would it hurt if they went to school on such a warm morning if that’s what they wanted to do?
Johann shrugged off his wife’s pleas and went back to work. The fact that it was his forty-first birthday would not stop him from putting in a full day of work, especially on such a promising winter day.
So thirteen-year-old Johann set off across the field alone. Peter, to please his mother, stayed home, though it made him miserable to miss a day of school. Years later, Peter recalled that he spent the morning sitting by the window staring glumly in the direction of the school. “My mother, who was observing me, sighed and said,
‘My child, my heart is going to break. I wish your brother were here with you.’ My father was busy working outside.”
The Allens were asleep in their house on Main Street when the weather changed, so they never knew at what hour the winter westerlies flickered and finally died out altogether and the south wind rose in their stead. When they stirred on the morning of the twelfth, the temperature in Groton was pushing 20 degrees—positively balmy compared to the 20-below-zero reading of the previous day. You notice a rise in temperature like that when you wake up in the dark in a house with no fire. But the three Allen boys—the teenagers, William and Hugh, and their eight-year-old half brother, Walter—were comparatively lucky. Being town boys, they didn’t have to go out to the barn to feed the stock or chop through the ice on a frozen trough before they got their own breakfast. The boys could get up and dress and eat breakfast in the daylight. And for once it looked like a nice day.
Unlike some boys, who had to be prodded and badgered out the door every morning, Walter Allen was always eager to get to school because he had a special job to do. In the Groton school, each row of desks was under the supervision of a “row monitor” who was in charge of the coats and overshoes for all the children in that row. As monitor of his row, Walter commanded the front seat, and whenever school was dismissed or recess called, he got to jump up before the other children, rush to the vestibule where the coats, caps, scarves, mittens, and overshoes were stowed, gather them up, and distribute them to the children in his row. (This strict segregation of children and clothing was enforced in order to keep the odor of wet wool, felt, and leather out of the classroom.) Walter was extremely proud that he had already mastered the tricky business of matching kids and clothes and even mentioned this accomplishment in his diary.
So that Thursday morning, while W.C. Allen ducked out the door and went to his law office next door to attend to the multifari-ous affairs of running a boom town on the Dakota prairie, and W.C.’s two older sons, Hugh and Will, strolled down main street to their jobs at the Groton newspaper (reduced to one now), Walter Allen set out alone for school with all the brisk determination that an ambitious eight-year-old can muster.
At some point during their first few years in Minnesota, the Rollags had quietly altered their names to make them sound more American. Gro became Grace, Osten became Austin, Gro and Ole’s oldest child, Peder, born in November 1874, just five months after they claimed their homestead, became Peter. Carl, Grace and Ole’s second son, born two and a half years later in the same sod house as Peter, became Charley. Though the boys went to English school and quickly learned to speak English with barely a trace of Norwegian accent, they continued to speak Norwegian at home. Thanks to their grandmother, Kari, they also had plenty of Norwegian books to read—indeed, Kari saw to it that they read Norwegian even before they started at the English school, which she didn’t think very highly of anyway. Kari also insisted that the children be confirmed in Norwegian, since she was dubious whether being confirmed in English would really “take.” Kari was one of those
Johann shrugged off his wife’s pleas and went back to work. The fact that it was his forty-first birthday would not stop him from putting in a full day of work, especially on such a promising winter day.
So thirteen-year-old Johann set off across the field alone. Peter, to please his mother, stayed home, though it made him miserable to miss a day of school. Years later, Peter recalled that he spent the morning sitting by the window staring glumly in the direction of the school. “My mother, who was observing me, sighed and said,
‘My child, my heart is going to break. I wish your brother were here with you.’ My father was busy working outside.”
The Allens were asleep in their house on Main Street when the weather changed, so they never knew at what hour the winter westerlies flickered and finally died out altogether and the south wind rose in their stead. When they stirred on the morning of the twelfth, the temperature in Groton was pushing 20 degrees—positively balmy compared to the 20-below-zero reading of the previous day. You notice a rise in temperature like that when you wake up in the dark in a house with no fire. But the three Allen boys—the teenagers, William and Hugh, and their eight-year-old half brother, Walter—were comparatively lucky. Being town boys, they didn’t have to go out to the barn to feed the stock or chop through the ice on a frozen trough before they got their own breakfast. The boys could get up and dress and eat breakfast in the daylight. And for once it looked like a nice day.
Unlike some boys, who had to be prodded and badgered out the door every morning, Walter Allen was always eager to get to school because he had a special job to do. In the Groton school, each row of desks was under the supervision of a “row monitor” who was in charge of the coats and overshoes for all the children in that row. As monitor of his row, Walter commanded the front seat, and whenever school was dismissed or recess called, he got to jump up before the other children, rush to the vestibule where the coats, caps, scarves, mittens, and overshoes were stowed, gather them up, and distribute them to the children in his row. (This strict segregation of children and clothing was enforced in order to keep the odor of wet wool, felt, and leather out of the classroom.) Walter was extremely proud that he had already mastered the tricky business of matching kids and clothes and even mentioned this accomplishment in his diary.
So that Thursday morning, while W.C. Allen ducked out the door and went to his law office next door to attend to the multifari-ous affairs of running a boom town on the Dakota prairie, and W.C.’s two older sons, Hugh and Will, strolled down main street to their jobs at the Groton newspaper (reduced to one now), Walter Allen set out alone for school with all the brisk determination that an ambitious eight-year-old can muster.
At some point during their first few years in Minnesota, the Rollags had quietly altered their names to make them sound more American. Gro became Grace, Osten became Austin, Gro and Ole’s oldest child, Peder, born in November 1874, just five months after they claimed their homestead, became Peter. Carl, Grace and Ole’s second son, born two and a half years later in the same sod house as Peter, became Charley. Though the boys went to English school and quickly learned to speak English with barely a trace of Norwegian accent, they continued to speak Norwegian at home. Thanks to their grandmother, Kari, they also had plenty of Norwegian books to read—indeed, Kari saw to it that they read Norwegian even before they started at the English school, which she didn’t think very highly of anyway. Kari also insisted that the children be confirmed in Norwegian, since she was dubious whether being confirmed in English would really “take.” Kari was one of those
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