Holtan
It’s all about the kids. Why do people leave their homeland—their family, their language, everything familiar—and start over somewhere new? It’s all about the kids. When there’s no future for them, it’s time to move. It has always been so.
Last time, we left Hans and Margit in southeastern Minnesota, near Rock Dell, with Hans’s brother, Even. We believe Even helped bring the family over, even sending money for tickets. In return, Hans likely worked for him for several years, much as Even had done when he first came to America, and worked for Fellands in
Wisconsin.
But as land opened further west, the pattern repeated. Take a look at this map. It depended on treaties with native people and in this case, the Civil War. While the Civil War raged, and the Sioux Uprising, immigration took a pause. But when opportunity reappeared, people moved. Norwegian immigrants followed a path—Illinois, then Wisconsin, then Minnesota, then Iowa, and beyond—always chasing land, opportunity, and a future for their children.
After about five years, Hans had fulfilled his 
obligation to his brother, and saved enough to move again—this time to Winnebago County, Iowa, near Forest City. An old friend named Harris Olson, had written to him about land available there for $1.25 an acre and invited them to join them there.
So, Hans and Margit set out with their two young sons, Halvor and Thomas, in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. The roads were poor, unmarked, usually just not there at all. They used the sun as their compass, fording rivers and streams, traveling for days across prairie and woodland.
When they arrived, they stayed with the Olsons that first winter until they could build their own home— a simple log house, but theirs. For the first time in their lives, they owned land. That moment mattered. They, who had never owned a foot of ground, now had acres of rich soil. It was a summer of hard work—and high hopes. As Marie, Mrs. Ole Holtan, told it, “With a great sense of thankfulness, they moved into their own house for the first time. They had a lot of hard work ahead of them but God blessed them in every way.”
Mt. Valley Township was not the easiest place to settle, and it had been passed over by settlers of other ethnic groups. But the Norwegians liked a quarter section with both woods and prairie. Now, of course, the woods required backbreaking labor to clear. And much of the prairie was actually marshy ground that eventually needed draining. And it was hilly. I think that’s what they meant by naming it Mt. Valley Township. But for these land-hungry people from Norway, it felt like home—trees for building, wood for
heat, familiar surroundings.
They were not alone. This was part of what we call chain migration. Entire communities from places like Nissedal and Treungen in Norway settled together in this region. They recreated their world—same names, same families, same language, same traditions—just in a new land.
And as their farms grew, they needed help. Either their own
children, and their family was certainly growing. Look at all their children in this 1880 census. But that took a while, or they had to find hired help. So, they brought good hired help, and needy relatives from Norway.
We know that Hans and Margit sent money to Norway for Margit’s sister Sigrid’s children, all orphans now, Bendick Tweeten, and his sisters, Aasne Tweeten Kingland, and Elsie Tweeten Sime. Here, Bendick and Aasne are both called Jorgenson. When they first came, they stayed with Hans and Margit and they were often called Holtans, because as Norwegian’s last names go, your last name is the farm where you live. But these nephews and nieces of Margit became the huge Tweeten and Kingland clans of today. There are thousands of them now.
You heard in our last presentation how Eiven Holtan took the last name of his wife Marken, and how little by little, Holtan was the name that Hans and Margit adopted. Kingland was actually the name of the farm that belonged to Ole Kingland’s first wife, and it really came from her mother’s family. So, both the Holtans and Kinglands have last names from the women in our family.
They had already sent money in 1876 for 21-year-old Halvor Bjornson Lovik, Hans’ sister Gunhild’s boy, and also for Birgit, his sister. Birgit had already married in Norway, so she came with her husband, Kittle Torgerson. Their children called themselves either Torgerson or Kittleson. Halvor later partnered with Hans to run a threshing machine in Mt. Valley and their family has grown and prospered over the years.
Bendick’s sister Aasne Tweeten, first helped in the Holtan household, then in a home in Mason City, and then was hired help in widower Ole Tostenson Kingland’s home. They married and raised a family, now spread across the whole country.
These nephews and nieces, representing families here at the reunion, were just part of a flood of immigrants streaming into and through Mt. Valley. And the community grew quickly.
It was not unique that immigrants clustered together, and settled with others from their part of Norway, but the extent to which Nissedalers came to Mt. Valley, that is, settlers from the area of Nissedal and Treungen in Telemark, is an extreme case. It was and is a Lutefisk Ghetto in Mt. Valley Township.
They worshipped first in homes, then in country schools, and soon built a church. Winnebago Church
became the heart of the community. Winnebago was the mother church that started many others in the area. The Holtans and Tweetens are on the list for giving money for that church, and they were leaders there, and choir members, and women’s group leaders. And soon, the cemetery filled with familiar names—Holtans, Tweetens, Kinglands, Loviks. Nearly everyone was connected, by blood or by marriage.
Hans and Margit didn’t just build a farm—they helped build a community.
Hans was known as a capable and fair man. He served in township roles—assessor, road commissioner, school director—and he was active in the church. He also helped his neighbors financially.
O. N. Flugum, Marilyn Tweeten’s uncle, told a story of a farmer who owed $50 to the bank at a crushing interest rate of 25%. The banker would only extend the loan if Hans co-signed.
The farmer came to Hans, hoping for help. Hans refused to co-sign. But then he said, “You must pay them. …I will loan you the money—without that kind of interest. Pay me back when you can.”
And he handed him the money. For others it was seed in the spring, or helping with their pledge to build a church. That was Hans—not just practical, but compassionate.
Margit’s story is just as important.
She worked tirelessly—carding, spinning, sewing, cooking, raising ten children. Life was demanding, but she was known for her kindness. She cared for neighbors, helped the sick, and made sure her children were educated both academically and spiritually. That would have been true of all these women in our story. They were essential to the health of their families and communities, and yet often ignored in the stories.
These were hard years. There were storms—literally. In 1882, a tornado tore through their farm, destroying buildings and crops. Yet somehow, the family endured. This was pioneer life—constant work, constant uncertainty—but also resilience.
But their family grew. Take a look at this family photo. Think what this meant, to send a photo like this back to relatives in Norway. They who had been so poor now wore beautiful clothes, and look at all these children. After losing 3 children on the voyage, all of the next 10 lived to adulthood. Was the move from Norway worth it? “Well, if it’s all about the kids, Just look.”
The Tweeten family grew too. Bendick Tweeten, who had come in 1878, met and married Olava, a neighbor girl, in 1883. She’s the first person we’ve met who was born in America,
from very early immigrant stock. B. J and Olava had many children, as most all of these farm families did. B.J. Tweeten, as he was called, had a farm just south of the Holtans in section 28 of Mt. Valley Township and they raised kids and crops there and his family is now spread across the township and region.
We’ll see when we get to our North Dakota journey in our next presentation that these Holtans and Tweetens continued to spend time together. I care about this because my parents come from these two families, 3rd cousins, descended from two Mandt-Nordgarden sisters in Norway, Margit and Sigrid.
Farming itself began to change during their lifetime. At first, it was much like Norway—oxen, simple tools, threshing by hand. But gradually, new technologies arrived: horses, steel plows, horse-powered equipment, binders, and eventually steam engines and tractors
Hans and his nephew Halvor Lovik even owned the first threshing machine in the township, beginning as early as
1879. Here is a photo of a threshing machine powered by horses pulling in a circle. Crews would travel from farm to farm, working together until the harvest was complete. Look at this photo, labeled as the very first threshing rig in Mt. Valley Township, at Thomas Holtan’s farm. It probably means the first powered by steam. If we look at the names of the adults and kids, we see that the whole community is working together, kids too. The women and girls are cooking for the whole community. The word was, you could even find a wife in this round robin tour of the neighborhood.
That cooperation defined the community.
Education was also a priority. Schools were built quickly, placed so no child had to travel far. But schooling was seasonal—many children attended only in winter, when farm work slowed.
Here’s a plat book page of Mt Valley Township that shows the placement of those schools, situated so no child had to travel too far to go to school, no matter what your grandpa said. Is there anyone here who attended country school? And here’s a souvenir from Vatne School, with a highlighted list of many relatives going to school together.
The language remained Norwegian for decades. My father, Stanford Holtan, started school in 1926 and did not 
speak any English, and he said, neither did anyone else in his class. 60 years after the family moved
there.
There was also parochial education through the church, in Norwegian, and eventually higher education opportunities. Unlike many of their neighbors, and before there was a local high school, many from these families attended Waldorf Academy and College too, and later St. Olaf College. It’s good that we’re here at Waldorf for our reunion, because well over 100 Holtans, Tweetens, and Kinglands attended Waldorf, either as a high school academy or a junior college. We know that Winnebago Church’s pastors Dahl and Granskou, in the Christmas card, were founders and Halvor Holtan and Bendick Tweeten were both early on the Board of Regents. It was the family school for all of our Norwegian immigrant families. It also helped them marry other Norwegians.
Even in a new land, they held tightly to their Norwegian culture and faith.
Family networks continued to grow. See the plat book of the township. Hans and Margit sent money back to Norway to bring relatives over—nieces, nephews, extended family. Just look at this plat book to see how by 1890, Bendick Tweeten had a nice bit of land, that’s the yellow area, just south of Halvor and Thomas Holtan, who are in green here. The Loviks and Kittlesons are in blue and the cross up higher is Winnebago Church.
Later, we have many Tweetens with farms nearby, and if we include more distant relatives, nearly the whole township is related in various ways. You’ll enjoy looking at the plat books out on the Mt. Valley table here.
This was how communities expanded—not randomly, but through relationships. One family came, then another, and another, until an entire Norwegian community was transplanted.
Life in Mt. Valley was not easy, but it was shared. Families lived close together. They knew everything about each other—for better and for worse. There was pressure to conform, but also deep support.
One story captures that spirit. After a devastating hailstorm destroyed crops on the
Holtan farm—corn, hay, oats, even seed grain—everything was gone in minutes. They didn’t know how they would survive. But the next day, neighbors began arriving. Wagons filled with grain, hay, flour, and food. The storm had been local, and those who still had abundance shared with those who had lost everything.
That was the community. In hardship and in blessing, they took care of each other.
Over time, the land itself changed—and so did opportunity. What Hans had bought for $1.25 an acre was now worth $125 an acre. With ten children—eight of them boys—there was not enough affordable land to go around. Two of Hans and Margit’s boys were well established here, Thomas, with this family photo, distinctive with lots of girls. Thomas bought the home farm Margit and Hans settled in section 16 of Mt. Valley Township. His descendants still own that farm 160 years later and many of you visited it on your tour.
Halvor, the oldest, went to college and taught school, and spent two years in North Dakota, then returned to buy a farm next door to Thomas. Halvor’s children and Thomas’s grew up together, double cousins, since they married sisters, Julia and Aaste.
And so, the pattern repeated. Just as Hans and Margit had once moved for the sake of their children, the next generation would move again—this time westward, to Dakota, where land was cheaper, or even free. Several Tweetens followed them there and bought homesteads next door. For all of them, it was all about the kids.
From Norway to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Iowa, and from Iowa to the Dakotas—the story is one of movement, sacrifice, and hope.
It was never paradise. But for those who left the rocky hills of Norway, this was a land of opportunity. They built farms, raised families, formed communities, and created something that has lasted for generations.
And in the end, that’s the story of Mt. Valley. Not just land. Not just history.
But people—who worked hard, helped each other, and built a future for their children.
