I was born April 21, 1938. My fathers business did not go well as rubber wheels entried the market and no one wanted to repair their old wooden wheels anymore. This led to that he gave up is business as wheelwright in Kastrup and was hired at Gram sawmill. After my grandmother died in 1940 we moved to Hindballe between Gram and Rødding, in the appurtenant buildings in Jacob Andersens farm.
My sister Gurli was born June 13, 1941, which I of course cannot recall, but i remember getting a baby brother at my five-year birthday. Hans Peter was born April 20, 1943 the day before. He was christened in Rødding parish church and we drove by horse carriage. I could not understand though, why he wasn't christened in the fine nice church (the new-congregation church).
During the war my father had approx. 100 rabbits. He sold some and we ate a lot, I guess it was cheap meat in war time. He also grow tobacco plants, but only for own use. We had a goat, but I disliked goat milk. Occassionally, I had to pull it in for the night, but when we got to the shed, the goat pulled me into the dunghill.
IMG: Me at 3 years old
The house we lived in was very cold and humid. It was heated by a heating stove and the stove only; thus, it was only warm in two places. We moved to Gram in 1943. We lived in a small flat on 1st floor on a closed down farm. We did not have water or any drain in the flat, so all water had to be carried up and down by my mother. That must have been quite tough with three small children.
My mother learned to sew on a course during a year and started sewing for people. That gave her the opportunity to stay home while working together with us children. We had to take of our boots in the barn and one morning when I picked up my boots I found a mouse in one of them. I had nightmare over that.
I had to start school in April 1945, but had to wait till after summer holiday as the school was occupied by the German forces.
In 1947 my parents bought a large lot on Østerled. As a starting point my father built a workshop with pigsty and we got ourselves a pig, that we slaughtered at Christmas. We did not have freeze those times so everything from the pig must be boiled or salted and almost all houses had salt cellar for salting the meat. Slauther a pig was a big job and it did not taste that well either.
The year after we built a house financed by labour-loan, but one of the conditions implied that the 1st floor had to be left unhabitable the first years. Even if we all lived in the ground floor, we still had a lot more space than we were used to. We got a nice large garden and we found a lot other children in the neighbourhood to play with.
IMG: Gurli, Hans Peter and Christa
y father fitted out a workshop in the basement where he work almost all his spare time. He made furniture and kitchen for people as well as almost all our Christmas presents. He rarely took his time off. He loved Christmas time and allways hided the Christmas tree for us, so it was not revealed to us before lit.
As soon as we were allowed to fit out the 1st floot, my father started working on it. We rented it to a young couple some time, but not for long as it had no shower and the toilet was in the basement. We did not get a toilet until I moved from home, so it we used the washbasin and when we once a month had washing day we boiled hot water and all were washed in the basin one by one, my father as the last one. The wash boiler was a large kettle set in the wall and could be used to washing or slaughtering.
In the house on Østerled road was not wealthy, our furnish in the livingroom was an old dinner table, 4-6 chairs and a divan. We heated by heating stove and stove in the kitchen, and the other rooms were not heated at all. Over times we got more and better furniture, actually most people saw progress the following years after the war.
The best thing we knew as children was when coming home from school in the winther time and occassionally had save money for a cream cake. That was really cozy. It did not happen often, as we got very little money and no regular pocket money.
When I turned 12 years old I joined the YWCA girlscouts and that was a nice time. We went on summer outings and trips, mostly by bicycle and it was great fun visit a summer cottage in Djærnes for the weekend. One year I joined a national camp on Sealand, the largest camp ever in Denmark joining more that 8,000 scouts. That is not a lot compared to the present camps. Once we in bivouac in Gram forrest, i.e. we built huts of sticks and stayed over the night in the forrest. The boy scouts found out and they planned to scare us while sleeping. They succeeded as they woke us in the middle of the night having set up a lit hollowed pumpkin in one of the trees. We were scared to death.
While we were children we often visisted my aunt in Tirslund on vacation. It was on a farm and we enjoyed staying there. We found elder cousins who spoiled us younger kids. I also visisted my grandparents almost every summer. The lived in appurtenant buildings just next to the farm. Also here we found a lot of cousins and we had great fun.
Once, when my sister Gurli and I were on vacation at my grandparents, we had and argue with our grandmother. We were problably 13 and 15 year old, and told grandmother that we did not want to stay there anymore. As it turned darker we started to be anxious, but we decided stubborn to continue. When we finally arrived home our parents were sleeping and we had to throw grit on the windows to wake them up. The were at bit astonished to see us, but I don't recall that they were angry with us. Later I have thought about our grandparents situation. Oh my, they must have been concerned as they could not call my parents to confirm if we made it home.
Together with the school i visited Copenhagen and that was a great experience. I had never been in a greater city than my hometown Gram, which was really small. We saw a lot in Copenhagen and visited Tivoli gardens. We also had a teacher from the island of Bornholm and he felt so proud of his home district, that he arranged a trip to Bornhold. Actullay, we were the first class from the school to visit Bornholm and it was very exciting to see the cliff island and visiting the teachers old school.
IMG: Gurli, Christa, Margit and Hans Peter
We got ourselves a baby sister Margit in 1951, so now we were four children. When my mother started working again (the maternity leave was quite short those days), she woke up very early in the morgen, as she had to start work at the carpet factory at 7 am, but before leaving she had to dress up Margit and pack her stuff. Then we pushed the baby carriage to the family that nursed her, before proceeding to the school. So we better toke care not falling asleep againg.
We had some lovely friends on the street we were living, and we always helped each other out when less exciting work had to be done. In the spring we had to peel sprouts of the portatoes and it was tedious to sit alone in the basement doing that. Instead we joined each other and peeled potatoes from one place to another while singing and telling each other stories. Then, the work was a lot more pleasing for all of us.
In the autumn holiday we drove by the farms and picked-up potatoes on the fields. We earned $1,5 for one afternoons work and did not stop working before it was too dark (Denmark is located at same latitude as Alaska; thus, summer evenings are very bright). We had a lovely childhood, allthough we was not wealthy, we did not have any shortage of anything.