(Second of two parts; click here to read Part 1)
Evenson offers a similar bit-by-bit account of World War I and other events, revealing his passionate newspaper reading-which, while engaging, really isn’t surprising. The amazingly literate Norwegians, who today are still near the top of the global literacy charts, brought their reading and writing talent to America in ways that enriched us all. By 1940, Norwegian Americans had founded more than 400 newspapers. Influential papers such as Emigranten did much to facilitate the Americanization of the Norwegian immigrants. And a special dimension of this was the fact that the newspapers were so “Christian,” allowing for the integration of Christian thinking and living into the process of helping immigrants relocate happily into their adopted country.
Ministers were often the editors, which allowed them to be Christian political catalysts without using the pulpit as their medium, which they clearly felt was wrong to do. C. L. Clausen, the lay minister and Emigranten’s first editor, argued, “Through our paper, we hope to hurry the process of Americanization of our immigrated countrymen. We want to be one people with the American.” Ollis Evenson would have echoed that sentiment.
February 1, 1914: Finished reading Redpath’s “History of the World.” Was quite an undertaking.
Beyond this instinct for staying aware through the press, Evenson’s diary also reveals his efforts at self-education through disciplined study. He tried to understand history and literature, citing the Redpath history volumes several times and often commemorating in his diary the birth and death anniversaries of such figures as Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Additionally, there are allusions to the anguish of a tradesworker continually frustrated in his efforts to make time for serious study projects. It was almost a blessing when, in the summer of 1913, Evenson dropped a bucket of boiling water on his feet, scalding them so badly that he had to be out of work for a month. The greatest physical pain of his life also provided his best opportunity for study, as he wrote, “I spent most of the time reading” (July 27, 1913).
February 12, 1918: (Lincoln’s birthday) One hundred nine years ago today this great man was born in a log cabin in Kentucky. Nor more need be said. We all know him and we all love him. Today, even the sun done its best to honour him.
Lincoln’s birthday was another event that evoked an annual laudatory remark from Evenson. And, intriguingly, the praise for Lincoln was, to my mind, a reflection of far more than a hunger for historical knowledge. It represented the side of Evenson’s character-indeed, the side of white immigrant America’s character (if I can generalize to such an extent)-that loved Lincoln for his public stand against slavery and his place as a hero for the ages. Concerning the issues of slavery and racism, Evenson had no problem in committing to the diary his deep rejection of racial prejudice. In the early pages, he wrote, “Papers brought accounts of a most diabolical, fiendish and revolting lynching of a Negro at Mayville, Ky” (Dec. 6, 1899). Earlier still, he had complained, “They do say that slavery is abolished in this country, but I am inclined to doubt it” (March 8, 1898). More than once he sought to comprehend “what a black man saw in a white man’s country” (Aug. 12, 1899), and in the end his sympathetic thoughts led back to Lincoln, who had healed the nation through his moral wisdom: “Showing that the animosity [of those days] is, at last, dead and buried, and that the whole of our great and glorious country is again united into one people, one nation, happy in the assurance that such a conflict will not again disrupt it” (July 4, 1913).
Thus, the diary of this Norwegian American reveals a racially liberated individual, free from prejudice, right? Hardly.
October 11, 1916: I detest that work. It is not for white men, and I will not stand for it very long either.
Indeed, another side of Evenson emerges from the blunt honesty of the diary, and that is the element of subconscious racial distinction and exclusion. I believe his conscious accommodating spirit was genuine, and that his praise of Lincoln and empathy for oppressed African Americans rose above the level of appeasing one’s white conscience; yet, many traces of racial superiority rear up in their ugliness, and even this fine gentleman was capable of venomous undertones on occasion. There was also a subtle clannishness to his ethnic pride, as when he wrote of working alongside his own countrymen: “I certainly feel good at having a place to work at again. And it looks to be a nice one too, the men are decent in their ways and behavior. I guess that is because they are most all Norwegians, including the owners” (May 10, 1917).
The most troubling comments involved racial distinctions, with whites on one side, blacks on the other. “At my shipyard,” he wrote, “it is always too cool for a white man to work, even on July 4th” (Dec. 19, 1912). Some remarks blended borderline racism with matters of church and faith: “A meeting was held at our church-to vote if we should sell our church at 13th and Broadway. The vote was carried by a big majority. Most of our people have moved into the Midway district, would like to shorten their distance to the church. We can buy a neat little church out there for a reasonable price. Another reason is that the district around our church is fast filling up with Africans” (Oct. 11, 1921). In his unthinking racism, despite his abhorrence for slavery, Evenson was typical of his generation.
Indeed, as was true with other immigrant groups, Norwegian Americans were never unified in their position toward slavery, and too many of Evenson’s countrymen were ready to condone it. Even in the church-especially in the church, in fact-the pro- and antislavery factions squabbled over the morality and theology of slavery for many years.
A so-called biblical argument, often endorsed by members of the formally educated clergy, held that Old and New Testament teachings regarding “slaves and masters” legitimized some forms of slavery. As the Norwegian synodical minister C. F. W. Walther stated, “Fight against the abuse [of slavery], not against the use.” The antislavery Norwegian Americans, often laypeople who argued that slavery should be judged by more than stacked Scripture passages, responded by charging the other side with violating the “true spirit of Godliness” in a “soul-less game of sham with the letter of the Scriptures.”
March 16, 1898: I was not at all satisfied with the outcome of the shipping clerk controversy. I therefore went to the manager and told him he would have to decide whose duty it is to write out my orders. And just like the knave and despot that he is, he would not do so, but simply ordered me to do it as heretofore, despite my protestations of being overloaded already. He also made the ridiculous remark that I had more leisure than any other man in the House. Never before in my life have I felt so overwhelmingly humiliated and disgusted. I was actually sick all the rest of the day. Oh, how hard it is to be a poor man, sometimes.
In the course of the 1,500 or so entries that make up Evenson’s diary, two categories of suffering ultimately emerge: immigrant anguish and the more mysterious conflicts that often befall the righteous.
Lars W. Boe, president of Minnesota’s Saint Olaf College during the 1950s, once reminded the post-World War II generation at Saint Olaf of the dislocation felt by Norwegian immigrants as they made the transition from Old World to New. “Ours,” he said, bringing past into present, “is the riches of two cultures, and often the poverty of the desert wanderer. . . . Like Moses of old, we seek the new but cannot fully enter in. To us has been given the task of mediating a culture, of preserving and transferring to our children in a new land the cultural and spiritual values bound up in the character . . . and Christian faith of a generation no longer found even in the land from which the fathers came.”
Ollis Evenson was one of those desert wanderers, lured by promise but often snared by reality. When he read and reread earlier sections of the diary, as was his way of evaluating the events of his life, he saw one truth of his existence: “Spent a good part of the day reading the Diary of 1916, a year in which I had many ups and downs” (Sept. 16, 1921). Though he tried to remain mostly positive, he did scratch away at the core of what many immigrants discovered: that coming to America was, in some ways, a bitter mistake that recalled the regrets felt by the first Norwegian settlers as well as the admonitions of the stay-at-home clergy who warned that, theologically and morally, America was-just wait and see-a desert. “I think I made a mental commentary on the American civilization at the close of the 19th century, but hardly think it was commendatory thereto,” Evenson once had to admit (July 4, 1897).
The fiercest immigrant reality was the never-ending angst of workers who had no rights, no job security. Evenson spent far more time discussing this in the diary than any other topic. Swallowed up in pure capitalism’s world of hard labor, he was hired, fired, spat upon, laughed at, dumped on, insulted, and physically worn down until beyond his seventieth birthday, when his legs finally gave out and the diary ended. Any month of any year told the story:
–March 27, 1899: “Orders terrible. I am working myself to death, if I don’t get some sort of relief very soon.”
–April 9, 1900: “The only thing that sustained me during this awful day, was that I preserved a stolid indifference as to how the work went. I did not care in the least about any possible results.”
–October 3, 1916: “And now comes a sorry tale. As I came down in the basement, leaving for home, I was handed a letter which, when reading it at home, informed me that I was discharged for lack of work. I nearly fainted.”
–September 14, 1920: “Terrible hot day, and to add to it I was ordered [at 70 years old] to work in the lumber yard piling hardwood lumber. The broiling hot sun was certainly awful. This was one of the hardest days in all my life.”
November 4, 1918: So-it is all over:
My last son is laid in his last resting place, which is very near to that of his mother whom we laid there 8 years ago. I am glad that it is over and that we had a very fine day for it. Now, I hope and pray that my two girls will be spared for me. God grant it!
And, finally, there was the other suffering. So much pain and tragedy befell this man during his 78 years that a cynic might have assessed his life in Jobian terms: Does God dare human beings to become bitter?
The physical pain-pedestrian accidents, boiling water on the feet, crumbling legs-could be endured. But what about the emotional pain? Of his seven children, he buried five, and he watched his wife die, too.
Early in the diary, an eerie foreshadowing occurred when on November 6, 1897, he came home and found his entire family almost dead from sulphur gas that had “penetrated the whole house.” After treatment for gas inhalation, everyone recovered.
But the five sons all died in time from other causes. The death of Roy, the last, is particularly worthy of mention, for it shows a descent into tragedy’s abyss unaccompanied by bitterness of any sort. On October 29, 1918, Evenson received a telephone call notifying him that Roy was dangerously ill with pneumonia. Next day, Roy seemed to recover somewhat, and by the thirty-first he was holding steady. On November 1, Roy suddenly deteriorated, dying early in the evening, as his father wrote: “Roy Stanley Evans, my last son, died at 7:55 P.M., with Pneumonia. He was 26 years, 1 month, and 1 day of age. He was my 5th and last son.”
The next day, November 2, Evenson wrote that he could not go to work. The following day he wrote that he could not go to church and that he might never recover from this event: “(Sunday) Did not feel inclined to attend church services. I feel terribly downhearted over the loss of my dear boy. I know it will take a long time before I will be like my former self. If I ever will.” The last few days of the tragic sequence saw him packing up Roy’s belongings and beseeching God to spare his two daughters, Florence and Lillian. Indeed, they were spared.
Then, in character, Evenson turned his attention to other issues, this time to the November 11, 1918, armistice ending World War I, which immediately followed Roy’s death. Smothering any bitterness that might have resulted, he carried on with his usual peace amid turmoil, recording this entry in his diary: “November 11, 1918: This day as God willed it, is destined in the world’s history to be probably the most important this old globe has ever witnessed, save the death of Christ on the Golgotha cross. The ending of the World War took place today. Thanks to Almighty God!” Even before the full range of his grief was knowable, he had risen above Roy’s death to concern himself with the larger world that contained everyone else’s tragedies, not merely his own.
This curious ability to detach oneself from circumstance, and thereby carry on in a spirit of perpetual acceptance, was cross-bearing at its most Christlike. It was also, I believe, one of the geniuses of the multitude of devout immigrants who were known only to their families or perhaps forgotten altogether. I witnessed it in my grandfathers, and in my immigrant grandmothers, too-who, though suffering under the patriarchy of their day, emerged as even stronger and more worthy of emulation. And I now see it in the diary of Ollis Evenson.
These immigrants were the anonymous heroes, “the simple little ones in society,” as Einar Haugen writes in Norway to America. Lacking in funds, they crossed the ocean with a few belongings that might have included a Bible, a hymnal, and anything else that secured them spiritually in an unknown land. Lacking in education and formal training, they worked where they could find work. Ultimately, many were swallowed up in the gears of the industrial economy, still holding fast, however, to an after-hours life of spiritual exercise and intellectual enquiry.
As children of a preinformation age, they would feel lost in the slick fluidity of our verbose culture. Like the preacher in Ecclesiastes, who viewed words as “goads” and “nails” (Eccles. 12:11), they measured their speech, reverencing the hard object-ness of words. And, as the diary of Ollis Evenson testifies, their words spoke volumes.
Daniel Pawley is a journalist and associate professor of communications at Northwestern College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Copyright(c) 1997 by Christianity Today, Inc/Books & Culture Magazine.
Mar/Apr 1997, Vol. 3, No. 2, Page 31
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