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.

Half the story

 

This is my great-grandfather, Andreas Anderson, his wife Maren Nilsdatter, and their sons Carl Andreason and Nicolai Andreason; their youngest son Arthur was not yet born. Nicolai was my paternal grandfather. The picture was taken circa 1888. 

Andreas and Maren were both born in Borre, Vestfold, Norway, in the southern part of the country. It is the smallest of Norway’s counties, and the most densely populated. The couple married in 1878, and started their family. At the time, Norway was the poorest country in Europe, and farmers eked out a living on small farms. Their first son, Nicolai August, was born the year after their marriage, but died at age four, shortly after the birth of their second son, Carl Ludvig. Their third son, Nicolai August, was named after his deceased older brother, which was a common practice. In fact, Andreas had an older (deceased) brother named Nicolai August, for whom his sons were named. The youngest son, Arthur Monrad, and a stillborn twin sister were born in 1890. 

Sadly, Maren died at age 42, leaving behind her three young sons and grieving husband. The cause of death is lost to history; one family story held that she died in childbirth, whereas another is that she died of cancer. Andreas’s “spinster” sister, Anne Marie, stepped in to help Andreas raise the boys. The three surviving sons (Carl, Nicolai, and Arthur) all immigrated to the United States as young men. 

Norway had a patronymic naming system until 1923, where a child took the father’s last name, adding “son” or “sen” for males and “dottir” for females. So, a family consisting of husband, wife, and their children would have multiple “last” or surnames. Often an individual would take a third name, which would distinguish that person from someone with a similar name. The third name could be a characteristic, such as hair color or occupation, or geographic, related to the “gard” or farm on which the person lived. The family of Andreas, Maren, and their sons eventually took the last name “Tangsrud” as their permanent surname, after their farm Tangsrød. 

I have had this photo framed in my house for the last 20 years. I cherished it, as it was the only photograph I had of my grandfather with his parents and siblings. Turns out I had only half the story….

 

 

This is the full story. A distant cousin discovered this picture among her grandmother’s possessions, with the Tangsrud family to the left. She shared it with another family member, who shared it with me. And then we began to connect the dots. The family to the right is Andreas Anderson’s elder brother, Daniel Anderson, his wife Martine Andersdottir (who was the aunt of Maren, my great-grandmother, seated next to her); intermarriage among families was quite common), and their sons Nikolai August (and we Norwegians like to repeat names a lot), Oskar Ludvig, and Conrad Adolph. That family took the last name Danielson as their permanent surname, after their father. Nikolai stayed in Norway, Oskar died at sea as a young man, and Conrad immigrated to Minnesota. 

Someone in my family probably cut out the Tangsrud family, possibly to fit inside a frame, or because they were unaware of the relationship between the two families. The smaller photo – my “half” of the story – was reproduced and passed down on my side of the family, without the awareness of the full story.

The Homesteaders: Nameless in North Dakota

The homesteaders. At least that is what I call them. I don’t know their names, but I can guess a little of their stories.

When I inherited my parents’ photographs, I took on the task of scanning and cataloguing them. Through research and my knowledge of family history, I have been able to identify many of the unlabeled photographs. Unfortunately, there are many that continue to elude me. I will likely never know the full story behind this photo, or the identities of the men and women. But to me, this photo represents more than just these nameless individuals. It is also a small glimpse into the life of settlers of the northern plains in the early 20th century.

The photographer was named Anderson. The name of the town under the photographer's mark is very faint, but it appears to be "Larimore".  The town of Larimore (located in Grand Forks County, in the eastern part of the state) was organized in 1881, prior to statehood. It was created when the railroad was built in that part of Dakota Territory. Like most of North Dakota, Larimore was settled by homesteaders, men and women who filed claim to 160 acres under the Homestead Act of 1862. In North Dakota, there were two Homestead “booms”, the Great Boom (1871-late 1880’s, which was prior to statehood), and the Second Boom (1898-1915), with the economically depressed 1890’s sandwiched in between.

This photograph was found among my paternal grandparents’ possessions, leading me to believe that these couples were fellow Norwegian immigrants, probably from the Vestfold region, where my grandparents were born and raised. The subjects appear to be three couples of roughly the same age, with a little boy standing off to the side. Based on their clothing and the timeframe of settlement by homesteaders in Grand Forks County, I estimate that the photo was taken circa 1905-1910. The small wooden building behind them is a typical Homestead shack of that time period, a simple building that allowed the homesteaders to meet the residency requirement and that provided (minimal) shelter from the elements. The lack of vegetation makes me think that the home was newly constructed, and that someone had just began a new life on this land.

The Homestead Act of 1862 was signed by President Lincoln in an effort to settle the West and to allow individuals to own and operate farms. The Act drew Easterners westward, but it also attracted immigrants. And in the Dakotas, many of those settlers were Norwegians. The requirements were fairly simple: be the head of a household, at least 21 years of age, have the ability to pay a filing fee, build a home, make improvements, and farm the land for five years. The reality was a lot harder. Less than 40% of those that filed claims “proved up” their claim and gained title to it. It is a great source of pride to me that all four of my grandparents succeeded. Their hard work, grit, and determination paid off, and I am the better because of that.

The bride

Flossie Mae Slagle was my maternal grandmother's first cousin. They were born five months apart in Nodaway County, Missouri, in 1889. Their parents migrated west from Virginia to Missouri following the Civil War.

This photograph, taken in October 1908, was Flossie’s engagement picture. She married Lewis Elmer Barnes in November 1908, and their son Doyle was born 10 months later. Flossie contracted streptococcal pneumonia and died at age 21, leaving behind her husband and 15 month old son. She is buried in Monroe Cemetery, Ravenwood, Nodaway County, Missouri.

The Swedes

 



These men are Swedish immigrants that settled in Divide County, North Dakota, in the early 1900’s. One of the men, Karl, married a Norwegian immigrant, my cousin Aagot. These men worked, worshiped and socialized with my Tangsrud grandparents, and helped make a difficult life on the North Dakota prairies more bearable. And they had awesome coats.