The Life of Una DeBoer

Transcribed by Sara Frenzel, Katie DeBoer, & Jami Peterson

 

For our oral history project, we chose to interview Katie's Great-Grandma, Una (Briden) DeBoer. We had a great time interviewing Una. After the interview, we had lunch with her. We have transcribed the interview so other people can learn about the history of her life and what it was like to live close to a century.

 

Picture: Una the day of our interview

Where did you live?

Waterloo, Iowa

Did you live there very long?

Pardon...(pausing)...until I was 8 years old.

Picture left: Una Briden, 9 months old

Do you remember it very well? 

Oh yeah...(nodded yes).


Did you like it very well?

Well, we lived in town. First, we lived on a farm about 1-1/2 miles out of Waterloo. And then, uh, we moved to town and then my dad built a new house right beside the house that we bought and uh (pausing)...I guess I was more less sickly when I was small. So, I didn't start school there so I didn't start school until I come up here and I think I was 8 years old.

Picture right: Genie Dilly and Horseman Pearl Briden (Una's parents)


Can you tell me more about my family?

Well, my mother was born in Grundy Center, Iowa.


What is her name?

Genie Dilly, her maiden name. And my dad was born in Jamesville, Iowa.


What was his name?

(Pausing...laughing a little with a little smile....) Well they always went by HP because he didn't like his first name. His name was Horseman Pearl and he was a twin. And his brothers name was John Earl but he died when he was an infant. (a little cough)

 


Did your parents live close to each other?

Umm...quite close...I'm not quite sure of the mileage but Grundy Center was close to Waterloo and Jamesville was close to Waterloo but in different directions But I think were they met was Ames, Iowa in college my mother was a teacher.


What did she teach? Everything?

Well...ummm...country school.


Did she like it?

Ohh yeah, she liked it.


Did she have a problem disciplining kids?

I never... I don't know... I never heard her say anything about it.


How about your brothers and sisters?
Well I have one brother and one sister. My sister died 2 years ago...clearing her throat...Ruth. And my brother...(pausing).. is....he's..18 months younger than I am and they spend their winters in Arizona...they have for over 30 years...Roger.


Did you ever fight with your brothers and sisters?

Ha ha ha ...I suppose I did ...(smiling). There is 6 1/2 years between my sister and I ..I was the older one. And I can remember after we moved up here, we moved to Crookston in 1912, and uh my sister was only about 2 years old then ...so I would just be out playing and my mother would call me and say Ruth's awake, come dress her.


What do you remember about when you were younger?

Ohhh...I suppose going to the country school I was... in the programs there, we never went to got to go to any shows or there was no television and so we sorta we had our own fun.


What kind of programs did you have?
Well usually on Christmas and then another one during the spring. And there was a one room school with a big stove in the corner with a jacket around ....an um...there was a ...cough...a little shed attached to it ..it was called a coal shed...there was a bed in there that held the coal for the stove and um...(cough)...um in a place such as they were then... we had to change clothes we had to go out and change clothes in a coal shed and it was cold, C O L D besides the  C O  A L ummm there was no running water, no electricity of course....


Hand pump the water?

We got water from a neighbor.

How did you take baths?

Pardon...at home?...well we had a galvanized tub...ha ha.. and once a week, in the dining room, my mother filled this tub...an we all took a bath and we didn't change water either every time we had to heat the water the water then was carried in then and carried out ....


Do you like the faucets?

You better believe it.


What did you do for fun?                                                                    
Picture: Una Briden, 13 years old

Oh, I really don't know.


Did you play a lot of games?

No, no not at home.


Did you have recess?

Yes...we played anti anti I over...ha ha ha....smiling... that's when you have a ball and toss it over (tossing motion with hands) the we tossed it over the school house and see if they could catch it you know and then they run around and what did they do... try to tag us or something. And then we'd play baseball...played at it anyway.


What was the first job you ever had?

The first job........oh, I helped an aunt in her home with the house work.


What other jobs have you had?
Ohhhhhh, I cooked in the grocery store for a while.


In the bakery?
No, in the grocery store. That's about all that I did.


Did you attend UMC?
Yeah, after the eight grade. And that was in 1919 and I graduated in 22.


What did they teach you out there?
Home economics, cooking, and we got to stay out there.


Do you think that it is neat that you have grandchildren going to the same school?

(with a smile) I can't hardly believe it.


Did you have high school back then?
Yeah, we had high school.


Did you go?
No, at that time they only had three years for the girls back then. I think that would be equal to a junior in high school here. I do think that they offered four years for the boys back then, but I don't know why. I know that my brother went but he went to play football.


What other sports did they have?

Basketball.


You were in basketball right?

For a short time.


What did you parents expect you to do around the house when you were younger?
(Long pause) When I was young, I helped my mother with dishes and general household stuff I would suppose. I would rather clean than cook.


Did you have to wash the floors?
Yes (nodding) the house.


I suppose you didn't have vacuums back then, huh?
No we didn't, the rugs weren't wall to wall. In the spring of the year, the rugs would be hung out on the line. And we had an, what do you call it? A carpet beater I would suppose, on the line and then we would have rug and beat the rug to get all of the dust out.

Picture above: The house that Una grew up in


Did you ever misbehave before?                                                                     Picture below: First family car, Ford Sedan, bought in 1914
I can't say that anything that I did stuck out in my mind.


Your family must have been well behaved them, right?
Well there wasn't much stuff to get into. (smiling and laughing)


Has transportation changed a lot in your lifetime?
Well, there is a big difference between horses and cars.

        


Do you remember your family's first car?
My dad kept saying that summer that if I have a good crop I'll buy a new car and one day he came to the school to pick us up, we lived a mile and half from the school house, and he picked us up in a Ford Sedan with side curtains. That's what they called them. We didn't use it in the winter time, we used sleighs and horses. We would ride the horses to town to get groceries once a week on Saturdays.

 


How did you get to school in the winters?
Well we had a couple of different ways. We rode horseback and we walked sometimes. And my uncle from Iowa had a pony. And he outgrew this pony so he shipped it up here to us. And my dad bought a pony cart , a two wheel cart, and we drove the pony to school but not in the winter time. In the fall first and then uh later in the spring and then uh my dad had box of sleigh runners and we ....had a big large, a big horse because no roads were plowed (while showing us the drifts) and uh sometimes you go down in what do you call it and something would hit the horse in the back of the legs and he would kick and carry on and I was scared to death.


Did you ride horses a lot?
Ummm...there was a family right across from the schoolhouse and they had a pasture with cows in it sometimes and they took the cows two miles away north of his place and, uh, I would go along with some of the girls on a horse and then we would feed the cattle.


Were do your ancestors trace back to?
Oh. Um my grandpa Briden...(long pause) came across to the United State and he came from England.


Did he tell you stories about England?
No, I don't remember, I don't think he did. He used to come up here to Minnesota after we moved up here. We used to call him the peanut grandpa because he always brought us peanuts...(laughing). And he always helped my mother out with a lot of things and he was a really nice man. He'd help her paper, and paint, and he'd always help doing stuff around the house for six weeks out of the summer. He moved to Iowa

Pictures left and right: Frank's parent, Claus DeBoer  and  Tille DeBoer

 

 

Picture left:

Back row: Peanut Grandpa (Henry Briden), Frank DeBoer, Horseman Pearl.

In Front: Una DeBoer and her son Claire.

 

 

 

Do you remember WW1 and 2?
Well, somewhat...I suppose it impacted my life but I was too young to realize a lot of those things that were happening.


Did you travel?
Not when I was young. After I was married we used to go out to Washington State to see Vivian every year...an uh we made a trip to Texas to see Franny when he was in the service...(pausing)...I haven't been to far in the world.


Did you enjoy traveling?
Oh, yes, I love to travel your grandpa was a home body.


Did you roller-skate?
We used to roller-skate in the old armory.


What was your maiden name?
Briden


Middle name?
Vivian


What was your husband's name?
Frank

Picture above: Frank and Una in 1966


How did you guys meet?
Ohh...that's another story...just say it's through a friend of his.


How old were you when you got married?
22, that was about average.


How many kids did you have?

5


What were their names?
Claire was the oldest, and then it was Jean, (clearing her throat) Pearl, Francis, and Vivian


How did you come up with their names?
Claire we sorta named him after Frank's dad, his name was Claus and he was a Dutch man and, uh, Jean was after my mother and Pearl was after my dad because my dad's name was Pearl and Francis, more or less after Frank and Vivian..(clearing throat)....(pause)...was after my middle name...Frank wanted Vivian because of my middle name and I wanted to name her Shirley but he wanted Vivian so it ended up Vivian Shirley.


Did your children behave the way the way you wanted them to?

Well, what children do...(laughing).


Do you remember them making them really mad about something?
Well, I don't know about really mad, kinda mad, sometimes...(laughs). None of them smoke or drank so I was thankful for that and none of them smoke or drink to this day, so I'm lucky.


Do you celebrate holidays the same way?
(Long pause) Well, in one respect yes but the holidays are time for family to gather and there's lots of food.


How many people come to the big Deboer Christmas party?
If all of them come, its close to 60.


Do you have anything else that you want to say to us?
I'm just thankful for my kids, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, my great-great grandchildren (laughing) 7 great-great grandchildren.


Did you go to fairs?
Yes, there were rides, I didn't go as a kid so much...when my kids were older they were involved in 4-H.


What was church life like for you?
When I was a child we lived on a farm and we didn't go to church... my dad had the chores to do and if we were to go, they'd have to take the horses 4 miles...we just didn't go to church. I never got to go to Sunday School. (clearing throat) My dad was brought up in a very religious family and I don't understand why we didn't ever go to church. My grandpa could've been a preacher.


Did you have a night special for prayers?

No


Did you go to church more so than you did back then?
Oh, yeah, I went to church since Frank and I got married.


Well, thank you for letting us do this interview.
Now, you help me out and eat these goods!