MARGIT NORDGARDEN HOLTAN’S LONG JOURNEY
The following well-written story is copied from a book, “Pioneer Mothers of McLean County, N.Dak.” It was written in 1932 by Mary Ann Barnes Williams of Washburn who knew Margit, and who had also been born in Iowa. Mary Ann told it tenderly and well so we will share it all with you. Gilbert and John Tweeten looked on her like their own grandmother as she was Sigri’s sister.
“Prelude: Mrs. Hans Holtan came to McLean County and North Dakota in 1885, after having pioneered in three states, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, previous to coming to North Dakota. In those states she had experienced all the hardships of new settlers in a new land, including the danger of hostile Indians. When they came to North Dakota, she had it all to do over again but they stayed here to make their home. She was the mother of 10 sons and three daughters. She died in 1906 following a heart attack.
“Dakota was a land that coaxed and wooed men. Its fertile prairies were man hungry. It called for men, must eventually have men. There were thousands of acres awaiting them. The woman who mated up with one of these adventurous wheat growers, seemed merely a bridesmaid to a wider sort of marriage—the union of a worker with his land. These pioneer women, labored between their narrow walls merely that their husbands might labor out on their wide acres. And they in turn must produce man children of their own and give them to the land that needed and beckoned and receded again, like a willful mistress. Mrs. Hans Holtan was the mother of thirteen children, of which ten were man children. Eight of those boys grew to manhood and tilled the virgin soil of these prairies. Thus did Mrs. Holtan play her part in the development of North Dakota.
Margit Nordgaard had better home surroundings than the average Norwegian girl. Her mother’s family were Mandts and they were the Sheriffs and land owners in Telemark. Margit was born January 14, 1840 at Mo, Telemark, Norway. She had two brothers and two sisters. Her early training in school and church was carefully attended to. She remained at home and was trained in the arts of spinning, carding, knitting, weaving, sewing and household tasks, in preparation for her own home making.
She was a sweet wholesome girl of 18 when she married Hans Holtan, a neighbor boy who was less fortunately situated. They established a home for themselves in this same neighborhood and there lived for four years. Two sons were born there: Halvor, December 20, 1859, and Tarjei, May 16, 1861. Hans Holtan had a brother, Eivend, who lived in Olmstead County, Minnesota. He wrote to Hans of the opportunities this country afforded the man without means who was willing to work. In March, 1862, they boarded a boat that carried them southward along the coast. They provided their own provisions and saw to it that they had plenty “flatbrod”, dried fish and other food, for this was a sailing boat and no telling how long it would take to make the trip. This boat with many white sails took her with her dear ones, and sailed away farther and farther from the land she knew. In this ship they sailed for weeks; the weeks grew into months; they seemed to be crossing an ocean that had no end. When headwinds came, they beat against it; before sweeping, fair breezes they scudded along; but always they were westering. This was a dreadful journey for this mother, who was ill from seasickness, grief, fatigue and pregnancy. An epidemic of measles broke out on board. Halvor and Tarjei were stricken. She hung over their cots, doing everything she could to relieve their burning little bodies, but death, that dreaded specter, claimed them as his own. The little coffins were weighted with sand beneath the padding and lowered into the briny deep. This grieving mother, could scarcely be comforted. After 9 weeks they were about to enter the mouth of the St. Lawrence River when they were stopped by officials and the boat was quarantined. After some little time, the boat landed at an island near Quebec, where they were detained some time again. At last, they were permitted to land. They were confused and bewildered by a jargon of unintelligible sounds that did not seem like the speech of people. Was this the Promised Land? Ah, no–it was only the beginning of the real journey.
They boarded a cattle train and moved westward over the plains, through towns and cities and out again, on steadily westward. Sometimes they were subjected to the bullying and brawling of officious transportation officers. In the course of time, they came to a small railroad station in Wisconsin, where they were obliged to quit the train, for Mrs. Holtan’s time had come. Here they were in a strange land, among strange people and with no means. It was July 29, 1862, a scorching hot day.
They had started in March from the cool misted shored in Norway and had not yet reached their destination. This was just a siding, not a town, there was no place to go but to the depot agent. He was very kindly and made them comfortable as best he could. In a few hours a beautifully formed child with a face like a tiny pink rose was born, and they named her Helga. This mother who had been reared so carefully, who had never known hardship, went through this ordeal with a grim resolute sort of calmness. But now she laid with this small bundle of life in her arms and she shed tears of joy and thankfulness that her empty aching arms and heart were full again.
She was only to know this great comfort for a few days. It seemed she was only loaned this bit of heaven to ease her grief for her little sons when the Angel of Death appeared to reclaim her. Life seemed to be testing the very fiber of her soul. Strength and health returned very slowly to Mrs. Holtan; but as soon as she was able, they moved farther onward, always west. This time in a wagon. Eivend Holtan from near Rochester, Minnesota, had come for them and took them to his prairie home. Their arrival in Minnesota was just a few weeks previous to the terrible Indian Massacre of August 17, 1862, which precipitated what was to be called the “most important Indian war since America’s first settlement and extended over five years of active operations.” Practically every able-bodied young man was in the south engaged in the Civil War. Horses and provisions had been taken, until there was nothing left. Little Crow incited his Sioux people over the broken promises of the whites, their shortage of annuity goods, and the treaties of 1851, where they had bartered away a vast territory for a small area and little pay forthcoming. He told them the white man was using their money to free the Negro, who might in turn rule the country, that the whole frontier of Minnesota was unguarded, only women, children and old men were left, now was the time to strike.
Into this new, raw, unprotected state came the redskins without warning, without expectation, to spread a widening trail of horror behind them. They murdered, burned and tortured. Many of the settlers packed their few belongings in their wagons, and hurriedly left the country. The Holtans and neighbors banded together for protection. Alarms came and they were ready with their defense, but they were never attacked. The danger gradually passed but in those years the women’s vigilance never relaxed. The sudden darkening of a window, the quick, sharp cry of a child, the thud of horses’ hoofs, the stealthy sounds at night could stop any mother’s heart. The children were terrified, and went about peering behind each tree and bush.
For five years Hans Holtan worked for and with his brother, Eivend, until he had accrued enough money to immigrate to Winnebago County, Iowa, near Forest City, in the year 1867. With his two little boys Halvor and Thomas, they slowly wended their way in a covered. wagon drawn by stolid lumbering oxen. For days they drove over the faintly marked prairie trails, through the native woods of oak and hickory, over spongy moist leaves, past thickets of sumac and hazel brush, then out onto the flat bare prairie with its coarse, waving grass, fording streams, lurching along until they reached their friends. They received a warm welcome and were housed with them until their own buildings were partly erected. There was fine basswood timber on Mr. Holtan’s land. In no time, with the help of the other men folks, a two-room log cabin was built on his newly acquired land. With a great sense of thankfulness and light heartedness, Mrs. Holtan moved into her first owned home. This was their own land. They who had never owned a foot of ground were now the sole owners of these broad acres. Rich soil, too, Hans said- black and rich. It was a summer of hard work and high hopes. Everything was to be done. The Holtans, in their desire for results, worked long and hard. Clearing some of the land of brush and stumps for plowing was no small task. Mrs. Holtan was up early and late with her carding, spinning, knitting, sewing and household tasks. Her increasing family kept her busy with the wash tub, churn and hoe. But she was never too busy to be a good neighbor and friend, going when help with the sick was needed, radiating an air of cheerfulness and kindliness. Not only was she concerned with her children’s physical well-being, but with their schooling and spiritual training, and she saw to it that each of their ten children were given as much as their limited means afforded. These years in Iowa were the busiest, hardest years of Mrs. Holtan’s life, rearing her large family of eight boys and two girls, with meager means, enduring the hardship and privations of those early days. Although they did not suffer a crop failure, a tornado tore its devasting path across their farm in June of 1882. It leveled the barns, granary, corn cribs, tore the roof off the lean-to of the house, and twisted and uprooted the trees. In its freakish way, the stock was unharmed. The horses, snorting, were still tied to their mangers, and a cow lost one horn. Thomas, the fourth son, once tried his mother’s patience and nerve. One winter day, he with a brother were driving the horses to water from a hole in the ice of the creek. To speed them up, Thomas, got too close to a sharp shod horse’s heel, when he struck it with his whip. He was knocked unconscious and laid with a great gash in his cheek. The mother with terror gripping her heart, used all her available home aids and practical nursing ability to bring him around and heal the wound, the scar of which he always carried.
Land values were increasing in Iowa by 1884 and Hans Holtan had heard much of the homestead lands in Dakota. He decided to go up there and look the country over, which he did. He liked it and saw the opportunities his sons might have in acquiring land by homestead rights. He talked this over with his family and they approved of the undertaking. In 1885 he came to McLean County and bought Mike Sather’s preemption, Sec. 20, Twp 145, R. 81. It was agreed Thomas, Ole, Engebrigt, Henry and Elsie would remain on the Iowa farm to operate it for the time being, while the remainder of the family established a home in Dakota. In the spring of 1886, Halvor, the oldest son, and his father came with a carload of horses and machinery to farm their Dakota land. In the fall of that same year, Mrs. Holtan, with her four youngest children, left her comfortable, well-established home in Iowa to pioneer and make a home once again on the frontier. The small cabin home of Mike Sather’s was far too small for this family of seven, and a lean-to was added, making two rooms in which they lived for a number of years. Mrs. Holtan sent her four children to school that first year in Ole Sather’s house, where Joe Burgum taught them. He too was homesteading and went back and forth fifteen miles each day.
Holtan Family Picture taken at Ole Holtan’s Farm
Gladys (Holtan) Gentz Goetz wrote: This picture was taken June or July of 1910, on the front porch of Ole
Holtan’s farm house. This was right after church. Theo Holtan was from Dr. college and Horace (just arrived – 1910) and his father Halvor and Mr. and Mrs. BJ (Bendick) Tweeten, their sons, Bennie and Gilbert and small daughter, Bertha (sitting on Bennies lap); Thomas Holtan came from Forest city Iowa to visit their relations here. (John Tweeten is holding his baby son, Oliver, born Jan. 1st, 1910, thus the date
possibility). Great Grandpa Hans Holtan had 10 children, 8 sons; Halvor, Thomas, Ole, Henry, Engebright, Martin, Gilbert, Theodore and 2 daughters; Elsie and Sarah (Mrs. Thos. Grothe and they’re all on this
photo! Mr. and Mrs. Bendick J. Tweeten are parents of John, Bennie, Gilbert, Bertha, Mrs. Henry (Theoline Tweeten) Sheldon and others.
Back Row (Flat hat – Albert Severts (Lucille, Obert – with white shirt) (Severts)
Top Row: Henry Holtan, Sarah (Holtan) Grothe, Thomas Grothe, Mrs. Martin (Amanda Peterson) Holtan, Martin Holtan; Halvor Holtan (My Grand Dad), Elsie Holtan, Dr. Theo Holtan, Cora (Peterson) & Engebright H. Holtan; Mr. and Mrs. Bendict J Tweeten, Miss Ella Danielson, Mrs. Danielson, Laura Westberg (hired girl), Edith (Johnson) Tweeten and John B Tweeten (holding Oliver, about 6 months old)
Middle row: (???Albert and Obert Severts. These are Eivind Holtan’s grandsons), 4th person is; Horace (Gladys’ dad, Halvor’s oldest son), Hubert Holtan (Ole’s oldest son, 14 yrs. old), Mrs. Gilbert (Clara Severts) Holtan, Gilbert Holtan (County
Treasurer in 1910), Mrs. Ole (Marie Olson) and Ole Holtan (owners of the farm), Bennie Tweeten holding Bertha, Miss June Danielson, Mrs. Christian Danielson and Thomas Holtan.
Front row: Berglund (Blacksmsith), Gilbert Tweeten, Art Grothe, Lester Holtan, Great Grandpa Hans Holtan holding Lyle Holtan and Martin Grothe, Howard Holtan, Hilda Grothe, ?? for the other children.
Thomas bought the Iowa home place and remained there. Halvor married and resided in Iowa also. Elsie, Engebrigt and Henry came to Dakota in 1888. All of them became substantial citizens of the community, marrying North Dakota girls, establishing fine homes, remaining with the soil, entering into the social and constructive life of the country. Just such families as the Holtans have made North Dakota what it is today. It was years in the making, bit by bit, one strip of territory at a time, all held together by cohesion of kindly interest in one another, it was united in the inevitable way. Death, birth and love, wielding an invisible needle on an invisible thread, drew and held it together. Mrs. Holtan missed her old Iowa friends and neighbors, but she had a happy outlook on life, was uncomplaining and her family’s interests were there. Her life in Dakota was much as it was in Iowa, ministering to her family, being a good neighbor, nursing the sick, befriending all who came her way. Life had eased up for her as the children grew older. But she, like the others, endured the blizzards, droughts, prairie fires, crop failures, privations, discomforts and hardships of a pioneer prairie homemaker. With so many young folks in the family the Holtan home became a center of community social life. The Holtan boys had a ball diamond on their place, they played in the band, they danced, they rode, they taught school, they drew unto themselves friends from all around. Mrs. Holtan made their young friends welcome and was hospitable and friendly. She took a kindly interest in all their activities, making her home pleasant for them. No wonder her boys remained at home until grown men, under such understanding motherly influence.
As they prospered and the boys grew up, they needed more land. In 1895 they bought a quarter section adjoining on the west. There they built a five-room house and moved into it, and were still using the old barns 35 rods away, when that famous Thanksgiving blizzard of 1896 paralyzed the northwest. In order to reach the barn and return in safety again to the house, Engebrigt and Henry tied a ball of binding twine around their waists and started out in the lashing, blinding, smothering snow. They reached the barn, fastened the twine, tended the stock, and when they untied the twine, found the wind had torn the twine in two. At the house they waited and watched for their return, finally they discovered the broken twine and feared for their safety. They called and called, but no answer. A happy idea occurred, they would blow on their band instruments, blast after blast they blew, then listened for calls. Only in this way would they have been able to reach the house. Often Mrs. Holtan would leave a light in the window stormy nights to guide a lost wayfarer.
In the nineties Mrs. Holtan made a visit to her old Iowa home, but found it so changed, so many old friends gone, that North Dakota seemed the dearer to her by then. Soon after, her health failed her rapidly. She suffered with heart trouble but was only a few days bedfast when death claimed her July 6, 1906. Thus passed a kindly mother. Mrs. Holtan’s life was one of beautiful daily love, of noble virtue and motherly love. She typifies the sturdy women who went trekking with their men into the unknown. There seemed to exist a timeless bond between Mother Earth so patient and passive and willing to give and the rapture-torn heart of these pioneer mothers.”