Fire (#52Ancestors, Week 15)

There are two fires in my family history that I know of. I don't have pictures, but one of them did make the newspaper.

I will never forget walking home from school in the fall of my freshman year at Muncie Northside High School. I was at the bottom of our street and noticed a couple of fire trucks up ahead. How exciting, I thought, there's a fire on our street.

As I got closer I realized that the fire was at our house and I was no longer excited. I was horrified. I ran up the street to our house on the corner to find Mom and Mrs. Sears, one of our neighbors. To be honest I don't remember too many details except that I just lost it on Mrs. Sears' shoulder. I was worried about our cat and dog. Turns out that the dog had run away (we did find him) and the cat hid inside.

Mom had come home earlier and opened the garage door. She heard a "Whoosh" and all of a sudden there was a fire in the garage. We figured later that it must have been spontaneous combustion. I don't know how she called the fire department but they did a great job of putting it out before it spread to the rest of our house. Most of the damage was in the garage and attic above it where, unfortunately, we had put some family keepsakes: my mom's childhood doll house, my rocking horse (both of which were made by my Grandpa Falk). The Christmas ornaments were there, too, but luckily not the handmade ones.

We couldn't stay in our house for a few days while the damage was cleaned up and repaired. One of Chris' friend's parents (the Stanleys) loaned us their RV for Mom and Dad to stay in, parked in our driveway. We kids stayed with friends. Thankfully, repairs and cleaning were taken care of and it didn't seem long before life was back to normal.

Princeton Bureau County Tribune,
December 31, 1915

The second fire story in our family is a little more serious.

Theodore Johnson is my great-grandfather. His daughter Edna is my paternal grandmother. Edna was the fourth daughter of Theodore and Anna Johnson. She would have been 15 in 1915, about the same age as I was when we had our fire.

The fire at the Johnson's house happened on Christmas morning. According to what I can make out from the article, (and I remember Grandma telling this story once or twice) the family was ready to go to church early on Christmas morning but someone forgot their hat so Grandma's mom Anna went back to look for it in the closet. In 1915 the house that they lived in didn't have electric or gas power, and it would have been dark, so Anna had to use a kerosene lamp. Whether she left the lamp burning in the closet or something caught fire that she didn't notice is not known. But at 6:45 a.m. while the family was worshiping at church on Christmas morning, a neighbor saw that their house was on fire and called the fire department.

Princeton had a fire department at the time but no dispatching service like we have now. The telephone operator misunderstood where the fire was and 20 minutes were wasted because of the mix up.

The paper reported on the fire:

“When the wagon finally arrived the interior of the house was a mass of flames and it was impossible for the firemen to enter and save the furniture. The house property was covered by insurance amounting to $1,000. No insurance was carried on the furniture….

“The only piece of furniture removed from the house was a piano. This was dropped by the firemen as they were taking it out of the house and was damaged so that it is practically of no use.

“The residence will be repaired at once. During the repairing of the home the Johnson family are living with relatives and friends in the vicinity of their home.”

I can't imagine the tragedy of losing your house on Christmas Day, along with all the presents and food for the celebration. And the loss of the piano! My grandma and her sisters were all very musical, I'm sure they mourned the piano.

Hopefully Anna was able to let go of any burden she might have felt about starting the fire. The blessing was that no lives were lost in the fire. I'm sure that, as the ashes smoldered, the family eventually was able to count their blessings. In a tragedy, we find hope in counting our blessings.

Long Line (#52Ancestors, Week 3)

This week’s prompt took some thought. I don’t have an extensive family line that I have researched, there’s no occupation that keeps cropping up in the family, and we don’t even have anyone named Long.

However, I do have a characteristic that has shown itself consistently in my family for at least five generations back. So I’m choosing to focus on a long line of believers in the Christian faith that has become evident to me as I have researched my family.

Admittedly, it’s hard to judge anyone’s heart, especially the heart of an ancestor from long ago, but I do see that church was a “given,” a way of life, and the fact that faith continued to be important from one generation to the next tells me how sincere their faith was. In earlier generations I find obituaries that testify to the strength of faith in my ancestors’ lives, and in the later generations I can attest from personal knowledge that my family were strong believers.

My parents, Stan and Sarah Peterson, a Lutheran minister and his wife, brought me up in the Christian faith. Their belief and relationship with the Lord was a model for me as I grew. I have had the privilege of watching my parents live their lives, good and bad, knowing the Lord and having faith in His love and provision for them.

Burton and Verna Graf Falk

I knew three out of my four grandparents and can say from personal knowledge that they all believed in Jesus Christ.  My mom’s parents were Burton and Verna Graf Falk. I knew my maternal grandmother, Grandma Falk (Verna Graf Falk), pretty well. Verna grew up in a strict Seventh Day Adventist household but went to the Lutheran church when she married Burt. I know that she often attended Bible studies and I remember her reading the Bible from beginning to end every year; she would put a dot by each chapter after she read it. Grandma was also one who lived out her faith by volunteering (I remember her making “cancer pads”) and serving through church activities.

I don’t know much about Burton’s faith, he died when I was about four. I know he was baptized in the Lutheran church and that he attended church regularly with my mom and grandma.

Adrienne Falk Frazier

I also knew Burton’s sister, my mom’s Aunt Adrienne Falk, who was raised in the same Lutheran household as Burt but embraced a more evangelical faith in her adulthood. She always shared the gospel with us when we visited, and although her forthright talk sometimes made this quiet Lutheran uncomfortable, there was no doubt about where she stood and the faith that we shared, even if we lived it out differently.

Burton and Adrienne's parents were Eric Gustaf Falk and Helen Hedin Falk. Their obituaries list their membership at Grace Lutheran Church in Aurora, Illinois, the same church in which her granddaughter (my mom) was married. So not only was the faith passed down, but membership in the same church was shared as well.

Martha Bonin Graf and John Graf

Of Verna’s parents, her mom Martha Bonin Graf was the believer. Martha was born in northern Germany in 1875 and she died in 1958. Her obituary reads: “Forty-nine years ago she was baptized [at age 34] and joined the Seventh-day Adventist church in Elgin and remained true to her faith until the time of her death.” I don’t think that her husband John Graf went to church either as a young man once he immigrated to America or after he and Martha were married.

Edna Johnson Peterson and Harry Peterson,
as I knew them

My dad grew up in Princeton, Illinois where the First Lutheran Church (formerly the Swedish Lutheran Church) was a centerpiece of the family’s life. My dad’s father, Harry Peterson, didn’t or wouldn’t talk much about his faith but he attended church regularly. He served on the church council and was a deacon, usher, and served in many other ways at the Princeton First Lutheran Church. Harry’s wife Edna, Dad’s mom, sang in the church choir and was the choir director at one time. When I knew her later in life she attended Bible studies and I even have one or two of her reference books with some of her notes in it. I also remember that she would often shed tears when she prayed; when I was young I didn’t understand this but now I interpret those tears as an emotional response to her Lord.

Herman Peterson

Celia Anderson Peterson

Harry’s dad Herman Peterson was a member of First Lutheran Church in Princeton and served on the church council for many years. His wife Cecilia maintained membership at First Lutheran church in Princeton with her husband and was a charter member of the missionary society of that church. She raised nine children who also attended church and had a strong Christian faith. Celia’s mother Inga Anderson was a member of Zion Lutheran church in Kewanee, and she was also a member of the Ladies’ Aid and Missionary Societies of the church.

My dad’s maternal grandparents also attended First Lutheran Church in Princeton, Illinois. Edna’s father Theodore Johnson was a life member of the First Lutheran Church of Princeton (according to his obituary) and at the time of his death was the financial secretary of the church. His wife, Anna Lindgren Johnson, was confirmed in the New Bedford Illinois Lutheran church and held membership there and at the Princeton Lutheran Church when her family moved there. According to her obituary, Anna was a member of Ladies Aid and Missionary Societies, a member of choir and a Sunday School teacher. Her obituary testifies to the strength of her faith: “Early in her life she accepted Christ as her Savior and has lived a consistent Christian life.”

Swan Lindgren

Anna’s father (Edna’s grandfather) Swan Lindgren was also a member of First Lutheran Church in New Bedford, served as deacon for 27 years, also taught adult Bible class. His obituary also gives testimony to his character: “Mr. Lindgren gradually failed in physical strength during the last years of his life, but he retained his mental vigor to a large degree and his Christian faith was strong and conquering.”

Interestingly, Swan Lindgren’s second wife Anna was a friend of Celia Peterson (Herman Peterson’s wife). The two ladies were often mentioned together in church news items, as in this article where they entertained the Woman’s Home and Foreign Missionary society of the Swedish Lutheran church (1919)

And the faith continues. My sisters and I share a strong faith in Jesus, and I am always encouraged at our Peterson reunions to hear the faith stories of my dad’s cousins. In fact, one of his cousin’s sons is a missionary in Central America.

Now we work and pray to instill a love of the Lord in our own children, so that they will live knowing the Lord and be light to the world as we are called to do. An old saying is that the church is one generation away from extinction. As I look back over my family history, I am inspired to see that I come from a long line of Christians who have kept the faith in their lives and have planted it in the generations that followed.