6. Olof Swensson Farm Museum

Olof Swensson Farm Museum
Very Special Place!!! It was my Great Grandfather's home...my Dad's Grandfather. Visited there many Sundays as a child...fascinated with all the cats, the old kitchen stove, I remember my mother would cook a delicious Sunday dinner and bring to share with Uncle John, Aunt Christine and Aunt Emma. We would eat Sunday dinner in the kitchen....I remember the smells of the farm while we were eating especially in the summertime with the screen door open. After dinner my sister Nancy, and twin brother Mark and younger brother Jim would run outside all around the farm. In the winter we would play the two pump organs...be in awe of the old fashion phonogragh...sit around the coal burning furnace..listening to adult conversations about National Geographic magazines, politics, religion, We would admire the Great Aunts' plants. Aunt Emma's African Violets were Amazing!!! Aunt Emma was a Sunday School teacher at the little country church down the road. Aunt Emma always wanted to be a missionary. My parents always said my sister Nancy was like Christine and that I was like Emma. I enjoy plants very much, my sister and I both play piano and organ. I spent 12 yrs. as a professional seamstress in NJ. Amazing isn't it... that Great Aunt Christine and Emma were Amazing seamstresses and did needlework that in today's era would be considered "Fine Works of Art"!!! I remember one very Special occasion when the ballroom on the second level was used on a very Beautiful summer day. At other times we were only in the kitchen, parlor and hallway with the organs, as Uncle John and Aunt Christine and Emma grew elderly. In retrospect they were amazing, intelligent, creative hardworking people, not afraid to think or do the Impossible. I visited the museum in 1993. It was an Amazing experience for me. When the visitors became aware that I was Martha's Granddaughter they all wanted to shake my hand. Some with tears in their eyes told me how that house gave them Hope when circumstances in their life had led to great despair. It was so fun to share my experiences with them of time spent as a child!!! They looked at the family portrait and said to me you have your Grandmothers' eyes. My Grandmother was the only one to marry and leave the farm...a very courageous woman indeed...I was named after my Grandmother. So you see...this particular place is very Special to me...for it is part of who I am...and anyone who knows me, knows that I am not afraid to think or do the Impossible because of my Great Heritage and Faith in an All Powerful God!! For this I give Thanks! Marcia