Mona Nesse – 7/22/22
My mother voluntarily wrote stories about her life. When she was 88, she had her right shoulder replaced. For her recovery, she stayed at our house. I was working, Ted was working, and Mom was home alone all day. So when I would come home, she would want to talk, but she didn’t have anything new to talk about. So I would ask her questions. One day, I asked “What was it like when you got married, and moved out to the farm with your mother-in-law Othelia and brother-in-law Victor.” So she told me about her early days at the Nelson Family Farm between Sacred Heart and Renville.
She said it was awkward at times, especially in the kitchen. Othelia had her way of doing things. But pretty quickly, my mother’s furniture was moving in. The house started to become more hers. One day, she wanted to put dumplings in the beef soup. Grandmother Othelia said “Oh no, the boys don’t like dumplings.” Later, when the kitchen became her own, she found out that that was not true. After Kathy was born, the next summer they built a house in town for Grandma Nelson (Othelia) and Victor moved to Minneapolis.