I interviewed Floyd Bolin at his home in Alexandria, Minnesota, in May, 2003. He was 94 years old at the time, slight of build, ramrod straight, a little hard of hearing, and funny. I was a few minutes early when I arrived for the first of my two interview sessions with him. I rang the doorbell and got no answer. I knocked loudly and got no answer. The door was not locked so I opened it and called Floyd's name and got no answer. I stepped into the house a couple of steps, far enough to see Floyd in the living room, tipped back in his recliner, a blanket on his lap, his eyes closed, an alarm clock on the blanket. "Floyd," I said, "it's Tom Montag." Floyd opened his eyes, looked at me, looked at his alarm clock, and said, "Tom, you're a few minutes early. You'll have to go away and come back at 4:00 p.m." That's the sense of humor Floyd has, and that quick. My thanks to Ione Jensen and the Douglas County Historical Society for this transcription.
Vagabond: We’re interviewing Floyd Bolin in his home on Irving Street in Alexandria, Minnesota on May 21, 2003. I think Floyd has had an interesting life cobbling together all sorts of pieces of equipment to do whatever needed to be done. We will get into some of that. We’ll start with his family history, his life story, the condition of the small town, the character of the people in this interview. Let’s start with your family history. How did you get here?
Floyd: My father was born in Sweden. My grandfather was from the east side of Sweden and my grandmother happened to be from the west side and actually in Sweden that divides the best dialect from the worst. My father’s was a nice refined diction. He didn't stay there very long where they had the more refined diction, but he never did acquire that dialect my mother had. She came from that other side of Sweden.
Vagabond: With the harsher sounding language.
Floyd: You had the language at the best and the worst in that family of ours. But actually at home the harsher one took over because the mother in the family usually is the one who engineers association. So I became a guttural speaker from when I was little.
Vagabond: Now, where were you born?
Floyd: I was born in Alexandria in a home, on the farm where people were born by midwife in those days. This wife of an uncle of my dad’s, she was a midwife for the community. She was the attendant for my birth.
Vagabond: Why did your parents come to America?
Floyd: Well, my father came in 1895 and my mother was born here. She came with that other family, the Johnson party. The Johnson family where my mother was became connected more with Nelson, the little town of Nelson and Alexandria. It was just on the other side of Lake Geneva out here. But my dad, he was south of Carlos two and a half miles.
Vagabond: Where the farm was?
Floyd: Where the Linger family was, his uncle.
Vagabond: Now you call it the Linger family and yet your name is Bolin.
Floyd: You see actually our name in Sweden was Kaalbech. That’s on the cemetery markers in Sweden. That’s on my father’s side. Where my grandmother was that was, let’s see now. How to explain that. Their name was Johnson.
Vagabond: Now, some in the family are called Lingers and some are Bolins?
Floyd: I think we should step back a little there, because there was two of that family that came here together, Pete and Lars. Now they went to the immigration service in Sweden and reported to them and got their papers for immigration. When they brought this, they asked them what the name was. Well, the name was Kaalbech but in those days, you probably already know, they would change their name when they came to America. Most of them did. That happened because there were so many Andersons, Petersons, Olsons, and Johnsons there. So they began to change their name. Our name didn’t need changing but they did it anyway. Because it was kind of the style to change the names. And I wish to this day they would have kept the name the way it was on the markers there, Kaalbech. A nice name. I haven’t found it any phone book anywhere in this country. We would have had an exclusive. Of course, in a way, we did anyway. There weren’t very many Bolins but there are lots of them now. I don’t know if that was a derivative of Bolin or not. But you see, now I have to go back to when my grandfather Pete and his brother Lars. Pete and Lars came together. When they came to sitting down and getting ready to go to America, they wanted to take that name Bolinger. Well, they just wanted to change the name. The immigration service informed them that Bolinger was not available, because it was a commercial name, and it still is to this day. They’re a big manufacturing concern. They had a copyright to that name. So then they said, what are we going to do? One of them got the wise idea to divide the name – one wold take Linger and the other would take the first part and be Bolin. So my grandfather got the front end, Bolin, and my dad’s uncle got the back end, Linger. The two men came over together, side by side, needing to acquire some land. One was Linger and one was Bolin.
Vagabond: Brothers with different names. Okay, now that was in which township then? Up towards Carlos?
Floyd: Carlos Township.
Vagabond: And they farmed there. And your father was born there?
Floyd: No, he was born in Sweden. When my grandfather Pete and Lars immigrated.
Vagabond: And your father had already been born?
Floyd: He was born over there but it was not a marriage; it was one of those quickies that go on to this day in Sweden. Sweden, I think, invented that. They were pretty friendly over there. So both of Pete’s kids were born out of wedlock. One was named John, that was my dad, and the other was Peter.
Vagabond: They came with him to America?
Floyd: They came with my grandfather Pete.
To be continued....
Enjoying your interviews with Floyd Bolin who is my deceased father's nephew (half-nephew) - which makes Floyd my great half-uncle or cousin? (My grandfather is Peter Bolin. )It's so confusing with all the name changes, etc. Just wanted to let you know that throughout the interviews where the last name appears as "Linger", it is actually "Linder." Thanks again for allowing me to learn some family history.
Rhonda Klein
Posted by: Rhonda (Bolin) Klein | August 21, 2005 at 05:36 PM
Rhonda, thanks so much for stopping, and for commenting. And thanks for the correction re. Linger/Linder. I will correct this in future uses of the interview!
Posted by: Tom Montag | August 24, 2005 at 07:43 AM