1913

We have again started out this new year with several record low temperature marks about -40° on January 12th.

February, 1913

Dear Agnes,

I have spent quite a bit of time working out stuff to tell you about our Norwegian relatives. I hope it isn’t too late for your project.

I thought you would like to know the scandalous bit first - to put that in your story to make it more interesting. Our ggggggrandmother on our mother’s side was a woman called Barbro Rognaas. Her first husband was called Ole Olson Tildheim, and he was murdered in a wedding in 1688. But I don’t think they thought she had murdered him.

Anyway, the farthest back we have records of is from 1585 from a man called Ulrik Fodnes, who was born then. His son was called Ulrik Tomasson Fodnes (1618 to 1695) and he was the one who married the woman whose husband was murdered. I also heard that Barbro got 40 silver ounces as compensation for her murdered husband.

They had a daughter called Berit and she married Erik Trondson Kjorstag in 1726. They lived in a place called Valdres in the Jotenheimen mountains. I have found a picture in a school book which I will send to you. It is of the Valdres River, so I expect they lived nearby there. From what Ida says, the mountains in Montana seem to be almost in the same setting as they were in Norway.

Anyway, progressing to the more modern ones, our mother came from a family of eight children, and they all emigrated to America. Ole went at the age of 17 in 1870. Our mother who was 15 at the time, and Aunt Bertha, whose real name was Inger Bertine, was nine and their brother Knut who was 12 and their parents came in June 1873. They lived in Wisconsin to start with and then some of them went to South Dakota.

Here is what I remember mother talking about when I asked her about the trip across.

“Our water on the boat was very bad. When it was drawn out of the casks it was no cleaner than that of a dirty kennel after a shower of rain, so that its appearance alone was sufficient to sicken one. Buts its dirty appearance was not its worst quality. It had such a rancid smell that to be in the same neighborhood was enough to turn one's stomach.

“Our ship was the old type of sailing vessel. We had none of the modern comforts of travel. The sleeping quarters were cramped and we had to do our own cooking in the gallery of the boat. Mother had provided salt beef and other preserved meats and fish, dried vegetables, and red pickled cabbage which I remember most vividly. We were all seasick except father, mother the longest of all. Father had to do all the cooking in the meanwhile and take care of the sick.”

The records of our father’s family goes back as far as 1775, and they were called Ole Throndson and Marit Bjorndatter. They lived in Nordre Aurdahl. They also had eight children. Their youngest daughter, who was called Kari, was born in 1821. She married Ole Hills and came to America in 1851, settling in Moscow, Wisconsin. Her husband, Ole, died of cholera - and one of their children, also called Ole, died at sea en route to America.

Kari, our grandmother, then remarried in 1862 to Knud Nelson Saalsea and they continued to live and farm near Argyle, Wisconsin, which you know all there is to know about, having lived there for yourself.

I hope that will help you with your project. That is about all I know.

Love from Laura

We had 7.42 inches of rain in one storm in June. Just thought I should make note of that as it is pretty alarming. Everything was flooded out.

*****
September, 1913

Dear folks,

Sorry I haven’t had time to write before. Just to let you know that our new baby is here. We’ve called her Mildred Leona, and she was born on the first of June. Chester is so pleased with his new sister, but also disappointed that she isn’t yet able to play with him. I am glad to have a little girl so I can make her dresses and teach her all the fun things that girls do.

Another bit of family news is that Benjamin is thinking of getting married but can’t do that until she turns 16 next year. His girlfriend is called Caroline Knutson, and they are from around here. Her folks are from Norway too. They homesteaded about the same time as Nick and his dad did, but they have quite a few sections around here, and some near to where Benjamin lives at Buckeye.

She comes from a big family - three older children in the family and three younger. Her oldest sister got married real young, and has a child and they all live there together.

It’s nice to see him happy, and she is a bubbly young girl and will make him a good wife, I am sure. It seems a lot that he is 15 years older than she is, but as long as they are happy that is all that matters.

You know that Josephine is pregnant again. Her Agnes is seven already, so it is nice that they are having another one. But William intends that they should go back to Canada to live, but they will wait til this baby is born and the land is officially his - that should be at the beginning of next year. I will be sorry to see them go. Although we don’t get together very often, it is always nice to have Josephine to chat with and she knows who and what I am talking about, which nobody else does around here.

And another one is due at Bertha’s house sometime soon. It will be her 7th child. I don’t know how she manages is, but at least the girls, Irene, Alice and Emma are now old enough to do a lot of the cooking and cleaning.

There is talk of Emma and Harry Fisher getting married too. It would be such fun to have her as a neighbor - and of course there is a big age difference between them too, but neither one thinks it will matter.

I’ve enclosed a picture of us looking rather cold and tired. Chester thinks he is a big help with his pail to help pick the rocks up.

Lovingly,

Laura

What an awful storm they had in Nebraska in October of this year. It started out by getting frozen over much earlier than usual, and the snow was early and heavy. Already small lakes and streams were frozen over. One place actually had 60 inches of snowfall. Anyway, what a surprise when on October 9th they got a tornado - which is usually something you only get in the hot weather. It started after 5 p.m. and ended soon after 8 pm., and the path was fairly continuous over large ranches and farms. Buildings were destroyed, and three people were killed.

And another tornado was reported on the same day in Lennon Kansas. It had the usual funnel cloud which reached down to the earth. The sky was greenish colored, and it destroyed everything in its path going 15 miles in 18 minutes. Eight head of horses, and hundreds of chickens were killed, and in one place an apple tree nearly a foot in diameter was torn up by its roots, while a beehive, within three feet of the tree wasn’t even turned over. No people were killed as they had ample warning of the storm.

I must do a bit of writing while I have time, to keep up my record about what is happening in our State Legislature. They passed a law making bootlegging a crime punishable by penitentiary imprisonment.

John Burke, former North Dakota Governor, became Treasurer of the United States but more important to us, the first North Dakota Farmers Union local was organized at Bismarck. We farmers think that unless we act together we will not be given a fair deal.

I am copying this out of one of our magazines, as I couldn’t do it justice writing about it on my own.

The new cooperative movement, the American Society of Equity, has created well over 400 marketing and purchasing locals throughout the state largely due to the North Dakota Socialist Party. Both are calling for fair taxation, and demanding better services from state government. The goal is to return control of North Dakota's government and economy to the people, and they are not afraid to demand that state government organize and operate banking, insurances, and processing businesses in order to bring the benefits of competition, lower costs, and better services to us all.

To start with we brought in our groceries from Tappen. But then the Dallman family started a small store in one room of the house they had built in Pettibone. They hauled their merchandise from Tappen with team and wagon. At one time when we were out of money they gave us the necessities on credit for which we were most grateful. We got flour, rolled oats, coffee and sugar. As other things ran out we just did without them.

Of course, we have our own milk, butter, eggs, and sometimes meat and vegetables. Sometimes our only meat is home cured bacon. It becomes very monotonous. We also got some lovely heads of cabbage but they did not keep too well in our cellar, which was just a hole in the ground under a shack.

We sometimes shoot rabbits for food. A roasted rabbit with dressing in it makes a delicious meal.

Occasionally we have a good dinner of wild duck; a day’s fishing sometimes results in a meal of fresh fish. Most of the early years there was a good crop of chokecherries along the River. Many a summer day we took lunch to the river, picked berries till late in the afternoon, bathed in the river, and got home in time for the evening chores. We cooked the berries with sugar and vinegar or rhubarb.

Getting new clothes is sometime a problem. Nick had a good strong  shirt about the color of coffee. Finally, his elbows wore through and I had nothing suitable to patch it with. The sleeves soon were past mending and the rest of the shirt was still sound. Then I had a bright idea. I took a fifty pound salt sack and boiled it in strong thick coffee until it was close to the right color. I used this to make half sleeves and cuffs and it lasted for months till the color came off.

Handkerchiefs I make of empty ten cent salt sacks, neatly hemmed. Shoe laces are strong string soaked in ink, with the ends waxed. Empty flour sacks are the standby; they can be made into sheets, pillow cases, mattress covers, tea towels and undergarments of all kinds. We could not get along without them any better than the men could have managed without haywire.

The only roads in the country are wagon trails, so much of Nick’s lone traveling is done on horseback. When I wanted to go for a walk to see a friend before Mildred was born, I would do the chores, get Chester ready, and we would set out on foot in good weather. It's half a mile by the road to Len's, but we went across the prairie, a shorter distance but very rough walking. Chester was just learning to walk and had to be carried most of the way. I tried putting him on my back and holding his arms, but that tired him, so I put him in a flour sack which I had on a strap over my shoulder. I would turn him loose and let him walk a while, then put him in the sack again.