DALLETT:

My name is Nancy Dallett, and I'm beginning Interview Number 432 [DP-58] for the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Today is Thursday, November 16, 1989, and we're beginning this interview about 2:15 in the afternoon here in Tucson, Arizona. And I'm going to be talking to Christine Sorensen about her immigration experience from Denmark in 1904 when she was fifteen years old. Okay. Let's start your story, and could you tell me when you were born?

SORENSEN:

Well, I was born on September 3, 1889.

DALLETT:

You've just had your one hundredth birthday.

SORENSEN:

Oh, that was last, that was the third of September. You didn't get in on that. You would have enjoyed it. (They laugh.)

DALLETT:

How did you celebrate that?

SORENSEN:

Why, there was, way over one hundred people came. The relatives came from the east coast and the west coast and from in between.

GLADYS SORENSEN:

And Denmark. Five came from Denmark.

SORENSEN:

Gladys, show her the picture of the red coats that, uh--

GLADYS SORENSEN:

After a while I will.

DALLETT:

Okay. We'll get to it. All right. Let's start back at the beginning then, and tell me where you were born, where you were born in Denmark. Where in Denmark?

SORENSEN:

In Vrensted, Vrensted. I was very fortunate, because going to school, I started school when I was six years old. And we had a new teacher. And this new teacher was able and capable of doing anything. And he was our teacher all the way through my seven years of school, and then he left and went to Bronderslev and gradually became, he worked his way up, gradually became the head teacher in Bronderslev. And he was a very, very capable teacher. See, I had been very, very fortunate.

DALLETT:

Tell me about, was it a village, or was it a city where you lived as a young girl?

SORENSEN:

It was on the farm. The school was out in the farm. And there was, oh, I don't know. We had four classes. I don't know. But gradually that community has gone down. The schoolhouse has been torn away, you know, and there's not much of anything except a few farmers there now.

DALLETT:

And is this up in the northwest corner in Denmark? Is this what you showed me before?

SORENSEN:

I started to tell you, this is Lokken.

DALLETT:

Lokken.

SORENSEN:

That's the nearest, that's really our nearest shopping center. And, uh, being on a farm, my mother used to make butter and sell, and we had gone into a dry goods store one day to buy something that my mother needed, my father and I, and the man, the man bought, I think my father had five pounds of butter along, and I could see him. He pulled out his pocket knife and he (Taps on something) scraped up a lump of butter, stuck it in his mouth, and he says, "I'll take all five pounds ." And then he made my father promise that if we had any more butter to sell that he would bring all his butter. He says, "I'll buy all you have." (She laughs.) And then after that, as I said that was about one thousand, four hundred population in that town in the wintertime. But in the summertime the population rose to forty-five thousand. It was a summer resort, you see. And one day when we were in New York at the World's fair, Gladys and I, we went to the Danish pavilion for dinner. So while we were sitting there a young man came in to wait table for us, and he spoke with an accent and he told us he was from Denmark. So Gladys, of course, innocently asked him where in Denmark. "Oh," he says, "I don't suppose you would ever know." He says, "It's just a little place. It's called Lokken." Gladys started to laugh. And she say's, "That's just where we were in '62." She said, "We've been there visiting all around Lokken." (She laughs.) You see, we got a lot of fun out of that. But you could see the difference in the population, forty-five thousand, and fourteen hundred in the wintertime.

DALLETT:

Did you help your mother make the butter when you were a young girl?

SORENSEN:

Oh, yeah. I had to stand there, and it was just a hand churn. Sure, I had to do everything. There were several of us kids, you know, together. And we all had to work. We earned our living. DALLETT; How many were in your family? You had brothers and sisters?

SORENSEN:

There were twelve altogether, but you see being that many, all the older ones were boys. First there was one, six boys, and then, no, five boys and then six girls. Then one boy and one girl later. But the boys all came over because all the other relatives, uncles and aunts, had come over, and so the older boys all came over. And one of my brothers became the, came to the superintendent of the Nash Motors Company. And when during the war when, you remember General Knudsen, you must have heard about him, my brother Chris was called in to travel with Knudsen and to do the work. Roosevelt got disgusted with some of the people. They weren't making things quite as fast as Roosevelt thought they should, so when Knudsen came to Kenosha, then Chris was called in and they got to talking and Chris went, left the factory and went with him on certain places where work was mostly needed. Oh, they were, all kept busy all the time.

DALLETT:

So your older brothers came to this country first and why--

SORENSEN:

Christian, Chris, and James, that's three, and Peter, that's four brothers were over here already and they were all married except Peter. Peter wasn't married at that time. But, uh, the three older brothers were married.

DALLETT:

And why did they, why had they come to this country? Why did they come to this country?

SORENSEN:

Well, I'll tell you. The reason I think all our young men in Denmark came to America, the thing was, Denmark has always had conscription. That means when they are eighteen years old they have to enter the army, you know, or whatever you call it. And that was something that nobody, they couldn't see their time in something like that when they figured they could be doing something much more useful if they were over here. Here they knew they wouldn't e called in. So that was the reason all the young men came over. I don't know why all the young girls came, but I guess they just followed. And as I say, with myself, Mrs. Helding, the mother of the bride, came home. And she and her mother, the mother was seventy-four, they came to visit us up here. They lived over here somewhere. I don't know, maybe Newborg or Svenborg. One of those cities over here on this island where they lived. So she came over and came up here to visit us, and they stayed for two whole weeks with us. And they, the last night before they were leaving, she says, "I would like to know," she says, "if Christine is going with me or not." And. uh, so that night I had to, I had to let them know. And I can remember I couldn't make up my mind, I didn't know what to do. And I can remember hearing, the clock would strike beginning around ten o'clock, ten thirty. eleven, eleven thirty and I kept on listening until after three o'clock I finally dropped off to sleep. And still I hadn't made up my mind. And the next morning, by seven, I woke up and I knew positively I was going, and that was it. Now, I says, they thing to me that has, that seems to have been since (?), God has always been there to say what I should do. And, you know, that is one of the biggest helps that you can get anywhere. So I says, my trip over was really a success even though when I think back, to me I can only think I was just like a slave to everybody when I came over here. Everybody needed something done. And, of course, I couldn't speak anything but the Danish language, so they yelled for me to come and do it. But I finally got to work at the Black Cat factory. They said, there was two big factories, the Black Cat and the White Cat, and there was only a street between them. Well, the Black Cat, where they made stockings and socks, mens socks and children's hose and such things. Mrs. Helding took me over there with the, uh, man, and talked to the man in the office. And they'd give me work, but Mrs. Helding told them I couldn't speak much English. Well, they said, he said they would put me on day work for a while until I learned the idea of how to do the work. And then after I learned that, why, then they'd put me on piece work, and then it would depend on how fast I could do the work, and so I started the next Monday morning and what do you suppose I got paid? Two dollars and fifty cents a week. You can't believe this. Well, my first, my first paycheck I brought home, two dollars and fifty cents. Mrs. Helding says to me, she says, "Christine," she says, "I have to take one dollar and put it in the bank. I promised your father, he borrowed the money to pay for your ticket, and that was three hundred thirty." So you see three hundred thirty had to be added up until I could get one by one dollar. But it was done. And at the same time she charged me a dollar and a quarter for room and board, which was very, very cheap. You couldn't get a room for a dollar and a quarter anywhere. So that was two dollars and a quarter, all I had left was a quarter. So I earned, for myself I earned a quarter a week. And do you know what I spent that quarter for mostly? You know, going to work, I ran home for dinner at noon, and then of course cut crossways, and there was a little grocery store there and right shortly, a short distance inside of the door was a great big barrel about three, a big barrel of dill pickles about this big. And he charged me a nickel for one dill pickle. So I'd have my nickel ready and I'd come in and I'd go to the barrel and fish out the biggest dill pickle I could find. And then I'd go over and I never spoke to him or anything, I just put down the, he knew I couldn't, the grocery man knew all of these things, you see. And, uh, I put down the nickel. And so that was only twenty cents left. (She laughs.) I can't remember what I spent the rest for, but I never spent for anything except the only thing I can ever remember is I spent for is the dill pickles. But two dollars and fifty cents was what I earned.

DALLETT:

Did that seem like a lot of money then?

SORENSEN:

Huh?

DALLETT:

Did it seem like a lot of money then?

SORENSEN:

Oh, I had never had money, you know. I had, we worked at home. And most of my work back in the old country had been working out in the field with my father and--

DALLETT:

What kind of work did you do with your father in the fields?

SORENSEN:

Well, you know, in the spring of the year when you plant things, if you put in the grain, and that was done by hand. My father would walk up and down, and you've seen it done, I'm sure, in pictures at least. Then it had to be harrowed down, otherwise the birds would take it. So I had to do the harrowing and at first, oh, I couldn't have been more than ten years old, I'm sure, and I would harrow a field. See, up and down and, up and down and, up and down. But then, there was another way, the last, it had to be harrowed over twice, first up and down, and then criss-crossed. And my father taught me how to do that. And oh, did I feel big when I could do that. I really remember things like that would make you feel so important and so big about things.

DALLETT:

It must have been a very, very difficult decision for you to make when this woman came and asked whether you wanted to come to this country, it must have been very, very difficult for you to leave home?

SORENSEN:

Well, you see, that's why I didn't sleep that night. But, you know, the thing is, if God speaks, if there's something God wants, you don't object, see. At least you don't feel safe in objecting. (She laughs.) But I was so positive, and I had thought about it a good many times, I don't think I have ever had a question to answer as hard as "should I leave with the woman or should I stay home?" That's been the hardest question to answer, and yet I was so positive the next morning, I knew it was something. And I can only say God gives you these feelings. God tells you certain things. And when you do what he tell you to, you don't go wrong. DALLETT; How did your mother and your father feel when you decided--

SORENSEN:

Oh, they never, they never said anything, of course. My father went to a neighbor who was a carpenter, and he got him to make a great big trunk. My mother had a lot of material. See, my mother was weaving material mostly from, people in the old country had a lot of sheep and, you know, and they'd have their own yarn. Then they would send it to Hjorring. Hjorring is right there. That's Hjorring. That's a bigger city, you know, see. H-J-O-R-R-I-N-G, with a dot over the O.

DALLETT:

Okay. That's just east of Lokken, where you were born.

SORENSEN:

Either a dot, or they put a cross over it.

DALLETT:

Okay.

SORENSEN:

You see, we have three letters in our alphabet that America doesn't have and that's AE, o and a. AE is a and e put together.O is an o with a dot over it, a, which is two a's put together. Now, like Alborg. Here it's Alborg. You see, that's two a's.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. Alborg.

SORENSEN:

But they have, now, you see, they changed that later on. I think it was after the Second World War. To shorten things. So instead of, then they make and A and put a dot over it, see, so they changed it. So there's several that have changed. And when, when we were travelling in '63 back over there, Gerda was our guide. And she told us. She says there was a lot of things that Denmark had changed since the Second World War and she says, "Now, one expression," she says, "that the Danish used a lot is weekend." And they say it the way that we do. They actually say, "It's the weekend." Nasta is the same as "next." "Nasta uga" it would be. So they say, "Nasta weekend." So you see how there's a lot of the English words mixed up in the Danish language now, and I think that's in all the different countries over there they're doing the same thing. Golly.

DALLETT:

You were telling me about your father who went to the neighbor to have a trunk made.

SORENSEN:

Make that, and--

DALLETT:

And you mother--

SORENSEN:

He had, you know, he had, the lid was made like this, and then he had, the whole thing was covered, so a lot of things could be stuffed in there. Certain--

DALLETT:

And there was like a slip on the lid.

SORENSEN:

And then right in the center, right in the center there was a little lock, sort of, and he could pull a door out. And I had things in there that was especially for the children. My mother fixed up. And, uh--

DALLETT:

Did she put something in there especially for you?

SORENSEN:

Well, that was, that was put to, she had bought, she had bought, gotten my uncle to buy it for here in Kjorring because he went to Hjorring with his team, you know. And, uh, she had gotten him to buy a new Bible, a new Danish Bible. And do you know, when we came to Ellis Island the inspector, I had, I had, the trunk had been tied over with clothesline, a regular clothesline, you know. And my father had showed me how, there were special knots. My father had showed me how to untie it. He says, "Don't wait for anybody to come because they'll just grab the pocketknife and cut the rope and then you ave nothing." He says, "This way you will have the rope and can make use of it after you get there." So I had, I had opened my trunk and it stood, my trunk stood there just like, this.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh, with the lid open.

SORENSEN:

It was open. The lid held itself, like this, held it open. And it stood, and everything was right there. And so when he came and began to pull around and examine what was in the trunk, the first thing he saw was this Bible. And he picked it up and he stood with it. He opened it, and he stood with it for quite a while, like he was reading. And I have wondered sometimes was that Inspector a Dane? Could he read what he was reading? Anyhow, I'll bet you he stood there at least ten minutes reading, so he must have been able to read what he was doing, because he didn't keep turning pages, he kept on standing there reading. And then very carefully he closed the book dow, put it down and put down the lid and white crosses all over to make sure that nobody else would come and, with all the white crosses, that's showing that it's been inspected, see. And I have, I have thought again, it was just like Bible had been put there on top. Because, of course, I don't know whether my mother was allowed to put in some things. She had woven materials and sent them that they could make up things. Of course, there were so many children. There were quite a few, that would be my mother's grandchildren, you see. And six, seven, eight years old. Well, you know, you can make use, and mother had heard them talk, write about America gets so terribly cold. They have a lot of snow and so she thought this was real home wool, wool from the sheep. And she felt that it would do the children a lot of good. And--

DALLETT:

So she said goodbye to many of her children who had come to this country.

SORENSEN:

Yes. You know, my second brother, Chris, the one that became the Nash Motors superintendent, she took him up to my uncle's house, and my uncle was going to take him Hjorring so he could get on, you know, from there. And coming home from there after Uncle Otto had gone with my brother, she said, it started to snow while she walked home, and it was quite a distance to walk. And she said she was walking right against the snow, but it wasn't cold. And actually my mother made a little hymn out of the whole thing, in her mind. She just made up these words as she went along there on the road. And then she came home and sat down and she wrote it down. She could still remember what she had in her mind, while it was still fresh. So she wrote this, made a regular hymn out of it.

DALLETT:

Hmm. Do you remember that hymn?

SORENSEN:

No, no. I never, I never heard. I read it, you know. But I, it was not anything I have really remembered. But many of her hymns that we used to sing, they were from the regular hymn book, though. And time and again in the twilight, we had a long twilight in Denmark. And time and again she would sit, she knit the hose for all of us and she had her knitting in such a way that she could do all the straight knitting. She knew how much she had to knit without taking in, or without making heels or without any of those things. And, uh, she'd sit in the dark and she'd sing to us kids and we would, I think in that way we learned a lot. Of course in school, too, you know, we, they gave us hymns to learn by heart. We had to learn things by heart. And do you know one thing in our school, all the time I was in school, that first hour was Bible history. Not Bible history as a religion, but Bible history as a country where Christ was raised, where He was born, all about the Sea of, in the Danish we called it "genesaret" (Danish). So many of those things, even today I think of them in the Danish language, you know, instead of saying it. I'm not sure how it's pronounced in the American language.

DALLETT:

Galilee?

SORENSEN:

Galilee.

DALLETT:

The Sea of Galilee?

SORENSEN:

And tell us about Martha and Mary and, you know, when He came over, when He came over there after Lazarus had died and He says to Mary, Martha, "Martha, Martha, thou art cumbered about many things, but one thing is needful. Martha has, Mary has chosen a good part which shall not be taken away from her." He told that to Martha. (She laughs.) And, you know, I had read stories about Martha, all her worries and all her troubles. And sometimes it would be much, much better if you forgot some of your garden troubles and your house. When you stop and think about house cleaning and all that stuff, and people seem to think it's got to be done right now. Well, when you get as old as I am then you think, well, after all, we got along without certain things. And I feel you keep on getting along. What's important is doing, thinking about what God really wants. Say, have you ever read a magazine called the Guideposts ?

DALLETT:

No.

SORENSEN:

I'd like to give you one of the Guideposts . I'll have to remember when you go, I'll give you. I get it every month, and you take it along and you'll find, I'm sure you'll find it's very, very interesting, some of the things.

DALLETT:

Let's go back to your story a little bit, okay?

SORENSEN:

All right. I telling you about?

DALLETT:

You were telling me, I think we were up to the point where you were going to leave, you were going to leave home and your father had made the trunk for you and your mother had put the weavings in there. Do you remember when you left?

SORENSEN:

Yeah. The uncle, the uncle and aunt left. The uncle sent it, two uncles and two aunts. Mother had one sister and one brother, and they were both married. And the husband and the wife and the others came along. And the mother had a great big dinner for them. And, uh, always, when they came, after dinner, dishes, the tables were cleared and put out in the sink and stayed there and then we sat down and sang hymns. It was always singing hymns when we got through with our dinners. And so after they had been singing a lot of hymns, then my uncle said he thought it was time that, because he was doing the driving. And he said that he thought it was time that we got started. So, uh, we got out, my father and mother and I got out in the wagon, and I sat in behind, between the trunk and the things, and we were going to my aunt's oldest son who was married and we were going to stay there that night and then leave real early for Hjorring the next morning. And my aunt came up and reached over and took hold of my hand and she says, "Christine," she says, "Look up in the sky and see the beautiful stars." She says, "If you ever get homesick or lonesome," she says, "look in the sky at night and look at the stars and know," she said, "that God is watching over you." And, you know, when you get away from home that's when those things mean a lot to you. And, uh, well, of course, we got there, and we got to Frederick's house and then to Sweden. We stayed two nights in Goteberg, I think. I'm sure it was, Goteberg should be, this is, inside here there's no light. But Goteberg should be somewhere around up in here. We stayed two days in Goteberg waiting for the big ship that Mrs. Helding was on. And they came to Norway. Norway is up here, further north up here. And the ship was so big it couldn't go into the harbor, or they call it a fjord. And, uh-- DALLETT; Sorry, I need to interrupt you because our tape is just about to run out, so hold on one second, Okay? That's the end of side one of Interview Number 432 [DP-58] with Christine Sorensen. END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

DALLETT:

Okay. This is the beginning of side two of Interview Number 432 [DP-58] with Christine Sorensen. Okay. So you were just about to tell me about spending two days in--

SORENSEN:

Goteberg.

DALLETT:

Goteberg.

SORENSEN:

And then we got on board. After we had been on Goteberg waiting for, I can't remember the name of that ship. It was a great big one, you know crossing the ocean. And we got on board and then we started out.

DALLETT:

Now, here you were meeting that woman that was going to bring you here. What was her name again?

SORENSEN:

Yeah. Her name was Mrs. Helding, H-E-L-D-I-N-G.

DALLETT:

Okay. So you met her on the--

SORENSEN:

And as it happened, her first name was Christine, like my own. (She laughs.) Now, then, of course, we went across. It took us two weeks to cross the ocean and we had good weather all the way through. And when we got into New York, Mrs. Helding came and called me. She says, "Christine," she says, "I want you to see the los on board." Los, or los, is the pilot. And we saw him come in a small boat. Somebody brought him out in a small boat, and I saw him standing up, and he jumped from the boat to a rope ladder. The rope ladder hung from clear up high, way down to the water, and he jumped from the boat over onto this rope ladder and hand over foot, you know, and that quick he was up on the top, and he was way up to, and he walked straight over to the captain. And the captain stepped aside, and she says, "Now, you have charge." You see, with the big ships, they have to have a pilot when they get so many miles or do far out. I'm not sure just how far out, but when they are so far out from New York there has to be a pilot on board that knows every inch of that water and I'm telling you I have never seen anything more beautiful than there was that night in New York. Stars and lights all over, looked up, the sky was loaded with stars, and looking over the city and over the water and everywhere there were lights all over. Red and green and yellow, and even, I don't think I've ever seen as many of those as I just saw that night. They were sort of purplish lavender. They were beautiful. But each light meant something, and the pilot knew exactly where that light was. I says, to think anyone could be so knowledgeable, know everything, as that pilot, and he knew every inch of that water. Oh, I thought that was wonderful. I was so glad Mrs. Helding called me. You see, I didn't know any of those things, but she knew. And, of course, she could talk to everybody and, you know, it was wonderful. On the crossing I had been seasick. I was seasick for a whole week. I couldn't do a thing, I couldn't swallow, couldn't take a thing. There was a woman from Denmark, from Copenhagen. She had a daughter living in Copenhagen. She had a son living in New York. The ticket between the two places by boat was twelve dollars one way. Imagine! I've thought about some of these things so many, many times, how things, just to show the difference. The ticket between New York and Copenhagen was twelve dollars by boat. And the woman made the trip so many times and she had, she had learned by experience when she went, she took her own loaf of bread, what the call, "fransk, [PH]" French bread, you know, a big long bread, like, a loaf like this. And she had a big knife to cut her bread with. She had a small can of butter along with her and she had her own coffee pot and she went to the kitchen and got boiling water and poured it over her beans and that quick she made. Mrs. Helding had gotten to talk to this woman on the, see, I only met people through Mrs. Helding. And when she found out that I was sick, she says to Mrs. Helding, she says, "She's been up there long enough now." She says, "You tell her to get some clothes on and come on down here." "And," she says, "and I'll have a cup of coffee ready for her." And there was nothing like a slice of butter, bread and butter. She says, "Nothing, no, nothing put on. No meat, no cheese, no nothing." She said, "Just plain bread and butter, it's the best thing for seasickness." And do you know that I had a whole big slice, one whole slice, and she put plenty of butter on. She wasn't stingy. I remember that. And I sat down and I ate this bread with the hot coffee. My sakes, I felt like a new person. It was just like it settled my stomach just that quick. And do you know, to this day I have never ben seasick since. And I've crossed the ocean several times. I went back in 1910 and came back in 1912 right after the Titanic. You remember that. And do you know what the people that built the Titanic, I'm not sure that it was the Cunard Line. The Cunard Line built the Lusitania and the Mauretania. They were sister ships. And I'm thinking it was the Cunard Line that built the Titanic. It was the next one after the two sister ships. And I read in the paper what these people that built it had said. That they were going to build a ship that neither the devil nor God could destroy. Now, that's bringing it pretty close, isn't it? So they started out from London. That is, from Liverpool, I guess it was. They started out from Liverpool. Anyhow, they came from England and came across over there and, uh, why they took the northern route, or the middle route, or whatever route they took, I don't know. They could have gone further south. But all these ice bergs were floating way up high. And they say what the see is only the one third, that two thirds is underneath the water. And before you knew it, the ship ran into one of those and was just cut wide open, almost cut in two. It's really an awful thing when you think. But to make such a remark that neither the devil nor God could destroy, that's, that's bad business to make such a remark. DALLETT; Let's go back to the ship that you were on.

SORENSEN:

Well, our ship, as I said, our ship, the pilot got on and we all got up the next morning and got into Ellis Island the next morning. Now we're getting to Ellis Island. DALLETT; Okay.

SORENSEN:

And the one thing that I thought about that was, gosh, there's people all over, and it sounded like a beehive. It really did. I can remember later I took my, I carried paper and pencil in my purse and I had some, well, I got some stamps, I must have, because I had to use american stamps after I got over here. And I sat down by the, by a window, and wrote to my mother and let her know that I had, that we had gotten as far as Ellis Island and that we were all right. And, uh, I, it sounded just like a beehive. But, uh, after a while there I noticed two girls coming. They were quite big girls. Nice looking, very blonde, and they had blue dresses on and white aprons and white caps. You've seen pictures of the Dutch girls, haven't you? You know what they look like. And that's the way these girls looked. But their dresses were so long that they were only about an inch or two above the floor, and they went around, and one girl carried a great big tray, it was full of eight-ounce glasses of milk. And they gave every person a glass of milk. And then the other girl came following behind and she handed everybody a raised doughnut. Now, I can't remember, we must have had our breakfast on board the ship before we left. I'm sure we did. But the only thing I can remember is the milk and the doughnuts. I have never forgotten that. And I said I thought that was the nicest thing. And that was the Holland Girls. It must be a certain organization from Holland that did those things. Every once in a while you read something about Hollanders doing something, something especially nice. So you, you get a feeling it's a nice country to live close by.

DALLETT:

So you really liked the doughnuts?

SORENSEN:

Oh, they were good. To this day I never eat anything but raised doughnuts. I never eat, uh, of course, there was a while I didn't know how to make raised doughnuts. I mean, it was after I was married, so I made regular doughnuts when a big crowd was coming to town.

DALLETT:

Now, tell me, how is a raised doughnut, are you saying raised, raised doughnut? How is that different?

SORENSEN:

Huh? How they're different?

DALLETT:

Yeah.

SORENSEN:

Well, because they had yeast in and the dough is given a chance to raise. And then after they are made they're left to raise a certain length of time before they put them in the hot grease. And then even in the hot grease they puff up even more. Oh, they were just huge. Actually these were just that big. They were huge doughnuts.

DALLETT:

That's like five inches you're showing.

SORENSEN:

When you ever see a raised doughnut, you can thin of Ellis Island. (They laugh.) I don't imagine they did that later on. I read, I read quite an article about Iacocca. You know whom he is. And, uh, how they, he said his folks had come over on the, into Ellis Island. But I don't know whether they ever, I had a feeling once that I wanted to write to Iacocca and ask him if his folks had got milk and raised doughnuts. It would have been kind of fun to have asked him. (She laughs.)

DALLETT:

So did Mrs. Helding take you through the process? You stayed with Mrs. Helding at Ellis Island.

SORENSEN:

No, I stayed at Helding's house.

DALLETT:

No, at Ellis Island.

SORENSEN:

Oh, at Ellis Island we were together all the way through, yeah. Uh-huh. I think all people regardless. Because, you see, in 19-, I'll tell you, it was 1912 that the Titanic got smashed up, and shortly after that I had been home, you see, because my mother was sick and I had taken care of her and I knew that she was going to get well, so I was going back again. And, uh, I, uh, now, what was I--

DALLETT:

You came back to this country again?

SORENSEN:

Yeah. You see, I came back here because I had said, I had always wanted, that's another thing that I says, just like God has been a few steps ahead, I had always wanted to take up nurses training and, uh, I got over here, but I had no money left, so I had to start in working. This time I was luckier. I got six dollars and fifty cents a week doing private house work. And I just worked long enough to earn, you know, the blue and white stripes that, I had gone to hospital and asked them about it, and I knew that I could get the job as soon as I got my things ready. They had told me what I had to make. And, I had to have three blue and white striped uniforms, and they told me the width of the stripes and everything. And then I had to buy seventy-two inch wide sheeting to make the aprons, and the aprons had to have three inch hems. And I had to make the bibs. The bibs went down inside, and the apron went, and the band over the, uh, had to, it just didn't fir because it had to have four button holes, two on each side. And it had to fasten with, it had to fasten with a, theses buttons that, those little white bone buttons that they use for shirt sleeves. So that when they went into the laundry there would be nothing to cause trouble for the machinery. They wouldn't, the laundry wouldn't take anything with buttons and such things on them at that time. So you can see how things have changed. But I remember we got all of that done. In August 8th I started my duty in the hospital. And after I had been there just one week Miss Reilly came to me one day, one noon, and she says, "Miss heidi," she says, "we're all going down for dinner," she says. "Now, there won't be anything. Everything's been done." She says, "There won't be anything for you to do. Unless," she says, "somebody rings." You know, they press the button, and then the light shows out in the corridor, and you have to go and see what they want, maybe a drink of water, or maybe the bedpan or some such thing as that, you know. And she says, "And you know enough about that you can do those things." They hadn't any more gone , in came Dr. Van. He looked at me and says, "Are you the only one on duty?" And I told him, "Yes." And he says, "Where's the rest of them?" And I says, "They went to dinner." I says, I had my first experience in sterilizing any, all kinds of things. But because I told him, I says, "Dr. Van," I says, "I'll call Miss reilly." "Never mind," he says. "Leave her eat dinner in peace." He says, "I'll show you how to do things." And I had thought a good many times afterwards Dr. Van was a good sport. He sure was.

DALLETT:

Let's just pause here for a second how about, okay? (Break in tape.)

SORENSEN:

Well, I remember from there, from that time.

DALLETT:

Okay. How about, where did you go after that? With Mrs. Helding, she took you on to--

SORENSEN:

Then we went on, we went onto, we got on the train and went to Kenosha. And, uh, I remember one thing that I had never seen or never knew existed. When we got to Chicago they told us that we could go in. They had bathrooms in special places, and you could take a shower or a regular bath or any of those things. You could do all of those things before you went on from Chicago, on to wherever you were going. And, uh, I can't remember whether we took a bath or not, or whether we waited until we got back to, see, Kenosha is only forty miles from Chicago and, uh, it was just a case of waiting for the next, for the next train. And, uh--

DALLETT:

Do you remember what some of your first impressions were when you were on the train to Chicago and then to Kenosha? What did you think about what you saw?

SORENSEN:

The, uh, everything was so entirely different from, uh, say, Gladys, wrap up her cake if she's not going to eat it, in a small--

GLADYS SORENSEN:

Yeah. Don't interrupt the story.

SORENSEN:

If you aren't going to eat it now, you're going to take it with you.

DALLETT:

Okay. Okay, I'll take my raised doughnut with me.

SORENSEN:

You take your cookies.

DALLETT:

Okay.

SORENSEN:

And, uh--

DALLETT:

You were saying everything was so different.

SORENSEN:

Everything. You see, the first thing, in the east we go through, the train goes through places where there's huge mountains on each side of the train, something I had never seen. I knew about mountains from geography, and all of things from school. But I had never really seen anything like that. And it was, well, it was so entirely different. And then we got farther, like Indiana and getting into Wisconsin and that was more like what we had in Denmark. So there is here, in the United States, there are places that, regardless of who comes or where they come from, there will be something like home to, uh, if they want to live in places like home. But the thing is, I think very few people really do, I think they're mighty glad to get away from home. Now, look at all those east and west Germans. All the, uh, the trouble they've been having there. You can hardly imagine such things existing. But it looks to me, though, like more or less they are trying to make people do to others as they like to have others do to them. And that, after all, that is the important thing. Whatsoever you would that others should do unto you, do even so unto them. And if you can, if you can make people understand. Now, look at Stalin, what kind of a leader was he. And look at Gorbachev. But I think, at least that's my personal feeling, I think it's Mrs. Gorbachev that's at the back of that. Of course, they work together. And that's the thing that I think is so important that people that are married, that husband and wife will work together instead of scrapping fights about things like they do.

DALLETT:

Tell me, back to Kenosha, when you first got there and met with your brother, your brother was living in Kenosha. Is that right?

SORENSEN:

Well my, uh, my other, my oldest brother. I still have a picture, but I don't think it's in any of these things here. I have pictures of them. My, uh, there was Fritz. Fritzi was the oldest. He was six. Otto was four. Inger was two. And they were expecting, the next baby was born two days before Christmas, so they sent me out there to work, to take care of that whole family. And I must tell you this. This is funny. (She laughs.) I was going to, I figured I knew how to do everything, and I had, because I had done so much of all kinds of work at home. So I, this was the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve was that night, and we were going to have a big Christmas Eve supper. And I was gong to, I was going to bake some nice fresh biscuits, bread, and had everything really nice for Christmas Eve. You see Lena, that was the sister-in-law, the baby was only two days old, so Lena was in bed, and she couldn't do anything. I had to depend on myself to get everything done. I got everything done and I, there was plenty, they had brought, my brother had brought things home, you know, so there was plenty of flour and things in the house for food. But in the same house, yo see, this was one end of the house. In the same end of the house, my uncle and his wife and two boys lived and, uh, so along in the afternoon, Tante Trina came in and she wanted to know if there was anything she could help with. I says, "Tante Trina, I don't know," I says, "my bread doesn't seem to come up." I says, "I waited, I started it early, you know, in the morning." I mean, not too early, of course, because I had to dress the kids and get things done and have dinner and everything. But anyhow, I told her I had been working real hard with everything. So she started to begin to make mention of everything. "Did you put this in and this in?" But once she came to yeast I completely, I had completely forgotten about yeast. She started to laugh. And she says, "Christine," she says, "I'll take this dough and give it to the hogs." You see, they were on a farm, you see. So they had a big pen of hogs out there. She took all this and brought it, took it out and gave it to the hogs. And then she brought back all the things I would need. Flour, and yeast, whatever it went into, you know. And she says, "Now," she says, "you start this right up." And she told me to just let it come up just once. Don't fuss with a second raising. She says, "Just let this come up, and then put it in, put your biscuit in tins and your bread in the loaf pans and you'll have it ready to take out of the oven by the time dinner is ready." So we got our first biscuits. I laughed about that a good many times. I'll tell you, I never forgot the yeast since then. But, as I say, I was only just fifteen and having this whole family all at once, the whole family dumped on top of you, I had to do everything for everybody. So I says it seems to me there could be some sort of excuse for making mistakes. But anyhow I got it, I got it done and we had a nice dinner. And I can't remember, I stayed there for quite a while until, oh, maybe I stayed there the whole month of January. I'm sure I did. And I made sure that Lena got fixed up. Oh, say, two years after that another baby was born. Her name was Alice. She had, uh, she had, what was that, what was that disease that they had. There was, somebody had that disease that sort of left them half paralyzed.

DALLETT:

As a baby she had it?

SORENSEN:

I can't remember.

DALLETT:

A kind of fever?

SORENSEN:

What?

DALLETT:

A kind of fever? Or--

SORENSEN:

Yeah. I don't remember, but anyhow, anyhow she got over that, and she's been a teacher all her life until she was quite old, and then she married, she finally married and her husband--

DALLETT:

We're just going to pause for a sec. (Break in tape.) You're talking about your reunion for your one hundredth birthday. Is that what your talking about?

SORENSEN:

Yeah. When they all came for my birthday now, this time, and they were all so nice about everything. And you think, now, Eric came from New York, Tom and what's her name, I've forgotten her name, came from San Francisco. But they happened to be in Kentucky when the earthquake happened. I don't know, Tom had gone to New York for some meeting, special meeting. He's a doctor. And, uh--

DALLETT:

But people came from all over the world, didn't they? People came from Denmark for your one hundredth birthday.

SORENSEN:

Yeah, they came, five of them came from Denmark. And that was when we hung up the Danish flag, you know. Stevie, Jane's oldest boy, had been in, what do you call the place, in California, you know what I mean. That little Danish town in California. He was--

DALLETT:

Solvang?

SORENSEN:

Solvang. And, uh, they had just stopped there and had so much to eat. Then after they had Danish kringle or whatever they call it, and coffee. And then Stevie looked around and spied a Danish flag. And, of course, he bought it. And when he got, for my ninetieth birthday, Stevie bought, he bought my American flag. And you know, our representative in Washington, D.C. was the Honorable John Rhodes. I don't know if you, I'm sure you've seen and heard him on TV. So the, Stevie wrote out a check and sent to him and said he would like to have a flag that flew over the capital and give to his grandmother's ninetieth birthday. What did the Honorable John Rhodes do? He shipped the check right back to him. He says that he wasn't going to bother with that, that he'd get somebody else to get a flag for him. Stevie took the flag and fired it straight back at John Rhodes and he says, "I'm sorry," he says, "but I was under the understanding that you were in Washington to do the bidding of people at home." He says, "Now," he says, "I am demanding, he says, "that you get me a flag that has flown over the capital for my grandmother's ninetieth birthday." The flag came through. And Rhodes kept the check. I was just, really, I didn't know what to say to Steve when he told me about it, but it just tickled me so, because you know, Nancy, that's the whole lot for. Stevie was, that's ten years ago, Stevie's thirty-two now, so he couldn't have been much over twenty when that happened. But he had the nerve. And sometimes I think the younger people have more nerve to do things than you do after you get older. You stop and realize what could happen to a person saying something like that. Because, you know, he could have gotten in trouble for speaking like that to--

DALLETT:

He wanted to have the flag there for you.

SORENSEN:

(She laughs.) Well, I think if John Rhodes spoke to anybody else about it, I think the other senators and representatives would get a big laugh out of it, and think it just serves him right.

DALLETT:

We're going to put another tape in for Mrs. Sorensen's interview. So this is the end of side two of tape one of Interview Number 432 [Dp-58] with Christine Sorensen. END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of, let's see, tape number two, side one, of Interview Number 432 [DP-58] with Christine Sorensen. I'm Nancy Dallett, and it's November 16, 1989. We're beginning tape number two at about 3:45 in the afternoon. I'm here with Mrs. Sorensen in Tucson, Arizona. Okay. I wanted to go back to that period in Kenosha after you stopped working for your brother and his family you told me you worked for, was it that Black Cat factory?

SORENSEN:

Black Cat factory. Now, listen. Let me tell you. Let me tell you, I, after my nurse's training I worked for Dr. Ripley mostly. All of my work, mostly all of my work was done for Dr. Ripley. And one day I told him, I says, "Dr. Ripley," I says, "I think I'm going to quit nursing." And he says, "Why?" I says, "I'm going to join med school." And he says, he looked at me and he says, "You can't get into med school." And I says, "Why can't I?" And he says, he looked at me and he says, "For the simple reason," he says, "you have no high school diploma." So that was it. Because, you see, having been brought up in the old country, we had no high school diplomas like they have over here. And that's the one thing that I have been trying to tell everybody about. Be sure you get your high school diploma. Because Dr. Ripley said the high school diploma is the key that opens all doors to higher education. And I think that's what parents should tell their children when they enter high school. That when they get in there, they are there to stay until they finish. I think it's a shame to let anybody quit halfway through. And that's the thing that, to me, that's the more important. And I says there's lots of things that comes up in a child's life that they would like to change afterwards, but if you don't have the high school education, you can't get in anywheres. Nobody would accept you, even on trials, you see.

DALLETT:

You mentioned before you went to night school.

SORENSEN:

Huh?

DALLETT:

You went to night school, you mentioned.

SORENSEN:

Yeah. And do you know, going to night school, oh, I was supposed to write three letter, or was it four letters, I've forgotten which. The teacher was an older woman and I knew her son. He belonged to our young people's league. And I knew the girl he married. They were awfully nice kids. But this older woman, for some reason, I think because I spoke with a decided accent, you know. She just somehow didn't like me, and she found fault with everything I did. So-- (She laughs.) So one day she had given me a home lesson of writing three different letters, and be sure I'd had them signed out. I was supposed to gave my name signed to it and bring them to school the next Wednesday night. Well, Wednesday after we got through with that, I was working at the Pennoyer [PH] Sanitarium at that time, waiting tables. And I took my books, and I went out in the grove and sat down trying to write out there and get these letters written. And the more I thought about it, the more confused I got. Then all at once I picked up all my papers and I jumped on my bicycle and down I went to College of Commerce. And I went straight to the office, to Mr. Trenary [PH]. And he looked at me, he says, "Well, well, Peggy," he says, "what's wrong?" And I told him that Mrs. Peck had given me this and I says I can't do it. "Well," he says, "that sounds easy." He took, he took a pad, you know, a tablet, or whatever you call it, and a pencil, and he sat down and wrote, and he wrote out the three letters. One was a business letter, one was a thank you letter, I think, and one was a friendly letter like you write to a friend. And he wrote them all out in no time, and he says, "Now," he says, "Peggy," he says, "you go home," he says. "And don't give this to Mrs. Peck." But he says, "make a copy of them and give her the copy." I says, "thank you, Mr. Trenary [PH]." And away I went on my bicycle. You see, I had to get home and wait tables again. I was working at the Pennoyer [PH] Sanitarium. That's a place where all the millionaires came. And there was one woman who had been a retired teacher. Three times a week I went to night school, and whenever it was my night school, she always came in late. She'd say, "Christine," she says, "now you just put everything down here on the table in front of me. I can wait on myself and here's your dime." She says, "You take it and run." It cost a nickel to go on the streetcar, and a nickel to come back. And every night that I went she paid for my streetcar fare. And do you know what? When the conductor and the motorman would see me coming, the streetcar would be waiting. They would, they would blow the horn or whatever, thing, you know, whatever, and I'd come running as fast as I could. Do you know what? When I went to the courthouse to take my oath of allegiance to America, whatever you--

DALLETT:

Citizenship?

SORENSEN:

Yeah, uh-huh. Who do you suppose was the judge? The man that had been the motorman on that street car was the judge that took the oath of allegiance. I was so surprised. I had never. And I could see then. After that I understood why had that motorman and that conductor been so interested in waiting for me. Now, nobody would have, when I come running down the, I had a whole block there, they would just have pulled out and let me stand and wait twenty minutes for the next one. But they always waited. And the motorman, the conductor, after I got in nurse's training, the conductor brought his wife in to have a mastoid, you know, that's the operation behind the ears, for both her ears. And when he saw me he was so tickled to see me that he said, "I know now," he says, 'that my wife will get over this in fine shape." And I says there has been so many, many things like that, you know, that has, well, it seems like it had just worked together just for the good. It's just like the Bible says, work together for the good of those who love God. That tries, that really tries to do what they think God wants them to do. And I says there's so many, many things like that that I think of when I sit and do my knitting. That's about the only thing, you see, I had both hands operated on and for about a whole week Gladys had to feed me. And, oh, I could pick up a nibble with my fingers, you know. But, oh, Gladys has been so good to me, it's really surprising to think when there are so many million things that she could do it makes you feel bad to think that she'd have to spend time with me. Because, well, I, now, next May, May 17, Pammy graduates from Illinois. She goes to school down there at Wheaton, Illinois, and I want her to go. And she says she won't let me, she won't leave me here alone. Every once in a while I take a spill. I took a spill this afternoon. I took a spill the other day. I went down, and my glasses flew out and got way out of shape. I had to take them back to the man and get them fixed.

DALLETT:

Did you ever go back to New York? Did you ever go back and see Ellis Island again?

SORENSEN:

No. No, I can't remember if we did, but we went to the Statue of Liberty. We sent money to that too, when they started to work on that. We sent quite a bit of money, too. Of course, the Statue of Liberty didn't demand any particular amount, But Ellis Island demanded a hundred dollars. So I sent the hundred dollars and Gladys sent two hundred.

DALLETT:

You're on the Wall of Honor there. Is that right?

SORENSEN:

And then I says things come up, like this earthquake. We sent, I sent a hundred and Gladys sent two hundred there. And we try to help out just the little we can do.

DALLETT:

Seems like you're getting a little tired now.

SORENSEN:

Huh? DALLETT; Are you a little tired now?

SORENSEN:

No.

DALLETT:

No, you're okay?

SORENSEN:

Oh, say, I don't, I don't get tired, really. The only thing that bothers me is my back, and I lose my balance. That's what I'm afraid of because my left leg, my left leg won't follow along like it should, you see. It goes to prove, like the Bible tells you, that the body is made up of all the different, what would call it, parts of the body, and they must work in unison. And if they don't work in unison, why, the body can't do anything. (She laughs.)

DALLETT:

Okay. We're going to just pause here. (Break in tape.) We've talked about a lot of different things, but just a few more questions, okay.

SORENSEN:

As I say, I worked in the factory there. Then I went back to the old country, while I was going to night school, of course, and learning, trying to learn the language. And Mr. Trenary [PH] had asked me to come and stay with them and help his wife do housework and, uh, and then he said he wouldn't charge me anything for my tuition. Six months tuition was twenty-five dollars. Now, you see, that wouldn't have meant a thing now, but when you were only earning, say, ten or twelve dollars a week and you pay room and board out of that, why, then twenty-five dollars means an awful lot. And for that reason, of course, I tried to do as much as I could for myself. But Mr. Trenary [PH] thought if he wasn't charging me anything for my tuition, I'd be working for it, you see. Why, that would help me. Then all of a sudden I got so homesick I didn't know where to put myself. And I think that's another way God acts, makes people do what He wants them to do. Because I went home, and I went to Mr. Trenary [PH] and told him, and he says, well, he says, "That's the thing you should do, then, if that's the way you feel." He says, then he says, "You shouldn't stay here." And when I was over there my mother got so sick that the doctor said that she'd never pull through. She had pneumonia. And, uh, I remember sleeping on the floor, right out in front of her bed. I slept on the floor every night for about two weeks, and then it seemed like all at once there was a crisis and she'd begin to get better. And then when she felt that she could be on her own a little bit a neighbor of ours had died and the woman, his wife was left alone with a little boy six years old and a little girl three months old. So mother says to me, she says, "As long as daddy is here with me," she says, "you ought to go up and stay with Rikka and help her out when she's all alone." So I went up there for a week and stayed there, and then one morning we woke up, Rikka was gone. She died in her sleep. And then the grandparents came and took the little boy. But I guess the grandmother wasn't so sure she could handle the baby. So she says to me, "Do you think," she says, 'that your mother would take the baby until she gets, until the baby gets old enough that we could handle her, so she could walk, you know?" So I says they'd have to go to talk to her, and they did. Mother was tickled to have this baby. And after she got that baby to take care of she forgot all about she had been sick and she got well so fast that really it was surprising to see how fast she got well. Then I went back to, uh, to America and I told you August 8th was when I started nurse's training. Now, that's really all I, all there is.

DALLETT:

The second time when you came back to this country, did you go through Ellis Island this time?

SORENSEN:

Oh, yeah, yeah. And that was at the time that the man at the desk called me up. He said there was that lady's family, husband, wife and four children. And he says, to me, he says, "Ask them if anything happened that you know that he should die and have no one to look after her, would there be any relatives over there that would take care of her." And he says, "I got thirty-five thousand dollars right here," he says, "that'll take care of my family." So he thanked me for coming up and I went back and sat down again and they, otherwise they might have sent them back to Denmark.

DALLETT:

You helped to translate?

SORENSEN:

Huh?

DALLETT:

You helped to translate the language to him?

SORENSEN:

Oh, I asked, I asked what the people, I told the people what the man asked, what he was asking. And so when he felt real big, "I got thirty-five thousand dollars right here," he says. And he figured that if anything did happen, why. And, of course, there was two boys and two girls, the boys were the older ones, and I suppose he figured by then the boys would be old enough that they would help the mother to care, to bring up the children. There's been a lot of cases like that in this country. I think even more so in this country than anywheres else that people have had to take care of their families.

DALLETT:

When you came through Ellis Island the second time you were by yourself, is that right?

SORENSEN:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I came through by myself. But I don't remember really anything about Ellis Island on that trip, except that we went through and I went on to Kenosha by myself. And that time too, they had, I can remember that time I took a bath in Chicago because I was going to go back to Kenosha. Of course, I still had that room. I Knew I could go back to that same place and stay.

DALLETT:

Did you think about staying in Denmark or was it just for a visit?

SORENSEN:

Oh, uh-uh, uh-uh. No. I'd never stay in Denmark. Do you know what? For my one hundredth birthday, five different people, this came back to me afterwards, some from this country and some from Denmark wrote and told Queen Margaret would she please send me a birthday greeting. And she says, "We don't send anything out of this country." She wouldn't do it. Now, you would think, as Queen of Denmark, that she would be anxious to be friendly with other nations, and that would have brought, maybe lots of other people have done the same thing. Well, you know, you get sort of a funny feeling about such things, like she's not interested at all in, they were here and they left and I don't care to have anything to do with them. So I says, when I thought, I found out that five different people had actually written and asked her, I couldn't hardly get over that.

DALLETT:

So you didn't want to go back and live in Denmark.

SORENSEN:

I'd never go back to Denmark. DALLETT; Why is that?

SORENSEN:

I don't know. Because America's a very good place to be. And I feel I am exactly where God wants. Nancy, if you knew some of the work I had done after I was married and stayed in Rockwell, how we organized a Sunday school. They had tried to have Sunday school for the, because at that time there was a lot of children. They came in from the country, you know, and from around, and so I says, we organized in such a way that children kept talking to their parents. The Catholics had a church in Kenosha, in Rockwell, and our kids felt that if the Catholics could have a church, why couldn't our Sunday school have a church. You know how kids feel. If they have it why can't we have it. And they kept after their parents long enough until the parents agreed that they would build a church, and they did. Then after so many years, I can't remember if it was after, after we were married, of course, the lightening struck the church behind the altar and went straight down in the ground and laid there. The storm had gone through at 9:30 in the morning and it wasn't until four o'clock in the afternoon that anybody discovered the church was burning. Somebody came by the church and saw smoke out from the, from where the altar was inside, and they went and called the fire department. And they found that lightening had hit the altar. The only thing that was left after the fire was that little pedestal that I used to have. See, I was the Sunday school superintendent. And it was the only thing that was left, chairs and altar and everything was, benches and everything in the church was burnt except that one pedestal. Merta wrote and told me about it. She says it was the only thing that was left. But it had been some destroyed and, she says they took it and somebody had told them it was worth several hundred dollars, so they thought that they'd have it repaired and finished up, and that, still. But it took them a couple of years before they decided to rebuild. And I think the church had been insured for seventy some dollars, seventy some thousand dollars. And I think that the people that had insured it had put in, in the fine print, you know, that the rest of them hadn't studied this fine. And in the fine print underneath it said if anything happened to this church by fire or anything, you know, that the insurance would be paid to replace it unless, unless that it had happened, you see, that way. So see, they had to, in order to get the money, they had to rebuild in order to get the church money. They wouldn't have gotten the seventy-five, seventy-five, I think or seventy-nine thousand dollars. They could have gotten this money and just spent it any which way they wanted it, but they couldn't do that unless, the only way they could get this seventy some thousand dollars was by rebuilding. So it took them over two years before they rebuilt. But now they have the church again. So you can see what we have done. And you had been surprised if you could read some of my birthday cards that I got. They were from the kids from all over. One, Stella Rusczinleski, her name is, her father, she said her father was the mail carrier across the river. He came to me one day and he asked me would I teach his girls how to sew. He says their mother can't even sew a button on. So you can see that there was a lot of things like this that was done. And this girl, her name is Stella something, I've forgotten now, but I have the card, and I have her address, and I'm going to write to her someday and say thanks for her card. And there was one from a group. They called themselves the Get Together Club, living across the river. And she said there was only nine. They only had nine members in their club. But, uh, and they always had a good time when they got together. And when they did it was the first Wednesday they'd meet, and then they would, she said, everybody brought something for lunch. And they were all having a good time. And I sent them a dozen butterflies, I sent those with the strings. I sent them a dozen butterflies and told them to hang them on their Christmas tree. When they got together they could hang their butterflies. I sent them a whole dozen, even though they said there was only nine members. But there was one woman that I knew--

DALLETT:

Okay. We're going to have to pause, I'm sorry. (Break in tape.) I know you've got a lot of stories to tell me, but I'm just going to finish up this tape here now, and then we can talk about the butterflies and everything else.

SORENSEN:

Don't you like the butterflies.

DALLETT:

Oh, they're beautiful. You've given me two really nice ones.

SORENSEN:

The first one came from Michigan. The girl--

DALLETT:

You knitted up these butterflies.

SORENSEN:

The girl that did the cleaning in the kitchen gave it to me one day. The last time they were here before Christmas.

DALLETT:

Okay. We're just going to end this tape now, okay. And I want to thank you very much for telling me your story. This is the end of side one of tape two of Interview Number 432 [DP-58] with Christine Sorensen and, with all the breaks and raised doughnuts and coffee.

MR. BODANIS:

How do you keep track of all that?

DALLETT:

It's 4:15, and that is the end of tape two of two tapes, of the interview.