July 19TH and 20th, 1930 - MALAX - Diary of Linnea Gord

From the Program of the Choir

Molly I believe was in the Choir, the Molly in Vasa is the same Molly.  In a diary entry from their railroad trip, on May 28, 1930, they were in St. Paul:



"At St. Paul we amused ourselves by walking around town, buying souveniers and candy from our friend Woolworth and paper hats from one of the department stores.  (One of our crowd  bought a little kewpie doll about an inch high, and Mr. Carlson wore it on his watch chain at every one of our concerts.)  After our shopping trip we all went different ways.  Molly and I went to see the "Cuckoos" which was playing at one of the movie houses..."



Linnea and Molly - Minnesota

SATURDAY, JULY 19TH, 1930 - MALAX       Auntie and I cleaned up our room this morning, and I also mended some of my clothes.  I guess they needed it!!  Molly and Helge drove into the yard in his Pontiac sometime in the afternoon.  We went to the länsman to have our passes stamped and it took almost an hour for him to write a few words.  (The passes had to be stamped before we could leave Finland).  We drove up to Helge's house later.  Here we had strawberries, good ones, coffee and lots to talk about.

When we got back home again (it was about 11 o'clock) we sat around talking for awhile and then we all piled in the car and went to a "short" ride.  As it was, we went to Aminneborg, got a boat and went out to Norrskär.  We got out there abut 12:20 and went to Klockars' villa.  Gustafson's party was camping there and they were just going to bed when we came, so we decided we had better move.  Then Edward Ahlskog invited us all over to his place for coffee.  We got the coffee and also very hard cookies.

We had great fun there.  When we decided to go home Lars was no where to be found, so we all made up searching parties.  After we got cold and miserable, with wet feet, we finally found him, sleeping behind a rock, and we went home.



Malax Church - 1990

SUNDAY, JULY 20TH, 1930        After 31/2 hour of sleep I got up at nine and went to church with Auntie.  Molly was supposed to go too, but she didn't show up.  The church service was very nice.  Most of the service is singing, and I like that.

It was a very nice day that day, and it was sport day.  We all went to the Ungdoms Hus and watched the sport--running, jumping, javelin throwing, etc.  Bror took part in some of these events, so it was that much more interesting to us.  Whenever he would make an especially good play we would call to him "Pretty good" (which was about all the English he knew) and he would holler back "Not so good".  After the sports were over we sat down on the grass and played cards for a while, and we had a big crowd watching us.  Later Molly, Helge and I drove up to his house, where we ate strawberries and more strawberries.

 Dressing for the dance that evening was kind of interesting, because the kids were all under the window laughing and singing.  The program at the Ungdom's Hus that evening consisted of a selection by the band, a welcome speech, a "declamation" and an organ selection by Miss L. Gord of Tacoma, Wash., U.S.A.  After the program there was dancing.  I enjoyed myself immensely, dancing every dance but two--one when we had coffee and one that I sat out with Bror.  At the dances we had been to before everybody was so quiet and prim and didn't make any noise at all.  We decided that we wanted to pep the dance up so we all started hollering "Whoopie" after every dance.  We got a great kick out of it, because before the evening was over, we had almost all of the "natives" hollering "Voopee".  Going home that evening, from far and near you could hear "Voopee".  So the evening was saved!

 At the dances here in Malax, all the boys stand on one side of the room and the girls on the other.  When the music starts the boys all make a rush to the girl's side of the room.  It's so funny.  It looks like a stampede or something.