This story begins in Norway. All four of my grandparents were born there, the
Refflings in Oslo, formerly known as Kristiania, the Hansens in Bergen, and the Swennes'
from a village of the same name. We don’t really know their actual name, as they took the
name of the home village when they came to America. Many immigrant families did this if
they had a very common name or if it was hard to pronounce.
The Reffling family lived in Oslo, where the father, Christopher was a tailor. His
wife, Pauline, and six children, Axel, Valborg, Ingeborg, Frithjof, Julia, Mary and according
to the Norwegian census of 1875, two housemaids, made up the family. Axel joined his
father in the tailoring business, where among others, they were tailors to the King.
In the early eighties, young Axel Reffling decided to seek his fortune and find
adventure in America. He found his way to Portland, Oregon in 1887, where he set up a
tailor shop on Alder Street, near S.W. Fifth, just a block from Meier and Franks, known as
"Borquist & Reffling, Men's Tailors." Later, the rest of the family came to join him and
they settled in a home in North Portland. Valborg Reffling, my grandmother, left the
family to go to New York where she joined her husband, Jacob Marinius Hansen. He was a
sailor in the Norwegian merchant fleet. We don’t know where or when they were married.
Their first child, my mother, Katherine Louise Hansen, was born in Brooklyn, New York,
February 26, 1888.
Shortly thereafter, they moved to a small farm in Pennsylvania. They had apple trees,
at least, on this farm. All her life, my mother was looking for apples like they grew in
Pennsylvania. They had a certain fragrance, which she always remembered and longed to
taste again. During their stay here, they had four more children. Christine Marie, Henry,
Violet and Jonine. Valborg died while giving birth in 1897, and the baby, Jonine, was
adopted by family friends, and later known as Ida Travis.
Jacob, alone with a crowd of four children under 9, took the family back to Oregon
to join the relatives there. He took a job with the Southern Pacific railroad, and moved to
Cottage Grove. He quickly found a new wife, my grandmother’s sister, Ingeborg, a very
practical move. The new wife produced two more children, Erling Kristofer and Margit.
This new mother thought their now really big family was more than she could handle. The
older children were sent to a “children’s home”, which I think meant orphanage. They were
poorly treated, all the way around. Their only joy was in the visits from their beloved
Bestemor [Norwegian for grandmother], Pauline Reffling.
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As soon as she was able, my mother left to find her own way in Portland. She helped
in the tailor shop and found jobs as a housemaid for several families and soon her dear
sister, and best friend, Christine, joined her. They had a nice social life with other
Norwegians, and it wasn’t long before she met a really nice guy – and handsome too! And
Tom Swennes enters the picture.
Thomas Prescott Swennes was born in Portland, May 15, 1881. His parents came from
Norway, too. His father, Thorvald Peder Swennes came from a small village south of Oslo,
near the fjord of the same name. He was born in 1852, and died in 1916. His wife, Marie
Grondahl, was from Trondheim, on the east coast, north of Bergen. Marie died when Tom
was only 18 months old, in 1883.
Thorvald then married Beathe Wetteland (circa 1887), and moved into a nice house on
S.E. 21st Street (which is still standing) and together they had Alf (1889). Beathe was not
cut out to be a stepmother. She dearly loved her baby boy, Alf, but poor Tom somehow
didn’t fit into her life. He ran away from her when he was in the seventh grade and that
was the end of his schooling. Although he did return to the family, he never returned to
school. Alf, on the other hand, was sent to Hill Military Academy, and then to college and
dental school. Tom, luckily, met a darling girl, with a family of sorts. They made a perfect
couple, each having shared the experience of a wicked stepmother. They were devoted to
each other and were married on March 10, 1909, in Portland, Oregon.
Tom joined the Portland Police Department, starting as a mounted patrolman,
eventually becoming Chief of Detectives. He spent 30 years there before retiring. Later,
he had another career at Willamette Hyster Co., which made lift trucks. He was head of
the security detail. This was during World War II and guards were necessary.
Tom and Katherine had four children, Karene Elizabeth, born May 14, 1910, Eleanor
Marie, born April 11, 1915, Gloria Gail, born May 15, 1922 (on Tom’s birthday), and Julie
Diane, born October 16, 1927. The family lived on 24th Street in Portland and the children
went to Kerns School until it burned down. Gail then went to Buckman, and Julie went to
Laurelhurst Grade School. We all went to Washington High School.
Karene attended Reed College and Eleanor, Oregon State College. Both had jobs to
help out with expenses, as it was the time of the Great Depression. They each were only
able to manage two years in college. Then, they found nice husbands and settled down to
motherhood and family life. With the improved economic outlook, I found a job at the
telephone company, working for a year before I went to school as Eleanor had done before
me at Oregon State College. Julie and I both managed to graduate from OSC, with
degrees in Home Economics.
Karene married Sidney Lathrop. They were the parents of Anne Sherring, Susan
Karen, and Thomas Pratt. Eleanor married Charles Sumner Hoskins, who always said he
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came from a long line of English butlers. This came up often when the talk began about all
the great Norwegians in our family and elsewhere. Eleanor (or Anne as he called her) had
two children, Katherine Hanna (named for her two grandmothers), and Peter Charles.
Gail married a sailor in the Merchant Marine, Raymond Herstil Collins. They had four
children in quick succession: Timothy Truman, born Christmas Eve, 1948, Nancy Allison,
born December 1949, Tobin Prescott, born May 1951, and Gail Meredith, born March 24,
1953. Seven years later, having just moved to Astoria, Joan Patricia was born in June
1961. They finally figured out what was happening.
Julie went to San Francisco after graduating and met Eugene Butler, an aspiring musician.
They were married and had three children: Diana Jonine, Jeannette Marie, (called Jennie),
and Katherine Anne, (Trina). The Butlers lived in San Francisco for a while, but finally
settled in Mill Valley, across San Francisco Bay in Marin County. They were later divorced.
Julie had a career as an advocate for the elderly, and later as a Nursing Home
Administrator. Her thirteen grandchildren were all bright and beautiful and well above
average.
NOW WE MOVE BACK IN YEARS…
In 1913, Beathe, Tom’s stepmother, had a generous moment, and gave my parents a lot
in Manzanita. She had taken it in as a bad debt. Tom and Katherine were thrilled and
promptly went there and set up a tent, with several friends who came to help. At the time,
they had only Karene who was just 3 years old and it wasn’t easy, without running water or
bathrooms. They carried buckets of water from the neighbors lucky enough to have a well,
and they dug a pit and built an outhouse. This was not uncommon for those days. No one
had running water (city water) until about 1940. And so it came to pass that our summers
were spent and Manzanita.
Mother’s sister, Christine, our Auntie Sissy, came up from her home in Berkeley, just
about every year. She was a big favorite of all of us, dearly beloved. We always looked
forward to her visits.
In time, the tent gave way to a shed. The shed gave way to a two-room cottage, built
by Tom and his friends, with a large sleeping porch across the back and a well with a pump
on the back porch (1921). This finally gave way to a complete remodel into a two-story
house with a bedroom down stairs and three more upstairs. And later, a real bathroom with
a shower and hot water was added (1940). Ah, how grand it was.
We spent every summer at the beach. I was only 6 weeks old when I began my first
summer there. My dad would pack up the old Model T, and later a Model A Ford and we
would leave the day after school was out for the summer. It took all day to get there. We
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would leave for home on Labor Day. We all loved it there, especially in our younger years.
Every day was spent playing on the beach every low tide digging for razor clams, or picking
muscles on the Big Rocks at Neahkahnie. Nearly every night we would go down to the
beach to watch the sunset, sometimes to have supper and a bonfire to roast marshmallows.
Always bringing the gunny sacks to carry home the driftwood that we burned in the
fireplace. In the school years, we often brought friends to stay with us. They stayed for
weeks, sometimes. That was fun, and I don’t remember my mother ever complaining. They
all fit right into the family and helped with what chores there were. Sometimes even their
families came. It was a good time, and I know now, just how special it was.
Manzanita, the house, my mother’s garden, the beach, all played a huge part in our
lives. In 1926, my mother, sisters and I spent the winter there. Karene went to Nehalem
High School, and Eleanor to the grade school. I was only 4 at the time, so my mother and I
did a lot of exploring in the sand dunes and around the town of Manzanita, hunting for
special pebbles and interesting driftwood on the beach and we read books as we waited for
daddy to come on the weekend. I remember one time he couldn’t come. I went to bed with
tears of disappointment, only to wake up later and hear snoring coming from their room,
and I went back to sleep happy. When I woke up it was big time disappointment. Our dog,
Honey, a big German shepherd, had climbed into bed with my mother, and she did what she
always did in her own bed, snore.
In 1932, when I was 10 and Julie was 5, we again spent the winter there. We went to
Pine Grove School. I was in the 5th Grade, and Julie in the 1st. The whole school consisted
of only two rooms. Grades 1-4 were in one room, and 4-8 in the other. I had 2 classmates
and Julie did too. Somehow, they made it work. I had a certificate that said I had a score
of 100% in a countywide spelling test. Eleanor and Karene were at home with our Daddy.
They came on weekends when they could, and we waited for them, counting the minutes,
listening for the car to stop in the road. Were we ever glad to see them! It was lonesome
without them, so weekends went fast and didn’t come soon enough. The big girls were in
High School and they had boy friends and activities they couldn’t miss and of course, Dad
sometimes had to work. It was a long year, but it was an interesting adventure in that
small school in this tiny town.
During all this time there have been births and deaths. As in every family, there has
been heartbreak and joy. Joy at the marriages of the four of us, and joy in the birth of 13
grandchildren. Katherine, our beloved Bestemor, (or Morney as my Timmy named her), died
of stomach cancer in 1956. She was 68 years old. Tome lived a lonesome life until he died
of heart failure in 1964. Now we start to loose the following generation. Eleanor died of
liver cancer, she was too young, only 67. Then Karene, was taken with breast cancer when
she was 80, and Julie at 66 also with breast cancer. Perhaps the most tragic was the death
of Karene’s beautiful daughter Anne. She died in a car accident when she was just 45.
So now I am the only one left. There is no one to check these facts and figures. I
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have tried to remember the interesting details, and the time and places on importance. I
wish I could write a book on this family. But unfortunately, I don’t do well at organizing
my thoughts. I don’t remember enough of the section on Outlines in English 101. Someday
I will try again, but for now take me as I am, with all my quirks and foibles, and misplaced
modifiers.
This is a good family. Good people whom I loved and whose memory I treasure more
than I can express. I hope that all who read this can count their own blessings, and be
grateful to these special people who came before them, and who gave them strength of
character, outgoing personalities, good will, and pride in our family.
These words come to you with love beyond measure.
Gail Swennes Collins
October 1, 2000
