The period between 1885 and the 1970s saw a spectacular upheaval in economics, science and political geography. But for certain segments of the social order, any changes were subtle and superficial.

While the political face of the world was being altered by the whims of power and the scientific community delved into the mysteries of Tutenkamens tomb and the myriad secrets of the atom, the unraveling of the true nature of who and what women are remained stagnated in the quagmire of hidebound tradition, medieval superstition and sexual imperialism.

When Annie Peterson was born, fifteen years before the turn of the 20th century, the place of women in our society was as rigidly controlled as it remains yet in many areas of our country. Rural Midwestern America was not an exception to that norm.

Annie was the eldest of six children born to Swedish immigrants Carl and Ingrid Peterson, who left their native home in Bleking to pursue a better life in this country. It would be difficult to say whether the life they found was indeed better, as existence in northern Wisconsin in the late 1800s and early 1900s was austere at best.

Annie was born at home, as were her brothers and sisters. The closest medical facility was more than 10 miles away and home birth was the common and accepted practice.

Her father, Carl, was a farmer, and a farmers life dictated the direction his children, especially his daughters, would take. In a region of the country with a less than hospitable climate, a short growing season and only the sweat of the brow and brawn of the horse team to make the soil bear fruit, children became not only helpers but economic necessities. They were expected to earn their keep.

Because of this, Annie only attended school through the sixth grade. As the oldest child, she became her mothers primary helper, a role that became more involved after the death of her father in 1898 when she was 13 years old.

The duties around the farm were divided strictly around gender lines. Girls were responsible for the prosaic tasks, more suited to their physical makeup and future responsibilities. They cleaned the house, tended the gardens, and fed and cared for the chickens and cows. The only exception to the latter was when bulls were brought in for stud. The female members of the family were excluded from witnessing or aiding in preparations for this function, a practice still not uncommon.

The son in the Peterson household was expected to share in the more manly chores and worked as a field hand. Although there was little or no glamour in following a team of horses to plow a field or clear land for planting, the aura of strength and productivity was accorded to the male of the species. The work of the women, on the other hand, was an adjunct to but not viewed as vital to the farm operation. This established role helped shape the future for Annie Peterson.

The town of Bennett, Wisconsn, where Annie grew up, is about 25 miles south of Duluth, Minnesota. In her early years, it might as well have been 250. Travel during the growing season was highly improbable and during the winter, next to impossible. The town and its activities was the center of her universe.

And it was a small universe. As a farming and logging community, grand parties and balls were not part of the social agenda. Most functions revolved around the church. Annie and her family were members of the Lutheran church and social contacts were made and moral values were developed within that framework.

At the local gatherings, activities tended to separate by gender. The women concerned themselves with talk of gardens, canning, children, household chores and the like. The men folk would congregate in one corner of the hall, confirming their manliness with discussions of crops, sports and possibly women, in that order of importance.

Perhaps it was a combination of her Sunday school lessons and the harshness of the Wisconsin outback that led Annie to adopt the Golden Rule as the guiding principle of her life. It was not only morally desirable to do right by your neighbor, but in many instances a matter of survival. Even in the application of the Golden Rule, there was a duality of function. When a neighbors house would burn down, not an uncommon occurrence, the men of the community would aid in the rebuilding while the women would prepare food to sustain them in their efforts. In the case of death, the women again served as caretakers for the families of the bereaved, while the men prepared the grave site and arranged transportation for the deceased and helped tend the farm until other arrangements could be made. The men did what was necessary; the women did those things that made life a little easier for them.

Annie, however, was never a strict conformist. Although she was Swedish and Luthern, she chose for her husband a French Catholic who was both younger and shorter than herself. The choice was not without its hazards. Hre widowed mother was opposed to the match and her brother and sisters aided in trying to dissuade the prospective groom by throwing rutabagas at him when he came to call. But Annie was staunch in her decision to marry Toots, and further alienated her family by abandoning the Lutheran faith to accept the Catholic religion of her husband. Happily, this was not a lifelong situation as mixed marriages became more common and acceptable.

Marriage and motherhood were but preordained steps down the road that destiny had forecast for her. They were not unwelcome, but rather anticipated and accepted as natural functions of her role as a woman of that time.

With the role of wife and mother, she also accepted the traditional duties of a farm wife and mother. Caring for children and home, planting and tending the gardens, canning, sewing and all the other little things that were considered to be womens work, were the essence of her life. Her husband, family and the farm were the primary focus of her life. While she found great satisfaction in that life, it was probably not totally fulfilling.

For the next 40 some years, Annies life in Bennett was little different from that of the other women of the town. Church socials, town dances, quilting and sewing bees, weddings, births, funerals and the raising of three children along with the routine chores of the farm kept her well occupied.

Eventually, changes did occur. The automobile, electricity, radio and the movies were exciting technologies that gave some, if not much mobility to the body and mind of the average small town resident.

A trip to the Tri-State Fair in Superior became an annual excursion.

Electricity, which was brought to the locale by the American Power and Light Company in 1929, brightened the nights in the town, although the full potential of this innovation was years in the coming. Radio became for Annie and her family what television is for the average family today. Amos n Andy and Jack Benny were regular Sunday evening guests in the Peterson household.

It was in the movies, though, that Annie found a hero. Clark Gable, to whom she would always refer as Clark, became her idol. He was to her, the essence of masculinity, the epitome of all that was good and gentlemanly. She often said he reminded her of her late husband, a fact that was lost on the perceptions of her grandaughter who made it a point to join her in attending all the Clark Gable movies that came to town.

Annie was widowed in 1934 and exercised the only option open to her by moving in with her son and his growing family. But at 45, Annie was too young and independent to be comfortable in the relatively sedentary and secondary role in the house of her son. She looked for and found work as a cook in a nearby sanitarium. It was work that well suited her background. She has spend a great part of her life in the kitchen and was ill prepared for any other type of employment. Her traditional background had insured this.

This background also placed limitations on employment possibilities when she moved to Duluth in 1949. At age 63, with experience as a farm wife, a cook and baker in a sanitarium, and a woman with a sixth grade education, she happily accepted work in a laundry as a presser.

The obligations to the family were still strong. While living in the city, she provided a home for her three granddaughters while they attended high school and college there. The local Bennett school provided education only from grades 1-10. Annie happily accepted the responsibility of providing a home away from home for her sons daughters while they pursued the educational opportunities she never had. Those special years with Gramma Annie were and still are treasured by all concerned.

After her granddaughters finished school in Duluth, Annie retired and went back to the farm where she was born where she lived with her younger sister, Ida.

The ladies, Annie who was 94 and Ida still a spry 88 years young, lived alone on the original farm homestead. There had been improvements made. They noe had indoor water, albeit only a pump handle over a kitchen sink. Other indoor plumbing was still lacking. The outhouse was down a sloping path on the way toward the now ramshackle barn. Annie negotiated that invigorating walk with the aid of a cane and a broom for support. A broken hip suffered in earlier years limited the work she could do outside. So Annie did the cooking and cleaning while her sister took care of the outside chores. Ida kept a loaded single shot .22 rifle behind the kitchen door to scare off the occasional bear or coyote who came to visit, and discourage unwanted visitors to their gardens.

The traditional neighborliness of the community is still evident. Friends and neighbors would still visit and Annie and Ida still enjoyed the church activities where they could sit and share gossip with the women while the men congregated at one end of the hall and talked about crops and sports and possibly women, in that order.

Was Annie the victim of a male dominated society? She would obviously have said no. She happily accepted her role as wife, mother, grandmother and worker with the graciousness that society had bred within her, just as she accepted the fate that nature demanded, her eventual death.

But unlike the inevitable events of nature, society could have offered her more. Such was not the way of the world in her time. Society had sealed her fate almost at the moment of her conception, confirmed it with her first breath, orchestrated it during the 94 years of her life and will be remain witness to the history of this great and much loved woman.