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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Elenore Margrette Carlson: Birth: 22 Jun 1914 in Cromwell Township, Burleigh, North Dakota, USA. Death: 15 Sep 1916 in Bismark ND

  2. Leonard Milton Carlson: Birth: 22 Dec 1915 in Cromwell Twsp, Burleigh, North Dakota, USA. Death: 24 Apr 1999 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

  3. Lenore Carlson: Birth: 3 Dec 1917 in Cromwell Twsp, Burleigh, North Dakota, USA. Death: Dec 1977 in Seattle, King, Washington, USA

  4. Richard Alfred Carlson: Birth: 25 Sep 1919 in Cromwell Twsp, Burleigh, North Dakota, USA. Death: 17 Nov 1950 in Seattle, King, Washington, USA

  5. Person Not Viewable

  6. Melvin Merl Carlson: Birth: 15 Jun 1923 in Cromwell Twsp, Burleigh, North Dakota, USA. Death: 27 Apr 2004 in , , Mississippi, USA


Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Person Not Viewable


Sources
1. Title:   Funeral Program
2. Title:   1930 US Federal Census
Page:   Roll 2491; Page 12B; District 364
3. Title:   Social Security Index

Notes
a. Note:   e farm crews while very young. She married aScandanavian by the name of Carlson. At some point she moved into theMandan/Bismark area of North Dakota. Later she divorced Carlson andmoved to Washington State with her children. As best I can learn,Carlson was a drunkard and may have been extremely hard to live with.
  She met my father, John von Gohren, in a lumber camp, probably in SkagitCounty. She was cook and dad operated the logging train. I know littleof her life until we were living on Rose Hill east of Kirkand in KingCounty. Dad had built the house on about three acres. There was a woodcook stove in the kitchen and a pot bellied stove in the parlor. Therewere three bedrooms. Lenore and Marge shared one and Len, Mel and Dickslept in the other. I have no idea where I slept. Water was pumped byhand from the well and there was an outhouse. I remember when Sears,Roebuck started printing their catalog with slick pages!
  Mother cooked and baked for the family. They kept chickens for thetable, raised vegetables and had other enterprises. Baths were onSaturday night and mine was in a copper boiler heated with water from thestove. A wooden ice box was on the side porch and there was a earthenpartial basement for storage. Peaches, apricots, pears, peas, stringbeans and corn were canned as well as preserves put up each year. Allhands were expected to pitch in with picking, cleaning, shelling, etc.Lela cooked at the Dinner Bell cafe on the corner across from the ferryterminal in Kirkland for a period of time. On those occasions when wehad visitors, my place was on a straight chair by the wall and I wasadmonished to speak only when spoken to. "Little children were to beseen and not heard." I was six when we moved to Seattle.
  On occasion, I would go with her into Seattle. We would take the ferryfrom Kirkland to Madison Park, the streetcar on to downtown Seattle. Shewalked fast and it was hard for me to keep up with her. Our tripsusually included a visit to the Pike Place Market where she might visit afavorite fortune teller.
  I was in kindergarten in early 1939 when I learned that she was taking mewith her to visit my dad where he worked at a gold mine near Livengood,Alaska. We left by steamer up the inside passage. Lela became veryseasick and stayed that way. I had the run of the ship.
 It was a very memorable trip. In Seward, we caught a train to Fairbanksthat went through Anchorage. It was a two day trip and the night wasspent at a wooden two story hotel in Curry. A feature of the train tripwas "The Loop". This was a wooden trestle that curved back on itself sothat the train passed beneath the first part of the trestle. Thisfeature no longer exists I'm told.
  In Fairbanks we were met by one of the employees of the mine. Wedeparted on a one lane track, with pull offs for encounters with othervehicles. This ran on for 90 miles through spectacular scenery toLivengood. I remember being quite apprehensive because there were noguard rails and the winter snow and ice had not yet entirely disappeared.Livengood had been a thriving metropolis at the turn of the centuryduring the height of the gold rush but now had only five year-rounddwellers. At the Olive Creek Mine, we lived in a large white tent with awood floor. The refrigerator was an apple box in the ground (permafrost)with a burlap sack cover. My days were spent watching the miningoperation and short explorations. Since bears were a constant potentialmenace, these were not too extensive.
  At some point I must have become severely bored with this life and Leladecided that I needed to return to civilization. We reversed our journeyto Seattle, probably in July or August of 1939.
  In Seattle, Lela rented a house near downtown on Capitol Hill. We latermoved into the University District where we lived in several differentrentals in the 4400 blocks of streets between Wallingford Ave. and theUniversity of Washington. Near the end of WWII, probably in 1943/44, myparents bought a house at 902 N. 80th St. Mother set about creating avegatable garden there. At some point she trained as a spotter for a drycleaning firm and worked in that capacity. She also became a salesperson in the fine china department at Frederick and Nelsons, a goodSeattle department store that was later purchased by Marshall Fields ofChicago.
  Apparently, somewhere about this time, she developed intestinal orstomach cancer which was successfully treated by radiation therapy. Herdaughter Marge says the she had had two episodes of cancer but I wasnever told anything about either. I do know that she was one tough lady.
  The house was sold in 1946, and a house with five acres was bought onLarch Way across the road from Martha Lake. Mother then took me with heron a trip, mostly by Greyhound and Trailways, to visit in Carthage,Watertown, Washington DC where Dick was working, in Kissimmee, Floridawhere Len and Anita were, and in Vicksburg, Mississippi with Mel andMarge. After that summer trip, we moved into the home on Larch Way nearAlderwood Manor. Lela continued to work at Frederick and Nelsons in thechina department. From time to time she would treat herself to a singlebone china cup and saucer with a floral pattern. It is amazing when Ithink about it. I believe that dad would drive her to Highway 99 whereshe would catch a bus into Seattle in the mornings. Returning in theevening, I know that she would walk from Highway 99 all of the way home,a distance of over three miles. Then she would make dinner!
  I graduated from high school in 1950 and lived at Larch Way from time totime. I boarded for one quarter, rented with a another for six monthsand the rest of the time was at a fraternity. Mom and Dad sold Larch Wayin my final year at the U of W and bought about a mile west of theUniversity just north of 45th Street. I remember that Dad did not want aTV but mother did. She let me trade her unused mangle for a black andwhite TV by Zenith just when the first color TVs were appearing. Theyboth really enjoyed that TV.
  I went off to the Air Force after graduation and mom and dad moved toSpokane after dad reached social security age of 65. They had anarrangement to live with Marge and her husband Ken in a new house onBriarcliff Drive. This did not work so they bought a place of their own.I know little after this as I was in the Air Force. I did visit whendad was hospitalized with his stroke. Dad told me that he wanted toleave the hospital and go home. Mother was very disturbed when I relatedthis to her. It may have been this distress that triggered the strokefrom which she died.
  I also remember a few trips with mother to visit her mother who was in anursing home in Port Orchard, Washington. These required us to take theferry from Seattle to Bremerton and then a smaller passenger boat to PortOrchard.
Note:   Lela was born into a farming community in Iowa. She related tales ofhaving to cook for larg


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