Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [3]
During this research I discovered a refreshing image that symbolizes the new scholarship emerging on previously neglected women. When Norwegian artist Aasta Hansteen came to America, she was enchanted with the sunflower image that some early American feminists used as a symbol of a woman’s claim to light, and air, and an optimistic spirit. She introduced this symbol on her return to Norway, and the Norwegian Feminist Society adopted it as their official symbol right about the time of Helga’s walk. Helga’s courageous story, once shrouded in silence, now can be linked with other women’s stories emerging in a new American history, a history open to giving light and air to the many voices in our land. My hope is that Bold Spirit contributes an enduring remnant that reflects the irrepressible spirit, intelligence, and abundant love for family and America that Helga Estby’s adventurous life illuminates.
—Linda Lawrence Hunt
INTRODUCTION
Eight-year-old Thelma Estby, bewildered by the sudden death of her father from meningitis, moved to her Grandma Helga Estby’s home in Spokane, Washington, in 1924. Living with her beloved grandma was the one comfort in her new life as she adjusted to a strange school and unfamiliar neighborhood. The child sensed that her grandma understood how much she missed her dad. Sometimes Thelma and her grandma Helga rocked on the porch swing that her grandpa Ole built. Then, grandma told stories of what Thelma’s father, Arthur, was like as a young boy living on the Estby’s farm at Mica Creek, southeast of Spokane, Washington. Thelma loved hearing these stories, their lively memories easing the empty loss she felt. But more often the grandmother and grandchild sat in companionable silence as little Thelma grieved the loss of her dad, and Helga grieved the death of her fifth son. They found warmth and joy in each other, drawn together to relieve the sorrow surrounding them both. Even the scent of her grandmother’s Azure of Roses perfume comforted her.1
Thelma thrived on the special attention her grandmother gave her. Even at sixty-four years, with a crippled knee, Helga Estby loved to be on the go. When her small widow’s pension arrived each month from Ole’s trade union death benefit, Helga took Thelma on a trolley ride over the Spokane River to downtown. Often they watched Spokane Falls tumble over the basalt rocks, enchanted with its beauty and power, and then paused at the water’s edge to feed scraps of stale bread to the ducks. Usually they stopped at the stately Crescent department store where Helga found colorful fabrics, threads, ribbons, and buttons to make special clothes for Thelma and her dolls. Sometimes they strolled uptown past the twin towers of Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, which Ole helped build, and continued down through the stately tree-lined streets of Browne’s Addition. Here the turn-of-the-century mansions and formal gardens spoke of a world of wealth unfamiliar to the farm child more at home with wheat fields and sunflowers. To Thelma’s surprise, many fashionably dressed women in this prestigious neighborhood seemed to know her grandmother and spoke to her with respect. They were obviously interested in Helga’s thoughts and friendship, something Thelma also noticed among Norwegian-American women in their own middle-class neighborhood on Mallon Street.2 On summer days, they joined the throngs of people riding the carousel at Natatorium Park or rode the train east to Lake Coeur d’Alene where Helga visited a friend from her earlier work in the women’s suffrage movement.
Thelma Estby, mid-1920s, Spokane, Washington.
Courtesy Portch/Bahr Family Photograph Collection. Detail of this photograph on page xxiv.
If daytime gave Thelma fun adventures with her grandma, nighttime gave her an abiding sense of security in her grandma Helga’s faith. Helga loved to read, and Thelma liked climbing under the quilt in her grandma’s pine