Heavenly Earth
Gustaf Lofgren is probably Mount Crosby’s most famous early resident ...
Winding its way through the leafy parts north-east of Mount Crosby is a pleasant little creek that is likely the namesake of Mr A.P. Cameron, former prominent citizen and commissioner's land agent for the city of Ipswich, who was great friends with centenarian George Holt (of whom we have written earlier).
Camerons Creek rises in hilly country this side of Lake Manchester and communicates with Kholo (or Little Ugly) Creek before their combined waters join the Brisbane River below Kookaburra Park. In its travels, it passes through the property known locally as Lofgren's Farm and which, briefly, before it was parkland, took the name "Heaven Earth" in commendable deference to the worthy Swedish poem by Evert Taube about the adventures of our Swedish immigrant and the former owner of the farm, Gustaf (Gus) Lofgren.
Gustaf Lofgren is probably Mount Crosby’s most famous early resident. A migrant from Falkenberg, Sweden, Gus settled on Lake Manchester Road in 1895. In 1928, he was visited by the famous Swedish author and poet Evert Taube. Sitting on his verandah one warm summer evening, Gus told Taube the story of his life. Taube was so taken by the tale that he wrote a poem about this remarkable man, whom he felt embodied the adventurous spirit of Scandinavians.
The poem, Himlajord [Heavenly Earth], made Gustaf famous in Sweden, but at Mount Crosby he was always better known for saving Archbishop Duhig from a flooded Colledges Crossing in 1904. We seemed to take our religion more seriously than our literature (in truth, we struggled with both).
Taube’s poem deals with the spirit of Scandinavian immigrants in Australia, as well as the theological question of whether soil came from heaven or from the mountains. Gustaf argues that the soil is from heaven. Taube humbly disagrees and suggests a concept he heard while working in the Pampas of Argentina. Neither man resolves this good-natured dispute, but it’s clear that Gustaf thought his prosperity had been supported by the hand of God.
In Evert Taube's poem, Camerons Creek is renamed Crimson Creek. Perhaps this is to create a pleasant image against the backdrop of the farm’s coloured soil and the orange trees that grew there (both very important in Taube's poem); or perhaps a Scotsman’s name was a poor fit with a Swedish poem.
In Falkenberg (Sweden), where Gustaf was born, a substantial sculpture adorns the entrance to the city hall. This stone sculpture, named ‘Heaven Earth’ by Tore Heby, takes up Taube’s ballad and depicts Gustaf Lofgren’s adventurous life from his childhood in Falkenberg, through his years as a sailor, to life as a farmer in Australia.
After passing by Lofgren's Farm, Camerons Creek wraps itself around the foot of Holts Hill and Camerons Hill; a nice way to remember the friendship between those two old Ipswichians.
Evert Taube’s Swedish ballad about Gustaf is copied below. As you read it, I hope you will think of the kindly giant of a man, representative of the adventurous Swedes that helped to settle and civilise Mount Crosby.
Heavenly Earth (by Evert Taube)
That soil you tread at my place on Crimson Creek,
it comes from heaven and it has made me rich,
it has dripped so slowly for many thousands of years,
it is a heavenly soil, my friend, the soil where you stand.
They say it comes from the desert to the west,
but from the sky it fell, you can trust that.
And the winds of the ocean carried the rain to our bay,
and the earth drank and grew green and put forth flowers and fruit.
I came to this heavenly order as a carpenter,
in Falkenberg I was born, John Löfgren was my name.
Now my name is Lofgren and I grow oranges.
Three hundred cows I own now, six horses, eight pigs.
That's what farmer Löfgren said, I answered like that,
that farming was the profession I least understood.
But that I heard on the Pampas an opinion sometimes
about the earth there that it came there by storm from the land of the Incas.
"It's called loess soil," I said, "it comes like a dust,
a dust from hot deserts carried by the winds."
"If the matter seems so in the light of science,
then it is nevertheless a heavenly earth you see from my house."
There was a beautiful thought in Löfgren's romanticism,
a belief in grace from above that made him rich.
He toiled there in his jungle with Halland energy,
and he cultivated the heavenly soil in which he now sleeps.
However, his wealth was small, it has now been realised,
his property was taken by the bank, a heifer was given to his wife.
But oranges shine in Löfgren's tracks like gold
in the primeval forest in Queensland, and his guilt is cleared.
I myself walk in Liguria on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,
the wind blows from the Sahara and space is on fire.
I think of John Löfgren, my friend at the edge of the desert.
Earth, virgin earth, falls from the sky into my hand.