Happy Holidays-A Cavendish Christmas

Happy Holidays!

As part of the Cavendish Historical Society’s (CHS) Carmine Guica Young Historians Program, on Dec. 21, CHS will spend the day at  the Cavendish Town Elementary School (CTES) teaching students through workshops and “a taste of,” how  Scandinavians (people from Sweden, Denmark and Norway) helped to shape Cavendish.

Below is A Cavendish Christmas, which is based on the mill workers that came to Cavendish. Following the story is historical information as well as directions to make some of the items described in the story.

A Cavendish Christmas is dedicated to the memory of Lillian C Spallone, a proud and active member of VASA and the mother of CTES 6^th grade teacher Robin Bebo-Long.

  A CAVENDISH CHRISTMAS  by Margo Caulfield

 The falling snow swirled across the frozen Black River reminding Ingrid of childhood Christmases in Sweden. This was going to be her first Christmas away from her family, and while she was sad, there was also the promise of something new and exciting.

As she tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue, she thought how much her life had changed in just a year. On Christmas Eve last year she was explaining to her younger brothers about how the Yule Goat (a man wearing a goat mask) would soon be coming with special presents for them. She missed her brothers and their special holiday traditions, but there was now a man in her life and he had promised to go to church with her.

Though not a Lutheran Church, Ingrid liked the Cavendish Stone Church, as the locals called it. It was a Universalist Church, but the minister was kind and welcoming. Tonight there was to be a special Christmas Eve service.

In early spring, Ingrid began the long journey from the family farm outside of Stockholm to a promised job in America. Saying good-bye to her parents and five younger siblings was very hard but they all believed she had a good future across the ocean.  

Crossing the Atlantic had moments of exhilaration but more often it was tedious, tainted with terror. The storms frightened her but by far the worst part was the lack of food and water. Yes, the ships were suppose to carry seven pounds of food per passenger per week, but given how meager the rations were, it was more like seven pounds per four passengers. While she liked being on deck, breathing in the smell of the ocean and feeling the salty spray on her face, she was very relieved to step ashore in Canada.

From there it was a long journey by train. She had planned on going to work in the mills in Lowell, Ma, but another Swede she met on the train said he was going to the Spring Mill in Cavendish, Vermont that was in desperate need of workers.

She had never been bold and daring like her younger brothers and some of her friends, yet for some reason, which she never could really explain to her family, she disembarked at the Cavendish Depot and was immediately employed as a “drawing in girl.”

Fitton Mill just before the Cavendish Gorge

Life in a boarding house on the Fitton Mill property, so named after the owner, was quite different than life in Sweden. Not only did she often work six days a week, 12 hours a day, but she lived in a boarding house. The rooms were small, just big enough for a double bed and a dresser, and she shared a bed with an Irish mill worker. Since neither spoke the others language, the first few months were a bit challenging, but as they learned English they found they had much in common.

Brigid was one of ten children, who grew up on a farm in County Cork. Ingrid came from a farming community outside of Stockholm. Both had started weaving on their mothers’ looms when they were quite young. They both loved to dance and enjoyed the parties and gatherings organized by the housekeepers Mr. And Mrs. Barnett.

The boarding house was three stories high, with the Barnetts and help living on the first floor, and the men living on one floor and the women on another. Many of the female workers came seasonally from surrounding towns, and were much younger than their male counterparts, The men were almost all immigrants and generally had  “skilled” positions at the mill.

One of the things that endeared the Barnetts to the boarding house occupants was their friendly nature, and their encouragement to share the customs and traditions of their homelands. Just a few weeks earlier, on Dec. 13, Ingrid had celebrated St. Lucia’s Day.

St. Lucia feast honors the saint, who, according to legend brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the catacombs using a candle lit wreath to light her way, thereby leaving her hands free to carry as much food as possible.

Brigid had helped Ingrid create a wreath of candles for her to wear and together they baked the traditional cookies and buns to serve to the other boarders.

Ingrid had shown the women in the boarding house how to make the traditional red and white heart baskets. Given the weaving and hand skills of the women, it wasn’t long before elaborate patterns were being tried. Hearts appeared on the Christmas tree set up in the common room, as well as on mantle pieces and in many other parts of the house.

The St. Lucia evening of song, lights and goodies, served the same purpose as it did in Sweden, a bright spot at the darkest time of the year. And there was more to look forward to as the Barnetts promised the girls that the Christmas party, which would take place Christmas night, would be filled with “music, mimickry, and games.”

Ingrid could tell by the stars starting to appear that it would soon be time for dinner and then the walk to church. She needed to get back to the boarding house to complete one very important part of her Swedish Christmas traditions. She had to take care of the Tomte.

Tomte are Swedish gnome like creatures who are responsible for the protection and welfare of the home and farm. Often described as an older, little man about the size of a young child, he wears ragged clothes, usually gray or navy, and sports a bright red cap on his head. Tomte require very little of the humans they work for, only their respect and trust and a bowl of julegrøt (Christmas porridge) with butter on Christmas Eve. Ingrid’s mother had taught her that the spirits would not remain in a home where respect is lacking and thus the home would be reduced to poverty.

As a young child, Ingrid had lay in her bed on Christmas Eve and heard the Tome eating his Christmas porridge. When she rushed into the kitchen to catch a glimpse of him, the kitchen was empty but the porridge bowl was empty. 

Ever since, Ingrid made sure she made the Tomte’s porridge and left it where he could easily get it. This year, she had talked to the Barnetts about the Tomte, and while they seemed amused at her need to make the porridge, they suggested she place the bowl on the dinning room table since people were generally not in that room except for meals and he could eat undisturbed.

The night was particularly cold and their breath hung in the air as they walked down the road to the Stone Church. Jon had seemed very strange at dinner. He hardly talked and would barely look at her. Had she done something wrong?

What had started out as a day of such promise, was ending on a sad note for Ingrid. She thought of Jon as someone more than just a friend from the “old country.” Clearly she was wrong.

Before going to bed, she checked to make sure the Christmas porridge was in place for the Tomte, and then proceeded upstairs to her room, where Brigid was already sleeping.

She wanted to just cry but didn’t for fear of waking Brigid. It was with a lump in her throat and teary eyes that she finally fell asleep.

The next thing she new, the sun was streaming in her room and Brigid was shaking her. “Wake up, wake up! You’ve got to go downstairs and see what that Tomte did.”

“What are you talking about?” said Ingrid. “An empty bowl is an empty bowl.”

Brigid wasn’t going to take no for an answer regardless of how Ingrid protested, so it wasn’t long before Ingrid was dressed and heading downstairs. There on the dinning room table was the empty porridge bowl. Well it wasn’t exactly empty. Yes, the porridge was gone but in its place something glittered.

Ingrid was confused as Tomtes never left anything. In the empty bowl lay a shinning simple ring, with a note Vill du gifta dig med mig? (Will you marry me?) “A Tomte wants to marry me?” thought Ingrid for a moment. Then she realized the note was from Jon.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jon standing in the doorway looking at her. She immediately turned and said, “Yes!” He told her later that he didn’t know how to ask her to marry him and it was really bothering him. When he saw her leaving the bowl of porridge he had an idea,  “I thought the Tomte could do the asking for me,” he said.

There was never a Christmas before or after, that was filled with such excitement, sadness and ultimately joy.

Jon and Ingrid were married in Cavendish in late winter. In the early summer, they boarded a train and moved to Minnesota, where they would raise a family and every Christmas, when they set out the bowl of Christmas porridge for the Totme, they would retell their engagement story.  

About this Story

Jon Larson/Lauren: While this is a work of fiction, it is based on the life of Jon Larson who came to Cavendish to work in the mills. His descendants contacted the Cavendish Historical Society the summer of 2018 looking for information.

He was part of a Swedish mill family and it appears he came to work in the Fitton Mill most likely as a skilled operator. He was only in Cavendish a short while, just long enough to meet and marry another Swedish mill worker. They left Cavendish and moved to Minnesota. Larson’s name was Americanized along the way to Lauren.

 Spring Mill, also called Fitton’s Mill, started operation in 1867. Located on the Black River near the Cavendish Gorge, it was the largest mill in the area, employing farmers and their families, along with immigrants from England, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. The Mill complex included tenement houses as well as a boarding house.

A short lived operation, the mill burned in 1875 and when two other Fitton buildings burned later, it was suspected that the mill owner, Robert Fitton, had committed arson to collect the insurance. According to the New York Times, Oct. 23, 1875, “The failure of Robert Fitton, woolen manufacturer, proprietor of the Spring Mills at Cavendish, Vt., is occasioning no little excitement in the wool trade of this city. His Boston indebtedness is quite large, the result mainly of purchases of wool in this market. The total liabilities are about $140,000.”

Cavendish Stone Church: Built in 1844, the abolitionist Rev. Warren Skinner, laid the corner stone and preached the first sermon at the Cavendish Universalist Church. The church was decommissioned in 1966 and was leased to CHS in 1971. In 2013 the church was deeded to the town of Cavendish, and leased to CHS. It is the future home of the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn permanent exhibit and is currently being renovated.

Boarding Houses: In order to attract workers, particularly farm girls, mills would operate boarding houses that were run by housekeepers. As noted in the story, the single girls would live on one floor, single men on another, while the first floor, would include a common area, kitchen dinning room, and living quarters for the housekeepers and other help. It was in the mill owner’s best interest to run a good boarding house so farmers would trust that their daughters would be safe. According to the Cavendish registry from the 1870s, there was more than one marriage between mill workers, including one between a Norwegian “mill operator” and a local Cavendish woman.

Woven Heart Baskets: The classic red and white woven heart baskets are very popular throughout Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The origins of the heart basket are unknown but by 1860, the famous Danish writer, Hans Christian Anderson, was making them and it wasn’t long before they spread throughout Scandinavia. This is a good website for template and directions for making a woven heart.

St. Lucia’s Buns: Try the King Arthur recipe for St. Lucia Buns. 

Yule Goat: To celebrate the winter solstice, for hundreds of years, people in northern Europe had big festivals called Yule. Those traditions became part of Christmas celebrations in places like Sweden. One of those traditions was the Yule goat. In Sweden, as part of an ancient midwinter celebration called the juleoffer (“Yule sacrifice”), a man dressed in goatskins and carrying a goat-head effigy portrayed one of Thor’s goats. He was symbolically killed but returned to life exactly as the sun does at Yule. Through the years, the Yule goat became a benevolent being, and people dressed as the Christmas julbock traveled door-to-door distributing small gifts to the families they visited. Today throughout Scandinavia, the Yule goat is made of straw and adorns many Christmas trees. There is even one town in Sweden, Gavle, where a town celebrates the start of the Christmas season by putting up a giant straw statue of a goat. Then they wait—and sometimes even bet—on whether the goat will make it to Christmas, since every year someone tries to burn down the goat. In the past 50 years, the Gävle Yule goat has been destroyed 35 times!