MAE ELISE DAHLBY

was the seventh child born to Elsie and Amund Dahlby and their first child born in Iowa. Her parents chose to leave the comfortable settled area in Dane County, Wisconsin, because it was getting too crowded for this family with four growing boys.

Mae was born on May 7, 1896 in Kensett, Iowa, in a big new house planned by Amund, probably built with home sawed lumber as was his style. Many of the new settlers in the Kensett and-Joice area were also from Dane County, Wisconsin, like the Brunsvolds, the Kittlesons, the Paulsons, the Gilbertsons and Knut Johnson Fia.

It’s unclear where the land was located that Amund farmed at this time but Mae has said it was into Minnesota. He must have had a livestock operation also. This seemed like a temporary arrangement of wheeling and

dealing as Amund was quite able to do. So, by 1898 they had swapped their new Kensett house for Bergsagel’s 320-acre Joice farm. It was a wide prairie area in Bristol township and the village of Bristol was a thriving community four miles away, north of the big farm.

Perhaps Amund knew the railroad would pass by his new land in 1899 when the Chicago and Northwestern line was built from Mason City to Lake Mills and on to Guckeen, Minnesota.

It was an exciting time to be a little girl in this family. Mae and her little sister Ruth had responsibilities as all farm children did on farms. There were chickens, gardens, potato patches, extra farm hands at meals, lots of company and excitement. But for Mae it was her dolls and the horses. When she was 13, she still played with her cherished 16 dolls.

The rural school was south of their farm so there was often a buggy for going to school or the Concordia Church school or else a horse to ride. She appreciated nice horses all her years, often remembering helping her dad and his helpers breaking the “ponies”, whether they were driving horses or work horses. The Joice History as recorded in the Graphic has a photo of Amund’s livery enterprise in early Joice.

This was important to the new community that had the railroad and a hotel. This would be like a car rental today.

Mae was a chum of Florence Haugebak Otto, Emma Midbo, Blanche Gilbertson, etc. but when it was time to play ball she liked to play with the boys. This was the story of her life, as she enjoyed her brothers, too, and enjoyed her sons all her years. There was even a “boy-friend” in her last years at the nursing home.

Her early photographs tell us someone was busy styling her hair with bows, braids and curls made by tying and twisting rags in wet hair.

This was her sister Alpha, who also did a lot of professional sewing for her sisters.

Each of the older brothers and sisters attended further schooling. Peter and Alpha went to Humboldt College, Humboldt, Iowa, which must have been started by the Norwegian Synod connection. Tom Dahle’s mother, a Kittleson relative, went there from Wisconsin because the Dahle’s thought she needed more culture. The college, which was built like a Terrace Hill on the Bluffs of the Des Moines River (the Iowa governor’s mansion), was planned to be the Yale of the Middle West. Unfortunately, it closed before 1910.

Ellen, James and Ruth attended Waldorf Academy. The chronology is unclear, but Mae was a sophomore in Lake Mills high school and doing very well in Latin when her mother became very ill and she had to drop out. This might have meant that Amund and Elsie lived in Lake Mills a while, but it is also possible the train schedule AM and PM meant the students from Joice could use the train and return.

This was the least schooling any of the nine Dahlby children received but Mae was always a very good speller and reader and quick to figure in her head.

The pleasant, happy life in the big house was coming to an end. Most of the Dahlby’s had left to homestead in western Canada, but the summer Mae was 16, she stayed in Iowa to cook for James and his help at the big house. There would be a lot of work to entertain company coming through Joice. Mae reported that James had 20 different girl friends that summer.

In those days the Young People’s Society was a big family social event in the summer. Mae hosted this event at the big house and served two kinds of cake, sandwiches from her own homemade bread and boiled coffee with egg. This was for about 70 people and all food was made from scratch in those days.

The horses or sheep took care of the grass in the outer yard along with the chickens, and a reel type mower groomed the fenced in yard where the flowers were.

James eventually would settle for just one girl friend- Viola Swenson from the Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin area. She was the granddaughter of Astri Hoverud and she had captured James’ heart. Paul had set his cap for Clara Brunsvold and the two couples would take over the big house and the big farm and the rest of the family would be homesteaders in the available lands near the big bend in the Saskatchewan River in Canada.

One kind of help available on farms was “newcomers”. These were penniless immigrants who needed to learn the English language and the ways of life in America. Amund had a lot

of livestock and that made a lot of work all year long. Eigil Heimdal was one she remembered and also Osmund.

Joice had become the most developed community it would ever be. It was a half mile away with stockyard pens for shipping cattle and horses in and out. There were 2 elevators, a lumberyard, creamery, bank, milliners’ shop, 2 department stores, Kaasa’s and Bang and Gordon, also Abrahams, Evan’s hotel, a shoe shop but there was no church until 1915.

Concordia and Bristol were already active Lutheran churches and the Catholic Church was in the nearby community of Bristol.

This was a happy life for Mae and by now she had a boyfriend of her own, Ingebret Kaasa. He was the younger brother of Henry who had married Mae’s sister Clara. This was not to last as Mae’s parents frowned on this friendship and insisted that she join the rest of the Dahlby homesteaders in Canada. This meant goodbye to more schooling, to all her friends at church and, of course, to her boyfriend.

Her new journey would take her to the true

prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada which was the homesteading land in 1910. Many Joice names appear on the pre-emption claims near Beechy. Treslans were early and Marie and Peter Dahlby joined them. There were Husos, Berges, Bothners, and Isaac and Amund Dahlby.

Just getting to this area was a challenge. The train went as far as Regina or Swift Current, but the quarter mile wide Saskatchewan River with its shifting currents and flood stages made the ferry crossings difficult or impossible. There was no bridge for many years, but this area looked the most like Iowa and they chose this place.

Mae liked her job helping in the Dahlby store and post office. These frontier farmers needed

Mae and her homesteader husband Oscar Johnson in Outlook, SK, Dec. 26, 1915.

everything but they were apt to be short of cash, so credit was used and abused.

Most of the homesteaders were young couples or single fellows, so the Dahlby store and post office was a social place to get acquainted. The daylight in summer lasted from 5 am to 10 pm so the workday was long and wearying. The winter nights were long and isolation was a problem so there were many occasions for parties and social events.

Soon Mae became engaged and married young homesteader Oscar J. Johnson who had come from Northwood, North Dakota. Her sister Alpha and her mother helped make her wedding dress and who knows where she might have found some kind of flowers on December 26, 1915. For the photo done several days later in Outlook she actually went to a store, borrowed some artificial flowers, arranged them herself for the picture, and then returned them to the store.

Their simple home on the prairie was a prairie vista with a high view. Only in the coolies were there clumps of trees. Otherwise, all one could see was just prairie grassland.

There was a freedom from strict church pressures about behavior, so Mae had many happy times dancing at school house parties and in homes. Her young husband Oscar played a fiddle so he was important at the dances. The dancing and singing were in sharp contrast to the usual hard life and isolation of the frontier.

On January 6, 1917, on the Johnson Homestead, baby Komer Alton was born, with Grandmother Elsie Dahlby as midwife. There was no doctor for 40 miles, at Outlook, across the river. The baby’s baptism was recorded in a beautifully bound church record book for the Lutheran Church-to-be. They were surrounded by cousins and friends, Elsie and Alvin Bothner, Aaron and Evelyn Dahlby, and the

Treslan babies, too. This church was never built, especially since Amund and Elsie soon left for Iowa. However, a Mennonite church and Baptist church are still strong there.

When Komer was a year and a half old, his dad was digging an open well when a stone he had thrown out, rolled back into the well and struck him on the lower back, badly injuring his kidney.

Somehow, they transported this injured man to Outlook where the doctor’s diagnosis was negative. Mae cared for him in a boarding house under the doctor’s supervision until he died. He lies buried in the Outlook Cemetery just north of Outlook Academy. His grave on the high bluffs overlooks the deep valley of the Saskatchewan River.

Grandpa Andrew Johnson placed a fine

The widow Mae and her son Komer. They moved back to Joice not long after the death of Oscar in a well digging accident.

marble marker which reads, “Oscar Julius Johnson, beloved husband of Mae Dahlby Johnson, December 26, 1895-June 25, 1918. Gone but not Forgotten”.

Mae had a caring community in the Beechy area, but her parents were back in Lake Mills, Iowa, so she chose to return to Iowa with her small boy. She worked at the telephone company with Anna Odden, Carl Ruby, Frank Streeter and other friends. She also clerked at Kaasa’s general store in Joice. This turned out to be a matrimonial bureau because one of the customers was widower Gilbert Tweeten.

On March 4, 1923, she married Gilbert at the new Dahlby house on East Main in Lake Mills. Ruth Ruby and Delpha Anderson were her attendants. It was a snowy, stormy time and the horses and sled were waiting to take the new bride home to her new family. Alvin was 8, Olive was 6 and Komer was 6. This home was built before 1900 and was much more comfortable than the prairie homesteader’s house, but another woman had furnished and planned it. Temperaments and personalities complicated this blended family, but life was busy and soon they had three more babies of their own.

In 1927, they extensively remodeled this older home. The Tweed Brothers built a full block basement with five rooms, a new pipe furnace, a Delco electrical system and a large cistern.

They enclosed the open porches to be useful rooms and they redid the entrances. The living room and dining room got new plaster and woodwork, so there was much work for everyone.

There is no medical history indicating where Mae might have contracted tuberculosis, but in the midst of the weariness she experienced with the remodeling and a new baby, she became ill. Dr. Russ of Rake diagnosed that she had tuberculosis and needed sanitarium care. He recommended the high altitude of Las Vegas,

New Mexico, where he had other patients at the sanatorium. Mae said she couldn’t be separated from her family like that, so Gilbert decided to rent out his farm and take Mae, the three children and a hired girl, Gena Almelien, to live in Las Vegas where Mae could have total rest and the equivalent of sanatorium care.

That January, 1930 journey was another one of Mae’s reluctant journeys, but it suggests to us Gilbert’s practical way of solving problems. Komer stayed in Lake Mills at Dahlbys to go to high school, and Alvin and Olive stayed with their Myre grandparents and went to Waldorf Academy.

Gilbert had a new 1930 Chevrolet 4-door

sedan for this long trip to a new world. Ruth was 5, Jim was 4, and Stanley was 9 months. Ruth remembers using Sterno fuel to warm the baby’s bottle also going down US 65 in southern Iowa and Missouri with one side paved and everyone driving on the paved side until they had to yield.

They rented a comfortable house with a big yard in Las Vegas within walking distance of a small, friendly Missouri Synod Church with a pastor named Wolfram from a family in Ventura, Iowa. At Christmas they used all the carols they didn’t get to use in Sunday School back home. This church was the touch of home and friendships that brought comfort and family to this lonely family.

Ruth had been in first grade at country school but couldn’t qualify by age, so the Tweetens paid tuition at the State Normal School kindergarten for her and for Jim later.

When school was out, they planned the summer of 1930 as a rest trip to North Dakota and to Beechy, Canada, to visit brothers and sisters. They travelled past Pike’s Peak and north to Beechy. The TB recovery plan in those days was absolute rest, fresh air, sun and quiet. So, the trip included a homemade

push-up camper trailer made by Gilbert from a Model T rear end. He used canvas over some buggy fold-up irons and more canvas for a transport cover. This was the sleeping quarters for Mae and Gilbert for two summers.

At Pike’s Peak Gilbert got permission to park his trailer in a goat pasture at Colorado Springs at the base of the Peak. In 1988 Ruth walked from the bus depot 2 or 3 miles west and was quite sure she was in this camp area again. She wanted to remember once again how it felt.

The family bought goat’s milk from the farmer.

The drive up Pikes’s Peak was a courageous trip in 1930 with only gravel roads and dust. The officer asked Gilbert if he had his chains and because he said he did he could go up even if it were snowing. However, when it was time to put the chains on, he realized the chains were in the camper back in the goat pasture and he could ascend no further. They turned around on the roadway. Wow! Ruth remembers that they bought a card in Colorado Springs which had blue columbine

flowers on the vast mountainside. “Places and places where none can find, God has planted the columbine”. Blue flowers are still her favorites.

When these travelers reached Rapid City, Gena Almelien, the hired girl, boarded the train for the return trip to Iowa. This older maiden later married in Iowa.

They parked their trailer for several weeks in Aunt Alpha’s yard near Beechy, Canada. There they had older cousins to help with the children and a caring sister to attend to Mother’s care. Most of the two months stay in Canada was spent in the house on the Johnson homestead, vacant now and for sale, but cropped by a neighboring farmer Smith.

It was a simple, peaceful life for three kids. Jim and Ruth learned to snare gophers with twine looped around the hole. They also experienced the gumbo roads that became impassible when it rained.

Last time Ruth and Stanford were in Canada they were served fresh Saskatoon berry pie. It brought back a berry memory from the summer of 1930. They planned an adventure to head for the big river and pick berries, and soon were 30 miles from the homestead gathering Saskatoon berries. But when it was time to go home no key. Be sure, Gilbert

searched thoroughly and even took the door panel off. No luck!

So, he made a big decision. He had to walk about 5 miles on the trail to where a hay crew was making hay. He remembered there was a vehicle there and he would try to hire the man to take him to the homestead where there was another key. Mother Mae and the three kids spent overnight in the car. That was life on the sparse prairie, to solve your own problems or ask for help.

It was the middle of the morning when they finally returned and home looked very good to

them. Gilbert was apt to be clever, so who knows why he didn’t bypass the switch.

The journey continued on to North Dakota for threshing season at John Tweeten’s farms. The Hittle family lived in the vacant house where Richard Tweeten lives now while Gilbert ran the separator, as the threshing machine was called. Mae cared for the children while Gilbert was gone.

When late August came, they still would thresh for another month, so Ruth went to school with cousin Kenneth. They were often in trouble for sliding down the fresh straw piles as they walked home from school.

By the time this family arrived back in New Mexico, to another rental house north of the school, Jim and Ruth had missed a month of school. Gilbert needed to find work as the income from the farm in Iowa was going down. First, he demonstrated Iowa built Maytag washing machines to women in their homes.

By March of 1931 he was working for a Mr. Sander’s road construction crew on Highway 66 going toward Santa Fe. Once he cut his wrist badly in a freak saw accident. He had to stay 5 nights at their camp so Mae was without a car until Saturday and Sunday. The family had to rely on friends like the Goetsch and LeRoy Wicks family who were friends at church who had come from Minnesota and Illinois.

When school ended, they moved the sleeper camper to the construction camp site along with a 12 x 12 tent with board sides and a floor for living and sleeping. They remembered that summer for its burros to ride and for the rattlesnakes. Gilbert was partner on a dynamite crew so he ran a pneumatic hammer a lot. In 1976, LeRoy Wicks, Sr. directed visitors to “Tweeten’s Hill”, outside of Las Vegas on Old Hiway 66, where Gilbert had used a lot of dynamite the summer of 1931.

By December 4, 1931 Mae and Gilbert had a

new baby, Luther Gilbert. This was probably not prescribed by Mae’s doctor. She had hired help and her letters to her sister in Canada describe his slow growth as a bottle baby. She wrote that their plan was to return to Iowa and see if her health deteriorated. If so, they would sell out in Iowa and move permanently to the climate of New Mexico high country.

By March, 1932, baby Luther and the rest of the family were back to Iowa, and the bank holiday, and the Depression. There was no hay, silage or grain for the cattle and hogs the renter had cared for. The journey to recovery was difficult for Gilbert, too.

Komer had made playhouse furniture, a cupboard, table and stools, for Ruth in the Dahlby shop for the homecoming. Now there were seven children under one roof with plenty of work for each and a mother who rested a lot. By November 26, 1932, another Tweeten baby, Maynard, arrived to complete this family of eight.

Elsie and Amund were faithful caregivers but they were seventy years old by now. Olive was expected to help a lot when not in school. By May, Olive and Alvin graduated from Lake Mills High School with Olive as Valedictorian.

The economy became Gilbert’s great concern as prices continued on the bottom and he had a large family to provide for.

In April, 1932, as the children walked by T. Haugens on the way to school they were invited into the porch to see the casket of unmarried Tilda Haugen who had died of tuberculosis. The heavy scent of roses is still a strong memory. She was a first cousin of Elmer Holtan. The children didn’t understand then, that without special recovery care, tuberculosis patients seldom recovered. That was the trauma before antibiotics came along to control this dread disease.

Letters from Amund, Elsie, and Mae describe

well the plight of old and young in the 30’s. On September 23, 1935, the Tweeten barn burned to the ground. Escaping sparks from the neighbor’s silo-filling tractor pulled up too close to the haymow probably caused the fire.

They had invested the money from Mae’s Canada homestead in the Hovland 80 acres adjacent to the Tweeten farm. It had a full set of buildings and so the cows were moved to this barn where they were milked while the Levorson crew was building the new, modern round roof barn. They had saved the horses in the barn at the time of the fire, too, so no livestock was lost.

For about 10 years a hired man and his family lived in this Hovland house. Better days were coming for Gilbert as his operation expanded and Mae’s health improved. She always rested and used hired help to do her painting and decorating.

Komer, Olive and Alvin went their separate ways into new experiences and homes of their own. Ruth, Jim and Stanley finished country

school at Dahlen, Mt. Valley #1 and graduated from Joice High School, where they had Dahlby cousins living on three sides of town.

Luther and Maynard began grade school in Lake Mills in their 6th and 5th grades and graduated from Lake Mills High School. Jim, Stanley, Luther and Maynard spent time in military service and so did their brother in-law, Stanford Holtan.

A new and pleasant era began when Jim and Stanley began farming on the home farm and on the Anonson place. Gilbert and Mae could travel extensively during the winter months and whenever they wished. Mrs. Bergland stayed with the four boys in the winter of 1949 and Jim married his own cook by April 3.

In 1955 they built a new home, Mae’s first new house, on South Grant Street in Lake Mills.

They soon bought everything new in it, except one bedroom set. She had no affection for “old” things and always loved new cars and new clothes.

Stanley and Bess lived on the Tweeten farm for one year and in 1956 Maynard and Marilyn became the residents and Stanley and Bess moved to the Kensett farm.

Life in Lake Mills revolved around the Dahlby couples getting together for birthdays, holidays and relatives who came visiting from a distance. There were baptisms and confirmations for the grandchildren and later, many weddings, which pleased her very much.

Her family was her concern and her pleasure. She was not an easy communicator in person and will be remembered for the alternative her letters.

Gilbert was a good vacation partner. They took trips to California and Florida in their later years. He was nine years older than she so social security was new and very good to them.

When Parkinson disease was diagnosed for Gilbert, it progressed slowly, but it complicated their lives. He had never ridden with her doing the driving, but he finally had to. She cared for him at home until the last week he lived, and he died on June 14, 1970, almost 83 years old.

Mae continued to drive to Church Women’s (WMF) conventions of the St. Ansgar Circuit and later to the ALCW Conventions of the Mason City Conference. She loved to wear nice hats to those day-long events in the fall and spring. She preferred to be a participant and seldom had an office. She was very faithful to her circle and prepared her lessons well.

She taught Sunday School for 25 years, along with Gilbert who at times was the Sunday School Superintendent at Winnebago Lutheran Church. She was faithful in everything she did but was careful not to stretch herself too far.

Apple pie, cookies in the jar, buns, Lawrence Welk, and Flinch parties would describe her 28 years in her house on Grant Street.

It is ironic that she followed all of her brothers and sisters to their graves when they had said of her, “She will never come back from New Mexico alive”. She lived to be 92 years and 10 months old, longer than any other Dahlbys or in-laws lived. She practiced good health habits which she learned in her recovery times in the thirties. Maybe it was being the little girl in a big family that taught her to get what she wanted, or try to. She often tried to be a

match-maker and had great fun over that.

During more than six years at the Lake Mills Retirement Home she received very good care and company. She outlived nearly all her neighbors and friends, and she had faithful and frequent visitors from her three generations family. The residents remember how often her family came to visit her and that children sometimes came with carts or boxes full of kittens, puppies or bunnies to visit her and entertain all of them.

Mae’s journey is the most recent of the generations written in this book. She will be remembered for her pretty, well-kept hair and clothing, her love of nice, new things, for boat rides and Liberace. Television came in her generation and she had a special list of favorites. In her last days she often asked for a ride back home to Joice. There she would find her mother, her father and the brothers she loved so much. God has blessed us through the pain and the joys of this matriarch of the 1900’s. Our journey is better because she went before us.

OLAVA’S JOURNEYS

Olava Gulbrandsdotter Hovland was born in Hadeland, Norway. In 1867, she was 1 year old when she came with her parents, Berta and Gulbrand Hovland to Minnesota and she came to Iowa when she was 4 years old. She had two younger brothers by the time her mother died in 1874. This was a broken family with 6 motherless children. Olava stayed with the kind Hans Hovland family because her father was a carpenter and had to be away from home a lot.

Olava and Bendick Tweeten on their wedding day, July 2, 1884.

After her father finished the log addition to widow Gura Gunderson’s house in Mt Valley, he married her and they joined these two broken families. They also had 3 more children of their own. Olava worked in Mason City for a department store family and learned many homemaking skills and fine family ways. I believe she walked back and forth to go to her job.

Olava married Bendick (Bendik) Jorgensson Tweeten (Tvedten, Tveitan, in Norway as they have no “w” in their alphabet). He was from Mo and Nissedal, Telemark in Norway. He was often called Holtan after he arrived in America because his uncle Hans Holtan paid his

passage. They were married on July 2, 1884 when he was 29 and she was 18.

They began farming on a small wooded farm in Mt. Valley but by 1910 they had a big house, a fine big barn and many more acres. There was always much work and many babies. There were 13 babies and Mrs. Harris Olson was the midwife. Only once did they call the doctor to the farm to save the life of the mother and the baby. That was for Gena. Everyone had to work… helping mother… helping father… helping each other.

Gilbert got his name from the American name for Gulbrand and Gilbert named Olive for the

American name for Olava. Gilbert remembers helping his mother, even staying home from school to help with the laundry and the children. They were of similar gentle temperaments and Gilbert was late growing to adult size.

Gilbert remembered her first sewing machine and a stocking knitting machine. No one dared to touch it, but they were so shiny and bright. A seamstress came to sew underwear and garments for the big family and another lady came to bake the flat bread for the winter supply. This busy farm and household demanded a lot of good family management from both the mother and father.

The smaller children stood at the table and

often shared a plate of milk mush for supper. It was silent war when one took a bite over the middle line. Johnny cake with home-made sorghum and side pork were also family

staples. Their own apple orchard was important and so was the abundance of milk, cream and butter. This resourceful woman managed to keep her big family well clothed and fed for healthy growth.

They often shared their Sundays with Hovland and Tweeten aunts, uncles, and cousins. The whole family was expected to attend worship on Sunday except the person who stayed home with the baby and got the dinner ready. In winter when the six-mile trip to church was not possible, the four neighboring families Tweetens, Petersons, Moens and Tollefsons

Bendick Tweeten’s family about 1940, with all 13 children present. at the Westerberg farm with his wife Ida. Seated, John, Ida, Bendick, Theo, Ab, Ruth, standing, Sarah, Gilbert, Bennie, Martin, Gena, Oliver, Esther, Bill, Bertha..

. 6 daughters of Olava Hovland Tweeten, seated, Bertha and Esther, standing, Gena, Sarah, Ruth, and Theo.

had Sunday School and worship together. Other families who shared Sundays were the Halvor Holtans, Tom Holtan’s and Foss families.

Olava and Bendick Tweeten supported their pastor, Rev. J.M. Dahl, and Rev. C. S. Salveson from Forest City in their plan to make the defunct Waldorf Hotel into a Lutheran academy. They wanted it to have boys’ and girls’ dormitory rooms, dining room, a music department with band and chorus, and a

pre-seminary school. Gilbert was a winter-quarter student for three winters and most of their children attended and participated in the strong music program.

When Bennie and Martin got married, the parents moved to town to the pleasant home at 346 South Fourth Street in Forest City. Olava had been very ill with rheumatic fever the summer they added a new kitchen and bedroom addition to their farm home and baby Bertha had been born soon after that. Olava was ill again in 1917 when Oliver was in France at the front lines and when Gilbert’s wife Cora died from complications during surgery for a brain tumor.

On July 2, 1918 Olava died from cancer of the liver and leakage of the heart. She died at her home in Forest City with her family gathered around her. Oliver was still in France. Bendick said to her, “Tak for alt”. Since visiting Norway cemeteries, the author realizes this is a favorite farewell that appears on many tombstones. “Thanks for all”. The obituary records the service at Immanuel Church with three pastors speaking and also a service at Winnebago Lutheran Church with three more pastors speaking.

Blessed be the memory of this good and godly woman through the 470 blood descendants and beyond to succeeding generations. “Tak for Alt”.

BERTHA HALVORSDOTTER,

her husband Gulbrand, and their four children left their home in the rural Gran, Hadeland area about 35 miles from Oslo. They emigrated September 17, 1869 on the ship ‘ODER’ with tickets prepaid to Lansing, Iowa. They were third class passengers and had to provide their own food for the long ocean trip. They first settled in Fillmore County, Minnesota.

Gulbrand was a big man and hard worker but one summer he became ill and Bertha had to take his place in the harvest field. She had a sun stroke and was never well and strong after that.

In 1870 they came to the Fertile, Iowa, area where they lived in a dugout with two other families. On this site, across the field northeast from Bud Petersburg’s buildings, on a steep hillside sloping to the southeast, they used timbers to make a wall for the face of their home. Research shows no possible blood relationship between the Hovlands, Oswalds and Levangs who shared the dugout. Only pioneer circumstances brought them together. Later Gulbrand got a place of his own on the west edge of Goose Lake, a beautiful site with an oak grove and hills which was later passed on to other Hovlands and Gundersons.

There is some question where they lived in 1874 when Bertha Halvorsdotter died, and it seems her burial site will never be known for certain. In about 1974 the author walked in an overgrown cemetery site about two miles from the dugout and was convinced that Bertha was buried there, in what is now the restored Chapel Hill cemetery.

However, now we have better information that no one was buried on Chapel Hill until 1884, so the quest goes on. Little Halvor remembers his dad being gone all day to bury the mother Bertha by Northwood, but the best guess seems to be that she is buried in an unmarked grave

at Brush Point cemetery, two miles east of the dugout site. On February 8, 1874 Gulbrand was a charter member of the group to form a church and start a cemetery at Brush Point.

Later, when he finally had the funds for a gravestone marker, he found the wooden cross marker was gone. The stone remained on the Mt. Valley Hovland farm for a while until finally someone kindly buried it.

When Gena Nelson was in her nineties, she still remembered that she had the same birthday as her grandmother Bertha. Olava’s last daughter was named Bertha after her mother.

This death of the mother of the family was an especially desperate circumstance in those days, and there seemed no choice but to give Albert, the baby, to the Murkves, a childless sister of the Oswalds who were moving on to the Northwood, North Dakota area. Albert’s descendants are all Murkves. Olava stayed with the kindly Hans Hovland family, and the girls and Halvor tried to be helpful to their father.

Gulbrand was a carpenter by trade and he had to be gone a lot, so this was a survival kind of life for his young family.

A widow in Mt. Valley hired him to add a log addition to her house. When it was time to pay

Many members of nearly every family in this book have been baptized, confirmed, married, and buried at Winnebago Lutheran Church in rural Lake Mills, IA This building was built ito replace the first church building which was destroyed by lightning and fire in 1887.

him, she married him instead and joined their families together in the expanded house. Gura Gunderson had 6 children, Gulbrand still had 5, and they eventually had 3 more together.

Gulbrand also kindly took Hannah Mausestad’s father to raise for the baby Albert he had given away.

It was a house with room for many extras for two generations of Hovlands. Gulbrand was a good singer and the “klokker” (song leader) at

Winnebago Lutheran Church. Olava helped him learn tunes with the ukelin, a simple stringed instrument with a bow. He was a pious family patriarch and father of a pioneer Iowa family of Mt. Valley township. Bertha’ family in Norway was not forgotten either, for Halvor Hanson, son of Bertha Halvorsdotter’s sister, was the janitor for forty years at Winnebago Church. Bertha continues to be a blessing through her many descendants.

This is the interior view of Winnebago Church, typical of the United Church, which was midway in theology between the higher church style of the Norwegian Synod and the starkness of the pietist Hauge Synod..

JOREN’S JOURNEYS

What do we know about these earliest grandmothers? This is my attempt to tell Joren’s story. Joren, sometimes known as Jaron, Jorund, Hjoren and Jorun, has a story that is both more desperate and more dramatic than most of my stories. In the appendix, at the end of this book, you may also read, “Next to the Sweetest Name ,” her story as told by Halvor Hovland. It is a folk love story with some fact and some fiction.

It seems that she had to leave her mother’s home in Hallingdal to find work so she could eat. Other young people were making this same trip to Hadeland where the farms were bigger and more help was needed. The author and her husband Stanford drove this harsh valley in 1988 and sensed its desperation.

Her mother’s family were farm owners and so were her unmarried father’s family. Her

mother Sigrid Sjugurdsdotter never married and had four other children so her circum stances must have been difficult. Joren was about 17 years old when she made the journey to Hadeland from Hol, Hallingdal, the valley where she had grown up.

There Joren met and later married Ole Oleson (later called Hovland) from the Gran, Hadeland area. She was a servant at farm Faland and he was a servant at farm Helmen. He was 21 and she was 25. Ole was perhaps himself the illegitimate son of Ole Toreson Rosterud and his mother Guri Nilsdotter Kloppa of Lunner. Guri died when Ole was 6 months old and Ole was probably adopted by Hans Olson from Harestuskogen.

Judging from their son Gulbrand’s baptismal record from 1835, Ole and Jaron were able to marry and live together on the same farm Hvindeneie. There was little opportunity for young people to have a place of their own to

make a home together. Part of the name of the farm comes from a little waterfall and a little river called Tangen that goes on to a fjord called Randsfjorden. The farm lies high above and a very long way from the fjord and its name in the record is the clue that they were “husmann” folks, hired workers.

I • Joren and Ole Hovland before 1890.

Besides Gulbrand, they had five other sons who reached adulthood, as well as a daughter and two sons who died young. The last place they lived in Gran was a husmann’s place called Vestbraten under the farm Hovland in Lunnar. In Halvor’s story they lived on the farm of Hovland and had a good life, but this probably is not quite accurate. The census records show that they lived on a different cotter’s place each time a child was born, which made them the poorest of the poor in the overpopulated Gran area.

The records show that their first sons to emigrate were Hans, who was single, and Ole, who left with his wife and two children in 1867. Gulbrand, Berte, and their four children, Julia, 7, Milla, 6, Halvor, 4, and Olava, 1, left Norway September 17, 1869 on the ship “Oder” with tickets prepaid to Lansing, Iowa.

Immigration must have been difficult for the old but when the last son left, Otto, who was a widower, Joren and Ole had no choice but to travel with him to the available lands in Minnesota. If our records are correct, Joren was 73 and Ole 69 when they made that difficult voyage and long trip.

They spent their last years in the beautiful Red River Valley near Rothsay, Minnesota. They lived long enough to see each of their six sons prosper, own land, and build comfortable buildings, schools, and churches for their very large families.

They are buried in the rural Friborg Church cemetery at Rothsay, alongside many of their descendants. Their tombstones give witness to their deep faith to those of us who view them 100 years later. “Here lies the dust of Ole and Jaron. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from all sin.”

Joren may have been influenced by the teachings of Hans Nilson Hauge, the revival preacher, as her cousin was later married to Elling Eielson, one of the most outstanding Haugean evangelists in America. This woman of small stature showed strong evidence of deep piety as she raised her family of six boys.

Elsie and Amund Dahlby about 1895.

Joren and Ole’s story illustrates the pain of leaving all they knew in Norway for the unknown, but promised world in America, for “the children’s sake”. We honor their memory, their faithfulness and godliness, their hardiness and their prolific genes.

ELSIE AMALIA KITTLESON

was born Nov. 16, 1859 to pioneer Norwegian parents in an early log house in Dane County near Primrose, Wisconsin. Her parents Isak Kittleson and Ellen Kjistine Lee were married in Sannidal Church in South Telemark on March 6, 1850. Tom Dahle in his Kittleson story says, “These parents and their four children arrived in Madison, Wisconsin July 3, 1855 after a 13- week journey from the farm, Kvihaugen, near Kragero, Telemark, Norway. There were four families living in the primitive dugout at the base of a hill. Grandfather, parents, three brothers and baby Anne Marie lived there until they got their own quarters built on the land they purchased a short distance away.”

Elsie was fifth in the family and life was already more comfortable for her family. This was a prosperous hard working successful community of strongly Norwegian dairy farmers.

By the time she married ambitious hard working Amund Dahlby, and with a lot of hard work, they had a

farm of their own. Each of them made intelligent choices for the years ahead.

Soon there were three boys and three girls and Wisconsin was too settled for Amund, so Elsie became a pioneer in the new frontier of Iowa. They built a big house on the north edge of Kensett where Mae was born in 1896. Amund and his big boys farmed all the way into Minnesota at that time, plus ran other enterprises.

In about 1895 they traded their Kensett house with farmer Bergsagel for the big farm on the east side of what is now Joice, Iowa. Soon the railroad purchased right of way close by which

put them in the middle of the excitement of building the town. The depot agent K.C. Medgorden stayed at the Dahlbys’ house and later married daughter Ellen. The banker K.S. Paulson stayed at the Dahlby house and later courted daughter Alpha. There never was a marriage because they were second cousins and she took it very hard.

The early Joice history pictures a Dahlby livery barn which was an essential service in the new town. Mae remembered that Amund ran a butcher shop for a while and young Paul even ran a rural route of meat and groceries at one time. They both liked peanuts so you could tell how long their trip had been by the pile of

shells in the buggy or wagon.

The beautiful, large classic home they built on the farm about 1900 accommodated all the social life, Ladies Aid, Young People’s Society, summer cousins visiting from Wisconsin and girl and boy friends. There were five bedrooms upstairs, one downstairs, a large front parlor, sitting room, large kitchen and dining room.

Young Mae loved the parties and the visiting boyfriends and girlfriends. She yearned for this carefree time the rest of her life.

The parlor had horsehair covered furniture pieces and woven rag rugs sewed together for carpet. There was straw beneath to give a padding. There was a ritual of refilling the straw tick for the beds after the new straw was threshed in July. It was a time for giggling girls.

Aunt Alpha was a fine musician so there was

always lots of singing when she was around. She and Uncle Peter attended Humboldt College at Humboldt and were qualified teachers. Alpha was also a skilled seamstress as we observe in the well-dressed family picture we have. She was the one who styled the hair for the big and little girls.

Aunt Ellen and Uncle James attended Waldorf Academy. Uncle Isaac was educated in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. He attended North Dakota Agricultural College at Fargo and Iowa State College at Ames. It perhaps was at this time he chose to identify with Unitarian beliefs. While he was a student at Fargo, he contracted Typhoid Fever. His mother went by train to care for him there.

Grandma Elsie was the encourager of education and the arts. She was physically large

at 5′ 9″ tall and had long limbs. When she sat by Grandpa Amund in church she was shorter than he but when she stood, she was as tall as he because of her long legs and short waist.

Komer says she could carry all the milking buckets to the barn in one trip and out-milk all of the men. She was organized and amiable except if it was a matter of right and wrong.

Then she was strong for right. She was good to make doughnuts and pie which were the best with her quick mix.

Mae says she was president of her Ladies Aid for 25 years. This was the big church, Concordia Lutheran, on the high point east and south of the big farm. It was identified with the Norwegian Synod the same as their Perry Church in Wisconsin. It was high church and not merged with the Haugeans yet.

Amund was not as cultured by birth as Elsie because his mother, Aaste had died at his birth November 1, 1862, and he grew up with a step mother and a half-brother Olaus. His own father Peter A. was a member of the Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, perhaps with Colonel Hegg’s company of all Norwegians. They served with distinction; immigrants, older men, Norwegians and all very patriotic in the later days of the Civil War.

Amund was an outstanding livestock man. He began breeding purebred cattle and hogs very early along with his son Peter.

Horses were his finest success and he made money selling western horses he and his help trained to drive. Mae loved the horses and the excitement of driving the lively ones. She said one year they broke 200 western horses which had been shipped in by train. This experience helped her in her own pioneer life in Canada.

When Iowa became too settled too, Elsie and Amund, Alpha and her family, and Peter and his family left to become pioneers once more

on the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada, where homesteading lands were available. Mae stayed home to manage the big house for Uncle James and to be the cook at age 16. She hosted cousins from Wisconsin and even hosted a big gathering of Young People’s Society. She

served homemade bread and two kinds of cake. She loved to tell how the girls liked Uncle James. She says he entertained 20 different girl friends that summer.

By the end of summer, she had a boyfriend Ingebret Kaasa. Her parents didn’t approve though and soon plans were made that she should join the other Dahlbys in Canada. There were soon two sets of newlyweds on the big farm. James married Viola Swenson and Paul married Clara Brunsvold.

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within a 6•mile radius of the Dahlby store and post office. Valiant School and cemetery were key places also. The homesteaded lands are still owned and operated today by Bothners and Dahlbys.

Amund Dahlby loved the pioneer life and the problem solving that went with it. When they left for Canada they had railroad cars of horses, mules, household goods and supplies. These were unusual homesteaders who had good equipment and money. This was the exception, not the rule.

Amund chose to run a store and post office in the area their families lived named Dahlby.

They also chose a site for a church and cemetery but they became accustomed to using

the rural school for worship and parties and social times.

These farmers went to the Saskatchewan prairies and tried to farm like they had in Iowa, moldboard plowing, letting weeds grow for plow-down and generally not conserving moisture, even trying to raise corn. It was a generation before they learned dry-land farming management.

Komer says Elsie Dahlby felt a US war was coming and she didn’t want her sons involved so she supported the move to Canada as she felt Canada would stay neutral. Her own father

Isak Kittleson and her father-in-law Peter A. Dahlby were in the Union Army in the Civil War and her mother’s only brother Jacob Lee was a Confederate soldier. Jacob Lee was injured escaping from the prisoner’s camp but he later moved to Iowa where he bought a farm in 1879 at Fertile. He is buried in a lonely spot at Grant Township Cemetery in rural Fertile with his wife.

Peter’s wife Marie Treslan’s mother and brothers lived near Beechy but she wanted to

go back to Iowa. They left a nicely built

Iowa-type house and barn. The Amund Dahlbys also made plans to leave along with Paul and Ruth. Mae had a serious boy-friend by this time, a homesteader named Oscar Johnson who had come from Northwood, North Dakota. He doubled the size of his homestead shack for his bride. It was farther from the rest of the homesteads and is presently at the edge of

the very large community pasture.

There were more places for Grandma Elsie to live. There was the house with the tower in Lake Mills where they lived when Salem church was building their new church about 1918. Later Amund built a big comfortable house on East Main with home-sawed lumber from his wooded farm north of town. They lived in this house when Komer and Sybil stayed with them and went to high school.

There were great financial reverses for the young Dahlbys in Iowa and Canada during the 20’s and 30’s and the fortunes of Elsie and

Amund changed along with the land values and grain and livestock prices. This very successful couple lost their earthly fortunes and their health failed, but their faith in a loving and caring Heavenly Father never wavered. They spent their last years back home in Joice, first on the northwest corner of town and later uptown in the little house.

Amund died unexpectedly at age 76 from complications following prostate surgery. Their good partnership of marriage shows us who are their descendants an example of living together a full and adventurous life.

Elsie lived with her children during different months. Her eyesight was failing so her best handwork was making the wagon-wheel rugs for which she has considerable fame. These are woven rug made on a metal hoop about 30″ in diameter with recycled fabric, rags of every color. Her granddaughters, Sybil and Ruth, have carried on her tradition of this very local folk art.

Elsie loved her church and she grieved when the James Dahlbys chose to join the newly organized Lutheran Brethren Church.

Gilbert reminded her she should be more grieved for those of her family who did not practice their faith in worship. She grieved deeply when her handsome 18-year-old grandson Harold Dahlby died suddenly on the kitchen floor. “Why wasn’t it me? I’m old and useless and his parents needed him.” Each generation deals with its pains of dying and growing old and claims the promises of the Savior. She taught us well. God bless the memory of this Elsie from a long line of Elsies.

ELLEN KJISTINE LEE KITTLESON

came from Kragero and Sannidal on the coast of south Telemark. She was born at Osebak ken, now a part of Porsgrunn. Her parents were Jacob Christianson Lee and Ellen and our limited information suggests he was a shipbuilder in that port area. Ellen had taken a job to be the housekeeper in the home of

Jacob Paulson at farm “Kvihaugen” near Sannidal. Here she met his young nephew Isak who had been adopted by this childless couple as his own father had died early. Records show they were married in Sannidal Church in March 1850. They lived on with Jakob Paulson for 5 years and then, with their three sons, joined the growing group of families leaving Norway.

Their journey to Wisconsin took 13 weeks. Aunt Anne Dahle was born in their first home in America which was a dugout shared with two other families. Soon they purchased land for their first home and it was there Elsie was

This is the house in Dane County, WI, where Ellen gave birth to Elsie and others of her children.

Ellen and Isak’s signatures from daughter Elsie’s autograph book before 1900.

born. They were young and ambitious and this strong Norwegian settlement was a support group for progress. Soil without big rocks, acres of land for dollars per acre, markets already in Chicago and Milwaukee for wheat, potatoes, milk and beef made their future bright.

Soon they built a comfortable frame house for their growing family, which eventually included Jake, Christian, Jens, Anne, Elise, Elsie, Edel and Isak. Elise never married and was a long-time parochial school teacher and cultured spinster. She cared for her parents and later lived with Aunt Anne. One year she even came to Lake Mills, Iowa and stayed with her cousin Elsie Lyng while she taught one month of parochial school after eight months of public school.

In Februa ry, 1865, Isak enlisted in the 46th Regiment. At the close of the Civil War, he

Perry Church, Daleyville, WI, the site of many Kittleson and Dahlby burials.

was honorably discharged and returned home in October 1865. We are still attempting to learn more about the circumstances that found Ellen’s only brother Jacob J. Lee in the 15th Infantry of the Confederate Army. The Fertile, Iowa Centennial Book records that Jacob Lee was captured by the Union Army and was at a camp without food or water. The prisoners prayed for relief and the rains came. He was injured when he escaped and this injury finally caused his death in 1898. In 1879 he purchased the farm southwest of Fertile known later by the Peter Dahlbys as the Lee farm. They are buried at Grant Twp. Cemetery near Fertile.

The Wisconsin settlement was rapid because the Norwegian immigrants came by boat to Milwaukee or by boat and train to Chicago and from there to Madison. The Kittlesons were about 40 miles SW of Madison so soon they were no longer the frontier. The territory of Wisconsin and Iowa never benefited from the Homestead Act of 1865. It was immigrants to North Dakota and Minnesota, with the help of the railroad promoters, who profited from the Homestead Act to find available lands.

The routing of the Milwaukee Road mainline railroad through Mt. Horeb made it the town of opportunity while Daleyville remained a small village with church and school. Primrose was the township where the Kittlesons lived and Dyvand School was their community center.

When they retired to Mt. Horeb they lived in the comfortable white house across the street from Herman and Anne Dahle. Both Isak and Ellen are buried in Perry Cemetery, Dane County, Wisconsin. The Amund and Elsie

Dahlby family honored this family by naming Elsie’s son Isaac (Isak) and her daughter Ellen. Ellen Kjistine lived until September 2, 1900 and her story tells of changes to a totally new way of life. When she was 30 years old, she moved from a childhood and young life in Norway of seaports and ships, to be a frontier mother in America in a completely rural setting. She must have been a remarkable woman as her children have called her blessed. We too honor her numerous descendants and their contribution to the settling of Wisconsin and Iowa. This couple’s picture can be seen in the Little Norway Museum near Mt. Horeb and at the Holtan Homestead Museum near Forest City.

Ellen and Isak Kittleson. Their portraits are displayed for her funeral. in 1900.

AASTE’S JOURNEYS

Aaste Julsdotter Hoverud Dahlby, was born January 27, 1831, and came with her parents Jul and Marit Haverud and her 7 siblings to Wisconsin from the “Queen of the Norway Valleys,” Valdres. They were early immigrants who came on the ship “17th of May” from the Swenes parish and arrived in New York on June 26, 1849.

They, who came with their eight children, were better situated financially than many immigrants. They were comfortable parents back in Valdres but they saw little future for their children, especially their four sons, so they decided to try their luck in the new land of America.

The Hoveruds were likely members of the old Hauge Church on the northwest edge of Daleyville, Dane County, Wisconsin and the Dahlbys members at Perry Church on the south side of Daleyville village. Flam’s History of Norwegian Immigration, page 345 says, “About twenty Norwegians settled in Perry (Dane County) in 1849….They were…Jul Hoverud, wife and eight children from Valdres and Andreas Sanderson from Hallingdal.”

In 1853, Aaste’s sister Astri married Ole Swenson who would become Helen Dahlby Nelson’s maternal great-grandmother. This couple died together in the cyclone of 1868 which was so destructive in their vicinity.

In 1855, Aaste, who was 24, married Peter Amundson Dahlby, 28. Soon this young immigrant couple in this new and promising land were expecting a son to add to their family. Their joy was short lived as the young mother Aaste gave her life in childbirth but the baby, Around, was saved. It was November 1, 1856. In those days it was necessary to find a nursing mother who had lost her own baby and who was available to nurse the motherless

baby. This person would be called a “wet. nurse”. Only the hardiest babies could survive on cow’s milk before the days of pasteurizing milk, diluting it and adding dextrose.

Baby Amund had another early loss in his life when his Grandmother Hoverud died in 1874. This grandmother and Aaste are no doubt buried in unmarked graves in the Old Hauge Church Cemetery in Daleyville. Gerhard Naeseth, genealogist at the University of Wisconsin, is our authority on this burial site. Peder A. Dahlby served with Company G of the 46th Wisconsin Infantry during the latter part of the Civil War.

This baby Amund was soon to have a stepmother and later a brother Olaus. His ambitious father experienced losing all his buildings in a cyclone but he rebuilt them and moved on to another farm so that Amund could have the original home site when he married Elsie Kittleson.

Aaste’s father, Jul Hoverud, is credited in the newspaper as having invented a wood splitter which “would be one more of his inventions to make a better way of doing work.”

Amund brought handsome hair to his descendants and his lean, long frame is perhaps also a credit to his mother Aaste. So also are family traits of a love of music, hard work, devout living, and industrious living. Aaste’s grandson James Olaus Dahlby married Astri’s granddaughter Viola Swenson, so there are some who have double connections to this heritage.

Aaste’s memory lives on through her many descendants in Iowa and Canada. Aaste is one of the bridges from the old world to the new world and we are thankful for her life.

SIGRl’S BRIEF JOURNEY

Sigri (Sigrid) Tarjeisdotter Nordgaard Tweeten (1830-1878) was born at Mo, Telemark to Tarjei and Else Mandt Nordgaard. She gr w up in a privileged home, the oldest of three sisters and two brothers. This was in Froland, a remote green valley where the girls were trained at home and at church so there was little chance to meet new boy friends in her social class. When she was 21, she married an adjacent neighbor Jorgen Bendikson, whose father was a cotter with land. They lived in the Mo area for 10 years on his mother’s farm Lofthus and on the Sigurdsli og Felland farm they purchased.

In 1859, when Bendik was four years old they moved to a Tveitane farm which they purchased at Norde Nissedal about 40 miles away. It was a warmer, more productive valley. This was Tveitane #8 so there were many families who called themselves Tveitane in Nissedal. The NISSEDAL BYGDABOK says “Jorgen died in 1867 at 45 years of age”. By now there were six living children: Mikkel, 20, Bendik, 12, Else, 7, Asne, 4, Tarjei, 2 and Dreng, 1. Five others had died as infants; one Bendik, two Asnes, and two Elses had died.

They continued to christen the babies until there was someone to carry on the grandparent’s name. The rule was always the same. The first son was named after the paternal grandfather, the second son after the maternal grandfather, the first daughter after the paternal grandmother, and the second after the maternal grandmother. No wonder the same names keep reoccurring.

Oliver Tweeten remembered some informa tion about these people. His story is that Jorgen rode off on his horse one day and never returned. There was some speculation that he had tuberculosis which was the dread disease of that time and he disappeared to protect the

BUMERIKES are distinctive Norwegian signatures for people who couldn’t read or write, and later, just as a tradition. They were used for legal transactions, so they usually were for people who had some property, but they are also folk art just as western brands and medieval crests are. The above are from some distant ancestors: above from 1626, I tor, Tore Geirulvson (Gjerstad), Gunnar Arak, Karl Heimdal, Knut Stordale, and Knud Olsson paa Haugsiaae boinde, and below from 1665, Jon Torjusson Nordbo (note the spelling of •ion•), Tallak T. Grovum., Jon T. Hatveit, and Salve Grovum.

capable spouse and mother. Both parents evidently came from good backgrounds and together instructed their eight children in the basics and the arts. The boys particularly were known for their fine handwriting and proper use of language. The four

adult sons all became outstanding goldsmiths, prominent citizens, lensmenn and parish klokkers. All acquired property and many descendants.”

The September 4, 1974 AFTENPOSTE says “the Mandt descendants were regarded as people who could master any situation. Besides being outstanding artists and craftmen, many of them had more knowledge than was usual at that time. They could read and write and get high positions of influence”.

Else Mandt’s final gift to her

99 years old and passing those hardy genes to each of those who come after her. Her journey became a blending of the nationalities and the first of many cross cultural marriages for the good of the generations. We honor her strong contributions to our family tree.

descendants was living to be I • Three cousins named Elsie for their Grandmother Else in Norway, I

The Next to the Sweetest Name: A Love Story from Old Norway,

A folk story as told by Halvor Hovland, not a strictly historical account

Part 1

About 1834 there lived in Halan, Norway, a tall, dark, and handsome young man by the name of Ole. Ole could not remember his father, neither could he remember his mother, and he had no

brothers and sisters. Poor Ole was all alone in this world and stayed with some kind people and worked for them.

However, times were getting hard and one day these kind people told him they had no more work and couldn’t afford to keep him any longer.

That evening Ole

went to bed feeling very sad because he didn’t have the slightest idea where to go and find work. In the night he had a dream, but in the morning- try as he may- he could not remember it. He dressed, bid the folk goodbye, and started out to look for work. He stopped at every place on the road and asked if they needed help, but no one seemed to have any work for him. On and on he trudged.

Part 2

About this same time over in Haling Dal, there lived a young girl by the name of Jaron who was in a similar situation. She couldn’t remember her father or mother either and the people she stayed with had also told her they couldn’t keep her any longer and that she

would have to find another place to stay. That night she cried herself to sleep and also dreamed. In her dream she thought she heard a man say, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This man’s name was Jesus. Jesus. “That is the sweetest name I have ever heard in all the world,” exclaimed Jaron. She also saw a tall young man who looked very kind coming toward her.

Jaron was a very short young lady and very

small and many times she was mistaken for a child; but Jaron had had a hard life in her young years and definitely was an adult. In the morning, Jaron came to the breakfast table with tear-swollen eyes, for she had been crying most of the night. After bidding the folk goodbye, she started out to look for another place to stay. As she was walking along, she saw faintly in the distance

someone walking down the road, coming toward her. Nearer and nearer this person came, and as they drew near, Jaron almost stopped still! To her amazement, this person was the same man she had seen in her dream the night before! How tall and handsome he was!

Part 3

It just so happened that when this tall, dark, and handsome young man- who was Ole- saw this girl, he remembered his dream. You see he had dreamed that he had seen a young girl and here she was, the same girl he had seen in his dream. When they met, Ole said, “Hello, little girI.”

She answered and said, “I may be little, but I

am an adult.”

He asked her name and found it to be Jaron. Jaron then asked his name and he told her, “Ole is my name.”

“Oh, what a sweet name,” she said. “That is the next to the sweetest name I have ever heard.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ole. “What is the sweetest name?”

“Oh, that is Jesus,” she replied. “And by the way, Ole, what is your last name?”

“I have none,” he said. “And what is yours?” “I have none either,” Jaron replied.

What a coincidence. Two weary travelers looking for work, meeting on the road. They decided to look for work together and so down the road they went. Step by step they trudged along, talking all the way. It seemed as if they had known each other all their lives as their circumstances had been so similar.

By this time, Ole had gotten up some courage, so he said, “Darling, what would you say if I asked you to be my wife?”

“Oh, I would be so happy, I wouldn’t know what to say.” Jaron exclaimed. Ole grasped her up into his arms and you may guess what took place the next few minutes.

He continued holding Jaron in his arms and walked down the road still looking for work. It seemed that everyone had plenty of help and couldn’t use them. They were getting very hungry, but had no money with which to buy food. Ole kept on walking till he came to a big rock and then he sat down to rest. In the meantime, Jaron had already fallen asleep.

He sat there, watching her pretty face and wondering if it could be really true, or just a dream. Finally, Ole went to sleep and rested his head upon Jaron. While sleeping, Ole dreamed

he saw a great big tree and the branches of the tree reached out in all directions and had twelve manners of fruit. He thought he would get some of the fruit. Around the tree was a large wall and a big gate and on the gate were written these words: “Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have a right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates of the city. Ole then woke and found Jaron still in his arms.

He was so happy that this was not just a dream, but a reality, that he began to sing: “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” and he sang so loud that it echoed in the great mountain. His singing woke Jaron, and looking up into his face she softly.said, “I have never heard anybody sing as nice as you, darling.”

He thanked her and said, “What shall we do. Here we are in a strange place without any money and nothing to eat.”

Jaron answered and said, “Don’t worry, darling, you have me and I have you , and we will be all right. When I was sleeping in your arms, I had a dream and saw a straight road and a little way from the road was a big house and by it stood a man and a lady and when we got close to them, they waved to us and we went over to them.”

“Perhaps, that dream has a special meaning.” said Ole. “It seems that all our dreams are coming true and that the Lord is surely leading us. Let us see if we can find that straight road you saw in your dream.”

Sure enough, they did and on one side there was the house. Nearer and nearer they came and to their happy surprise, there was the man and lady Jaron had seen in her dream. They were waving and beckoning for them to come over. As they approached, Ole said, “Good morning, neighbor.”

The man answered, “Good morning, and what

is your name?”

My name is Ole, and this lady is Jaron.”

“Is that so,” the man said, “My name is Ole, too. Ole Hovland.”

“Could you let us have something to eat? We have not had anything to eat since yesterday morning, early. I have no money but will gladly work to pay for it.”

But this time the lady of the house spoke up and said, “I saw you in my dream- you folk coming up the road- and I have the table set for four and we are only two. Come in and eat with us. We have been waiting for you.”

As they were seated, Ole was asked to say the blessing. He bowed his head and prayed: “Dear Jesus, I thank you for leading us all the way.

Bless this food and the hands that have prepared it. Amen.”

While they were eating, Ole told Mr. and Mrs. Hovland the whole story about himself and Jaron.

Mr. Hovland said, “Ole, you need not worry or go any further to look for work. The folk that lived with us left yesterday for the United States and we have a big extra room. From now on you and Jaron can stay here as long as you want to, and work for us. Ole, you look tired. You had better lie down and rest while Jaron helps my wife with the dishes.”

How thankful Ole and Jaron were to have found such a nice place to stay.

Mr. Hovland also said, “I will go out and get things ready and there will be a wedding tonight. Since neither of you know what your last names are, from now on you will be Mr. and Mrs. Ole Hovland.”

Ole and Jaron were delighted with the name Hovland as they had already learned to love these kind folks. So many wonderful things had happened in the last two days, and now they

were to be man and wife. Ole turned to Jaron and said, “Darling, this is the starting of a new generation, isn’t it?”

“Yes”, answered Jaron, as he lovingly placed a kiss on her soft cheek.

They had a beautiful wedding there in the moonlight- Ole and Jaron. How happy they were that they had found one another.

Part 4

Life settled down into pretty much of a routine for them, but the two Oles got along very nicely working together and Jaron enjoyed working around the house. Time passed quickly and it was not long before a little “newcomer” came to join Ole and Jaron. How happy they were! “What shall we name him?” asked Ole.

“Let’s call him Ole” said Jaron, “The next to the sweetest name I have ever heard. The sweetest name is Jesus.”

So Ole it was- and now there were three Oles. Later Gulbran was born and then Sever, Hans, Nels, and Otto. Five boys in all and one girl who died in infancy.

Part 5

Almost before they realized it, their boys were grown and had homes of their own. Ole, the first born, married in Norway, and also Gulbran. Hans, Nels, and Otto came to this country and worked and helped their brothers to get across. Later all five chipped in and sent the money for their parents to come to the wonderful United States. So Ole and Jaron came, and lived a while with Hans, and then with Gulbran, and then went to Minnesota where the other boys lived.

Part 6

One day, Ole said, “Darling, I guess the time has come when you and I must part. I love you just as much as I did the day we first met- there on the dusty road. Now my eyes are growing

dim and I can hardly see your sweet face anymore. Now, don’t cry, my darling, for we shall meet again when the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first and then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

He was laid to rest, and soon Jaron followed him. Together they wait for their Lord’s return and on that glad resurrection day. Jaron will not only see Ole again- whose name is the next to the sweetest she has ever heard- but also her Redeemer and Friend, JESUS- THE SWEETEST NAME IN ALL THE WORLD!

How I Happen to be an American Chapter 1

The Story of Gulbrand 0. Hovland and family, as told by Kathryn Hovland, 1939.

In a small log cabin in Norway on a farm by the name of Hovland, Mr. and Mrs. Ole Hovland became the parents of a baby boy on June 1, 1835. This child was my grandfather. This farm is located near Falang in the Lunner herred and the Kristians Ampt, about seven Norwegian miles from Oslo. Grandpa was one of six brothers, Ole, Syver, Nels, Hans, Otto, and Gulbrand (my grandfather). Hans was the. first of the brothers to set sail for America which was considered the land of plenty and the other four soon followed. Grandfather was married in Norway to Bertha Halvorson and they lived with his parents on the Hovland farm. They had pasture for a couple of cows and a small garden. My grandfather’s occupation was cutting logs. His wages were almost unbelievably low. He rose at four o’clock and worked till dark and was paid six

cents a day. It seems almost impossible to us who have so plenty to see how he could have raised a family on so little.

When my grandfather’s brothers had become settled in America and had earned a little money, they sent it to Norway so their father and mother and their brother and his family could come to this wonderful place. Grand father at that time had four children, Julia, Mella, Halvor, and Olava. My uncle Halvor was about five years old and Olava was but a baby. She was born November 8, 1866.

The family was overjoyed at the prospect of coming to America and immediately made plans for their journey- disposing of their land and goods. They made the journey to Oslo on foot allowing Halvor and the baby to ride in the wagon which held their three trunks. They only took with them the bare necessities such as clothes and a few dishes. The family set sail in a small boat and were on the ocean about sixteen weeks. Uncle Halvor told me of their long tiresome journey. Some days, he said, the wind would carry them back as far as they had gone forward the previous day. They came very near starvation and he told about the bread that they had to eat. They were something like a biscuit and were called “checks.” They were hard and moldy.

Uncle remembered his mother telling him of a few incidents on the boat. One was of a time he nearly drowned. He wanted a drink and when he went to get it he went the wrong direction and as he was so small he started walking towards the end of the deck. As he was about to step off a man grabbed him, thus saving him from drowning. He also told me the story of a man who got so hungry because they couldn’t eat as much as they wished. This man kicked out the bottom of an apple barrel and treated apples to a few of the passengers. He then tipped the barrel up again so it would

look as if nothing was amiss. It was through this

man that they had apples for many days.

The boat landed at Quebec, Canada, and from there they took a still smaller boat to Lansing, Iowa. They stayed in Winneshiek County in Iowa for a short time. Their meat consisted chiefly of rabbit, ducks and prairie chickens as grandfather had brought along his gun.

Grandfather’s parents stayed with their other sons who lived in the surrounding county until their death while grandfather and his wife looked for a place to settle.

They lived at Spring Grove, Minnesota for about three years and then moved to Worth County, Iowa, near Fertile. Here they lived in a cellar or dug-out with three other families Knut Levang and his young wife, Halvor Levang and his mother, and Peter Oswald’s who had three children at that time, Eliza, Martin, and Elias who later all died. It seems a sort of coincidence that the Peter Oswald family should have lived with Grandpa Hovland at this time because it so happened that my mother was one of Peter Oswald’s children, not born as yet and Gulbrand Hovland was my dad’s father. This place where they first lived near Fertile remained the home of the Peter Oswald’s and it was here my mother grew to womanhood. This land in Worth County had not been worked at that time and first they cleared a place for a garden. They spaded the garden and my uncle told me that the land was so fertile that four potatoes produced a full pail.

They then built a log house and things seemed to be going nicely when grandfather contracted fever thus leaving his wife to do all the work.

Two more children were born: Oscar, on April 1, 1870, and Albert, April 2, 1872. This heavy work that the wife had to do made her health decline and shortly after Albert’s birth she died. This came as quite a blow to grandpa and it also left him with six children to support.

Albert, the baby, was adopted by Knut Morkue

and his wife. Grandpa didn’t want to give him up but when Mrs. Morkue came in one day Albert started crying because he thought she was his mother and when Mrs. Morkue asked for Albert, Grandpa didn’t have the heart to refuse because she was such a kind lady and she had no children of her own. Another peculiar thing was that this lady who adopted Albert was my mother’s aunt, my grandpa Oswald’s sister. The girl Albert married, Anna Hannsen, was also adopted by another of my mother’s aunts, Ingeborg Hannsen, in Norway. Then when they came to America, she met Albert and they were married. Grandpa’s oldest daughter Julia married Ole Christopher son and took her sister Mella with them to North Dakota. This left Oscar, Halvor, and Olava at home.

Grandfather’s occupation at this time was carpentering. He was called to Mt. Valley Township, Winnebago County, Iowa, near Joice, to build a log house for Mrs. Kittil Gunderson whose husband was dead. She had six children, Tilda (Thea) born December 15, 1860; Gunder, April 18, 1864; Christopher,

April 4, 1866; Tellef, May 8, 1868; Torbjorg (Thune), November 20, 1869; and Anna Maria (Mulla), October 8, 1871. All these children were young and stayed at home. Grandfather was a wise man for instead of getting his pay he married Mrs. Gunderson immediately after the house was finished. Mrs. Gunderson’s maiden name was Gyro Christopherson. She was born at Garden Kaasen in Nissedal which is in the Opdal herred, on September 13, 1836. The farm name Kaasen comes from “Kos”,

meaning a pile of cut down trees ready to be burned. It is believed that this farm got its name because of a fire that had cleared it of the trees. She was baptized September 25, 1836. I have found these recordings in a huge old Norwegian Bible we have in our home.

Gulbrand 0. Hovland and Gyro Christopher-

son Gunderson, my grandpa and grandma, were married somewhere around 1875 or 1876. The exact date could not be found. To this union were born three children- Carl, June 22, 1877, Bertha, February 2, 1879, and my dad,

Sever, February 9, 1881. Carl died in 1932. Bertha is Mrs. Henry Nelson of Osage, Iowa. She has five children: Harry, Kenneth, Gladys, Conrad, and Marge. My dad, Carl, and Bertha were born in the log house grandpa built and which is still standing today. It has been covered over with lumber and is part of our home today. An addition to the house was built later on. My dad bought my grandfather’s land, 120 acres, and that is where we live today. We are very proud of our home and we will try to keep it under the Hovland name for generations to come. An omission: The name Hovland means a land dedicated to a temple.

It is believed that a heathen temple once stood on that farm. Grandpa Hovland died in 1923 and is buried at the Winnebago Lutheran Cemetery. Grandma Hovland died in 19?.

Full Mae Journey