Uncles and Cousins As I Remember Them

Torsten & Johanna were married at the Selbu church, Norway in April, 1887, their journey to America is told in “Life’s Remembrances of Torsten E Uglem” and to the best of my knowledge, 4 boys, John, Peter, Emil & Calmer were born in Minnesota, Julius, Tena, Sylvia, Anna & Bentena were born on the homestead at Summit, SD, and Mabel, Hylma and Esther after they moved to Lake Preston in 1902. To their children they were Pa and Ma so calling them by any other name would sound stilted and unnatural.

Pa was born Sept 7, 1862 to Eric and Marit Svengaard. They came to America when the folks came and are buried at Grove City, Minn.

Ma was born Feb 8, 1864 to Peder and Anne Almaas. Peder died at the age of 42, leaving a family of seven young children. Both Peder and Anna are buried near Selbu, Norway.

Several cousins on Ma’s side were still living in Norway when Bentena visited them in 1970. Some nieces came to America and I will be remembering them in my story.

This will not be a Chronological history of the family. I don’t even remember the birthdates of some of the brothers. All are recorded in the family Bible (Bibelen) that is in the possession of Marlys Hanson, handed down to her by her mother Tena. Some day I might get the dates of births and deaths and write them in the proper line on the preceeding page.

My idea is to write things as I remember them for my own family to read so it will be a rambling narrative and the writing style won’t be as beautiful as what Pa has in his book. I don’t claim to be a writer. I only wish I could remember more of what the older sisters and brothers used to tell about the early days. I would like to talk again to Bentena (Benta) and learn more about the relatives left in Norway.

Dad’s two sisters Sigrid Draxten and Brynhild Peterson came to America before he, ma, Aunt Helga and grandparents came. I don’t remember Brynhild at all, she must have died while quite young but I remember the Draxten family. When Mabel, Esther and I were kids we went with the folks to Grove City and Atwater. Our first train ride and a thrill it was! The Draxten farm was so pretty, many trees and lakes near by. The many fireflies at night fascinated us. In that family we had cousins Mabel, Mattie, Selma, Hilma, Florence, and Elmer who died in the flu epidemic in 1918. Mabel was an R.N. and worked in Central S. Dakota at one time. I went home with her for a week in the summer of 1924. I enjoyed playing the piano for Mattie as she sang some classical songs, also opera. She had a beautiful voice. Florence married and had five children, died quite young, as did Selma, Mattie & Hilma. Mabel was a nurse until retirement, in both Dakotas and her later years she lived in Arizona with one of Florence’s daughters. She, her mother, and Beth, the niece came to visit us in Perkins Co in the early 40’s on their return from Montana where they visited Aunt Helga. That was a long trip to take by car in those days and Aunt Sigrid was an old lady, walked with a cane as she had broken a hip some time before. They rested here over Sunday and went on to Lake Preston and Sylvia’s at Laverne, Minn. She died shortly after that.

Now I am rambling again – on the same trip to Minn by train we stopped at Summit on the way home to visit old friends of Pa’s and Ma’s. All I can remember of that visit is the wind that seemed to blow constantly, and a little girl our age, Milda Boxeth. She had her own room and shelves full of beautiful toys and dolls. We thought she was a lucky girl. This trip must have been when I was 6 or 7 years old. I remember that Mabel wrote a story of our trip when we got home. A porter walked thru the train cars with a tray of bags of popcorn, calling “Popcorn! Popcorn! Nickel a bag!” Pa bought us some. What a treat it was! At one station where we changed trains, Ma and we girls got on our train while Pa bought our tickets, I suppose. We were so afraid the train would start before he got on. Esther asked Ma, “Is the train waiting for Pa?” Ma said it was so we were reassured, and sure enough! When he got on, we started out and were on our way. These little happenings I remember.

Sylvia tells of visiting Gust and Minnie Peterson at Grove City, and I suppose he was Brynhild’s son. That is all I know of the Petersons.

Pa mentions in his story that Aunt Helga came with Ma and the four little boys when they moved to Summit on the homestead, From there she went to Montana. She must have been an adventurous young woman to travel so far! She married Mr Henry Price at Philipsburg and had one son Dewey, a cousin I have never seen. They had a jewelry store there. When we graduated from High School she sent us gifts of jewelry. Mine was a cameo pin that I still have in a jewel box, put away somewhere among my souvenirs. (I am wearing it on our family picture taken in 1944.) When Helga died, Dewey wrote to me and I still have the letter. One summer John, Esther, Julius and Nora drove out west and visited at Philipsburg, the only ones of our family who ever did, I think. (On one of our trips to western Mont, I think it was in 1954 we drove thru Philipsburg but Helga was dead then and Dewey lived in Butte.)

So far, that is all I know of the aunts and cousins on Pa’s side of the family. There are Uglems living around Northwood, N.D. who must be distant relatives, Not too long ago, in the N.D. State Class B Basketball tournament there was an Uglem playing on the Northwood team. It is a very unusual name, even among Norwegians.

The farm buildings that Pa and his parents left to come to America must have become abandoned as Benta said the buildings were just a mass and jumble of broken stones when she saw it in 1970. The new owners evidently put up new buildings as the land was still being used. Most farms in Norway stay in the family from one generation to the next. It was called the Uglem place because of the rocks and hills which made a home for the owls. What an interesting language the Norse is, and the family names so often can be translated into meaningful phrases.

What a sad parting it must have been for Ma when she left her mother, sisters and brothers to go with her new husband and inlaws to a far place across the Atlantic! Or was she the adventurous type who was only eager to see what tomorrow would bring? She was young and of course had high hopes of having a better life in America. I wonder what her story would have been if she had written her Life Remembrances. Her life was far from easy, so many children and hard work that was never made easier by modern conveniences as we know them. But she was never cross or complaining as I can remember. She loved to sing, old Norwegian folk songs and hymns, many in a minor key.

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Johanna Uglem about age 23

I’m sure the folks hoped to someday go back to Norway to visit but they never made it and I can’t recall that they had any regrets. One of Ma’s brothers and his wife Emma came to visit once, making the trip from Norway. I remember Emma in particular as she seemed to have such “class”, had a trunkful of fancy clothes and hats. She didn’t like America and let everyone know it. I believe they had a young daughter they left back in Norway when they came to visit. Another cousin I never met.

However, I had two cousins, nieces of Ma’s who came to America and I knew very well. Carrie, I remember as a young married woman who was Mrs Peter Rodvald. They lived near us at Lake Preston for many years, farming, attending the same church in Lake Preston. They had thirteen children, one died while still an infant but the dozen who were left are all still alive or were at Christmas time 1978. The two oldest girls, Anne Moratzka and Bernice Anderson live in Sioux Falls and we exchange notes and cards at Christmas.

A short history of this family will be interesting to write and also for my family to read, I hope. I remember Carrie driving in her buggy to town with butter and eggs, I suppose, and stopping at our place on her way home. She didn’t usually take any of the children with her but always had a bag of candy for them. She usually treated us too and it was usually horehound candy that she said was good for colds. She was a happy person, took life as easy as possible, her work never bothered her but her kids all loved her even tho’ they were neglected at times.

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Hylma Petrina Uglem in 1913

One time I remember in particular when she stopped on her way home. I had a loose baby tooth and the new one was coming in. That loose tooth was sore and I wouldn’t let anyone touch it. I told Carrie about it and she said “Let me see it.” Oh No! Not me – I wouldn’t open my mouth for anyone. She laughed at me and asked if I thought she was a dentist. She wouldn’t touch the old tooth, she just wanted to look. I opened my mouth and before I knew it she had deftly gripped it – out it came with just a tiny jerk. I was a stubborn little girl but thankful that time that I had opened my mouth.

The Rodvold family decided they could do better “out west” so they had a sale, packed their family (I don’t know how many there were then) in a Model T car and started out for Washington. They drove North to Aberdeen then took the “Black and Yellow Trail” later called the Yellowstone Trail, and finally became Highway 12. In those days it was a gravel road and west of the Missouri it was even less than that so it must have been quite a trip! It wasn’t long, tho until they were back, finding only hardship and disappointment out west too. They started over, were good workers, sent all their kids to High School and we were happy too, to have them back again. Carrie and Pete are both gone but their memory lives on in the hearts of those who loved them.

Another cousin in the Almaas family was Kari Wigen of Devon, MT. I didn’t know she existed until Gale was moved by the Penny Co from Casper to Choteau, MT. John wrote to me, saying that somewhere in that area of Montana we have a cousin. He gave me her address and I lost no time in writing to her. She answered immediately telling of her family and how glad she was to hear from a relative. As long as Carrie Rodvold was alive they kept in touch by writing but had never met in America. She had then lived in this country fifty years. What made things more interesting was to learn that just two years earlier they (Kari & her husband Olai) and son Jurgen had driven to Hettinger to visit Olai’s brother J.V. Wigen who was president of the Adams County State Bank. The Hettinger Wigens were moving to Arizona and they wished to see them before they moved so far away. Kari knew she had relatives at Lake Preston and she and her husband and son talked of driving on farther to visit them too but a look at the map convinced them it would be a day’s journey so they returned home.

Two different times when we went to visit Gale and Joyce we drove to Devon on Sunday afternoon and had a delightful time. We met her son Alton and his wife Margaret and a daughter Olive who lived in Shelby. They had a large grain farm, thousands of acres of wheat and barley. Devon is near the Canadian line. Julius and Nora also stopped to see them on one of their trips to Glacier Park and Canada. Kari and Olai told us many hard luck stories of Pioneer days. That generation went through so many hardships with constant faith and trust in a better tomorrow, our generation with all our conveniences are really living in the good old days. Not that we haven’t had hardships too – that could be a story by itself.

Kari sent me a picture of herself on her 80^th birthday. In 1970, we received word of her death after a stroke. Olai died two years earlier. I have kept in touch with her family through her daughter in law Harriett, Mrs Arthur Wigen.

Unlike the buildings on the Uglem place in Norway that lay in a mass of ruins as I wrote of earlier, Mama’s birthplace was still occupied by the Almaas family in 1970. The house had been rebuilt and enlarged, a neat home in Norwegian Architectural style, occupied by three generations when Benta visited there. She sent me a colored snapshot, a treasured possession, the place is neat, no weeds are allowed to flourish on a Norwegian farm. No jumble of worn out machinery or unused buildings are in evidence, either. Potato fields seem to enclose the house and in the background were low hills covered with timber where the cattle grazed. Inside all the homes she visited there were flowers blooming in every window, rooms were all beautifully furnished. The people had a special feeling for things that had been in their family for generations.

None of the relatives she visited envied her for being from America. She was even asked if she ever had regrets that her parents had left Norway. They all had the impression that Americans are wealthy and didn’t have to work for a living. They were pleased that she could talk to them in their language but some of them had studied English in schools conversing with cousins and second cousins wasn‘t too difficult.

Norwegians are very patriotic and are very proud of their heritage. The flag was displayed every day in the towns and in the homes, at many places, tiny flags were used as a table centerpiece. They were very thankful to the Americans who helped in their liberation from the five years of occupation by the Nazis. Some of the male cousins had worked with the Underground, some were even in prison, several had escaped on foot over the mountains to Sweden. They still do a lot of walking.

I also have a picture of the Selby church that Benta gave me. The building is old – the beautifully carved altar had a date from the 1500’s. The buildings had been repaired and enlarged recently but still the style of architecture remains much as it was originally.

She attended a funeral in the church and the service was very much like one in America. The cemetery was below the church and the casket was carried down the hill by the pall bearers, followed by the congregation. The church isn’t used for regular Sunday services any more but stands ready for baptisms, funerals and weddings, We can only hope that these kind people cling to their faith in their Lord and Savior in spite of their Socialistic state.

Behind the altar was a chest that held the bridal robe and crown which were worn in the days of old, when the folks were married. Maybe they are still used by those who so desire.

Another picture I have, that Benta sent me from her collection is one of “cousin Jens” and his grand son in a two wheeled cart. I don’t know whose son or grandson he was in the Almaas family. Sylvia named mama’s brothers and sisters as Mollie, Sigrei, Brunhild, Petrina, Lars and Paul. It was uncle Lars and his wife Emma who came to America. Lars was a brick layer and worked in Madison, S.D.. He helped construct several buildings there. Emma stayed at our house and Lars came by train for the weekends. There was good train service in those days. Every little town had a railroad. Lake Preston had the branch Milwaukee from Sioux City to Bristol north, and the North western ran from the Twin Cities to Rapid City and maybe further west.

Ma’s sister Petrina died quite young and Paul did also. His wife and some of his children died of consumption. That seemed to be a common disease in Norway at that time.

I am so sorry that I don’t know much about Ma’s childhood. She must have told many stories about things that happened. I suppose it was a time of hardships, with the father dead while children were still quite young but if the family was like their Johanna they were a cheerful happy bunch, satisfied with their meager livelihood, going to school, getting what education they could. They must have been a family of singers because Ma knows so many songs. I’m sure the church was an important part of their life.

By Hylma Uglem Isakson