Daughters of Norway

BY ELDERID EVERELY

A writing sample of a member of the Daughters of Norway Literary's Society. Written by Elderid Everly of both Sigrid Undset Lodge #32 & Anne Grimdalen Lodge #34. Thanks to Rhoda Ashley for typing this up and to Mary Ashley for editing..

[Note from author:]
For the past 10 years, I have been writing stories while attending a class called “Life Stories”.  After each quarter of classes we celebrate and each bring goodies.  I always bring lefse and everyone loves it. I decided it was time to write about it, so this is my story.

At my Norwegian Lodge, I’m called the “Lefse Queen”.  My daughter, Vicki, gave me a cup with that inscription.  It all began when I was a little girl helping my mother make lesfe.  Lefse is Norwegian flat bread made with mashed potatoes, margarine, milk and flour.  It is rolled very thin and baked on a griddle.  It is eaten with butter and sugar, and rolled up.  I also like it rolled around turkey, meatballs, or chicken.

My cousins in Norway have told me lefse was a mainstay for them during the Nazi occupation.  Each family could have their own little plots of wheat and potatoes, for those living on the land.  The wheat was brought to the mill and ground into flour.  Food was in short supply at that time.

We were a large family, and everyone liked lefse, and it kept my mother very busy. By the time I was ten years old, I was the oldest child at home.  My twin sisters were two and a half years younger.  My five older siblings had all left home to work at their jobs.  In our family everyone had chores, besides keeping up with our homework.  The twins and I had the endless task of peeling potatoes for all the lefse.  We were taught how to peel them thin, so as not to waste too much.  It was the Depression.  After they were cooked, the potato water was used in gravy, or soup, or maybe in our bread dough.  My mother was the master of ingenuity.  We had to make sure the potatoes were mashed without a lump.  Mashing potatoes in the olden days was hard work.  Then my mother purchased a ricer, and our mashing task became more fun. We would imagine worms coming out of the ricer, and it became a game for a while, but that task too became tiresome.  It’s only in retrospect that I appreciate those tedious tasks we so often resented.

Saturday was always baking day in addition to the lefse.  After the bread was kneaded and put to rise, we began making the lefse.  Ma rolled the lefse on the kitchen table, and carried each sheet on a long stick to the wood fired range.  We learned to regulate the heat by the number of sticks we fed the fire.  Pa had chopped each stick to Ma’s specifications.  He made sure we had a good supply.  Sometimes Ma allowed me to roll a lefse under her watchful eye.  She taught me the importance of the dough’s texture, and also how much to mix at a time, lest the dough becomes too wet and unmanageable.  She also taught us how to turn the lefse so we wouldn’t tear it.

During the Depression, Ma was asked by a grocery store in town if they could sell her lefse in their store, because so many people were asking him to stock it.  Thus began her cottage industry.  The kids were in school, so we were no longer there to turn the lefse for her; that left the work to her alone.  Pa walked the half-mile to the mailbox with the lefse, and the mailman brought them to the store.  After several days he asked Pa what was in the package.  There were so many women in a line waiting for his delivery.

Ma was paid seven cents a round for the lefse.  It was considered a good price at that time, and a good profit for Ma.

The sale of the lefse kept us in the few items we needed from the store.  We didn’t need much, as flour, sugar and other staples were purchased in large bags in the fall.  Vegetables from our garden were stored in the cellar. A side of beef or a hog was stored in the outdoor freezer my Pa fashioned in a shed.  It wasn’t always convenient to get to town in winter.  We had lots of snow.  Ma sent 20 rounds about three times a week.  During the Depression Pa didn’t have a job in the winter, so Ma’s little business was a godsend.  Ma made as much as a man could in the winter.  In summer Pa was paid $1.00 per day working no less than 10 hours each day.  Ma’s lefse didn’t hurt the grocer either, as her lefse brought him customers.  I think this little business was good for Ma’s self image.

We, as a family had gleaned all the potatoes in the fall.  The potatoes were free, as we had many farmer friends, and they were all happy to have their fields cleaned.  The pickers always left lots of potatoes unpicked.  It was a game to go to the potato fields on a Sunday afternoon and fill our little buckets with potatoes.  Sometimes, if the field was well picked, it would mean we’d need to go to another farmer’s field.  The kids liked this, because we didn’t get out much.  We needed several hundred pounds of potatoes.  I must say too that not every one cared to glean potatoes.  Some city people usually came to glean.

When I grew up and had my own home, I made lefse for my family.  I didn’t have a cook stove, and griddles weren’t available yet, but my sister-in-law had a small stove that was used for heat.  I put my little girl, my rolling pin, flour, potatoes and lefse stick in our little red wagon and walked the ten blocks to her house to make my lefse.

More than fifty years ago, griddles were affordable.  Now I could make lefse more conveniently, and more often.  Soon people began asking if I sold them.  Thus began my cottage industry..

For the past sixteen years I have demonstrated lefse baking at our Norway Day Festival.  I roll the lefse, and after it’s baked, my great-granddaughters Morgan and Minuett butter them and prepare samples to give to the spectators.

However, the best times of my life is when I’m invited to two different churches to supervise young people making lefse for their fundraisers.  They are eager to learn and follow directions.  They sell all the lefse they make.  They have much fun as they work.

I give my recipe to everyone who asks.  These days I no longer peel mounds of potatoes, as I did in my childhood, and early adult life.  Science has made this easy for me.  It’s potato flakes for me.  I no longer worry if the potatoes are too wet, or have a lump in them.  It’s consistent dough every time.  Some years it was a struggle for my mother, as the potatoes were never the same from field to field.  She would surely rejoice with me over the time saved and consistent dough.  Many people ask me, “Do you use real potatoes?” to which I reply, “Yes, I use real instant potatoes.”  Because aren’t potato flakes made from real potatoes?

I’m also teaching my own grandchildren to make lefse.  This past May, my six-year-old great-granddaughter Nora rolled lefse alongside me in San Francisco.  She drew a big crowd.  Perhaps some day she will take my place at the festival.

Lefse is more than tasty.  It teaches the young people a little about their heritage.  Sometimes these skills disappear.  To remember one’s heritage is very important.  My Pa used to tell me in his very heavy Norwegian accent, “If you don’t know ver you come from, how do you know ver you are going?”  He liked lefse a lot.

My doctor tells me “Keep rolling.  The exercise is good for your heart.”

My family says, “Oh, don’t quit.”  I think I’ll keep rolling.  I like the sound of “Lefse Queen.”

Lefse makes a wonderful gift, much appreciated, and I have more people to help learn the skill.

It’s very good with a cup of coffee.