Johanna Nilsdotter

Biography

"Grandma would sit on the front porch and help prepare the vegetables for meals - shelling peas and snapping beans. Here we could hear her stories. Her sense of humor was always prevalent. She loved to make us laugh as she talked to us in Swedish and tried to teach us a few words. About the old words I can remember, are "harmardu" how are you, and bro and smear, bread and butter, (excuse the spelling, I am sure it is not correct). Ardys seemed to learn the most and she loved talking to Grandma.

I can remember her wiping the dishes and story telling, of cording wool, making clothes and the many hardships they endured. I remember her telling that when they arrived in New York City, her father gave them 5 cents to spend. She bought a tomato, it looked so good. She hated it and until her dying day never ate another tomato. Her living in a dugout the first year in Utah and again her first year in Oakley, with no windows and sleeping on straw ticks, having few dishes or pots to use were great hardships. She told us of washing in a tub or a creek and always hauling the water. Water was such a premium and never taken for granted, nor never wasted. They would bathe, wash clothes, and scrub in the water."

-Taken from Zelda Annetta Elison Tidwells' biography of Grandma Johanna Swenson