Irna Folt Summary Essay

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It was the year 1909. A five year old brunette haired small girl along with her mother, father, and two siblings, arrived in America. Irna Folt, along with the rest of her family, settled in Nebraska. She resided there until the age of sixteen; she was then ordered out of a magazine of women and shipped to Illinois.
At the age of sixteen, the mail-order bride herself was sent to Illinois to marry my grandfather. By definition today, a mail-order bride is “a woman who lists herself in catalogues and is selected by men for marriage( ). Therefore, she was ordered, like an object, to be delivered to my grandfather. Being a poor female immigrant from Germany during this time period, there weren’t many things that Irna Folt could do to obtain …show more content…

There was still the underlying notion that women weren’t quite as equal as men. For her to be such a strong, equally dependent woman was incredible in her time. All of her grandchildren seem to look up for her to that.
Interviewing my mother brought on many stories. When I brought up the question, “Do I have a cool relative that was deceased before I was born?”, her eyes instantly lit up. I could practically see the stories flying around in her head. It seemed effortless for her to dig up the archived memories she had put away deep in her brain.
My mother revealed that she, along with her seven siblings, had lived right next door to Irna all throughout their childhood. She recalled that her favorite childhood memory of Irna was when she would let my mom “sneak out” of the house to go next door their house and collect chicken eggs at midnight. She said that her grandma would make them be quiet and tip toe around until they had collected them all. She would then send her back in, telling her not to wake up her mother or that she would be in heaping amounts of trouble. My mom recalled that this was one of her favorite things about her; that she would always make sure her grandchildren had a sense of adventure and excitement(

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