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Letter from Ole Rølvaag to Jennie Rølvaag, 1931 January 31
- Title
- Letter from Ole Rølvaag to Jennie Rølvaag, 1931 January 31
- Identifier
- p0584_11743
- p0584_11744
- p0584_11745
- Date
- 1931 January 31
- Description
- Ole Rolvaag's letter to Jennie Rolvaag.
- Translation:
Dear wife!
I have just gone to bed, and am not particularly tired. The time was a quarter to 12, then for you it is just a quarter to 11, and therefore you haven’t even begun to think about going to bed yet. Yes, then I think it would be alright to talk a little bit together.
Today (Wednesday) it has been ever so cold. Was down at the library to get a book loaned, and I was glad to have my coat with me. The book I did not get, and therefore I had to send the card to Tulla. The library does not open before 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and some days not before 4! What do you think about that in a city of 110,000! From one who is well-known I heard that it is just a lousy library, and so they can very well have it closed.
Today I have done a little for myself, and I have worked a little for father Gabriel. We get along well. He does not give in at first, but is very sensible.
No wonder his semitic feelings are how they are. Here you can see ever so many apartments following: “Only Gentiles Wanted”. No wonder it is boiling in him. It would do it to me as well.
Otherwise he takes it sensibly. He is considerably more uncompromising. All in all they are extraordinary people, both of them.
I hear that Dorothy and the children are coming down here in a while. Here is spacious enough, and now we have gotten a very good cook in the house! Breakfast is: fruit, pancakes, or a cooked dish (cereal of one kind or another) and coffee. Very simple. Lunch we eat around 2 o’clock; it is almost always dry food, bread, butter and delicacies. Dinner we eat around 7 o’clock, and it is always lazy; but nothing lavish. N. as a rule now eats more than I do. I try to suit myself. His appetite seems to be as full as mine. Overall we live as quietly and beautifully as decent people can.
I have decided to pay them $100 per month. If they are at peace with that, I will not complain. That is more than reasonable. More I will not offer them, and I am almost sure that they are not thinking to take more, maybe not even that much either. But that day and that sorrow!
Feel here about as when I was at home. Yesterday, because the cold weather was brewing, I had a great deal of pain, just like I would have felt if I was at home!
(Thursday morning) Uff, this is terrible! If it had been minus 30 outside at your place, it couldn't have been colder! Now we have two electric heaters going, and just the same, the house is almost like an ice cottage! A freeze over all of Florida yesterday night. I wonder how it is up at your place? I am sitting by the window and writing this. Watching the school children come by from school. In the forenoon they have gotten a free day because of the cold. No, you should not send the winter underclothes back. This will only last for a moment- not over a day’s time.
Yes, now I have to go work.
Adieu then!
The old man
- Funding to digitize the O.E. Rølvaag Papers was provided to the Norwegian-American Historical Association through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, a component of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, ratified by Minnesota voters in 2008.
- Jennie Marie Berdahl was born on June 1, 1879 in Minnehaha County, South Dakota to Andrew James and Karen Oline (Otterness) Berdahl. Jennie was born in a sod hut before South Dakota received statehood. She attended Augustana Academy in Canton, S.D. and was a county school teacher. Jennie Berdahl married Ole Rølvaag in 1908 and lived in Northfield, MN. Together they had four children: Olaf Arnljot (1909-1915) Ella Valborg Tweet (1910-2003) Karl Fritjof (1913-1990) Paul Gunnar (1915-1920).
- Type
- Text
- Format
- Letters (correspondence)
- Contributor
- Rølvaag, Jennie Marie Berdahl
- Rights
- No Copyright - the United States
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
- The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
- Bibliographic Citation
- [Indicate the cited item here]. O.E. Rølvaag Papers. Norwegian American Historical Association, Northfield, Minnesota.