My Grandpa, Oscar C. Eliason, passed away when I was 17, but I remember him as though it was only yesterday. When I think of him, I smell woodsmoke from his kitchen stove that helped warm his rural Minnesota home on 40 degree below zero days, and I can see his plaid flannel shirt that he always wore. I can still feel his soft, wrinkled cheek when I gave him a kiss as a child. He had the habit of patting you gently on the back to show his affection. We called those his “love pats.”
He had a Swedish lilt when he spoke until the day he died. He didn’t say Grandma’s name as “Norma”. It was Nord’ma. The flap “r” betrayed his Scandinavian roots. He came through Ellis Island as a boy and settled with his parents on a Minnesota homestead.
He learned English in the one room schoolhouse where all the blonde, Swedish immigrant children went. He nearly died from tuberculosis as a young man, but was healed miraculously after a humble minister came through the sanitarium, praying quietly for the sick. One lung had already collapsed and his brother had just died from the same illness.
He lived to write Gospel songs at the old upright piano in his living room. Cliff Barrows and the Billy Graham Crusade Choir sang one of them at a crusade in Minneapolis once. It was a thrill for him to hear the song, “A Name I Highly Treasure” sung by that huge choir. Even though he served as an evangelist and itinerant preacher in the Iron Range area, he was also a poet who wrote all kinds of verse, both funny and serious. He wrote “A Modernist Preacher Entering Hell” that made its way around the world.
Today, as his granddaughter, I remember him and honor his memory.
1 comment
October 9, 2007 at 12:44
Annette Harrison
Hi Ingrid . . .
I stumbled on this post after following your link to Adrian’s post today (10/8). I am the editor and research assistant to Adrian.
This is a wonderful post for me. I knew your grandfather via correspondence. That was many, many years ago now, and sadly, I eventually lost contact with him. But during the time I did correspond with him, he sent me quite a number of his musical compositions. I don’t even know as I write this whether I even have them any longer, but if my memory serves me correctly, they were written in his own hand.
Because of the length of time involved, I no longer remember much of what may have been said between us. But this I do remember. I was only a young woman, probably about 19 or 20 at the time, and that this man would take the time to write to me AND to share with me, a mediocre pianist, some of his wonderful music thrilled me and encouraged me. Now, many many years later, I was so happy to read something again of this wonderful man, who I had no idea was YOUR grandfather! You were indeed blessed!