The tombstone

The headstone for the three Sowards children: Thomas Edgar (1910-1914), Emmett William (1910-1917), and Grace Mildred (1913-1914), Riverview Cemetery, Williston, North Dakota.

I love cemeteries.  I am always moved by the simple grace and beauty of the headstones and the feeling of reverence that lingers there.

I remember going to cemeteries with my parents as a child, “visiting” family members and friends. It really did feel like visiting. I enjoyed walking around, looking at the names on the headstones, wondering about the lives of those buried there, and trying to decide which headstone was the most interesting. When I grew a little older, my sister, my childhood friends, and I would ride our bikes to Riverview, the local cemetery, and do the same routine.

Riverview Cemetery does not have a river view, and is now located in a residential area.  At 53 acres, it is large by the standards of a small town, and offers many paths to walk or bike. Riverview had its first burial in 1887, which was that of a child.  At the time, the cemetery was located on a hill at the edge of the village of Little Muddy, which later changed its name to Williston.  The cemetery was known as “Williston Cemetery” until 1916. 

My maternal grandparents are buried there, and many family friends were laid to rest there also. Later, my aunts, uncles, and mother were interred there, and visiting the cemetery felt familiar and comforting. 

After my mother died, I began to research her family history. It grew into a passion (some might say an obsession). I inherited my parents’ photographs, and began to digitize them, which further fueled my genealogy interests.

I have always had a soft spot for those that died young. It breaks my heart a little when I walk by a child’s grave.  As I began to research my mother’s family, I realized that three of my mother’s cousins had died young. I wanted to learn more.

My mother’s mother, Goldie Slagle Forthun, moved to western North Dakota from Missouri as a young woman, to help her older sister, Nettie Slagle Sowards, who had given birth to twins, Emmett and Thomas. This move changed the trajectory of Goldie’s life, because she decided to stay in North Dakota, filed a Homestead claim for 320 acres in McKenzie County, North Dakota, and then met and married a fellow homesteader.  That is a whole separate story, with a happy ending, and lots of bitter and sweet times in between.

Nettie’s story is more tragic.  Nettie Ann Slagle and her husband, James Henry Sowards, married in Missouri in 1906, and moved to a farm south of Williston, Williams County, North Dakota, for James’s job with the railroad. Then bad luck visited the young couple:  in April 1908, lightning struck their barn, destroying it and all of its contents, including a cow and four horses. Those animals and the farm equipment were vital to getting the crops in at that time of year, and the financial consequences of that loss were enormous. Nettie gave birth to a daughter, Dorothy, just two months later, in June 1908.  The family seems to have moved off the farm and into Williston by the time twins Emmett and Thomas arrived on February 16, 1910. With three little ones under the age of two, and no one to help her, Nettie sent for her younger sister, Goldie, to help her care for the children.  Another set of twins, Grace Mildred and Morris James, was born on September 21, 1913. By then, Goldie had moved out and was homesteading on her own land more than 30 miles away.  It seems likely that Nettie was overwhelmed with two sets of twins and a rambunctious five year old, but I would like to think that she was also happy, in a house full of activity. Another sibling, John Dorsey Slagle, also moved to the area, and was homesteading near Goldie. Goldie was engaged to be married, and the wedding was set for March 18, 1914. I imagine the two sisters together, planning the wedding, helping each other, and enjoying being near family.

And then the unthinkable happened. On March 7, 1914, Thomas Edgar Sowards, age four, died. His five month old sister, Grace Mildred Sowards, died later that same day. I have been unable to determine the causes of death, but it seems to have been a sudden illness.

Another son, Loren, was born in 1916, which I hope brought some comfort to the family. But then, on March 25, 1917, Thomas’s twin, Emmett William Sowards, died at age seven. His obituary stated that Emmett had suffered from serious stomach problems for two weeks, and that surgery was performed, but he did not survive. I can imagine no loss greater than that of a child, and to lose three children in three years is unfathomable.

More sadness befell the family.  James was forced to file bankruptcy in 1918. Nettie and her husband separated, then divorced, and the family broke apart. They all left North Dakota, except for those three little ones who died. There were no family members living in Williston, and I imagine that it must have broken Nettie’s heart to leave them behind.

But fifty years later, my maternal grandparents sold their farm in neighboring McKenzie County, and moved into Williston. By then, my mother had settled there as well. My grandparents bought a plot in Riverview Cemetery, as did my parents, aunts and uncles, and our connection to Riverview Cemetery began. Or so I assumed.

As I researched the family, I discovered that Thomas, Emmett and Grace had all died in Williston. And that meant that they were likely buried in Williston. I searched everywhere, scoured records, requested their death records, and contacted distant relatives, but their burial location seemed to be lost to time.  So, in 2013, my sister and I went to Williston to visit my mother’s grave, but with another ulterior motive. It seemed more likely than not that the three children were buried in what is now Riverview Cemetery.  We were determined to find them after all these years. After a fruitless effort to discover the graves on our own, we enlisted the help of the cemetery caretaker. After consulting the cemetery map and other documents, we confirmed that the children were buried there, but the exact location of their graves was unclear due to conflicting information. We narrowed down the probable site, and began to walk with a purpose. It was an older area of the cemetery, probably the original area, and there were many unmarked graves, as well as headstones that were damaged and deteriorated. We were about to give up hope, when we saw this small white marker. And we realized that there were not three graves, but one.  And this was it.

The epitaph reads: “No pains, no griefs, no anxious fears, can reach our loved ones sleeping here.”

The teacher

Nellie Marie Forthun Dahl, circa 1906
 

This is my great-aunt, Nellie Marie Forthun Dahl. She was the older sister of my maternal grandfather, Julius Matthew Forthun.

Nellie was born in Traill County, Dakota Territory (later North Dakota), in 1886. Her father, a Norwegian immigrant, died when she was 13 years old. At a time when less than 10% of men were high school graduates, Nellie graduated from Mayville State Teachers College (North Dakota) in 1906 and became a teacher. While teaching, she also filed a Homestead Claim in McKenzie County, North Dakota, as a single woman. She married a fellow homesteader, Christ Dahl, a Norwegian immigrant, in 1910. Nellie gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in May 1918, and died less than two months later at age 32, likely as a result of heart problems complicated by childbirth. She left behind a six year old daughter, Olive, and a two year old son, Henry. Henry was killed in action in Italy during World War II. Olive married and had a son, who generously gave me this photograph of his grandmother (circa 1906 while she was in college) before he died, and helped me gain a greater understanding of Nellie’s life. Nellie and her husband are buried in Garden Valley Cemetery, Watford City, McKenzie County, North Dakota.

The little church on the prairie

Our Savior's Lutheran Church, McGregor, Divide County, North Dakota
 

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, McGregor, North Dakota. My paternal grandparents helped found this church in 1909. It was the centerpiece of many happy family events - baptisms, confirmations, and weddings – and those necessary sad ones. My grandparents, an aunt, two uncles, and many extended family members are buried in its adjacent cemetery. 

Prairie churches are a fixture of the rural landscape of North Dakota. Their simple, plain and quiet exteriors reflect the nature of those that worshiped there. 

My grandparents, Norwegian immigrants, and their neighbors and fellow immigrants built this church. In most rural communities, it was the first building that went up, and often remains as the last standing after the community has died out. In this case, the church was part of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America) denomination, which was connected to the Church of Norway. In Norway, the church was not separated from the state, and all of a person’s milestones were registered with the state through the church. In order to marry in the church, one must have been baptized and confirmed, so those events were important to the community as well as the family.

The prairie church was more than just a religious building, though. It was often the center of communal life, where isolated families came together for social functions.

Our Savior's is now a shell of its former self and no longer functions as a church. But this is how I choose to remember it.