Irene Hilda Lundeen was born August 25, 1922 in Preeceville, Saskatchewan the eldest daughter of Swedish immigrants. Her father, Ole, was a farmer and fur trapper in the Porcupine forest in North East Saskatchewan, Canada. Her mother, Ester Sjostrom was a hardworking farmer's wife who gave life to four children despite a seven year stay in a sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis.
Irene grew up in an area of Saskatchewan where the farm land was best left uncultivated and where rabbits, raccoons, and bears were a common sight both in the garden and in the traps set and designed to catch any and all fur bearing mammals. While the most young women of the day embroidered and attended dances, Irene was trapping animals to sell furs to the local fur traders.
As I mentioned before, Irene's mother Ester was seconded to a sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis and was for all intense and purposes absent from the life of the then 5 year old Irene and her younger brother for seven long years. During this time, Irene and her brother Irwin lived with her Aunt , her mother's sister, and her husband, who worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, in a box car on a siding on the outskirts of a small prairie town noted for its perogies, cabbage rolls, and home brew. Her father, Ole, remained on his trap line and tended his crops for seven years without his wife and family at his side. After this seven year banishment the family was duly reunited and consequently , two more siblings arrived.
In due course, Irene, returned to the community where she spent her growing up years with her Aunt and family and married a local farmer. Life was full of hard work for a farmer's wife in the '40s and '50's. Raising 1000's of turkeys and chickens, milking cows to send cream to the dairy, planting gardens an acre in size, plus the canning, freezing, and preserving of fruits and vegetables made time fly by, but Irene managed to sew quilts, mend clothes, and crochet doilies and tablecloths in her 'extra' time. Besides raising four children, keeping them clean, fed, Irene put on 'parties' where family and neighbors were invited and Three spot and Canasta were played, lunches of homemade sausages on fresh baked buns offered, and cakes made from scratch from hen house eggs served.
As her children gradually left home, Irene devoted her summertime to her flower garden and her wintertime, being a woman of thrift, to sewing quilts, using material cut from used clothing.
Irene had four lovely granddaughters all born within three years of each other. She described these grand babies as her four little birds who would follow her around ...tweeting and chirping ...as they watched her prepare favourite desserts, wash strawberries from the garden, or crochet an doll clothes. Many special meals of palt and bacon, blueberry cheesecake and fresh raspberries were served to these little 'birds' by their wonderful doting Grandma Irene.
Now, when one gets married one doesn't often just marry one's spouse. One marries not only an individual but also the individual and their family. At least that is the way I see it, and so when I married Irene's second son in 1981 I felt I was , in fact, getting a sort 'Kit'. This marriage Kit was made of various facets if one included in-laws, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. The main attractive component for me was the 'mother' . I was looking forward to years and years of being instructed in the art of quilt making, pie crust rolling, and jam preserving by the matriarch of my new family.
I envisioned this woman as being the grandmother of my future children, the soft hand that would stroke their head when they were sick, the baker of cookies and sweet cakes for after school snacks, the summer holiday guardian and the safe haven of unconditional love and acceptance that helps every child to bloom.
People have milestones in their lives that mark the start of something momentous such as graduating from High School, one's first job, and holding one's new born child in their arms. Usually they are happy things.
But for me one of the biggest of life milestones was of a disappointment that has shaded the rest of my life. It was a day that was only 2 weeks before the birth of my first child and 15 months after my marriage.
It was on March 17, 1983, St. Patrick's Day, that the family was told that Irene had inoperable and terminal cancer of the colon.
We laid her to rest on August 1 of that same year. Her second son's first child and her only grandson was just shy of turning four months old.
A comment made to me at the funeral sticks with me still. A neighbour leaned over and whispered, "You were Gypped."
And gypped I was---and so was she.
As was my son, Alexander, and my daughters, Sarah, Rachel, and Heidi.
One can only guess at what they have missed because that Kit was irreparably broken and washed away by the tears that have fallen over the last thirty years.
I am EXACTLY the same age as Irene was 30 years ago when she passed away. I think today of the future of my own children's ' Marriage Kits' as my son will soon be espoused. I, too, have grandchildren I have yet to meet and sons-in-laws to welcome and greet.
I hope we all get a fairer deal this time around.
Letter 1 from a young Irene to her mother in the Sanatorium.
Letter 2 A letter to her Dad.
Letter 3...a bit older child.
and her quilting.
Irene grew up in an area of Saskatchewan where the farm land was best left uncultivated and where rabbits, raccoons, and bears were a common sight both in the garden and in the traps set and designed to catch any and all fur bearing mammals. While the most young women of the day embroidered and attended dances, Irene was trapping animals to sell furs to the local fur traders.
As I mentioned before, Irene's mother Ester was seconded to a sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis and was for all intense and purposes absent from the life of the then 5 year old Irene and her younger brother for seven long years. During this time, Irene and her brother Irwin lived with her Aunt , her mother's sister, and her husband, who worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, in a box car on a siding on the outskirts of a small prairie town noted for its perogies, cabbage rolls, and home brew. Her father, Ole, remained on his trap line and tended his crops for seven years without his wife and family at his side. After this seven year banishment the family was duly reunited and consequently , two more siblings arrived.
In due course, Irene, returned to the community where she spent her growing up years with her Aunt and family and married a local farmer. Life was full of hard work for a farmer's wife in the '40s and '50's. Raising 1000's of turkeys and chickens, milking cows to send cream to the dairy, planting gardens an acre in size, plus the canning, freezing, and preserving of fruits and vegetables made time fly by, but Irene managed to sew quilts, mend clothes, and crochet doilies and tablecloths in her 'extra' time. Besides raising four children, keeping them clean, fed, Irene put on 'parties' where family and neighbors were invited and Three spot and Canasta were played, lunches of homemade sausages on fresh baked buns offered, and cakes made from scratch from hen house eggs served.
As her children gradually left home, Irene devoted her summertime to her flower garden and her wintertime, being a woman of thrift, to sewing quilts, using material cut from used clothing.
Irene had four lovely granddaughters all born within three years of each other. She described these grand babies as her four little birds who would follow her around ...tweeting and chirping ...as they watched her prepare favourite desserts, wash strawberries from the garden, or crochet an doll clothes. Many special meals of palt and bacon, blueberry cheesecake and fresh raspberries were served to these little 'birds' by their wonderful doting Grandma Irene.
Now, when one gets married one doesn't often just marry one's spouse. One marries not only an individual but also the individual and their family. At least that is the way I see it, and so when I married Irene's second son in 1981 I felt I was , in fact, getting a sort 'Kit'. This marriage Kit was made of various facets if one included in-laws, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. The main attractive component for me was the 'mother' . I was looking forward to years and years of being instructed in the art of quilt making, pie crust rolling, and jam preserving by the matriarch of my new family.
I envisioned this woman as being the grandmother of my future children, the soft hand that would stroke their head when they were sick, the baker of cookies and sweet cakes for after school snacks, the summer holiday guardian and the safe haven of unconditional love and acceptance that helps every child to bloom.
People have milestones in their lives that mark the start of something momentous such as graduating from High School, one's first job, and holding one's new born child in their arms. Usually they are happy things.
But for me one of the biggest of life milestones was of a disappointment that has shaded the rest of my life. It was a day that was only 2 weeks before the birth of my first child and 15 months after my marriage.
It was on March 17, 1983, St. Patrick's Day, that the family was told that Irene had inoperable and terminal cancer of the colon.
We laid her to rest on August 1 of that same year. Her second son's first child and her only grandson was just shy of turning four months old.
A comment made to me at the funeral sticks with me still. A neighbour leaned over and whispered, "You were Gypped."
And gypped I was---and so was she.
As was my son, Alexander, and my daughters, Sarah, Rachel, and Heidi.
One can only guess at what they have missed because that Kit was irreparably broken and washed away by the tears that have fallen over the last thirty years.
I am EXACTLY the same age as Irene was 30 years ago when she passed away. I think today of the future of my own children's ' Marriage Kits' as my son will soon be espoused. I, too, have grandchildren I have yet to meet and sons-in-laws to welcome and greet.
I hope we all get a fairer deal this time around.
Letter 1 from a young Irene to her mother in the Sanatorium.
Letter 2 A letter to her Dad.
Letter 3...a bit older child.
The letters are a bit hard to read...perhaps one will have to increase the size of the display.
Grandma Irene and some of her 'little birds'.
and her quilting.
I think of you often. I always miss you. I always will.
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