DALLETT:

This is the beginning of Interview Number 395 [DP-21] for the Ellis Island Oral History Project and I'm Nancy Dallett and I'm here with Mr. Sanfrid Milton. We're here at his home in Yakima, Washington. Today is Thursday, April 13, 1989, and we're going to talk with Mr. Milton about coming to this country from Sweden in 1920.

MILTON:

Yeah, I suppose it was. Fifteenth of March, 1920 I landed in Ellis Island. Fifteenth of March, 1920. And I came in on Swedish boat, or steamer, I call it, it was built in Netherlands. Nederlandena, we say in Sweden, Nederlandena. What is that? DALLETT; In the netherlands? Was that the name of the boat, too?

MILTON:

No. That was Stockholm. S-T-O-C-K-H-O-L-M. Stockholm.

DALLETT:

Who were you travelling with when you came to this country on the 15th of March, 1920?

MILTON:

I had a sister who was born in Sweden by name of Mildred.

DALLETT:

Your sister's name was Mildred?

MILTON:

Linnea, Linnea. My sister, yeah. That was Linnea. She was married, at that time, to one fellow by the name of David Johnson, a carpenter from Sweden, long before I came. And his whole family, I have noticed now, they were born around there in the eastern United States, around New York, if I call it. He was with some other brothers who came over here. And he lived from, what should I, what do you call, that town, Chicago, around that Omaha, Nebraska, and in those towns, and way up un Minnesota.

DALLETT:

So you were coming with your sister to join your sister's husband?

MILTON:

No, No. Not to join. By myself really, so I didn't have anything to do with them. But he had a daughter by the name of Helga Olson. She, her father still lived in Sweden, and his wife, the girl, Helga Olson's mother, was born around Borgenes, around there, in Halsingland. That's Bonnstead, where he lived in, all the family, or all around there. And they had many miners who, I don't know if she had any there really, or those people, but they lived all around there in the United States

DALLETT:

Before I get too confused, let's start back a little bit. Tell me where and when you were born.

MILTON:

How many?

DALLETT:

Tell me where you were born?

MILTON:

I was born in, what did they call it now, in Orebro, Hovsta, Orebroland.

DALLETT:

And what year was that?

MILTON:

190--

DALLETT:

One? 1901?

MILTON:

He laughs.) Quite a while ago. I said that you were born in 1902.

DALLETT:

No.

MILTON:

No? Not that? I was, twenty-five? Huh? Was that true or false that you were born, 1925?

DALLETT:

1951 I was born.

MILTON:

Oh, say?

DALLETT:

You were born 1901, and I was born 1951.

MILTON:

How many different year is that? She believed you were younger than that. She believed so. To me you look like you were much younger than you are. Did you hear that? (Speaking to his wife.) Did you believe me when I said it? No? Say yes or no.

MRS. MILTON:

I believed '51 much more than 1902.

DALLETT:

Thank you.

MILTON:

What did she say? I didn't get that.

DALLETT:

She believed 1951, she believes that. Let's get back to our story. (Voices off mike.)

MILTON:

Where was I born, yes. I was born in. uh, Hovsta.

MRS. MILTON:

That's just the area.

MILTON:

My mother was not born there, but she was born in Hidingsta (?). Way back, probably was that far between the ties. And that railroad went from Orebro to Finspang, down that way. A real company railroad, not the railroad of, like, in Sweden. That belonged to the government, the biggest. And then my father was the station inspector. Have they got that in France, too? Station inspector. That's what he was, and I have a picture. I'll show it to you sometime. Yeah, he worked on that railroad. I think he had been there for fifty-two years for the same company, and nobody ever fired him, or laid him off. They can't, I don't think they're allowed to do that in Sweden.

DALLETT:

He was a railroad inspector, right? He was the inspector for the railroad.

MILTON:

Yeah. In the later years, no, they are many different.

MRS. MILTON:

He was a station manager.

MILTON:

No. She is wrong. There was, before, they had, like her, they had commissioned officers. Now my dad is considered commission officer, like they had in the army or navy. They have commissioned officer. But they have others who are like conductors and all those. They are not the commissioned officer. They are just plain railroaders, plus they had shoes to take, but the others have to be, like, station inspector. He is a commissioned officer like they have in the airplane, I suppose, has a commissioned officer. I should think so, but I don't know.

DALLETT:

Tell me about the house where you were born. Do you remember?

MILTON:

Yeah, they had showed that to me. That's in Orebro, not far from Hovsta. When my father was born, he showed it to me from the railroad, probably, ten, fifteen years ago, and I have seen it more than once, but I never been there yet, where I was born. But we lived at so many different railroads, both in the northern part and in southern, but now he is a commissioned officer like the others. Yeah, they have so many different of them there. Yeah, there you come with something.

DALLETT:

We're going to just pause for a second.

MILTON:

All right, if you want to. I don't know how much you are in a hurry, but you have to go fast?

DALLETT:

No hurry. Let's have a bite of our pie and hot coffee. I want to know whatever you can remember of some of your childhood in Sweden. You told me before you used to pick pears off the trees through your bedroom window?

MILTON:

Oh. That was in the later years I would say, but it isn't to me, anyway, but--

MRS. MILTON:

That was after you went back for a visit.

DALLETT:

Oh. That was later. Okay.

MRS. MILTON:

He remembers, I'm sure, skiing to school in the snow.

DALLETT:

You went to school in Sweden as a young boy?

MILTON:

Yeah, since I was how old? Two, three years old. You had to start, they didn't start before they were seven years old there, to start with, but I think they start earlier now.

MRS. MILTON:

You went on a train, didn't you?

MILTON:

Oh, yeah. We had to go on a train all the time. (He laughs.)

DALLETT:

You lived far away from the school.

MILTON:

They had school right there next to where the train stopped and let off the kids, both in the morning and evening.

DALLETT:

Did you have a large family, brothers and sisters?

MILTON:

Oh, yes. They had, uh, I was born, my mother had, how many did I say?

MRS. MILTON:

Sixteen.

MILTON:

Sixteen children, with me included in that.

MRS. MILTON:

Three did not survive.

MILTON:

But she died. She wasn't more than, she was in her forties, I think. Don't you think so? Was she older? You think so. Yeah, yeah, that could be. I've forgotten that. But they didn't have gray hair when she was fifty, or could have been sixty, no. I don't think so. Although she is fifty years old, she looked more like fifty years than she did, really. That's what he said. She was not old, and didn't have a gray hair in head when she was fifty, I think. Yeah, yeah. I'll have a little more coffee.

DALLETT:

Did other brothers and sisters come to this country before you did, or did you come here first?

MILTON:

My older sister, she was, I think, with my aunt, to come to Omaha, Linnea, and she came with either some cousin to me, yeah. It was a cousin, the others. That could be someone. And she was very young, then. She was fifteen, sixteen years old, I think. I'm sure, something like that. (Voices off mike.)

MRS. MILTON:

Probably eighteen.

MILTON:

No, she was much younger than that.

DALLETT:

Let me see if I have this straight. Let me see if I have the story straight that you told me. Your sister came over first to this country. She was the first child. She came over. And when she was here she married, right? And the she and her husband--

MILTON:

No, they married, yeah, they married in Omaha, Nebraska.

DALLETT:

They married in Omaha, Nebraska. They came back to Sweden, and they brought you back with them, is that right, when you were nineteen?

MILTON:

Yeah. Well, no, I, had I been here before? No.

MRS. MILTON:

No, that was your first time.

DALLETT:

That was your first time.

MILTON:

So I went with them.

DALLETT:

Did you think for a while about coming to this country, or were times hard?

MILTON:

There was nothing to me. I wanted to go, I could go, I had no trouble of it, to go. No.

MRS. MILTON:

But you were working in Sweden.

MILTON:

Yeah. I worked by the railroad, so I could have stayed there and been engineer by the locomotive.

DALLETT:

So you could have stayed and been an engineer.

MILTON:

Oh, yeah. There was no trouble for me to get a job there at all. Like I, they had much trouble, more trouble here to get a job than there and they were more ornery to you than they were there. They would never dare to be anything else there than to be nice to us. All Swedish boys, they're not have to be afraid of any work. They can work whatever they want to, if they want to.

DALLETT:

So there was plenty of work in Sweden.

MILTON:

Yeah, all kinds of work. I quit some jobs there then and started over the next day. (He laughs.) I could get a job, because I told my job that, and that fellow, and ask him if I can get a job there. He asked them, and they said, "Just send him in, you got a job." So I did that.

DALLETT:

So when you cane here it was more difficult here to get a job?

MILTON:

Oh, yeah, much more hard to get a job here. It never-- DALLETT; What was your first job here?

MILTON:

Yeah, if I called for a job, I went more out on the, when I met that boy on the boat, he had lived here for years. And he, uh, wanted me to go with him and I stayed with them for a month there, or whatever.

MRS. MILTON:

Outside of Chicago.

MILTON:

Yeah, Aurora, I think it was. I stayed there and there was no trouble. I went to a fellow by the name of Arvid Gustafson, was his name. And he had his whole family, he had just been married, and he had his family there and they had to post the address in, uh, in Rockford, and that was far away from where I worked, then when I come together here. They were just, and I got so cold. In Sweden there was just like summer, because that was in March, and the trees, I don't know. They were so, pines, I thought it was nearly summer there, and it was in the first of March, first of March. And they had coal--

MRS. MILTON:

It was wintertime.

MILTON:

We had coal strike there in Goteborg, and they had no way to get coal into the engine rooms.

DALLETT:

There was a coal strike in Goteborg?

MILTON:

They had a coal strike. Yeah, they had a strike there, so they couldn't work there. If you even had a job, you couldn't work that. And that held us back for a whole week before-- DALLETT; It held you back from getting on the boat because there was no coal.

MILTON:

Yeah. They had trouble getting coal on time, to have so much on the boat to fire, and that took about twelve or thirteen days for us to come over on that, uh, on that, uh, what do you call it, that, what should I call it now. I don't know enough words.

DALLETT:

The Stockholm? The boat?

MILTON:

Yeah. That boat, they brought from Netherlands. Netherlands. The called it, first, Stockholm. But Netherlands had a name on it. I don't know that. But they bought it from the Netherlands, Nederlandena. And that's in Belgium and there, you know. So, uh, I worked there, and that was nice. They were awful nice to us. One, they had fish, all the fish you could eat. And I said, "What in the world?" They had to, they had to re-cook, was it breakfast, or what, me and Linda there, that time, they had to make another meal for them, and they had eaten that. So they couldn't eat any more. At least I didn't care if I got anything more to eat. I went in but, um, sat by the plate. I sat there. And anyway, because that was given from the bosses there on the boat, you know, that they to, they had found some fish, but it wasn't as really as good as, but there was nothing wrong with my fish. Go and eat again and don't need to say anything. But you can, had thought it wasn't so good.

DALLETT:

I see. Somebody complained about the fish, and they made another breakfast.

MILTON:

Yeah. They had to make another breakfast for them. DALLETT; But you thought the breakfast was okay.

MILTON:

Oh, that was all right with me. I didn't care for any more. I had eaten so much I was nearly sick. And here you can't get, when I go in a restaurant here and have a meal, they don't taste half as good as that fish was. That time, the place-- (Voices off mike.) I remember it.

DALLETT:

Did you go through Ellis Island?

MILTON:

Yeah, I went through there. They dropped us off at Ellis Island, I suppose. And the next day my brother-in-law come there, and there was one boy that, this was there, and it was (?). (Swedish)

MRS. MILTON:

You're talking Swedish. They won't understand.

MILTON:

Yeah. My, uh, that girl, the other girl, not her, but she had talked to boy there, and he, I don't know what he was thinking about. Oh, yes. I had to give her some money because he had played cards there on the boat, I think, so he had lost every penny he had. He was not allowed to go ashore there. So I had to give the girl. How many crowns I gave the girl so she could give that boy. And, uh--

DALLETT:

So he could come through.

MILTON:

Yeah. (He laughs.) I suppose he talked Swedish, probably. One of those boys. And he had been there before, and he was a foxy one.

MRS. MILTON:

How much did you have to bring in?

DALLETT:

Did you have money to come here?

MILTON:

Oh, you got to have money for the ticket to where you were going to, at least. At least have that much, I know that.

DALLETT:

Did you have a ticket?

MILTON:

Yeah, I had a ticket to the West Coast there, I suppose. And, uh, the other boy, I don't know how he, but that girl, Helga Olson, she, he had written to her, and she had gotten, so I got an answer from him that I was the one who borrowed him money, or else he couldn't have gotten ashore then in New York. So, uh, I know who he was, and I probably wrote him. And the Helga had that mail, and so I, that was all right anyway, but I didn't claim the money from him.

MRS. MILTON:

You came out west after that.

DALLETT:

You took the train out est?

MILTON:

Yeah, I went with my aunt. She had some relatives in Omaha, Nebraska. One fellow, he worked at the depot there. And he had some, that lady, that old lady, she was with Aunt Hilma, my aunt, to travel to Omaha, Nebraska, and there was, that, after they had that terrible earthquake, how was it, they had one earthquake there. And there had been, my aunt said that there had been a big rock who had gone in that millionaire by name of, what was his name? He was a slave owner in the southern United States.

DALLETT:

He was a millionaire in the south?

MILTON:

He was, the one fellow, he was a taxi driver worked for there. He had, uh, he was there just to take the lady out in their house, Mrs. Dietz in Omaha, Nebraska. I remember her (?).

MRS. MILTON:

He was a chauffeur, you mean, not a taxi driver, a chauffeur.

MILTON:

Yeah. He had to take her out any time she wanted. So, how that turned out after I don't know. But he was still there the second time I come in there. That, uh, he was Swedish that boy, the fellow. And he had his family there too, I think. DALLETT; And the first time you came here did you go to, did you stay with your sister in Omaha, Nebraska?

MILTON:

When I come out here, see. We come out here--

DALLETT:

Or did you come to Washington?

MILTON:

No, I didn't come to Washington, no, not at all. We got right on the train there. And I went with another boy, that Reinhold Johnson, was it Reinhold Johnson. He was staying with the other brothers and sisters they had there, lived there on the farm. And, uh, I, they didn't tell me to go. I stayed there for a while and worked for that farmer there. And I had so many horses. I don't know how many horses they hooked together. And I, I was out there and drove those. And one day I was close to it. The horses, when it got to be four, five o'clock, I guess, that must have been pretty late, so the horses start to run away and I try to stop them, but they run, they run the life away, with the harrow, with the harrow after. It was, and then I come home, the farmer, that I, what was his name now? Arvid, Arvidson, I think his name was. He was one of the other Swedish fellows there living, he had been there for some years at least and, uh, he got so mad at the horse, so he had a big piece of, was it oak or something like that, and there was a horse there, had that funny red collar on. No, he wasn't red. More like that dress there. What kind of color is that?

DALLETT:

Like rose. Rose colored.

MILTON:

He took that club and gave that horse on his back, right by his legs went out, in the back, and gave him one or two real-- I thought, can you hit that hard, I thought to my self. But he sure hammered that horse two, three times at least. (He laughs.) And I had to stand there and see that, and I hate to see the horses that he had to suffer. But it was my fault. I think I said that to the farmer, that it was my fault. I thought they wanted to go home and eat. They were hungry, the horses. And he said, "I don't need to (Swedish)." That was not good for the horses, you know. And I let them go. I plowed out those two big places in the ground. And it ran so smooth, and they ran so fast. So they all run too fast.

DALLETT:

So you felt bad when he hit the horse.

MILTON:

Yeah. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

MILTON:

I wonder if they do that, yet, today. I wonder. But there they probably do it.

DALLETT:

In Sweden the young girls milk the cows?

MILTON:

They milk the cows. They thought that was the best job for them. And I learned that, when I come to Yakima again, to my brother-in-law, he wanted me to show, that I should show him how to do it. And I remember some, they play, and the cats come around, and they want to play, grab hold of those teats, as they call them, and squeeze so they held their mouths open.

DALLETT:

The cats?

MILTON:

The cats held their mouths open to get some milk from them. Yeah, that was that. There's many stories. If I could tell them all--

MRS. MILTON:

That one I never heard before. DALLETT; That's a new one?

MILTON:

You never heard it? Yeah.

DALLETT:

What was Yakima like when you first came?

MILTON:

Yeah, there was nothing fancy, but Yakima, I didn't think so.

DALLETT:

Were there orchards then?

MILTON:

Yeah. They Congdon. The Congdon Orchard, I was there, and several others. Oh, they start to (?) it. and got so much fruits, the farmers didn't get nothing for them.

MRS. MILTON:

This was all sagebrush up here.

MILTON:

Yeah, all sagebrush here. And there was one, Fridolf Nelson, that Nelson and his son, you know, who had been up in Alaska, they had--

DALLETT:

So this whole territory was sagebrush, except for a couple of farms.

MILTON:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

And a couple of orchards.

MILTON:

That Gilbert, that Gilbert. He bought all that land he had then. Next to the David Johnson's. That was Gilbert's land.

MRS. MILTON:

--came up here and had been up in Alaska, they came down here and bought this, sold it out in parcel.

MILTON:

Yeah. He bought up so many acres, that Fridolf Nelson. But Gilbert had bought all the other, and there was--

DALLETT:

So three Swedish men bought--

MILTON:

Oh, there was several, several of these fellows.

DALLETT:

And what did they start to plant? What did they grow?

MILTON:

They planted apples as they had planted for years, and they didn't want to give him anything for it, when they started in, when they started in with Red delicious, delicious, I say.

DALLETT:

Delicious apples.

MILTON:

Apples. They were the fanciest apples they had. And Victor Anderson, he must have made lots of money, because he had such a big trees there then. They had to get all up, they were big. Stanley's father, oh, I, he made money, as anybody could expect.

MRS. MILTON:

They planted potatoes and hay first, to get started, before they could plant.

MILTON:

There was more, there was, they started planting there, they got so much apples, they got no pay for them, see?

MRS. MILTON:

They built a church on this road, on our road, here, on our road.

DALLETT:

There was a church on the road here?

MILTON:

Yeah, there was one more here, a Lutheran church. Yeah, what do you call that--

MRS. MILTON:

That was originally over on the other side (?).

MILTON:

Yeah, on this side. That new, the other church is burned down here now. Ruth said they burned it down. And I saw no church there tonight. But that was, that was a living house there. That was a living house. But the church was standing on where the preacher's house is, you know. It's where, where what's her name now, Florence Johnson lived. There was no house there. And that was his, he had--

MRS. MILTON:

It was on Homer's property, the next door neighbors.

MILTON:

Yeah, there was some there, but that was the others. There was that fellow who had (?) or (?). He come from Minnesota, come out there, and he sat there and waved to mein the morning when I walked by there. I walked up the (?) to (?) in (Swedish).

DALLETT:

Did you work for some of the men who bought the orchards around here?

MILTON:

Oh, I worked for all of them. DALLETT; What kind of work did you do for them?

MILTON:

Oh, shoveling and digging and all that stuff.

MRS. MILTON:

Helped build some roads.

MILTON:

That's all I did then for many years, I guess.

MRS. MILTON:

You worked on the roads.

DALLETT:

You worked on the roads? You built roads?

MILTON:

Yeah. No, I, I did work on that, you know, that warehouse, it was, right, you can see it from the church. When I talked about that hill there, Aspird Lovestrand's husband, he used to shoot some--

MRS. MILTON:

Blasting.

MILTON:

Yeah, blasting, yeah. So he was the one, and I was with him, and helped him, and got what he got in pay. I don't know, maybe he got more, but he was shooting. I don't know anything about that. Or else he--

DALLETT:

What other jobs did you do? Did you plant the trees? Did you plants the apple trees?

MILTON:

oh, yeah.

DALLETT:

Did you pick the apples?

MILTON:

There was so much apples that I used to plant.

DALLETT:

Did you pack the apples?

MILTON:

Pack the apples? Oh, yeah. I packed, one day, I remember, I packed two hundred, two hundred and how many, thirty-four or twenty-four, in one day, in one day. They had to pay up (?). (Voices garbled.) No, they, I think, layer, one layer in the bottom, on one side. So they got one layer of paper on, and all the others (?), even if they have to, was that big. That they, you have to put two hundred thirty four apples in one box. And you know they take more time, small apples. And, yeah. Oh, I, I was so used to it, like this and throw them in. And I lifted them, too, so they didn't have to lift them off. I lifted mine and out it next to that, and they had rollers.

DALLETT:

So this was before it was all done by machine. You did this all by hand.

MILTON:

Yeah. They had to do it by hand, right to the--

MRS. MILTON:

They built the boxes.

MILTON:

(He laughs.) Yeah, they Wilber Ostberg, he made some boxes.

MRS. MILTON:

You did too.

MILTON:

No. I never, I never-- I never worked on any boxes, to nail them together. Never did, no.

MRS. MILTON:

We did that at David Johnson's place.

MILTON:

What?

MRS. MILTON:

We did that over at David's place.

MILTON:

No. I never did it, no. Not that I can think of. I didn't want to, because I thought I was too clumsy when it come to that. Nails in between the thing. So I didn't care to do it.

MRS. MILTON:

But you did pruning. You did pruning of the trees.

MILTON:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Not, no, they were all. They didn't want. One fellow, what was his name, he wanted to, he got much more than they could manage to let him have. Oh, I wouldn't pay him that much.

MRS. MILTON:

Then you went to Seattle and worked.

MILTON:

What?

MRS. MILTON:

Then you went to Seattle and worked.

MILTON:

Yeah, yes I did. That was not then, in Ballard, really.

DALLETT:

You moved to Ballard, right?

MILTON:

Yeah, I--

DALLETT:

Did you live in Ballard?

MILTON:

Sure. I can't, but when Holmfred, my brother, came there, I hadn't, no, I had to take a year off and went to Sweden.

MRS. MILTON:

You were taking up rails.

MILTON:

Yeah, I did that, too, for Hoefer's Steel Company. I worked for them, too. That was next to an iron work. I was there, and I got contract. They had big piles or rails, crooked rails, and I had to straighten it. But I saw Holmfred, he was better to pump all the time like that-- DALLETT; They were crooked rails that you had to straighten?

MILTON:

Straighten them up. There was a many bend on them, so you had to straighten them up. That was Hoefer's Steel. And I made a contract with them, too, one summer there. I, uh--

MRS. MILTON:

After that you worked at Issacson's.

DALLETT:

Did you work in sawmill at all? Did you work in the logging?

MILTON:

Oh, yeah, I worked on sawmills and they were funny. I didn't know you then when I, when I worked. I worked many different places there.

MRS. MILTON:

No, no.

DALLETT:

What did you do in logging, in the sawmill?

MILTON:

I never worked there. I should have gone there. There they made some money. And I didn't know it at first. I should have started there from the beginning, but they had so much, so I really didn't care to do that because there was so many who got killed, and that was from the cable. They send out the cable, a steel cable, take, and just throw some of those fellows to pieces. When that snapped off or something they got killed to pieces.

DALLETT:

When the cable would snap, it would kill the men?

MILTON:

Yeah. They snapped them up in there. They had higher riggers. They'd cone up to the top, so many feet from the top, and then they'd mark there, or saw them off there.

MRS. MILTON:

You're talking about the sawmill now, but you didn't work there.

MILTON:

Yes, I worked for sawmills, too.

MRS. MILTON:

You just said you didn't work there.

MILTON:

Yes, I worked at sawmills. And then Holfred came there.

DALLETT:

What was the job that you did in the sawmills?

MILTON:

Yeah, what, we had to, one fellow stood there and wrote up how many lumbers you had, and he was supposed to keep that up, but I never did that. That's where I should have gone in and--

DALLETT:

They would mark up the lumber?

MILTON:

Yeah. They marked it up, and I--

DALLETT:

What would the next person do?

MILTON:

One fellow on each side of a pile, I think so. One in each end, and that fellow who wrote it down, he was paid much more, I suppose. So he made money, but the others got enough to live on.

MRS. MILTON:

But you were a drill press operator over at Issacson's.

MILTON:

There you, I know that, and the boss, he was funny, too. He was, like a certain fellow--

MRS. MILTON:

You worked there eleven years.

MILTON:

Oh, I worked there for quite a while and I, if I wouldn't, I would never do it again, though. No.

DALLETT:

Is it hard work?

MILTON:

No, that was not too bad, but--

MRS. MILTON:

That was during the war.

MILTON:

Those who took the lumber, and took it in piles, they had to be so quick. And they were quick, too. But it was so hard on them, they couldn't last long to do that because they, that lumber, you know, and they had to work so hard. (He laughs.) And I really never worked at that. And any time at all, but the bosses, they were all right, those were real good bosses. They were nice. But, uh, now they--

MRS. MILTON:

You're mixing in what Holmfred did with what you, you're getting all mixed up.

MILTON:

Oh, yeah. You recorded now.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh.

MILTON:

Oh, dear, I don't--

DALLETT:

We got you a little confused. That's okay.

MILTON:

Oh, that's all right.

DALLETT:

Tell me about what the property is like around here now. As we drove through, you showed me there were apples and pears.

MILTON:

Yeah. That depends on what kind of apples you have.

DALLETT:

What different kinds of apples are here?

MILTON:

They have golden delicious. One kind when we started, red delicious.

DALLETT:

You started with red delicious.

MRS.MILTON:

He started with standard delicious.

MILTON:

Standard first, yeah.

DALLETT:

Standard.

MILTON:

They didn't have to have so much color, but when the red come in. But they were a poor, really, grade, a very poor grade. So they were not as good as standard delicious, either. They were not so good.

DALLETT:

The standard delicious was better than the red delicious but what? The people wanted red apples?

MILTON:

Yeah. That's what it turned out to be but those red apples were not as good as the standards were. They were a much better eating apple, the standard. The old standard--

DALLETT:

It's more yellow, right? More green?

MILTON:

No, not yellow, really.

DALLETT:

It's not so red. They're not bright red.

MILTON:

But they had, they had quite a bit of red color on them. That's the way they wanted it, yeah.

DALLETT:

What other kind of apples do they have here now?

MRS. MILTON:

Winesaps.

MILTON:

Oh, they had winesaps. That's what I had so much one year when we come here. I wished they all would have been red, what is it?

DALLETT:

Winesaps?

MILTON:

Winesaps, yeah. Because there was no other apple who could stand the cold.

DALLETT:

Winesaps could stand more cold.

MILTON:

Yeah, they can stand several degrees colder. But I, uh, I was not used to that to start with. Oh, I went for (?), and I bought it for Classen, and sold the apples. There was no man, for a man, really. But to pack them, I didn't mind that so much because I could do them faster than any lady they had there. They were considered good. They don't have any extra. No, they had one or two, probably, in bins.

MRS. MILTON:

They just lay them in trays now. They don't pack them.

MILTON:

Yeah. They don't need to have so much education for that, and I was there and saw how they did it, so it was no trouble for me and that Ed Carlson, he was (?) too, though, for (?). Ten acres of apples, they (?). But he, yeah. Yeah. That was one thing, we had to have small boxes, but forty pine boxes, so that was boxed. (Voices off mike.) DALLETT; What else do you have here? Pears?

MILTON:

Yeah. Lots of pears. But there was, the only ones you got any for were Bartlett pears.

DALLETT:

Bartlett pears.

MILTON:

Yeah. Oh that--

DALLETT:

They brought in the money.

MILTON:

Yeah. If we had a good year now, I think I'll get a lot of apples, uh, pears, this year. And that would be good, if I could get twenty-five ton. And they would have to pay for them, but they were cheap too, them. Very cheap. That was not very good, anyway, but there were more than lots of them could get. But, uh--

DALLETT:

So it's mostly pears and apples?

MILTON:

Lots of pears and apples, yeah. Bartlett pears, and the D'Anjou pears was good, D'Anjou. That was another good pear. Homer said, "That's the best I have now," he said. But he never talked much about Bartlett, so he don't have any. Now they have pulled all those Bartlett out, and now they want them. So that could be good now if you could get many tons of--

MRS. MILTON:

It may be a little late.

MILTON:

Maybe it's a little late. If I had planted in some new apples, or Bartlett, that would have been the best. (Voices garbled.) They take ten years before you get any apples. Not now, no. You get them before ten years. If you plant them right, like they should be planted now.

DALLETT:

It used to be it would take ten years to grow apples from a tree?

MILTON:

Yeah. You have to wait too many years, don't get nothing for them. Then you're out of luck, too.

DALLETT:

You didn't have asparagus. Did you have asparagus?

MILTON:

Asparagus? No. Then you had to go to the valley.

DALLETT:

It's in the lower valley.

MILTON:

Where they have lots of cherries. That is the lower valley. And they got pretty good there, but I never had any, I planted some in these trees here, all over, wasted all that money for planting. And they grow straight up in the sky. They didn't do anything.

DALLETT:

The soil is not right?

MILTON:

Nah. They want to go up high and they'd be twenty feet if you don't know how to prune them. You see, that's a little different.

DALLETT:

Do you visit your family in Sweden?

MILTON:

Yeah, I was there a few times. Yes.

MRS. MILTON:

We've been back at least six times.

MILTON:

On the boat, yeah. (He laughs.) But over the past few years when I have gone, I've gone on an airplane. And you gain so much time on that. and you need to be here at that time, so-- What? Oh, you can take your freight boat if you want to sit on the boat so long. But they don't have them fixed up like they have in the coal storage (?), storage room. They have storage room even on the boats, yeah.

MRS. MILTON:

You were there last year in March. You and Jim went to Sweden last year.

MILTON:

Yeah, yeah.

DALLETT:

You took your son? You went with your son to Sweden?

MILTON:

Yeah. I went to see when he, but that's, to have a month. He didn't have quite a month, and go and spend all that money, a thousand dollars to travel. And now you can go in two weeks for two, three hundred dollars, I think. Somebody told me that. They can go pretty cheap now. But that, when I first, after Christmas a fellow, his mother was sick, he worked in Issacson, too, to go home and see his mother, because she was about ready to die. And he left him go. When he come back, I forget how much, but he had to pay, just the trip, over, it cost him a thousand dollars or more, or more, some said. If you can get cheap, or go to somebody for a couple, three weeks, you can go pretty cheap, then.

DALLETT:

We just have a little bit of tape left. I want you to, tell me about your two sons. You showed me your son's house, who lives right near here. Was that Jim, with all the lights on?

MILTON:

Yeah. He went, he went from here then.

MRS. MILTON:

Oh, no.

MILTON:

And ten to, to South America.

MRS. MILTON:

She's talking about Jim.

DALLETT:

Jim, your son. Your son Jim.

MRS. MILTON:

Lives on Occidental Avenue.

MILTON:

Yeah, him.

DALLETT:

Does he have orchards, too?

MILTON:

Yeah. He planted in there some, and they grow pretty good, part of it. But he should have bought the whole piece. He could have gotten twenty-five, thirty acres there for the same as he had to pay for half an acre or--

MRS. MILTON:

He bought five acres.

DALLETT:

Five acres.

MRS. MILTON:

He has five acres.

MILTON:

Has he got five acres? And there he could have bought that for, that whole piece there, and then extra, for probably ten thousand dollars, or--

MRS. MILTON:

If he had bought it years ago.

MILTON:

Yeah. A year or two before. He could have--

DALLETT:

The other son, where does your other son live?

MILTON:

He lives in Brewster. He is a banker. He is a manager for a bank in Brewster, and that's a pretty good job. If he just gets enough money for it, that's what I--

MRS. MILTON:

He has four children.

DALLETT:

How many grandchildren do you have? You have four from your son in Brewster, two here.

MILTON:

Let's see, how many children has he got, in Brewster?

MRS. MILTON:

Al has four, Jim has two.

DALLETT:

You have six? Are they all boys?

MRS. MILTON:

All but one.

MILTON:

Yeah, a girl, Lisa. Lisa is her name. She's a cute little baby. She comes with that smile-- They, I have in, I'll show it to you there. She is cute little girl. I think so.

MRS. MILTON:

The oldest is eighteen. The youngest is a month and a half.

MILTON:

We went up to the Swedish church today, and first they started, many, many years ago, when they first came here, these, all these immigrants. But, uh, there was some who went to Alaska and had a lot of gold and silver, too, they took out there. And they made it pretty good.

DALLETT:

So there used to be a lot of Swedish people in the area, but not so many any more?

MILTON:

Not too many. No. More mexicans now. And lots of them, they don't like the Mexicans.

MRS. MILTON:

Well, they're just transient workers. They don't live here, first of all.

DALLETT:

Mexicans work on the apple orchards?

MILTON:

Oh, they can work good, too. Some, but some, they don't want to do nothing.

MRS. MILTON:

They used to call it Swede Hills.

DALLETT:

Swede Hills.

MILTON:

Swede Hills, yeah. And snooze. Snooze Hill, they called it, too.

DALLETT:

Snooze Boulevard, I hear, they called it.

MILTON:

What?

DALLETT:

Snooze Boulevard.

MILTON:

(He laughs.) Yeah, oh, I wouldn't have thought it. Yeah? But, uh, they've got more Norwegians and Finnish than Swedish. Or used to, they smoke more cigarettes in Sweden, I think. They don't want that.

MRS. MILTON:

It used to be practically all Swedes on the hills. Not it is not that way at all.

MILTON:

But, uh, I know one really good Norwegian. He-- (Voices off mike.) He lived there, and he was the finest man I, Ole Moe, was his name. (Voices off mike.) What his name, Fritz Lovestrand, from, they come from Minnesota, and moved out here. And they had all kinds of things.

MRS. MILTON:

I think you said on the boat there was a lot of Pollacks when you came over.

MILTON:

Yeah, that there, when I come over, or those few days, when I, well, some had to work on the boat all the time, you know, but what they're doing, that's another thing. But there was many so who landed there then, when I was there, so they went and picked up some old handkerchiefs they had and washed them up so they went real good, and they took them and--

DALLETT:

What's that?

MILTON:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

What was that about the handkerchiefs?

MILTON:

Yeah, they went and picked them up and took--

DALLETT:

Picked up rags?

MILTON:

Yeah, took them and washed them up and had such a good time, so they didn't have to buy any, at least. Yeah, that was on the boat, and we-- Well, you were not with me when I, no, she wasn't born. She was not born. She was born 1918, and I was there in, what year did I say I, yeah, what year did I leave Sweden?

DALLETT:

1920, you told me.

MILTON:

Oh, did I? Yeah, I suppose. Yes, that's that.

DALLETT:

You've been here almost seventy years.

MILTON:

Yeah. I was about fifteen, sixteen when I left there, sure. That probably corresponded. (Voices off mike.) Huh? No. I haven't had mine this year yet. (He laughs.)

DALLETT:

Well, happy birthday. We're just about to run out of tape here, so thank you very much, and that's the end of Interview Number 395 [DP-21].