Slaughter of a favorite sheep
When I was 3 years old, my brother and I were secretly trapped upstairs where we slept. We tried to come downstairs in the morning and called for help. We hoped someone would open the door. My brothers panicked when no one answered. Lars kicked the door, but it stayed closed. Since I am by nature a clever like my father, so I figured there would be some reason to avert us coming down.
So I went upstairs to the window overlooking the front yard. It me shouldn't have done, because I am very sensitive to look at the blood! I saw through the window how my mother's brothet Väinö did lure a sheep between his legs with a piece of bread.
When it came to him without a hunch of evil, Väinö grabbed it with his other hand tightly and killed that my favorite sheep with a knife. When I saw the blood flowing from the sheep, I began to cry, for I could not understand why that old and so dear mother sheep had to suffer such a cruel fate! Later I went to the slaughter site crying.
My little brother Klaus was particularly fond of our horse and when it gave birth to a foal, Klaus said we other shouldn't touch the foal because it was his. Once when Klaus went to clap the foal on the butt, it kicked him so that he fell down on his back in the yard.
Fortunately, Klaus did not get any worse injuries, but he did get a good lesson from his greed. We cannot own animals, for the earth is Yehowah's, with its fullness; The world, and those who dwell therein. (Ps. 24: 1).
Additionally it is written: >> 10 For every animal of the forest is His, And the cattle on a thousand hills. 11 He know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are His. (Ps. 50:10-11). "...they (the chosen believers) were (only) strangers and pilgrims on the earth!" (Hebrews 11:13c). That is what we are today too!
"Poisoned candies"
In Ostrobothnia, candies were called 'makoset'. My father missed us sons and we sons him, but my mother not allowed him to meet us because she had the right to patronize us all boys. My father sent us some fruit, oranges and a bag of candy for Christmas. I remember mother claiming that dad was trying to poison us with candies.
So she cooked them first in boiling water and rinsed them before giving them to us. She believed that the "touch poison" contained in them would dissolve in boiling water. My grandmother corrected my mother saying kindly, "Don't spoil your precious and good candies! Paulus doesn't hate his children because he sends them Christmas presents as well."
The mother did not listen to her mother, but was completely stranded in her fear, as most people with mental illness usually are. Even though I was only a little over 3 years old at the time, I listened to their conversation and realized that my mother was mentally ill and afraid of my father.
Father told me 60 years later how mother had made his work difficult while the family was still living in Skaftung. When mother saw dad's address book with the names his clients, she sent a warning letter to all the women whose names she found there, in which she warned them not to socialize with my dad. Mom tore the address book and threw it in the trash!
Dad said he didn't want to divorce his wife (my mother Kerttu) because he loved her, despite her quirks and hypochondria and jealousy. I learned a lot about my father's love for my mother!
The situation ended in divorce
Mother filed for divorce at the pastor's office. Since my father was unable to live on celibacy, he began dating a smart divorced woman from Pusula, Somerniemi. The woman's name was Siiri Anteroinen, with maiden name Alhovuo. Siiri had divorced earlier from her husband, who was too often drunk. Dad and Siiri moved to the same apartment and started a new family.
Mother withdrew her divorce application soon after she applied for it. She had read in the Bible that a woman should not request divorce from her husband. Her actions were also influenced by the fact that she heard that my father was already dating another woman. In addition, she regretted her starting of divorce process, but lost once and for all my father during that time.
Her repentance was too late because my father had given her a year time to come back to him. He supported us children regularly with money and more.
After that time had passed, my father did not believe my mother wanted to change her mind. In my opinion, the divorce was still the best solution because dad didn't want to stop alcohol drinking out. Therefore the divorce would have happen later to them anyway as a result of bitter disputes.
The divorce apparently came into effect one year after my father had applied for it, because he felt my mother was just teasing him and trying to prevent him from marrying another woman by canceling her divorce application.
I've never been told more about this process. I well understand my father's feelings and bitterness with the injustice he has experienced. After all, my mother had stolen table silver, their shared wedding gifts and other common property when moving to Ostrobothnia.
My father, too, had made a crucial mistake in breaking his promise of sobriety. That and much more was just a result of it. That sadness touched us little kids the hardest! Because my dad was an insurance clerk, he had a typewriter and he knew the issues of divorce better than mother.
Mother agreed that father handled the whole "paper war" (bureaucracy) of the divorce without a judge, as it saved costs. My cunning father noticed his chance had come.
Mother told me decades later how my father had by fraud acquired right to patronage over me and she had been very bitter about it for decades. She said that she would not have given any of her sons to be patronized by a drunken father.
Stealing custody right by cheating
Mother told me that father had prepared the necessary divorce papers and asked her quickly to sign them all, saying he had been in a hurry to somewhere.
Because there were many papers, mother did not have time read them all. In two papers, it was written that mother would agree to give the custody of her son, Leif Norrgård, to his father, Paulus Norrgård.
My father told me years later that he chose me because he wanted to protect me from my mother's unhealthy influence and because he loved me the most. That of course warmed my heart, but it was still wrong to love me more than my other brothers who still remained under my mother's patronage.
Later I found out that both of my brothers had greatly missed father and also wanted to move to him. Stepmother Siiri didn't agree at the time. They had agreed together that Siiri's daughter Pirkko, from her first marriage, should be a member of that new reconstituted family. Pirkko is 5 months older than me.
What was the real reason for dad's scam to motivate him patronize me, is told in the following chapter.
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