Helvi Lofback, c. 1940

My first recollection of my oldest brother, John Einard Lofback, is the day he returned home from a time away in Ohio. I don't know if it was a lengthy stay or just a trip. I was about 3-1/2 or 4 at the time. My mother must have told me that someone was coming, or maybe he just appeared at the door. I only remember that I was so shy of this "stranger" that I hid in the closet, inside of clothes and wouldn't come out...only after a lot of prompting. He brought my mother a large aluminum roaster pan, and a white velveteen bonnet for me. I don't recall that I saw him much after that, but I remember that when my mother made meatballs, she made special ones for him - they had NO onions. She'd put a toothpick in them to separate them from the ones that had the onion. Sometimes my brother Arthur (2nd oldest) would switch the toothpicks onto an oniony meatball!

It has been related to me that it was brother John that rescued me from the chickenyard when somehow I had gotten in there and fallen, and the mean rooster was pecking at my face.

In 1928 or so, the song "Hallelujah I'm A Bum" was popular and I was asked to come to hear the recording at John and Marie's house which was the old Kellstrom house. That's when, as I recall, that I saw baby Stan. I went home and asked my mother "why can't we have a baby too?"

I think the Kellstrom house was home to them until they moved to a house on the main street to the "avenue".

Marie made so many, many of my dresses and I would stop in for a fitting. She would see a dress in the catalog that she thought would be nice for me, measure me, find some fabric from other clothing too good to toss and presto, afar days later I had a brand new dress. They called me Biiku.. , (little lady). Later they moved to a mining company house closer to my own home. It was known as the "new location". The house was later bought and moved to "Diaper Street" on horseshoe curve where it still stands today.

Stan's father had so many talents: He was a very good carpenter, a musician, 'tho he had no musical training, a blacksmith, he had good penmanship, for which he got a certificate and he liked to fish. Sometimes when rough-neck boys would come around the shop, he would tease them by saying, "watch out, or I'll make a girl out of you". He had a good sense of humor, which I believe was a trait in the family.

Marie was almost like a mother to me, and I was at their house a lot. She often visited with her sister Lydia Anderson who lived in Paavola near Hancock. One winter when she was there visiting and Stan was left at home with his father, Stan along with friends were sliding down a poor-rock pile on a home-made toboggan made of corrugated tin. A sharp rock sliced through the bottom of the sled and into his thigh in the back. The doctor was called and he patched up the tear and I ran the way to the grocery store downtown to get a phone call to his mother so she would come home.

Stan's grandfather, Peter Thomas stayed with them a long time. He visited at my home often. One day he had a sliver of wood in his finger and he wanted me to take it out, and I did and applied a dab of iodine on it. He told me I should be a nurse some day. He had a dog named Benny who did all sorts of tricks and followed his master everywhere. Peter loved the headcheese my mother made when a pig was slaughtered.

Stanley had twin aunts, Sye and Jane, and they lived in the Detroit area with their husbands. Marie visited with them also during the summer. In the "hard times" of the depression years, they would write Marie letters on the backs of calendar pages and include stamps for her reply. Those were the times when you bought 1/2 soles of leather to re-sole your worn out shoes that had holes in the soles where the rocks came through. OUCH! Nick Nickonen charged 15 cents to do the job.

Mary Ann Thomas, Wayne Thomas' daughter, would visit every summer with Sye and Jane. She and I would go down the creek by the falls and catch the tiny little fish with a can. It really was fun for us.

When Florence Pasanen, Hilma's daughter came up, she and I would take long walks up the "little bluff" over and across to the "big bluff". She taught me how to bat a pitched baseball----the correct way. She was truly an outdoor girl and I wanted to be just like her.

I was always so shy when the city folks came to visit. It was instilled in me, and I don't know why but I think it was wrong, to think I was lesser oft person because my family didn't have much. "We can't do that" or "We can't go there. We're just common people", I've never overcome that inhibition.

I know I'm skipping around, but I'm writing as it comes to me.

I don't remember Peter Thomas' wife's name, but what Marie told me, she was a believer in what we call para-psychology today.... She believed if a bird tried to get in through the window or there was a rapping on the wall, bad luck would surely come. One summer day she had been scrubbing clothes on a washboard in the hot sun. Later that day she suddenly died. Earlier in the day she had said "Today you will hear unusual things."

Marie had to care for the twin babies a lot and was not at school when she was supposed to be. The truant officer would come calling and grandma Thomas would motion to the trio in the rocking chair saying "You can take them all", meaning Marie, who was rocking the babies and the babies.

When we were re-modeling our own house in Winona, John and Marie would come over on Sundays and help my husband with the carpentry. Marie brought veggies from their own garden and we would have a wonderful dinner and socializing. Sometimes they had one or both of Winker's girls with them. They are such nice memories.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, WILL WRITE MORE WHEN I THINK OF IT.