Askov Group Interviewed by H.B. Simonsen

Link to audio file of interview

Corrected by H.B. Simonsen

[SPEAKER_00]: I would like to know your name, your full names, and start with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Josephine Jessen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was born in St.
[SPEAKER_02]: Edward, Nebraska, 1921.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll say Hertha on Danish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hertha Marie Lund Hansen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was born in Hampton, Iowa.
[SPEAKER_02]: In 19... 1921.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Art Christensen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was born in Askov, two and a half miles
[SPEAKER_01]: north of town at home and my mother said the doctor came out on a motorcycle and took care of her and I lived there until I graduated from high school in 1937 and then I went in the service and I was in the service for
[SPEAKER_01]: a little over three years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I came back and my wife and I had lived in California and we had decided to go back there when I came back from the service.
[SPEAKER_01]: But somebody offered me a job the day I came into town and I never left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: What year were you born?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was born in 1919.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shirley May Lund.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, yes, Shirley May Lund.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was born in Askov in 1925.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Donna Norgaard.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was born here in Askov in 1932.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do any of you have relatives who came from Denmark, like the mid-Jutland area?
[SPEAKER_00]: That could be Aarhus, Skanderborg, Silkeborg, Herning, Ringkøbing, Vejle, Horsens, any of those places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you aware of relatives that came from those places to the States?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's not the case, but... My husband's parents were born near Vejle.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where he came from, and he was born there also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: My dad was born in Denmark.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably the southern part of Jylland.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the ones from Vejle...
[SPEAKER_00]: They came to the States.
[SPEAKER_02]: They came, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the rest of you won't have relatives coming from those places.
[SPEAKER_02]: My father came from Gram, Denmark.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my grandparents on both sides are from Denmark, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they came to Hampton, Iowa.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a little tiny boy when he came over, my father.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he told him out at Ellis Island that he had to go to Jowa because that's where his relatives lived.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he went to Jowa and saw his brothers there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then later on, they found out that his grandfather had come over too, and he didn't speak English at all, and he hadn't
[SPEAKER_02]: known where anyone lived or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: He came and stayed with somebody down in Missouri, I think it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then my uncle, Fred Lund, he went down there, him and his wife went there for a church convention, Danish church convention.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were sent out to this lady's house to stay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they got out to this lady's house, she showed them the bedroom they were to have.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they went in and got ready.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my uncle said, that's a picture of my mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they got to see his father there at that place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Took him with home to Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's quite a story.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was too.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you were all born in this country?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was born in Hampton, Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your schooling like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did you go to school?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I didn't go to school in Hampton.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't go to school until I got to Askov.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what was the schooling like in Askov?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was pretty wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a lot of good teachers, very good teachers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And every year we had to take one hour of Danish
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we got to high school, we could choose if we wanted to have a Danish course or not, we could.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I took two years of Danish in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was in the public school you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, public school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's no Danish school as such.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was for all the kids in the area.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was H.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anderson School, named after Danish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Author.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means that the Danes who went to the school, they were having Danish classes.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they all had to take one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all the other, like German or... But when I started school, I couldn't speak English, and my teacher told my mother that if you... You be sure her little brother talks English by the time she starts.
[SPEAKER_02]: He starts school, be sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the rest of them are saying that they couldn't talk English, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that what you're saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't talk English until you went to school.
[SPEAKER_02]: My teacher had a terrible time with me, too, to try and teach English to me, because I didn't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But eventually.
[SPEAKER_00]: How was that experience, going to school suddenly where they expected you to speak a sort of foreign language?
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't take long to learn.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you were young like that, it didn't take long to pick up.
[SPEAKER_02]: For some people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can't remember having any trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: Joe, did you talk American when you started?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you?
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I spoke Danish, but we had such an accent from a "jysk" accent that some of the other kids made fun of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm done with speaking Danish.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm speaking English from now on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was embarrassed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what did it, huh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's cool to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: They said, what are you saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Jysk is so different from Copenhagen, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you speak Danish today?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I can.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can also understand Copenhagen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you are very good at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, because I was at a wedding in Denmark, and my cousin started getting married, and I was at the wedding, and
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of them was from Copenhagen, and the other was from... I can't remember if it was Haderslev.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Haderslev.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they tried to talk to each other, and they couldn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she said to the Copenhagen guy, I can't understand it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, I can't understand it, and I can understand you both.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can understand you both.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you talk English when you started art?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I was very bright.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spoke English.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't dare talk Danish because I talked jysk, I heard that expression.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't heard that for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my parents both talked that slang, if you want to call it that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dialects.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't talked Danish for so many years it's gotten away from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to stay with it in order to stay on top of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That goes for you, too?
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't practice it anymore?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was clerk in a store years and years ago, and the older fellows would love to come in, and they'd order spices on Danish for me, and I had to try to figure out what they were.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a little hard time, especially on spices, I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't understand it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we knew enough Danish, so when people came into the store and asked for it in Danish, that we could help them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the spices were a little puzzling, though, because they picked the odd ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: We all know that Donna talks a good mix of Danish and American.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both she tosses in a Danish word here and a Danish word there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had really forgotten a lot of it, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really have.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember working in the store and Mrs. Nielsen came in and she wanted to have some coffee ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I asked her if she wanted it ground really good or, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't want half beans.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shirley will often say, vær-så-god, you know, to everybody, and they don't know what she's saying, most people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's so used to saying vær-så-god.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vers-a-go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, vær-så-god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then people don't know what she's saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do it for fun, and we had a principal in school, and people would say vær-så-god, and he says, it must mean let's go, because everybody got up and went.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's cute.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's our goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hadn't heard that either for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Danish has gotten away from us.
[SPEAKER_02]: That means be so good to come and eat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that what it means?
[SPEAKER_02]: Be so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Be so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vær-så-god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are the words from Danish that you still carry with you in specific occasions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, of course with the meals, some Danish food you would know
[SPEAKER_00]: You have words from Danish, like smørrebrød.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruskumsnusk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruskumsnusk.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ruskumsnusk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we have some more?
[SPEAKER_00]: Æbleskiver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Æbleskiver.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else?
[SPEAKER_02]: Surkål.
[SPEAKER_02]: Æbleskiver, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surkål.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Medisterpølse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Medisterpølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Medisterpølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rullepølse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rullepølse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you all know what it is when you say medisterpølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rullepølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rullepølse?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that how you say it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Rullepølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rullepølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't get the pølse sound right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said it right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Roll of pearls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Roll of pearls, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Roll of pearls.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gulerødder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gulerødder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gulerødder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gulerødder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And... Is that cabbage?
[SPEAKER_01]: Leverpostej.
[SPEAKER_02]: Leverpostej.
[SPEAKER_02]: Leverpostej.
[SPEAKER_02]: And... Medister pølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Medisterpølse.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: The pickles that we love out of
[SPEAKER_02]: Something comes a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Salat.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a pickled goat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Salat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Agurkesalat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Agurkesalat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Talking about food.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you get around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, isn't that the truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you start talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And desserts like kransekage and layer... How do you say layer cake?
[SPEAKER_02]: Lagkage?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: The lojpastevi?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cake.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kransekage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kransekage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kransekage.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a layer cake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danish layer cake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danish layer cake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know it?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
[SPEAKER_02]: The word you just... Laka?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lagkage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lagkage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Æblekage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Æblekage?
[SPEAKER_01]: Æblekage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Æblekage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Forget æblekage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like to eat it, but I could.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, didn't you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't care that much for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's unusual.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's unusual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's usually very popular.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of flødeskum on top.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, of course, the things that have to do with the table, too, like værs-så-god and kom så.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what my grandma always said, kom så.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, kom så.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come sit down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And...
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when everybody was done, they said... At lunch, we had prayer in Danish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I Jesu navn går vi til bords...
[SPEAKER_00]: So we did that too, didn't we?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's... Would you say it again, though?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not eating.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can all say it. (They say the prayer in Danish).
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then everybody said tak for mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still say tak for mad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mange tak.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you do answer when you say tak for mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Velbekomme.
[SPEAKER_00]: Velbekomme.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ja, tak.
[SPEAKER_02]: We still do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ja.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say talk for a mile all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know I knew that much Danish.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've talked with your people, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't realize you knew all this Danish?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until today, you say.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know there were some Danish swear words that my dad used to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Swear words?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Av for satan!
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it really is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can hear him say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what else?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, skidt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, skidt.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that sounds better on Danish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Skidtbasse.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're a skidtbasse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if we got called that, but I heard other people get called that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the Danes set a very nice table also.
[SPEAKER_02]: and had good table manners.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now there's so much casual eating, people don't sit down together like they used to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you 100% on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We always sat down as a family to eat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's in such a hurry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably including myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at Christmas, for instance,
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of traditions do you have that you can say come from the Danish tradition?
[SPEAKER_02]: We do say glædelig jul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Glædelig jul.
[SPEAKER_00]: When do you say that?
[SPEAKER_00]: At Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Christmas days.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, to friends and family.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was always the expression we used.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we danced around the Christmas tree.
[SPEAKER_02]: We still do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But years ago, in Askov, they had a community Christmas party with a big tree in the DBS Hall.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all the little kids would be around the middle, and then the bigger ones around the outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you each get a bag of peanuts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: En julepose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at church, we used to have two big trees, and they used to be lit with candles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Art can tell about how they, what did you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: You stood with them up on each?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there was water.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they had something on a handle in case they caught fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the person up there just doused it, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He watched to see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: or if the candles burned down or anything like that, there was something that might have been serious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he put them out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we don't have candles anymore and we don't have
[SPEAKER_02]: But recently, a bunch of us got together and made a whole bunch of the little Danish hearts to decorate the church trees with.
[SPEAKER_01]: We always have a nice tree at church.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your younger years, teenage years and young adult years, it was a Danish congregation, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that—well, when you remember back, was it—in the early days, was it only Danes who belonged to the congregation, or were there also some Swedish Germans that belonged to—?
[SPEAKER_01]: All I remember is that we had both Danish and English.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our minister could speak Danish, and he had
[SPEAKER_01]: service.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we had two services.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's not the first 48 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Danish period.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then they finally started having an English service and a Danish.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't remember much on the Danish because by the time I was going to members going to church, they all really speak in English.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we, yeah, and by the time I was a teenager, they were having, well, maybe even before I was a teenager, they were still having Danish service once a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as I got older, that dropped off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it got to be we would have it at special occasions, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the last two times we tried to have the Danish service, I think we did it during the festival days, the last two times we only had a little handful of people because they couldn't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think our confirmation class was the first one that was confirmed in English.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I remember right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was about?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was confirmed in English, I remember that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was born in 25.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old would I have been when I was confirmed, you guys?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sixteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thirty-nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were Johannes Knudsen's Danish one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yours was Danish, yes, I thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ours was the first English.
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of traditions have you been having in Askov that could relate to the Danish tradition, the Danish culture brought over here?
[SPEAKER_02]: There aren't so many Danish people left here.
[SPEAKER_02]: There really aren't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the people in Askov are from other places.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in your younger years, there were quite a number of traditions that you were... Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like singing, folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Young people's group.
[SPEAKER_02]: YPS.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think many people dance around the Christmas tree anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our family does.
[SPEAKER_01]: They always do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the smaller, younger groups and the older ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: There used to be a big adult group and that contained people like
[SPEAKER_02]: Paul and Paul Jensen, Ruth Jensen, and Arlen Faye Fredrickson.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there used to be a big group of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as they got older, then that went away.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then our children were in there because we made skirts with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Folk dancing outfits for our kids when they went to school.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they usually had some high school girls to teach them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I played, and Becky taught them, and Claudia, I think, helped teach.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't remember if your girls did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the high school girls would teach the smaller ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: There used to be a forsamlingshus in Askov.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember?
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember being in it, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember when it burnt too, but I didn't see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was told about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know what year it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: It burned many, many years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you didn't have a forsamlingshus anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what did you do instead?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we had a little house behind the church that was made into a forsamlingshus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you needed a place, for instance, for folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that the main thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a little building behind the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is a folk dance?
[SPEAKER_02]: They also used the DBS hall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Off and on, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Barbie was that age, they... In fact, I've got a picture of all of them sitting on the front steps of the DBS Hall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danish Brotherhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that burned quite a few years ago now.
[SPEAKER_02]: They took that down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, they took it down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's right, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Danish congregation you have in Askov...
[SPEAKER_00]: For many years, it was, well, language was both Danish and English.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people who belonged to the congregation, was that also sort of mixed, that there were Danes, there were Swedes, there were Germans, or would it be more Danish group only?
[SPEAKER_02]: In the beginning, it was Danish spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then gradually other people moved in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, gradually.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because to begin with, they only sold to the Danes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The immediate land around here was only sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, they had a little joke about they had to sell some land to a Swede.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they said, we'll give them some land way out east so then they won't be bothered.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a joke later years.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it was a joke right at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not at the time it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted him out far away.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the Eklunds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you noticed that there would be differences between
[SPEAKER_00]: the way of, well let's say, the way your church life was as to where other churches around in the area, that there would be, you would have a different kind of attitude to things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really recall
[SPEAKER_00]: So that you would notice differences in opinion about, let's say, dancing, drinking, things like that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think in those days everybody was a friend of everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: And everybody knew everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And everybody got together.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it didn't matter if it was a neighbor or somebody on the other side of town.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were all a family.
[SPEAKER_02]: One big, huge family.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the Askov community.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter if you were of Danish background or Swedish or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there were a few Swedes in there, and that didn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were with Ahnet, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we were like one big family.
[SPEAKER_02]: And everybody visited everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody knew everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think people...
[SPEAKER_02]: I would even think of moving into Askov unless they were a Dane.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just feel like they just felt like we had to be Danish in order to... Well, that's where their interest was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was where the interest was of the Danes that came.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course there's a Danish community.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't recall that at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where would you go if it was your family and you're Danish?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you consider yourself a Dane?
[SPEAKER_00]: Me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Being a Dane.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would I consider myself being?
[SPEAKER_02]: I sure would.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd just as soon be a Dane as anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_02]: You too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danish is very important to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, very important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shirley and I are a quarter Swede, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or a mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wasn't our mother a quarter?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: A little tiny bit Swede.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty close to Danish anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how do you go about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're an American citizen, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nate, I don't drink coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you say you're Dane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, Erla.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you explain that, that you're an American citizen, but you say you're Dane?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we have to explain?
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody from America has a different nationality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the way you feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why isn't the Dane just as good as anybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you say all?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're Americans now, but we respect our Danish heritage.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: We continue with a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That goes into your mind when somebody asks, what are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: As I said, are you Danish?
[SPEAKER_02]: An American now with a Danish background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: How about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're of Danish descent, and that's about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's about all you say.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they ask you that, you're of Danish descent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not much of a problem anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's something that is important to you, that you said that you cherish your Danish background, and that means something to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it does.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we continue with some of it into our children, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this dancing around the tree, our children still do that, too, and carry on some things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the small children that like that, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: What about your grown-up kids?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do they carry on?
[SPEAKER_00]: My grown-up kids, they all have the traditions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll tell you, my oldest daughter and her family had a boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old was Craig?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's your relative, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would he have been?
[SPEAKER_02]: 14 or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the first year they celebrated, they came up to Askov usually.
[SPEAKER_02]: First year they had at home, they were going to dance around the tree, but Craig says, wait a minute, I'm going to pull the drapes in case my neighbors go by.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he didn't want to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What were you doing at your house?
[SPEAKER_02]: But they continue to do it, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's great to see our families do these traditions like we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to keep it going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know my family does that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means a lot to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only their kids, but their grandkids.
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes right into the great-grandkids.
[SPEAKER_01]: They do.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_02]: They found a machine in Gander Mountain, finally, to make the medisterpølse with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they should go to Denmark, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the happiest country in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's even in the news that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I heard about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was 60 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the most happiest country in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: The happy Danes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the happy Danes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in this country.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's the other kind of Danes also.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they made a pole.
[SPEAKER_00]: They made a pole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they do that, I don't know if every year, but they do make poles.
[SPEAKER_00]: asking people around different countries, all the countries, about certain issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they put it all together and found out that the Danes were number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is very good, but I'm not quite sure that I... Well, if that's the way that we wouldn't expect it, I think, because...
[SPEAKER_00]: Many Danes complain about this and that but overall Danes are content with their life and the Danish society which is helpful in a lot of ways during life that goes from all the way from
[SPEAKER_00]: childcare to free school, free education, free medicine and all that, free hospitals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, that is a very good background for when you ask, things are working well for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vær-så-god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody need cream and sugar?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Danes aren't only happy, but they're also stubborn.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: My dad was a stubborn Dane.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Becky has it.
Not me.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is even Danish ....?
[SPEAKER_02]: You bet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did you get that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been looking for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They make it down at Chris's Food Center in Sandstone.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, Chris's Food Center is very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: They watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: They make medisterpølse for us at Christmas time.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have medisterpølse all year round.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do they?
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's frozen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, they have frozen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll usually find it frozen, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they do...
[SPEAKER_02]: pumpernickel Danish and then they do Kringle and that Jim down there that works at the bakery if you order something he'll make it they carry red cabbage in a can yes they do but that they can't find except if you go looking for the red cabbage none of them know where it's at it's in fruit and jars I know but it's really hidden yes it is way in the back on the top shelf where you can hardly reach it
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there only Danes that go by red cabbage?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: This one makes wonderful red cabbage.
[SPEAKER_02]: They always know at Christmas time they go, oh yeah, where is that now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is that?
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing, quite a few years ago, there was a group that decided to name all the streets in Askov by Danish names.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that didn't go very well because so many people couldn't pronounce them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then finally they put the English version of it underneath, which they have yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: but so many people couldn't pronounce them that, you know, give directions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And most of us Danes couldn't even... I couldn't even say them.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I couldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was responsible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's quite a reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not so many years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, they had a meeting up with Judy and John.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Judy and John, and there was...
[SPEAKER_02]: Lynn Hartz, and I forget who else who were on the program.
[SPEAKER_02]: They said, well, the one they're going to have to ask is me to come up and help them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to name them Danish names.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got up there, and I, well, what street now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then, okay, then I would name it what I thought could go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they all agreed that it was okay, every one of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I got the blame.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's cute, because then we got a postmaster, a young lady, our postmaster, and she's not Danish at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And people would come in, and where do they live?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, down on Kirky Street.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kirka?
[SPEAKER_00]: Kirka.
[SPEAKER_00]: They live down on Kirkegade.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where's Kirky Street?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well...
[SPEAKER_02]: After 23 years as clerk, though, I have to say that those that want to make themselves aware of where they are and how their street is pronounced, they do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll come in and ask me, and they'll pronounce it, and then from then on, they live on Kimagagada, (I'm not sure what the Danish street name is; hbs) or they live on Granadelgada, (I'm not sure what the Danish street name is; hbs) or...
[SPEAKER_02]: So those that want to will, but some of them didn't want to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially the young ones that came in that had no background, no Danish background.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: They look like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've lost it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's basically, like Joe said, why we put the names on the bottom.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did that one in the first years I was in the clerk office because that was about the time all the
[SPEAKER_02]: people in town were getting older and had started selling their houses.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we got all these young people in who had no contact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's when we decided to put the translation underneath.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that was a good idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they still come.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the young ones, some of them think it's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: They live in a town that's got foreign names.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I noticed that Carolyn and
[SPEAKER_02]: Her husband, they still say Jernbanegade.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, of course, they're not very young.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, there are some really young ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're young as far as I'm concerned.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are some really young ones that think it's kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Corey's age.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do they name the streets in Denmark?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did they have a name, all the different streets in Denmark?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yes, oh yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did they go by, or what kind of names?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well... I'm sure there's a commanding order.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can say that in a typical Danish town there would be old names in the old part of town, in the middle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you have a new living area set up, they sort of find the same kind of name for the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they take a new living area and they find birds' names, for instance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Birds, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: They do that here, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Robin Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it's quite obvious because then you know a new street.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll find that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surely?
[SPEAKER_00]: Around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an idea where it is when you know the name of it because, well, that's the area of the bird.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very nice and good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that... Oh, yeah, I can have... Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need a bigger one than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a little one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bigger one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll go together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well...
[SPEAKER_00]: That's about it, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: We can say about Danish traditions and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you find out anything new?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not really.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not in the way that I