A sunny (of course) May morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. New carpeting has just been installed in my living room. In the process of putting furniture, books, and tchotchkes back in their assigned places, I notice there’s just enough changes to make me feel happily renewed. From my desk, I see a chair that has a new throw, a few art and poetry books in a different bookcase where they insist I don’t forget them, and even a lamp or two has shifted location—the thrift shop buys of Marsha and Robert deserved new table tops for their purple, red, and brown weirdness to be fully appreciated. It’s a feel-good state of affairs.
Time to write…but I’m not ready to take my thoughts from Norway to Minnesota quite yet.As everyone who has read Window Seat or my blog over the years knows, I am somewhat obsessed with having my own history on another continent, in another country. My continent happens to be Europe and my country Norway. I would surely feel the same if my continent were Asia and my country Myanmar, or my continent Africa and my country Nigeria, although those magnificent locations could complicate one’s life more than even-keeled Norway. But, you see, I am thrilled to have history older than 500 years ago, and I have no understanding of people who say, when queried about ancestry or ethnicity, ‘Well, I’m an American. Period. End of story.’ Yes, that is your nationality, your citizenship but not your ancestry, unless of course you are from any one of the multitudes of indigenous civilizations, cultures, tribes that have been on this continent since around the beginning of history! The rest of us started elsewhere. Do you not want to know about that? About your great and glorious and/or mean and misery-making heritage?
I am a Norwegian and an American in my mind, not a Norwegian American. Being a Norwegian and an American have always felt like two separate identities; you know—ancestry versus nationality. And a nearly lifelong highlight has been exploring my Norwegian heritage and getting to know Norwegian cousins.
History 101: (Sharing/over-sharing, whatever…) Norway is that long skinny mountainous waterfront of great beauty in northern Europe. Small population. Big oil reserves. The first Norwegians had fascinating origins. The usual suspects arrived from the south: Denmark, Sweden; from the east: Finland, Russia; and from the southwest: Doggerland. Yes, really, Doggerland. (Maybe.) Picked that info up in a Norwegian history book, verified it with Wikipedia and its lengthy reference list, and watched a YouTube video. Doggerland was a large chunk of land in the North Sea which disappeared under rising seas 7-10,000 or so years ago. My skimpy reading of this particular bit of history only refers to the possibility that the Sami, the indigenous people of far northern Scandinavia, may have partly descended from hunter-gatherers reaching the mainland as Doggerland disappeared underwater. That’s good enough for me. It’s like discovering distant relatives from Atlantis!
My Norwegian ancestry demands a few sentences of Viking lore also (in addition to the previously mentioned Grandma Gudrid). Here it is. The Vikings were a group of Scandinavians roaming far and wide (for their day, generally said to be 800 to 1050), engaged in plenty of raiding and plundering, but also establishing farms, communities, even kingdoms. Although there is not a strict breakdown of which Vikings (Norwegians, Swedes, or Danes) conducted which raids and battles, or founded which settlements, one has only to look at a map to understand why each country’s sailors usually headed in which directions. In general, the Swedes, sometimes called ‘men of the rivers’ headed southeast, all the way to Constantinople, while also becoming the Rus who initially settled Kiev (Ukraine) and locations in Russia and Belarus. Both the Swedes and the Danes were more aware of and connected to the rest of Europe’s history, population, and wealth than the Norwegians who were sitting on the very edge of the European landmass. Consequently, their raids were more focused on the continent, with the Norwegians looking more westward across the seas.
(My Viking heroine) Gudrid’s travels are a good representation of major pathways/seaways of the Norwegian Vikings: Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. While their early stays in Greenland and Newfoundland were not long in the context of history, the blood of the Icelanders remains pure Norwegian—and Irish, the latter another story of where Norwegian Vikings directed many of their travels. There are enough Norwegian place names and strands of DNA in both Ireland and the UK to ensure inclusion in their histories. Although the Vikings weren’t quite done with conquering or occupying activities, their power was radically diminished in 1066 when the English army of King Harold Godwinson defeated the invading Norwegians of King Harald Hardrada.
Such is history… which is why I will now skip from 1066 to 1712 with the briefest of accounts of my family’s origins in southern Norway’s Setesdal Valley. Based on Gudrid’s life and my confirmed family history, I’m going to assume the intervening 600+ years include a number of farmers and no small number of travelers, most of whose adventures were likely on a modest scale compared to your average Viking.
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Cousin Arne Neset has pieced together the story of the Neset family begats through the decades to the 1700s and Knut Jorundson Haugen, married to Jorunn Guttormsdotter Vassesn, and the father of at least one surviving child, Gunnar, born 1705. The family apparently owned their small farm called Haugen. Gunnar in turn, married and had at least four children, the eldest, Knut, was our ancestor. The only information we have regarding Knut is that he had two wives and one child (that we know of) and that he drowned when attempting to cross the river Otra. The child, another Gunnar, was born in 1753 and his son, another Knut, was born in 1778.
This last Knut had several children, the youngest, Sven, was great-grandfather to Arne and me. According to Arne, Sven was 17 years younger than his brother who was the inheritor of the Haugen farm. Sven probably received his share of a small inheritance when his father died in 1847. He was then 22 years old and working as a farm hand at Haugen. The way he chose to earn a living was to rent the croft (small piece of land) …Nesodden, situated on the north side of the farm NESET (hence the family name change), situated on the lake of Byglandsfjord, between the villages of Byglandsfjord and Grendi.
Sven (Knutson Haugen), who married Gyro Torjusdotter Smidjan, was an interesting, if not particularly appealing, character. It seems, at least initially, he was poverty-stricken, having squandered whatever small inheritance he may have received. He is said to have been a fine fiddler/violinist, who could both make and play the instruments. Sven was a drinker though, neglected his farm, and wasted his musical talents. At some point he got religion and became a strict and rather cruel person, his son Knut remembers. The only information we have about Gyro is that she was said to have been beautiful with hair long enough to sit on.
Sven and Gyro had at least six children (who took the name Neset). Sven’s eldest son, Knut, was born in 1862, and was Arne’s grandfather. Torgus, my grandfather was born in 1872. (The birth of a twin sister, Siri, was also recorded but there is no other mention of her so she must have died at or near her birth.)
Since, as crofters, there would only have been enough income to sustain one family, the children would have had to find their way elsewhere. With little farmland in mountainous Norway, there were few opportunities to earn a living. Fishing was important along the coast, but there were only so many jobs, and industry hadn’t taken hold yet as a major source of income for the population. The only solution for many was to emigrate to America.
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The only information I have about Torgus’ life between 1872 and his journey to America around 1908 when he would have been 36, is that he married Asborg Eilifsdotter and fathered four children (including my father). There are family rumors that at one time he deserted my Grandmother Asborg and ran away to sea and that he spent time in the merchant marine.
When I remember Grandpa Neset, he seemed awfully old (mid-sixties) and was bedridden with rheumatism (probably rheumatoid arthritis). He had been and apparently still was a heavy drinker, but as he couldn’t get around anyway, I would not have noticed that as a kid. I remember him looking like Heidi’s grandfather (there was always a book about Heidi around our house), and he passed out corn candy to us kids. That’s it. End of memories of grandpa.
Grandma Asborg Neset is another story. A short one, I’m afraid. Cousin Arne did his best to track down some information about Asborg but there was very little to be found. There’s also been some ancestry help from friends Dave and Ann Lewis in Minnesota, but only a glimpse of Grandma Asborg there. What does seem clear is that she was born in southern Norway, either in or near the Setesdal Valley. There is an Asborg Eilivdatter, farm worker, born 1876 in Evje. There is also an Asborg Eilifsdotter born in 1867 in Lauvdal. The difference in spelling of the last names likely reflect the locations in which source records originated. The difference in birthdates is unclear. Whether the references are for two different people, as these were all common names, or whether simply errors in recording is impossible to know. What is most interesting is that the records from the ship’s manifest of Grandma and the children’s voyage to the US is that Asborg’s age in 1910 is listed as 40, right between the other two recorded dates. It seems clear either way that she was a farm girl from a family of farmers and/or pulp mill workers.
I spent more time with Grandma Asborg than Grandpa Torgus since she lived substantially longer, but I feel quite sad about my memories considering the realities of her life. To me, she was a sour-faced cranky old lady, deeply wrinkled, little hair, bad cook. My mother’s confidences and my observations concerning mom’s difficult relationship with Grandma weren’t entirely clear back then. However, I do know Grandma was consistently mean to my mother who always and forever refused to accept the rough standards of Northwoods life (my mother, the teetotaler, in the land of beer joints on every corner!). Now though, looking at the lives of immigrants with a deeper understanding of and great admiration for the strength that kind of uprooting requires, I understand how dreadful pieces of Grandma Asborg’s life must have been as well. I owe her a bit of love and apology.
Perhaps it’s (slightly) humorous to note that I do seem to have inherited a couple of the less desirable old-age realities of the Neset grandparents: rheumatoid arthritis and way too many wrinkles and unpretty hair. Oh yeah…and cooking become most bad. But I don’t drink and I’m not nearly as cranky as Grandma. Right?
Ahhh…family.