Mary Allan and J. Mitchell Allan

00:02 My name is Mitchell Allen on 40 years old. Today is March 18th, 2012, and we're in San Francisco, California and I'll be interviewing my mom Mary Allen.

00:15 And I Mary Allen and I am 68 years old and it's March 18th 2012 for in San Francisco and I get to chat with my son Mitch this afternoon. It's fun hanging out with you today. Thank you for coming out here and spend a little time. I love hearing your stories. We woke up to just a beautiful March day today. It was glorious and clear and blue sky on our way out to San Francisco. And then we got on the internet to see what the traffic was doing. We use their smartphones to figure out the best way to get if you're in trouble cross a big bridge and into the technical capitals of the world here in the San Francisco Bay area, but that's very very different from where you grew up in a in a very small town in South Central. Minnesota is very very different time. Can you tell me a little bit about about that?

01:15 I have a story to tell.

01:18 My great-grandparents Homestead of the land on the farm where I grew up in the 1870s, I grew up in the house. If they built the turn of the century. It was a clapboard house. No running water. No bathroom.

01:37 The in the wintertime my dad needed to put bales of straw around it too insulated to keep us warm the and it just I I am a teacher retired teacher and I spent many years telling the stories from that time and one of my favorite stories to tell is about the idea of not having a bathroom.

02:03 And people often wonder. How did you do that? Well, there was the Winter Story on the summer story and the Winter Story. We had a slop pot. Excuse me, but that was my mother's term. She would not dignify it with the calling it a chamber pot. She was totally disgusted. This was part of her life and it's sat behind the door of my parents bedroom. And that's what we would use in the winter and we had our chores of emptying this pod is far out into the Rove is we could and I do not recall too many trips out to the Outhouse when it was 20 and forth to 40 below zero.

02:50 Now summertime was a totally different story for the toilet paper. We use the paper from the peaches what the peaches are wrapped in the peaches. We got from the store you were recycling before it was cool. And I enjoy going to that place that have my little bit of solitude and I remember being totally intrigued was a two-holer by the way with a little teeny window in it and is sometimes a door closed and sometimes it didn't depending upon whether or not the hook was working on the door and I would sit there and I watch the spiders and I'd be intrigued by the flies that were next to me.

03:40 And I Remember Loving to go out there if paste East it was tucked in the woods actually so that there was that privacy and it taste East.

03:51 And when there was a full Moon Rising on the horizon, I love going out there and just taking the beauty and and feeling the quiet and listening to my dad's milking the Cat my dad milking the cows down in the barn in the stanchions twitching. And so that's the the our house story and and then it would you like to hear the bathtub story no running water at all in the house at this point running water and electricity in the house to pump water from a well. And but that was very short lived in my memory because we do get running water. I think by the time I was maybe three or four years old, but there wasn't hot running water. So mother had to

04:51 Keep everything on the stove first or electric stove and and we had and cleanliness was Next to Godliness. As far as my mother was concerned. She did just because we had an old house. She didn't want folks receiving her is not being clean, but the a big bathtub perhaps four feet in diameter was hung on a nail outside the house and on Saturday night. We brought it in and that was our one night that we had a bath a week. We were three girls and we all sat in the tub had her turns in the tub in the winter time. That's how we get very very cold out there and I remember putting my tongue on it. Once I've heard that magical things happen when you put your tongue on meth cold metal Wells

05:51 The magic life I had some skin taken off my son. Anyway, that that was our ritual as far as the bathtub was concerned and it was very I mean there were a lot of rhythms to this. I remember when we would go back to the farm when I was a kid something about Farm life is everyday and every season there's something that happens with regularity self. Go on a dairy farm. So what was it? What was what was it that typical day when you were growing up a routine in the the summer was alive and well the sounds were the alarm clock going off at 5 in the morning when my dad would get up and I remembering I remember just feeling so grateful to him because he had to get up so early every morning he went out now if the cows would come in for a big breakfast my mother

06:51 Where did she really cook 5 meals a day breakfast mid-morning snack and then a huge dinner at noon and mid-afternoon lunch and the evening I have what was the evening meal called? This is me. And that was a hamburger or something. But the lunch. Oh my goodness. We would have plates of b o steaks and chicken and pork chops and my mother just cook constantly. I remember in the summertime, but let's finish with the rhythm of the day. First of all, and then after supper my dad would go mad cows and it was off in my ritual to go into the garden and pull weeds and it was a very quiet lovely experience. In fact, I remember just a couple years ago going to my garden and sitting

07:51 And the earth when it was wet, and it brought this is flood of memories of how much I enjoyed having that quiet time is very secure safe thing at quiet. I'm listening to the stanchions feeling the safety of my home and the land around me but as far as us some more stories if you want to hear I mean

08:14 The summer was filled with a lot of people around there was a there was a time when we thrash the green and the time when we build a hay and when we pick the corn and there would be four or five other people who are helping her hire Debbie were hired hands are the young man from the high school who would come and and it was just a good feeling of having a lot of people around all the time or the opening day of pheasant hunting season, when we run around a post of people from the city would come and bring us chocolate and we had our quiet and we had all that Joy of a lot of people in our lives, but my mother would make huge buckets full of donut. She would make pies cakes every single day to feed these people. He works so hard that nobody was obese. I mean it was what we needed to

09:12 So that was kind of Rhythm of the day. And so it was a very different time of the sounds you had or maybe the sound of the tractor firing up or occasionally a car on the dirt road off in the distance there to you out of weeding the sounds of thunderstorms that kind of thing very different than today with freeways and constant sound cell phones and television, but other stuff that was different for you is growing up. It wasn't that even a what today is the typical School very different for you as an educator. What was it like when you were growing up with the country schoolhouse?

09:50 And we were 12 students kindergarten through 8th grade as a single room / partitions. The front half is where we studying had the deaths and had a stage the back half was divided into one was a huge furnace and then at the library was in the other half.

10:13 But I just have fond memories of all the games. We played Red Rover and watching the boxelder bugs climb up the walls and playing tag football that kind of thing, but it

10:29 It was more than anything. I eat you don't as a teacher. I took from that experience and use a lot of it in my own teaching because that teacher in the little country Schoolhouse District 56 had a gift for bringing out the gifts and all of us. We were all grade levels. We all had different strengths. We all had opportunities to show those strengths learn from our mistakes in a safe environment and we we tell that response but we just all learned from each other and the older kids taught the younger ones and there was a lot of music and storytelling integrated into it art. It was the very best in teaching and it was a model that I used in my teaching.

11:25 30 years later, so

11:32 I was very studious I and I wanted to do well and the other part is far as my growth, you know, the church was in the middle of our farm my great-grandfather gave the six acres for the church that was in the middle of the farm the old Lutheran Church and literally and figuratively it was a center of our life, but that again was a place where we could make our mistakes and have opportunities for leadership and to try new things. I am I remember playing the organ and the piano making all kinds of mistakes in the whole congregation with clapping clap and it really built a sense of confidence for me and my sisters as we grew up. I think we can away with a real can do it kind of attitude is different than my upbringing in that when you were raised. You didn't have strangers in your community you you knew everyone I remember

12:32 Driving around with Grandpa and every person we passed on the road and every house in town. He could point to and say who live there and how many kids they had and a little bit about their life. So how do you think that that affected you and your growing up just being in that sort of Clueless very secure feeling and yet as I grew into adulthood. I also realize I was very protected and a bit naive and just a couple of stories it really brought that out is I remember going to a really nice restaurant in high school. First time. I've been a nice restaurant and I ordered pork chops and the plate came with one pork chop on it. I couldn't believe it that we were paying big money profunds porkchop. What I was used to flatters of it. Another example was Dwayne the Lutheran Church had Luthor league for young people and I was representing the state of Minnesota at the

13:32 In San Antonio for their big National Convention and I wrote to the president of the loser league in and I didn't even put an address on an envelope. I just put San Antonio, Texas and I was so shocked when you didn't get it because I was sure everybody knew the president of the national Luther Lee or when we were there. They were taking down Christmas lights undo years. And that was another huge shock to me. We always kept our tree up in the dark Minnesota winter into February and then we didn't have a camera with a you know flash so we take the tree down in mid-February. We put it out in the snow with our we had the decorations were still on it being dragged all of our Christmas toys out their bundle up and we get our Christmas in the middle of winter and we get our our photo of the season and that was her Christmas photo every year. So yes.

14:32 What it was and we were not I remember my first movie I went to was in high school and was a Ten Commandments. We were not exposed to pop culture in my adulthood. I've always felt a little gullible and naive around that because I just was not part of my growing up and I you know, it's not something I even am excited about and follow today because of his so yeah. I know. I remember that even with with Grandma and you even when you know Oscar and I were growing up in the house that you guys would never say anything bad about other people and I remember as I got older it was so odd to hear other people complain about others and gossip would just so much a pop culture today, but it just wasn't part of your upbringing. I don't refuse to gossip. They refuse to complain about the weather.

15:25 And

15:27 And they brought out the lot of people came to Mom and Dad for counseling of sorts when they were struggling because they really trusted mother and dad and I remember feeling very trusted by them in that way to PS. You're you're my grandpa George Nielsen big Danish guy. What was he about six 3 or something like that right now get hands. I've never to this day. I never seen hands bigger, but he was milking cows from being a young boy by hand in all the way until I retired to what can you tell me about about Grandpa. He was he took great pride in those big hands and he's giving us advice as to who to married if if the guys V could fit in a 5 pound is butter jar than he was worth kitchen.

16:27 Yes, and so took in life and people he was Danish. My mother was Swedish and much more snow again, and somebody had to hold down the fort and she was at because Dad just constantly played and there are a couple when I think of dad has some strong images. First of all there dating go buy a they didn't tell us that he loved us and and the big mod review can do anyting and education is your best insurance policy. Someone who had a third grade education education mother had an eighth grade education and they took great pride and celebrating like I remember going into 7th grade and he was so proud that his daughter. I was the eldest had more education at that point than he did and he had

17:25 He was so self-educated. He couldn't read very well, but he had a personality he ended up being the president of the state Brotherhood in church. He had a sense of confidence. I'm not sure how he got through things because he really had difficulty reading and writing but he wants told me so I had to learn how to think that you know, and when we were younger, you know every now and again he hit his thumb with a nail or get a whack and something and he let out on language. I've never heard before and I've never heard sense and it turns out it was Danish swear words he to use every time in the in the barn we hear that every now and then when he get mad at a cow or whatever so

18:25 And he always was inviting people in the house. And then as far as my mother is personality. She always magically created a meal and graciously welcomed everybody into the home and you know, here is a woman who lived in this house with no bathroom without running water, but there was Sterling Crystal and China on the table when she served a lovely dinner. There were always fresh flowers in the house during the summer. We three girls were taught how to properly serve a meal how to decorate hate how to show how to have an appreciation for the Finer Things in life because my mother had about 13 years out of her home before she got married and she worked in Minneapolis before before you go and just to kind of talk a little bit about her know. She was born I want

19:25 Play before the Wright brothers flew their plane was at 1904 and that kind of thing. I always remember Grandma being a domestic institution. And then as I got older there was some real surprising things about Grandma things that I wouldn't have expected from seeing the white-haired lady was cooking our food and making us cookies. And for that time. She was she was quite an adventure your arms when she was 12 years old and she had two brothers and she ended up meeting to quit school to take care of her dad and brothers. I've been dad remarried about three years later and eat teen mother as I said when to Minneapolis-Saint Paul and she got a job in the saiu house University.

20:24 Trinity at the University of Minnesota and during she met a woman there that she really enjoyed and the two of them during the Summers for 10 years.

20:39 Traveled and a hitch height and they went out to and they worked in the national parks Yellowstone and Glacier email or even phones you were you were gone for a regular letter.

20:56 Anti-hiv went out to California. We passed the place. They went to on the way in off to the right hand side Treasure Island in the world. She would tell us the stories and my sisters and I would play these stories out and we build a tent we have at Anton we'd be camping a cross-country and then we would get all dressed up in leather heels and kid gloves and a felt hat in a wool suit and go into San Francisco because those were the stories mother would tell about taking the ferry into San Francisco. It was such a big deal. So you have no TV when you were growing no radio, but for you the stories the things that you were in relating work Kim Kardashian, it wasn't, you know, some sitcom it was the stories that your parents had ever venture.

21:56 They had growing entertainment. Remember they had a little birthday group.

22:02 And I'll never forget the first and they go to each other's homes for birthdays and it was the early fifties. Somebody got a TV mother and dad were so upset because everybody sat around and watch the TV at this birthday party rather than telling stories as opposed to at our house. I love to tell the story after so if Mother and Dad had a birthday, this is what a birthday party was look like on the Minnesota farm after Dad milk the cows. He coming to the house people were the are the women were all in the kitchen getting dinner together in a long wait for Sunrise working all day and the other Farmers would come to the house Dad would walk in and say well hello everybody. Thanks for coming by and he would plop down in the middle of the living room floor and fall asleep with all his

23:02 Best around and he'll eat say his you no lies and then be cordial and then he just go to sleep and ask her any wake up for dinner. Of course, then after dinner the tradition was to pass the cards that people gave and has the past the cards around the room. Everybody would look at the back and see if you spend $0.05 or $0.10 and after that little ritual the women would go back into the kitchen Cleanup in the man would fall asleep in their chairs. One-by-one Hills their olsenboye don't fall asleep. And then Alden Olson, but fall asleep when the dishes were done and the women came in there was like this. It's time to go home. I know I know it was great.

24:02 Teaching you you graduated from high school and given Minnesota and you were going to go off to a big city and a big city for you at that time was was in New Ulm and you went off to Gustavus Adolphus Adolphus College experiences. And so we spend a week every summer with aunts and uncles in Minneapolis and would have a whole city experienced that Friday after Thanksgiving we go into date Minneapolis and always will get a new scarf and gloves or something New Ulm was the biggest city near by not sure the population but that's where we they did most of their business, but when we got new clothes or anything it was quality and they paid money, but it was it lasted a long time. Our Coats were long and Ham.

25:02 I am left down as we went through the years with it, but I did I ended up going to Gustavus Adolphus College, which was a Lutheran liberal arts college equivalent to like St. Mary's College here where all the rich kids went which was kind of amazing, but I had three jobs. I was a counselor and I worked in the cafeteria and I worked as a secretary for the dean of Education work during the Summers and paid off my loans for 10 years after I graduated.

25:39 Andy and you met someone while you're there's a young man in the inside of Chicago's first, actually I was he was at a movie theater with some of his buddies and I was at a movie theater to see a movie theater sitting a row in front of them with some of my girlfriend and I had my feet up on the seat in front of me and he happened to notice fast and then he asked someone if they knew who I was winded up having a blind date together and his first trip to the farm I was a little concerned because your dad was from Naperville, Illinois his dad work for IBM and they had a lovely Suburban home and he was coming to meet my parents on the farm and we still didn't have

26:39 We have hot running water my bad time, but he loved it and my dad's up to your dad and speaking of knowing everybody around my dad love we having had three daughters. He loved having a quote son in his life and he