Photo of My Mouse from the Eighties

Another year of blogs at Spice Drawer Mouse - my mouse, Maud.

Photo From 1938

At The Pacific Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library the estimate for Public Domain is in the neighborhood of seventy-five years. At this point, a census year, of course anticipation grows that in only two more years we will view the 1940 United States Census, so we are entering that seventy-two year neighborhood. For the purposes of my blog, Spice Drawer Mouse, regarding public domain, and the photograph from the visit of Kyrkoherde Wellhagen that shows the readerboard, in 1938, of First Lutheran Church, I consider it must be true that we have reached that neighborhood.

So, as I celebrate three years of blogs at Spice Drawer Mouse, here is the photo from the Swedish article from Husmodern which was included back in 2007. When I was in Sunday School I was introduced to Pastor Rydell, the pastor whose name is on the reader board, still pastor years later.

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A Newspaper Clipping from March, 1940

In the previous post to this blog is a reference to a post card mesage sent home from a trip made by Linnea Gord in 1937 by train to San Francisco. One reason for her trip was to visit a heritage group in Eureka, California, so the post card was one of a group that included scenes of the Coit Tower and the California Redwoods. The trip raised interest in Eureka in participation in an Excursion to Finland the following year. The purpose of the Runeberg lodges was to maintain Swedish-Finnish Culture, specifically folk songs performed as choral music.

Linnea Gord traveled with the Swedish-Finnish Runeberg Chorus to Finland and to Sweden in 1930 as the piano accompanist, and in 1938 she traveled on the Excursion. In 1938 her family dance band performed on their ship to Finland as the Suomi Band.

This clipping in 1940 tells about Runeberg choruses joining to sing for Finnish Relief during the Winter War in Finland. The Winter War occurred when Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union when Stalin and Hitler were in alliance in the late 1939 invasions throughout Europe. This Relief Concert was held at the Normanna Hall in Tacoma.

March 31, 1940

CHORUSES WILL UNITE TO AID FINNISH RELIEF

Runeberg choruses of Tacoma and Olympia and the Normanna male chorus will join forces Sunday afternoon for a benefit concert at Normanna Hall, all proceeds to be presented to the Finnish relief committee.

The concert, announced for 3 o'clock, will present Maxine Johnson, violinest, and Vivian Peltier, soprano, as soloists, and Dr. Oscar A. Tinglestad of Pacific Lutheran college will give a short talk.

Songs to be given by the Runeberg choruses, whose directors are Mrs. Ralph Carlson, Olumpia, and Miss Linnea Gord of Tacoma, follow: "Alvens vagor," Madetoja, "Bjorneborgarnes marsch" and "Kallan," Lagercrantz, directed by Miss Gord, and "Lost Chord," Sullivan-Parks, "Pilgrim's Chorus," Wagner, and "Goin' Home" Dvorak, directed by Mrs. Carlson.

The Normanna Male Chorus, directed by George Johnson, will sing "Gud Signe Vart Dyre Fedraland," Wayse; "Stridsbon," Lindblad; "Suomis Sang" Pacius, and "Dear Land of Home," Sibelius.

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VIEW A VIDEO FROM 1937 WITH LOUIS ARMSTRONG

It was 1937. After their family orchestra had performed with the lodge convention and choir in Olympia, Linnea was invited to Eureka. She took her vacation from her job as a secretery in August and traveled on the train to San Francisco. She saw the new Golden Gate Bridge that opened in June. On a postcard she told the family she saw Artists and Models at the Fabulous Fox Theater in San Francisco. That it was good and her mother should go to see it. Artists and Models includes a song from Louis Armstrong (which was edited out for Southern theaters.)

I had wanted to remember to credit an earilier recipe I mentioned, Scottish Oat Scones, as being from The Joy of Snacks, by Nancy Cooper, RD.

Pacific Lutheran University Associate Professor of English Rona Kaufmann spoke about a cookbook published from a camp of high profile, high prestige Holocaust prisoners. In an introduction she described the cookbooks of people today as including spattered pages that indicated favorite recipes. This stayed with me to resonate when I started out today with Walnut Miso Sauce:

Walnut Miso Sauce (makes 1 cup)

1 c chopped walnuts

3 tbsp. light miso

2 tbsp. rice vinegar

2 tbsp. dijon mustard

3 tbsp. water

Blend all ingedients with a blender or food processor.This is from Ann Louise Gittleman's Supernutrition for Menopause.

The facing page, Winter Ingredients, has several spatters. I have found Walnut Miso Sauce, with blanched broccoli on whole wheat bread makes a nice tuna salad sandwich substitute for vegetarians.

Spring

Park bench and the bike nearby, the first day it is warm as spring.

I saw people entering the Cultural Center via the Viking Boat entry and decided to try that, myself.  It happens to have dark  mossy rocks along the steps down to the small patio outside the sliding doors, it felt like a descent to a beach.  Someone did open the door for me.

 

The Saturday morning conference included Carl Wilkins, the only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocides in Rwanda.   He has flown to speak in cities, but now plans to bike down the west coast on tour along with his wife.  According to the conference, they have Facebook at The World Outside My Shoes.

 

The conference on Saturday morning included discussion about teaching holocaust studies in Junior High and Secondary school.  I had been reflecting about how the topic had been with me since junior high.  I remember that the topic was first presented to me via tv - the tv we had gotten when I was in fifth grade then showed us a simple floodlit place with plain chairs, dark behind, a space in which some very horrifying ideas were introduced.  There remained with me the sense that my parents had monitored our viewing of this.  I think this was presented through public television.

 

All these ideas have a high impact on children that young.  It was a very terrible idea to learn about Anne Frank and her family, along with others, had to hide in rooms above a business, never to leave, when I was in Junior High School.

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One focus of the conference on Friday was the child experience.  The holocaust survivor speaker described experiences with his father, the second survivor speaker describes the protection she had from nuns as a very small child and how she learned to understand how her wartime experiences would effect her for the rest of her life. 

 

During an afternoon panel of three women one participant discussed a cookbook and other cookbooks that emerged from the starved concentration camps, while a projected image of the 2009 American Girl doll, Rebecca Rubin, upstaged everything else about the conference with its eloquent idealized sweetness.

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At the Scandinavian Cultural Center at Pacific Lutheran University yesterday morning, there showed, upon the lower part of the cement stairway outside the sliding doors of the large room, a pleasant spring day.  The room is in the lower level of the student center. 

 

Last April I attended an opening for a display by Brian Magnusson at the Cultural Center.  The photographs had been displayed at TPL in February and March of 1996 in recognition of the Swedish Immigration Sesquicentennial.  I found myself a child in one of the photographs.  In this form my image had been shipped to Sweden when Brian Magnusson moved back there, then displayed at an immigrant museum in the Åland Islands, then shipped again to Pacific Lutheran University to be a part of their collection.

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After I got the email message I walked home with thoughts of Friday morning.  Where were those notes I had from an earlier Holocaust conference at the cultural center?  When was that conference?

 

When I did find my notes in my files I found no reference to the year. 

 

So I checked my calendar records.  It was 2002.  Robert Ericksen, then, as now, was in charge of the conference.  The focus of the 2002 conference was Christian churches' role in the Holocaust.  The news article from September, 2002, continues with descriptions of evidences of Christian churches anti-semitic teachings. 

 

(First Lutheran Church in 2002 was kicking off its 125th anniversary prelude - it's 120th.  I was able to participate with three song translation inserts of familiar Swedish hymns used by the group my mother belonged to - a was with the choir and the hymns were performed during the approach to the 125th anniversary by the First Lutheran Choir. In about 2002 I had played some Swedish language records loudly on my stereo to make tape recordings.  Included in the folder of notes from the conference is a list from one of these vinyl records from the 1960's of a Swedish-singing choir from Finland.  During the visit to PLU I also had located one of the songs on the list in a book in their library and had xeroxed it.  It does not surprise me that I left the copy in the folder with the notes.)

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An interesting clipping from 1925

Sunday at First Lutheran will be an All Chopin concert - this harmonizes with this article from 85 years ago, March. Linnea Gord performs Chopin.

LEDGER, MARCH 22, 1925

Robert Weisbach Studio Program for KGB

Upper row, from left to right: Mildred Rosenberg, Josephine Peers, Mrs. R.K. Haskell. Lower row, from left to right: Maxine Knuppe, Linnea Goode, Elsie Carlson

Studio nights have become one of the most populat offering from KGB, The Ledger broadcasting station and it is with pleasure that KGB presents on Monday evening a studio program arranged by Robert Wiesbach, pianist-composer and teacher of the piano.

Mr. Wiesbach is one of the pioneer teachers of Tacoma and is a most schlarly musician and a composer of rare attainments. The program, as arranged for Monday evening, presents his advanced students and will prove of great interest to all lovers of good music.

The tentative program is as follows:

Polonaise in A Major............Chopin

Miss Linnae Goode

To Spring..................................Grieg

Miss Maxine Knuppe

Mazurka Elegante......

Miss Mildred Rosenbach (age 13)

Octave Etude in F.............Hendricks

Jesse Curtis

Prelude from Suite.............Debussy

Miss Josephine Peers

Staccato Caprico..............Vogrich

Miss Margaret McConville

Allegro de Concert.....Granados

Miss Elsie Carlson

Rhapsodie in B Minor.....Brahms

Mrs. R.K. Haskell

Romanza in F Sharp......Schumann

Etude in D Flat.......Liszt

Miss Winnifred Davis

Monday evening preceding the musical program arranged by Mr. Weis-

(end of clipping) Linnea Gord acted as an accompanist, a choir director (in Swedish, dirigent) for her heritage group's Swedish-Finnish choir - and as dance band piano player for their band, The Gord Family Orchestra. This was an avocation. She worked for fifteen years as a secretery in Tacoma, married at thirty-four. They had two daughters, one was myself. Linnea Gord was a life-time member of First Lutheran Church.

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Comments on Planning

Today I emailed in comments on the Mobility Master Plan. Here is a photo of one flowering tree where there were two flowering trees. One had to be taken out to allow the flashing yellow light post. Should matter that the Urban Forest and the Mobility sections harmonize.

Steve's Gay Nineties

Today while looking around in South Tacoma where the Planning Commission's proposed zoning changes would be - I visited the old Steve's Gay Nineties - I found that at the old Steve's Gay Nineties there now is a Subway.

The old Steve's had it's own cable car. When you click to see the cable car, the photo shows the cable car being delivered to Steve's.

The Goldberg Project

At First Lutheran Church on Sunday (tomorrow) March 7, will be The Goldberg Project. If you click on the project name, you can see a video about the second graders whose art will be displayed at the project on a screen. My appreciation of church art is represented here in a grade school write. The article with the video refers to an earlier performance at PLU - Tomorrow's performance is at First Lutheran Church near Wright's Park.

This photograph shows two trees beyond the foreground madrona - a madrona the park removed, and a large tree, I think a hemlock, on private property, that was removed recently. The madrona was marked with a sign, the other tree was removed without notice.

This afternoon the flowering trees beside the construction of the new Safeway store on Proctor stand out in clear relief. They are not fenced for protection, if they are protected it is an informal direction to "Look out for the trees." Yesterday afternoon I attended a Planning Commission Public Hearing. Here I am describing some of the brief comments at the event, about thirty people commented. The Mobility Master Plan was to be important to bike riders and pedestrians. I have used a bike in Tacoma since 1990. At the door I picked up a copy of The 2010 Annual Amendments for the Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Code (495 pages).

The Pyramid

I was interested in the pyramid on page 121. It seems to me it should always be presented tilted at an angle to prevent extreme status reversals. The pyramid: "The City of Tacoma will use this model as a conceptual tool for elevating pedestrians, bicycles and public transit in the planning and design of streets...it gives recognition to the city's most vulnerable users." Street design will reverse an anti-human approach that one speaker, David Hiller, of Cascade Bicycle Club, described in this way - "As if cars, not people, were the only valued constituents."

Changes to the South Tacoma Neighborhood:

Seven people spoke about these changes. Bruce Peterson, a South Tacoma business owner, also mentioned he was a third generation South Tacoma resident. One or two speakers mentioned plans for the South Park historical district.

Steve's

I think a great South Park historical district could see once again Steve's Gay Nineties, a well-liked restaurant of many years which featured a dining room with booths with buggy wheels and can-can girls during the weekend. They had a nice Sunday buffet. My parents took my sister and myself to the buffet. It had a bean recipe I never found anywhere else but always remembered. In truth, I now have the bean recipe, which was easy to adapt to be vegetarian.

Urban Forest Comments:

I did not favor some of these comments. Citizens expressed some concern that caring about what happened to trees could be too restrictive - Ruth Doyle - expressed concern that trees and builders would find conflict, and D. Hamber - regarding trees, D. Hamber was uneasy that policy quickly becomes regulation. In truth, the Wright Park Tree Project gives the lesson that tree Replacement involves tree removal. Trees come to a time in their life-spans when their years have been lived out. The trees at Wright Park that are to be removed are marked with an explanation for the planned removal, and new trees are planted to sustain the presence of the arboretum.

Thirty percent of Our Trees Lost

However, Jody Atkins expressed deep concern that in recent years in Tacoma we have lost thirty percent of our trees. Scott Hansen wished even more nature included in the mobility master plan, wants the Puget Creek Trail system, a very forested trail, worked into the plan.

Health

In a similar way, Diane Evans - of the Pierce County Health Department, supports the Urban Forests along with the Mobility Master plan, because community gardens with tomato plants or fruit trees can be tools along with walking and bike riding in the struggle against the health concern - obesity.

For Our Trees

Linda Meade - urged that Tacoma plan carefully For our Trees

and Cat Mchahey spoke about how a cluster of oak trees was cut down last month by a developer, and how their neighborhood missed those trees. We do know that trees that are gone are deeply missed.

Tacoma Mobility Master Plan Comments:

Members of the Tacoma Wheelmen's Club, the Cascade Bicycle Club, Transportation Choices Coalition all spoke requesting that the Mobility Master Plan be approved. I believe one speaker pointed out that less attention was applied in the Mobility Master Plan to the needs of disabled citizens than would have been appropriate. They wanted more attention in the Master Plan to the needs of the disabled.

Years back I once repeated the comments of others in a letter urging our elected officials to act - my own experience of that situation felt untrained, and the believable comments seemed good to me. Of course I credited them. In the same way I can forward the comments I heard yesterday afternoon in the Council Chambers at the Municipal Building in that way to the Planning Committee. I can leave out the comments I did not favor. Perhaps I can find other points in the large book before March 12th.

Comments will be accepted until March 12th.

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