Plights and Perils of Persevering Pioneers

Leland G Olson

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645753964
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medicine Biographies

I have been blessed with a long life. A jack-of-all-trades and master of some. From tinker to truck driver, life is the best on-the-job training program ever devised. Life presents a new learning experience with each sunrise. We must make the most of each one. As you near the end of life's road being tired, worn out, and weary, you still try to find purpose. You look for any light at the end of the tunnel; not seeing one, you still move on. Human nature pulls, pushes, and prods us forward. Throwing in the towel is not an option. My life of trials and tribulations has been 55 plus years in the making, and it only seemed to strengthen me. My purpose in life has to be honoring the memory of my ancestors, who gave so much to prepare the way for me. May they all rest in peace, knowing they ran their race well.

Chapter 1

The Atlantic Crossing

There was an exodus of biblical proportion, as thousands of people left the Scandinavian countries in the 1870s. Brave, adventurous, and some hungry people wanted to go to that new land of milk and honey. The word from earlier travelers came back it created an urgency, a sense of haste to get to that land and stake claim to homestead, then improve land, that would become their own. A mass of humanity, tempered by a hard life, now seeking a better, new way to live. Louie and Anna Karlson left Norway in 1877. They traveled to Liverpool, England, then boarded a Cunard Line Steamship for the uncertain, thirteen-day trip to cross the wide Atlantic Ocean. They were fearless newlyweds, not yet owners of extensive personal property. Everything they owned was with them, being carried or packed in a steamer trunk. A strong, unshakable faith was carried on their happy faces, in their hearts and actions.

To them, it was a cheerful, romantic and uneventful crossing. In their minds, it was their personal honeymoon cruise, the tickets were $21.00 each. The big boat was a couple 100 miles (ca. 161 kilometers) off the Massachusetts coast when smooth sailing weather took a radical change. The ship encountered a huge, powerful nor’easter. Large as it was, that ship bobbed around like a fishing cork, or a small skiff, on the churning water. Gigantic waves pounded it mercilessly as the waves resembled mountains. That worthy ship slowly labored up and over each mountain only to be quickly plunged down into the next valley, thrilling or possibly petrifying the wealthy passengers on the upper deck.

Poor immigrants traveling below deck received the full booming, crashing, and amplified sound of the ship being battered by each heavy wave. Below deck there was little ventilation, the air was hot and sticky, many unwashed bodies all added to the calamity that the storm now presented. People became seasick, the conversations revealed minds were filled with doubt about the decision to travel to that new, far-off land.

It was enough to scare the passengers into thoughts of death, maybe contemplating leaving that sinking ship as a heavenly body. Some with doubts about eternity, saw a fiery abyss, and not the boiler room. A few, just descending to the deep, dark depths of the ocean, while trapped in the bowels of the ship. To make shattered nerves worse, travel was near iceberg-hidden waters. There were times when other steamships could be viewed traveling in the opposite direction. A portion of that trip was made in fog, the eastbound lanes and the westbound lanes paralleled quite close in some waters, making it dangerous in the dense fog. The captain cheerfully announced one foggy morning not to worry, “that is what foghorns are for,” as he made a proud, loud and long test blast on his prized musical instrument.

Anna was nearing the time to give birth and said to Louie, “Your father never did like me, you knew that?”

Louie replied, “No, I did not know that.”

"Your father caught me out walking in the woods one day and he walked with me. He said in a tone of voice I’ve never heard him use, it was almost a hissing sound, ‘Babies are supposed to take nine months, didn’t you know that?’ He could see I was pregnant, that outburst really surprised and shocked me. He asked me, ‘Are you going to take our Louie and leave Norway, now that you have him?’

“Anna, please do not let that bother you, he will get over it in time.”

“My father has very strict, old-fashioned ways. If your father had it to do over, he would never send you into Oslo by yourself again.”

“That might be true, but what is done is history, and we will all make the most of it. The important thing is that I love you and my father will learn to love you.”

This carnival-like roller-coaster cruise had started to make him a bit seasick. The air was hot and stifling for this fearless, strong, red-haired Viking sailor. It was making him think seriously about being sick and losing that meager breakfast of gruesome gruel. As the trip was nearing its end, Anna cried out, “Louie, go find Ingeborg Johansson. I think the baby is coming. She told me to come and get her when it was time, I’m sure the time has come.” He searched and soon found Ingeborg and asked her to come quick as his wife was in labor. They were in a location that wasn’t quite so crowded.

Ingeborg examined her, then replied, “Oh my, I think the baby is coming the wrong way.”

She told Louie, “Quickly now, pick your wife up and turn her body over then hold her, I believe the baby will turn itself inside of her.” Louie looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face but obeyed her stern command. He held his crying wife very tightly and slowly turned her over. It was only a short time but seemed like an eternity with Anna moaning and crying in his arms. Ingeborg shouted, “Praise the Lord! It worked. Your baby is coming into this world, the right way now.” It was only a few moments before the crying of a new baby was heard. A cheer went out from the passengers in that part of the ship. A new Norwegian-American was born aboard ship that day, a baby boy was born, they named him Christian. He was a big, healthy baby.

Chapter 2

New York to Michigan

The Karlson family was slowly processed through immigration at Ellis Island in New York. It took hours. To conserve what little money they had in their small nest egg, they decided to leave for Michigan as soon as possible. There were several first and second cousins already working in the copper mines to help them get settled when they arrived. Most men had worked in the mines of Norway and had found similar safety standards. The tons of ore delivered per man was the bottom line for everybody in the world. Their ancestors in Norway were among the most primitive copper miners, using burning torches that consumed the oxygen they were breathing. New explosive materials were developed along with mining techniques which increased production dramatically. Safety standards were being placed on the back burner in many instances, once a miner always a miner, danger or not. Most of the miners in Norway had fathers who were farmers. They grew up loving the life on the farm and had dreams of owning their own farm sooner or later. It created a great incentive to work hard in the mines to save money. The goal was to continue going west where they could homestead land and improve it until it became their own. With dreams like that, a strong growing nation grew and prospered on the backs of energetic God-fearing people.

Many of the immigrants from Europe worked in the copper mines of Michigan before they migrated along the edge of Lake Superior to Minnesota, as iron mines were flourishing there. Iron ore was being shipped from Duluth through Lake Superior, then to all parts of the world. It was open-pit mining, much different working conditions than the underground copper mines. Many people stayed in Northern Minnesota and farmed land. They milked a few cows, raised a few hogs, grew corn, wheat, and oats, raised sugar beets and rutabagas, which the cattle ate with gusto in the cold winters of the North. The Finns had a recipe for rutabaga pudding, some might turn up their noses, but it was a very tasty dish. The lakes had huge lake trout. Minnesota became known as the land of 10,000 lakes for a good reason; there was a lake every few miles all the way across. The densely forested land had wolves, deer, and moose. Trapping furs was a prosperous living for those who didn’t want to work in the mining business.

Louie, Anna and Chris, started out by train a few days after arriving in New York, they traveled by train to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Louie immediately went to work in a copper mine, being a seasoned miner in Norway. He considered the pay more than adequate, but Anna felt the work was far too dangerous for any amount of wage. She kept telling him, “Let’s go to Dakota Territory as so many others have done before us and start farming.” She said, “I fear you will be killed beneath that foggy, cold lake if the mine should collapse. I lay awake at night thinking about you being trapped under the icy water. Our baby, Chris, is healthy and growing fast. I think it would be a good place for him to grow up on a farm, with brothers and sisters.”

“Okay, Anna, I will work here for another six months. We will save every penny of our money, then move to Dakota Territory early in the spring. You do realize, we will not have anything to start with, no home, nothing. Just as others did, we must homestead some land, then start making improvements on it. The first thing will be to dig a hole into the side of a hill like a badger or a fox, or build a sod house to live in. After a year or two, when we have some money from crops, then we will build a wood frame house or even a stone house.”

“Louie, you don’t paint a very bright picture. I see nothing good for us to look at, you would never be an artist.”

"Ah, my wife of little faith makes jokes too! Anna, you must admit that our lives together are brightly colored with hope and most of all love.

"Anna, the reason I want to leave early in the spring is we must get a garden planted early as possible, we need to raise food to get us through that first winter. Turning sod for the first time makes very poor ground to plant a garden or anything in. Hopefully, we can find land near a creek where there should be some rich loose soil for a garden. There might still be land near that big lake where Torvald Johnson has his place, if that is the case, we will be close to the water which would be fine with me.

"We will have to carry water in any case until I dig a well. There is plenty of small game such as prairie chickens, the lakes all have fish. We might be living off the land literally, for a long time. There is no wood up on the prairie land, but I understand there are many lakes. Wood for cooking and heating will be gathered using driftwood or cut wood that has fallen by the lake shores. We will bring it home for the stove. It sounds like buffalo chips that have been dried in the hot sun are plentiful. Some people end up rolling tall grass together, then tie in knots, for fuel. We will need anything that burns to keep warm with and to cook. As I have told you, none of this will be easy.

"My cousin, Ole, is planning on returning to America in a year or two. His wife died giving birth to their fifth child. He came here three years ago with our cousin Torvald Johnson to look the Dakota Territory over thoroughly. Torvald chose some land near a large lake, it is several miles across and an excellent place for fishing, hunting, and trapping. Ole helped Torvald build a sod house to live in. When enough sod is turned, and the land is producing crops they will build a wood frame home right near that Lake then his family will arrive. While Ole was there, he made enough money trapping furs to pay for his trip back to Norway to get his family.

"The people moving to the lake area were mo...