Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [73]
Helga Estby, bilingual since childhood, always loved reading a good book. During later years she wrote a memoir of her cross-continent adventures. Circa 1930s.
Courtesy Portch/Bahr Family Photograph Collection. Detail of this photograph on this page.
Because of the ways Helga’s story was silenced, whether from internal or external censure, her family never knew or valued the fullness of their mother’s life. However, even the family silencing failed to daunt her ongoing interest in the world around her, whether in marching for women’s rights, attending the theater, or joining the Sons of Norway. Nor did this stop her personal growth and desire to write her story, although she wrote it secretly. “Censorship silences,” states Tillie Olsen in her groundbreaking book Silences where she addresses the circumstances that often stifled acts of creation. She explores unnatural silencing, the thwarting of something that is struggling to come into being. “Where the gifted among women (and men) have remained mute, or have never attained full capacity, it is because of circumstances, inner or outer, which oppose the needs of creation.”19
THE IMPORTANCE OF STORY KEEPING
The six threads that contributed to muting this gifted woman’s story often surround the silencing of many family stories. For both internal and external reasons, Helga’s story was thwarted as she struggled to bring it into being. Helga’s adventurous and life-shaping journey was not a tragedy. But the loss of her story, destroyed forever with the flick of a match, is a great misfortune, not only for her family but for all persons interested in understanding more of American life during a significant transitional time in history. Helga must have experienced bittersweet memories as she composed her memoirs. How exciting it would be to read this original manuscript, to see through her lively intellect and courageous spirit the American life she and Clara encountered along their way. The silencing of this walk through the social, cultural, economic, and political as well as geographic landscape of late-nineteenth-century America means our country lost a sweeping eyewitness account of two women’s encounters with the humble and the famous amid the burgeoning cities and frontiers.
Although Helga never received the $10,000, walking across America infused her life with significant intangible rewards. Throughout the newspaper accounts, Helga conveyed to reporters a quiet confidence that their goal was possible, that they expected to be able to achieve what everyone else told her was impossible. She exuded the positive attitude, boldness, and courage that often characterizes leaders. Yet, she admits to discouragement after the grueling walk through the long distances, mountains, and deserts of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. She overcame the discouragement, exhaustion, and criticism for stepping beyond her cultural norm, enjoyed and learned from much of what she encountered. By putting feet to her faith that “all things are possible with God,” their arrival in New York confirmed this belief that was instilled during her childhood. According to her family, this vital faith proved to be a bedrock of strength, keeping her positively involved with life even while enduring the profound losses of six children, her husband, their beloved Mica Creek home, and her health before her death at eighty-one years old.
She also gained a lifelong love for America and appreciation for the kindness of the average men and women who live in this land. As she traveled the rails, Helga recognized the exaggeration of fears people held toward the unknown. She discovered the need to face down blind stereotypes and prejudices that limit individuals and the nation, whether her own earlier attitudes toward Native Americans and