Jim Tyberg, Tribe of Othelia

Jim Tyberg, Tribe of Othelia, 2015 contribution
It is a long time since I was sitting in the front row of Wood River Baptist Church with basically all of my Peterson cousins in the photo. You might remember that photo.

I continued to worship in that church for my first thirteen years, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night. So often the boundary between church and family was non-existent, and those in the church who weren’t technically a Peterson, were family as well. Although I am not a “musically gifted” Peterson as so many Petersons are, I so enjoyed the singing we did and how we called out our favorite hymnbook pages as Delroy invited our requests. 241, To God Be the Glory, and what number was Wonderful Grace of Jesus? My Sunday School teachers that I remember and so appreciated were LaVone, and Agnes, ok, shirt-tale relative Shirley Anderson, too, and Delmar will always be my pastor. I guess it also has to do with only being a child and growing up in that era, but what a blessing it was for me to learn all my values in such an unambiguous and loving context.

It was also a privilege to live on the Peterson homestead. I enjoyed hearing all the stories of how Grandm
a Hulda would stick a broomstick up through the hole in the kitchen ceiling, which would vent the heat to the upstairs bedroom, so she could wake Maurice and Delroy. There was the “dark room” upstairs that linked the north bedrooms with the south bedrooms and we would quickly go through that room that had no windows as we took a glimpse of a large scary photo of Grandpa Soderquist. This house was where Hulda was the hired girl and later married Otto. The creek would flood in the spring and tear away Williams Road and I heard stories of how Bill Wieser got washed away, but he then crawled out and still went to the cities to work. There was the quarter mile road going north to church, and I remember walking home from VBS one summer day, with Carol, Connie and Paul and seeing their dog Queenie inadvertently run over by Delmar. Then was the memory of the farm being referred to as the “Peterson place.” Maurice later told us stories of his walk to Midway School across the farm pasture. We thought of how I think it was either Maurice or Delroy who was crouched in a ditch as the tornado blew down the barn, and took the top off the silo, and set it on the hayrack. This is where mom and dad got married with squealing pigs in the background. This was where Peter (a future doctor?) led the barefoot cousins forming a train through the squishy barnyard, pulling cement blocks on twine ropes to make great paths. This was a place where I loved to take the tractor and trailer and hunt the “back forties” of the farm trying to find the hiding place where a cow had given birth. I would load her calf in the trailer, bring her back to the barn as she followed. This wasn’t a random boyhood farm.  Those 160 acres, the 10 room house, the old granary, sheds and barn, formed me, not only as Jim, but as a Peterson.

Mom was an incredible woman who should have been born several decades later. She could have taught at Bethel and how she would have loved to go to seminary to gain a greater understanding of the Word. Although she was an accomplished supervising teacher, a Sunday School teacher, and someone who would go and “give talks” I think I appreciate her especially for how she tangibly and resiliently cared for those who were having a rough time. Sometimes this was within the family, but generally it was for those who were marginalized. She was a strong woman, sometimes too blunt, but she found her strength and calling in the Lord.

Now an update on my family…

In 1963 when I was thirteen, mom, dad and I moved to Minneapolis, as dad needed to get off of the farm. We found a buyer for the farm when mom and dad placed an ad in The Standard. A family from Cambridge Baptist saw the ad and jumped at the opportunity to buy the Peterson farm. In the same issue of The Standard, there was an ad for a custodian at Elim Baptist in Minneapolis, which was where John and Rodney already attended while going to Bethel. So in the summer of 1963 we moved to the big city with humongous schools and no friends. (And this would be a good time to loop back to say how mom flourished where she was newly planted, and developed a nursery school for the community that to this day still welcomes the neighborhood children. Dad did a spectacular job as custodian at Elim and they are now lovingly remembered as part of Elim’s rich heritage.)

This traumatic moving away from family to Minneapolis all turned out well, especially as I eventually found my beautiful wife, Caryl Dahlberg, at Elim. We were married Sept 11, 1971, and it was so wonderful to have the whole Peterson clan there to celebrate the marriage of their “departed” nephew/cousin.

Caryl and I immediately moved to Urbana, IL where I served as a civilian jet engine mechanic instructor for five years with the USAF, and where I also earned a MS in Ed. in counseling and where Caryl earned her RN degree. Because of my interest in psychology, we moved in 1976 to Petaluma, CA (and nearer to my brother John), where Caryl and I served for less than a year as group home parents. Then in late 1977 we moved to Altadena, CA, where I began attending Fuller Seminary and completed a MDiv degree in 1981.

In August 1977 we were thrilled to welcome Erik James to our family. Erik was a beautiful boy and we rejoiced in God finally providing us such a wonderful gift. Fast forwarding over many years, and many difficult times, for Erik as well as for us, we tragically learned on May 22, 2010 that Erik had taken his own life. I won’t go into any more narrative on that, but welcome you to listen to a sermon I gave about our experience, A “Job” Interview.

You can click on this MP3 file to listen should you want to learn more.