Origin of Birth

My roots come from the fertile farm fields of Sterns County, Minnesota. They go back for generations when my ancestors, unnamed and long since forgotten, arrived from Germany in the early 1800s. It was a strict German Catholic culture with time-honored rules and regimentation that hadn’t changed for centuries. It was what my mother, grandparents and their grandparents understood and accepted without question.

To be very clear, I’m not talking about the class of white Americans covered so thoroughly in Nancy Isenberg’s new book ‘White Trash.’ My roots were poor white working class; an agrarian society that lived for and off the land. Skilled artisans in the arts of land cultivation, animal husbandry, soil management, raising livestock, veterinary basics, dairy and meat processing and so much more. Only the hard-working survived.

Growing up in the one church town of Saint Marin, my mother, as the youngest of eight, had her chores and responsibilities chosen for her. Education was seldom a part of that equation. That meant stenography school for her three sisters and cleaning out the chicken coop for my mother. So, although Hildegarde’s education ended in the sixth grade, her lineage was about to experience profound changes; even if she didn’t know it at the time.

My mother’s early years were documented in a hand-written sixteen-page, rambling oration of her youth, early years on the farm and frequent travels to the Twin Cities for work. She had often lamented to my sister and I that she stopped going to school after sixth grade because someone had to stay home and care for her aging parents.

I have no idea what kind of education my father had although I doubt it went past the eighth grade if even that far. His ancestry, lineage and time spent on earth have long since been shrouded in mystery. There were rumors that he was an itinerant musician and laborer but that has never been confirmed. His name was never mentioned in our home when I was growing up and he’s remained an enigma all of my life.

Sharon’s parents were in pretty much the same situation in terms of their education. Sharon’s father went as far as the eighth grade and her mother had two years of high school. Pretty normal for that generation at the time. For that social-economic agrarian class of people, education wasn’t as important as hard work and feeding the family. It truly was another time and place.

Fast forward another generation and things were very different for Sharon and I. Because of a lucky break in eighth-grade, I was able to attend Cretin High School and then St. Thomas College; on my own dime. In both my family and Sharon’s family, it was understood that our parents had neither the means nor the inclination to fund any advanced education beyond high school.

Sharon’s lucky break came when a nun at St. Felix High School in Wabasha, Minnesota told her she should attend college, more specifically, St. Catherine’s College in St. Paul. That was a radical departure from the pathway most of her classmates intended to follow. In small town Wabasha, it put her in league with the banker’s daughter and the lawyer’s son. You know; those folks in town.

I have a BA in Journalism and Sharon has one in Education along with some credits towards her master’s degree. Our kids have done even better.

The rule for our kids in high school was that they couldn’t work during the school year and had to have either classes, camp or jobs during the summer months. It taught them both a lot of good lessons in life. Brian went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame and has a master’s degree in business/computer technology from the University of Colorado. Melanie excelled in Speech and Debate in high school, winning a number of awards on a local, regional and national level. She went on to the College of Saint Benedict and was awarded a full scholarship to attend law school. Their spouses also have advanced degrees.

Not surprisingly, this fourth generation is doing even better. There is an unspoken understanding among our grandchildren, prompted more by example than lecture, that education is more important than ever before. They’ve seen through their daily lives what hard work and a solid base of knowledge can do for a person’s career. It hasn’t escaped their little pea brains that much is expected of each of them.

Maya, the eldest, is a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Greeley. She’s a psychology major and understands the next steps will most likely include a master’s degree and perhaps a PhD.

The other four grandchildren are all in high school now. The Colorado twins as well as Brennan and Charlotte in Minnesota are actively engaged in extra-curricular activities. Three of the four are in NHS (National Honor Society) and are taking AP (advanced placement-college) courses. The youngest, Charlotte, just entered high school as a straight-A student all through grade school.

So, from a rural agrarian society to post-collegiate studies in four generations has become our mantra. Each generation propelled by an accumulation of knowledge that proved critical to their success in the real world. Fortunately, for Sharon and I, education was the key to our own success and that of our children. We believe it will be the foundation upon which our grand-children will grow as well-informed and involved citizens of the world.