Death Valley Days (TV Series)

Britta Goes Home (1968)

Susanne Cramer: Britta Olaffson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mary Brown : Back home, I was a regular wallflower. There wasn't a man who ever looked at me twice. I lived with my father until I was thirty. When he died, I was suddenly very alone. I read in the papers how scarce unmarried women were out here. The saying went that the farmers and ranchers would marry anything that got off the stage. Some of them even advertised for wives. After a few more lonely years, I began taking those notices seriously. Then one day, I picked up my pen and wrote an answer. That's how I met Dan. We never laid eyes on each other until the day we were married.

  Britta Olaffson : And you did not have any doubts?

  Mary Brown : Of course I did. When Dan sent me the railroad ticket I almost didn't come. I'd heard of other girls who turned in the tickets for money, but his letters had a loneliness to match mine.

  Britta Olaffson : You have been happy?

  Mary Brown : Oh, yes! When I stepped off the train, I felt so exposed, so unready... and there he was. The wonder of it was not that I loved him so easily, but he loved me.

• [Gustav meets his fiancée from Sweden at the stagecoach depot] 

  Gustav Olaffson : Ve go now. Ve must hurry, the preacher is waiting.

  Britta Olaffson : The preacher is waiting?

  Gustav Olaffson : Ja, sure - so we can be married.

  Britta Olaffson : But I just got here!

  Gustav Olaffson : It is why you are here - to marry me.

  Britta Olaffson : Gustav, it has been seven years! I thought we had time to get acquainted.

  Gustav Olaffson : It is a long way to the farm. It will be two weeks before I come back to town. We get married now. We get acquainted later.

• Mary Brown : It's hard for him to say, but he loves you.

  Britta Olaffson : You wouldn't understand what it means to come to a new country and marry a man who is a stranger to you.

  Mary Brown : You mean Gustav never told you?

  Britta Olaffson : Tell me what?

  Mary Brown : Why child, I was a mail order bride. Dan sent for me sight unseen. I came because it was the only way I could get a man.