Sophie (Dalager) Ogdahl: Good years remembered

The following are memories of Sophia and Theodore by Wanda Megers Wagner. Wanda is the daughter of Willy Dalager who is Sophia’s half brother.

As a young person Wanda worked as a hired girl for aunt Sophia Ogdahl. Sophia had the fanciest home that Wanda had seen at that time because she had a chandelier. The house also had a back stairway and a front stairway. Wanda was Sophia’s hired girl and therefore worked in the house. She would set the table at night with all the plates up side down so no ‘critters’ would get on the plates. That is what Sophia told Wanda. There was a ‘dumb’ waiter in the house. After the meal Wanda had to put the butter, milk, and everything that needed to be cool on the ‘dumb’ waiter. It was then lowered to the basement, which was cooler in the summer. The table was usually set for four, which would be for Aunt Sophia, Uncle Theodore, Wanda, and one hired man. All of the boys were gone. Theodore and Sophia had been married for 30 to 35 years and they were still on the farm.

Wanda said that Sophia could fry the best eggs. She would swirl them around in the pan and then with a flip of the pan, she would turn them over so that the eggs were fried on both sides, “over easy’.

Sophia dressed well and always wore a fancy hat. Wanda was about 12 or 13 years when she worked for Sophia. She thought Sophia was really a neat person.

One of Wanda’s daily duties was to wash the cream separator. One of the hardest jobs for Wanda was to wash clothes. Sophia did not have any of the newer washing machines and washed clothes by hand on the scrub board. Wanda remembered that her parents had a gasoline-operated washing machine but Sophia did not have one. Sophia and Theodore had their own 32-volt electric generating system but no washing machine. An electric system like this would only operate a few light bulbs.

Mrs. Norman (Alice) Ogdahl had the following memories of Sophie and the Ogdahl family. Alice said that Sophie would never sit down unless she had some handwork to do. Sophie would always give each family the same thing. If she was giving pillow cases, they all got the same gift. Sophie was an ambitious woman. She sold her had work and also exhibited it at the county fair. She always came back with first prizes.

Alice Ogdahl said that Sophie was good at selling and would have liked to have been a sales woman. However, she never got to be a sales lady because of the farm work and she was busy raising a large family.