Smoky Valley Historical Association Oral Histories: Linn and Mary Peterson (1985) скачать в хорошем качестве

Smoky Valley Historical Association Oral Histories: Linn and Mary Peterson (1985)

Today we join an interview from 40 years ago in 1985, giving perspectives into the early 20th century, 19th century, and even lines going back to the 1700s. In this recording (which was starting to deteriorate and still has artifacts of the tape's previous use), we hear from Linn and Mary Peterson and their long family histories. Linn - who was a Navy veteran - first talks about "Papa Linn" (Anders Gustav Linn), who was his grandfather and namesake. Anders was in the first group of Swedish immigrants in 1866 to the Lindsborg area, but when he first got to Kansas, times were difficult. Speaking only Swedish and unable to find reliable work around Lawrence while taking refuge in an abandoned schoolhouse, Anders - who usually went barefoot - walked more than 100 miles to Junction City. There he finally found work in a quarry and making hay. Then in 1866, the homesteading program enabled him to start raising cattle and planting timber while he lived in a dugout. Later, the Great Depression years hit Anders hard, but before then Anders hit a peak of working as much as 900 acres in the area. Linn was also able to trace his Dutch ancestry back to the 1700s, while also talking about his father - Anton - who had a three-decade career as county clerk and courthouse deputy. Mary's Swedish ancestors came to the United States even earlier, with her great-grandparents arriving in 1856 on the same ship as early Lindsborg leader Carl Swensson. She shares several stories of her ancestors surviving the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and her father serving as an early rural mail carrier in the Smoky Valley area. This is just one part of an ambitious set of oral history recordings under the direction of Elston Flohr, who was a member of the association's Board of Directors and part of the faculty of the Department of English, Theater and Speech at Bethany College. Those interviews are part of the museum archive collection, and there are about 30 Beta and VHS cassette recordings in the series, plus audio cassette tapes. They were created out of a project by the Smoky Valley Historical Association - Kansas and are presented here with permission of the association. Digitization of these videos was made possible with a small Nutt grant from the McPherson County Community Foundation. #ToTheStarsKS #Lindsborg #lindsborgks #lbk #visitlindsborg #SmokyValley #KansasHistory #LindsborgHistory #SmokyValleyHistory #oralhistory #oralhistorymatters #oralhistoryproject #BethanyCollege #Sweden #SwedishImmigration #immigrationhistory #farminghistory #ChicagoFire #ChicagoHistory