’s a lot of dirty dishes!” Vickie noted.

“Irene and I were the two girls, so of course, we got to do all the dishes. She wanted to wash, so guess who wiped? — And that’s why I have a dishwasher today,” she said with a smile.

Irene was Ingman and Gladys’s daughter.

“Even as adults, after we were married, we all came home. We still do. Everybody comes home. They all come back here to their roots. They do that at Christmas — and again at the Fourth of July. They all come back. Which is nice. Because then they remember where they started out,” Vickie said.

“We always celebrated Christmas at home. Everybody always came home. Even after my folks moved across the road, because my grandma couldn’t be alone, we all went home for Christmas,” she said.

Vickie and her husband, Dale, moved to Hudson in 1958 when Dale received a transfer with Bell Telephone (now AT&T). In 1971, they purchased the farm west of Colfax in the Norton area where Vickie was born and grew up.

Dale and Vickie moved to the farm in 1974 and commuted to Hudson for work until they retired.

At the time of their 70th wedding anniversary party in May of 2016, Dale Hendricks had been retired for 34 years.

Dale passed away in October of 2016.

Mandolin, violin, piano

Music was always part of the Iverson family, at Christmas, but all throughout the rest of the year, too.

“My dad and his siblings were really musical. They loved to play,” Vickie said.

“And of course, we always had a piano in the parlor. Whenever (the family) got together, my dad (Ed) played the mandolin. Carl played the violin. And Ingman played the piano. So we had the whole band. And then we all sang. We did a lot of singing,” she said.

“All of the aunts were musical as well. That was always kind of a fun thing to do,” Vickie said.

“We did a lot of singing at Christmas, too. Everybody in the family all loved that, until the day they died. They were all singers. Sang in the choirs. And at school,” she said.

Norton programs 

The Iverson family attended church at Norton Lutheran Church about a mile west of the farm.

“We always had a program at church. There were a lot of kids at Norton when we were growing up,” Vickie said.

“The women always made sure there was a program. And then our treat. We’d end up with a small brown paper bag with peanuts and an apple and some hard candy,” she said.

“There was a lot of singing at church, too. Years ago, people used to sing. They knew the hymns and the songs. Today, we don’t know the words to anything,” Vickie said.

“Years ago, in a community like our little community here, when I taught at Norton (School), when I had my program, everybody came. From church. They all came. It was close-knit little family community out here,” she said.

Vickie also recalled one particular Sunday school program in later years at Norton after she and Dale were living on the farm.

“I remember one time when Kaye Erickson was acting up upstairs in church, running around, and your mother scolded her. She went downstairs and said to her mother (Marguerite Erickson), ‘Whose church is this anyway? God’s? Or Mrs. Ralph’s?’” Vickie recalled.

It should be noted that this reporter has heard the story of “Whose church is this anyway? God’s? Or Mrs. Ralph’s?” from several different sources, so it must have made an impression on a few people.

Norma Ralph was stricken with polio in 1942. She was partially paralyzed in her right leg and completely paralyzed in her left leg. Stairs were difficult for her, so after the Sunday school Christmas program, she would stay up in the church to keep an eye on the youngsters who came back upstairs to play after they’d had lunch downstairs.

As Vickie noted, “Running in church, up around the altar, with the Christmas tree in the church— that was a no-no.”

Norwegian goodies

Because there were so many people in the Iverson family, Christmas meals are kind of a blur for Vickie.

“As far as Christmases go, I don’t remember what we ate or fixed, because with three mothers in the house, you always had food. And somebody always baked something. All the time,” Vickie said.

“So I don’t remember what we ate, but we did have all of the Norwegian things. We made all the goodies. The rosettes. The rommegrot.  Sweet soup. Lefse. All of that,” she said.

For those who are not familiar with it, rommegrot is a traditional Norwegian pudding or porridge made with whole milk and cream and thickened with flour, served with melted butter and cinnamon and sugar.

Sweet soup is made with dried fruit.

“And all of that was made on a wood stove back in our days,” Vickie said.

“That was a lot of wood that had to be carried in, to get a fire hot enough for that kind of stuff,” she said.

“We always had dinner on Christmas Eve. We got our gifts on Christmas Eve. And then all the aunts, all the Barstads, came out on Christmas Day. And then there was all of the food again, because everybody brought something,” Vickie said, noting that “the house was just packed with people.”

“We didn’t have lights here until 1938, so we were using lamps. I was a freshman in high school before we had lights,” she said.

“I still have the lamp that we used to have. It was a mantel lamp. You had to pump it up. I still have that. Somehow I’ve managed to hang onto that,” Vickie said.

The Holy Room

There was one room in the house that was off limits to the children in the Iverson family at Christmas time.

“We always had the Christmas tree in the parlor. But we weren’t allowed in there until adults were there, because you used real candles (on the tree) at that time,” Vickie said.

“The kids could not be in (the parlor) until the last minute. You couldn’t be messing around and mess that up. Mary calls it ‘The Holy Room’ because nobody was allowed in there,” Vickie said.

Mary Berg is Vickie’s daughter.

And since Dale and Vickie lived in the same house for many years, “we had our tree in there, too, of course,” she said.

Dale and Vickie also have a son, Terry.

“After we were married and moved to Eau Claire and had the kids, they loved to bang on the piano and sing too,” Vickie said.

“They were about three and four then. That just goes to show, they loved the piano. They loved to pretend they were playing and singing,” she said.

Apparently, gathering around the piano and singing had extended to the next generation.

Sleds and skis 

You can imagine with so many children in the three families, not to mention all of the other cousins who would come to visit, there was quite a lot of activity outside at the Iverson farm in the winter.

“With so many kids of the same age in our family, we often got the same thing for Christmas. One year we got sleds. When we all went outside, you had to have a sled. And one year we got skis,” Vickie said.

She paused.

“You know what that tells you, don’t you? — Get outside!” she said.

One can imagine with a houseful of children, the adults would very much like all of the kids to go outside and occupy themselves.

“Everette (one of Vickie’s cousins) was a great hand at building ski jumps and things like that. I was always afraid to do (the ski jumps). I wasn’t very athletic,” Vickie said.

“We spent a lot of time outside, I’ll tell you,” she said.

“We used to carry water and try to ice down the hill so we’d slide farther. Different little things like that,” Vickie said.

“We used to think that was a big hill, but it’s really not very big. We thought it was a pretty high hill. We’d slide down to the valley,” she said.

The hill is part of the farm house yard. While it is not especially steep, it has a long slope.

“Now I can drive up that hill in my car! It’s funny how things do change. You look at it so differently when you’re older,” Vickie said.

Only doll

Vickie says she only received one doll as a Christmas gift while she was growing up.

“When Irene and I were real little, we each got a doll with a rocking chair. I still have mine (the rocking chair). I have the doll as well. At that time, they were soft-bodied dolls, and the head was attached with a cord, or something like that, so of course, the head is off, and I can’t find anybody to fix it,” Vickie said.

“I think that was the only doll I had. It’s not like today, when the kids have dozens,” she said.

Farm table

With so many people in the family, a large table would be a necessity for meal times.

“When we ate a regular meal, we had a table that stretched the full length of those windows,” Vickie said, gesturing toward one wall of her kitchen.

“It held four on each side and two on each end. And then sometimes we’d have a hired man or two,” she said.

“It was a lot of people around. And a lot of food. The aunties would all have their thing. One would make donuts. Another had special cookies. We always had food like that,” Vickie said.

“And at that time, people could just stop in. They didn’t have to be invited. Today, you call before you go anywhere. Then, people just popped in. Which was nice. We always had our goodies,” she said.

“When we were first married, Dale wasn’t used to eating lunches like that all the time and goodies in between meals. He’d be almost sick because he didn’t know enough that he didn’t have to eat it,” Vickie said.

Dale grew up in Eau Claire. His folks had moved to Elmwood, and Dale wanted to finish high school in Eau Claire, so he boarded and worked to support himself.

Dale enlisted in the United States Navy and met Vickie after he was discharged from the Navy following three years of service during World War II.

Quite a few years ago now, Dale Hendricks told this reporter that “that little Norwegian” and her “great big Iverson family” were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

On the day they were married, Vickie was 5’3” and Dale was 6’3”.

Graduations and such

The children in the three Iverson families were all close in age.

“My cousin, Don, was two days younger than me, so you know, we were so close. Irene and Everette were three years older, if you can imagine that in a household,” Vickie said.

“We just didn’t make a big issue of anything because there were so many of us. There was a party going on all the time,” she said.

“We all, as we grew up, did things together. Graduation parties were together. Confirmations were together. We did everything together,” Vickie said.

Of course, they rode the school bus together as well, and Vickie agreed that the Iversons made up a substantial portion of the students on the bus.

“They used to pick us all up here down on the road with the bus to go to school,” she said.

“You know, I have people yet who ask me ‘who I belong to,’ which one of the Iversons,” Vickie said.