The Nels Peterson Family, Myrtle, Nels, Lawrence, Andy, Frank, Dena and Elsie
Lawrence "Larry" Peterson married Vivian Sundsmo at Bonners Ferry, Idaho; they have two children, JoAnn Goldberg and Lawrence.
Myrtle married Eugene Maggi at Bonners Ferry, Idaho; she had five children: Delano, Ronald, Richard, killed in a car accident, Louis and Dena Cook.
Andy Peterson, the youngest, was killed in San Francisco on April 25 1938, aged 27 years.
‹ Pages of photos not included ›
I made my trip to Norway with my sister. Her name is Myrtle Maggi, she lives in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We left here June 10 1972, and headed for Oslo. We arrived there Sunday, June 11 at 11:30 AM. The bus took us to our hotel, called Student Byrne. We called a pen pal, their names are Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ronning. We let them know we had gotten to Oslo. They said they would meet us in about an hour.
They came and we exchanged gifts. They gave each of us a little silver spoon that said, "Welcome to Norway". We showed them our family pictures.
About 5:00 pm Frank wanted us to go with them and Jennie Barnholt, who is a full cousin of the late Ragnhild Chris Johnson. We went to the Grand Hotel, downtown in Oslo, for dinner. After dinner we went to the Dock, looked at the Windjammer that was used in the movie, saw the old Akershus Castle. Then we walked up the hill to King Olaf V's palace. We walked for two hours, and then took a cab back to the Student Byrne. Then took a streetcar to their home.
Monday we went on a tour of Oslo by bus to the Viking Ship's Museum. At Kon Tiki Museum House there is the raft on which Thor Heyerdahl and five companions drifted close to 5,000 miles across the Pacific Clean in 1957. Underneath the raft it was just like the bottom of the ocean, seaweeds and fish floating in the air looked very real. Then we went to a ski-jump, one of the highest and to Viegeland Museum Park. Then on a boat ride on Oslo Fjord, we saw Sonja Henie's home on the hills of the fjord, and the King's summer home, he was at the home while we were there.
Tuesday morning we took our bags and went to downtown Oslo, to the Bennet Travel Bureau. Bought our tickets to Frederikshavn, Denmark. Also to Ålborg, to Brilon Wald Germany, to Copenhagen, Denmark, to Stockholm, Sweden, and back to Oslo, Norway. After we got our tickets, we carried our bags to the Grand Hotel, left them there till our boat left at 10:00 p.m. to Frederikshavn, Denmark. We waited at the hotel for Frank Ronning to come. We were going to have dinner together and it ended up we went with him to his home for dinner by streetcar. We had a wonderful dinner, later they went with us to the boat recreation room. We spent a delightful hour there while we waited to depart for Denmark. We bid them good-by and said we would see them when we came back, so Myrtle and I went to our room and went to bed. It was so small we could not turn around in there. We did not sleep too well as we were over the motors, so it was very noisy.
At 7:00 am. they came to our door and knocked and said to get up, we were landing. When we got off the boat Harry's half cousin, Jullu Kock and her brother-in-law, Alex Kock, met us with the car. We went to another cousin's home, Addie Jensen, for breakfast. We were there for two hours then we went to Asso where Jullu lives. We went to see her father, Neils Peter, Harry's only full cousin living, who is in a nursing home. After dinner, we went to see the cemetery where Harry's dad's brother Jacob was buried. The church name is Klokkerholm. From there we went to
Hellum, Brønderslev, Denmark
to see where my father and my grandmother came from. The church is still there after 1,151 years, but we did not get in as it was locked and the man that had the key lived in another town. The floors are all flat rocks, they had carpet over the rock, the doors are very thick with heavy iron locks and hinges. The windows are small and high off the ground. We were in the Klokkerholm church and took picture of the group inside.
From there we went to the home where Harry's dad was born in
Lemb, Denmark.
All the old buildings are gone but a set of new buildings was built in the 1930's. We were asked in for beer and pop by the landowner, and took pictures of the house and barn. The barn was empty, only one cow was in there. The owner had retired also.
The next day we went to Engamas and Jullu, Alex and Christine Kock's holiday farm, where the family spent all holidays, Christmas, etc. The farmhouse was very large, eighteen guests spent Christmas week there. There was one large living room downstairs and one upstairs with a television. When we came to the farm, we were taken to the patio where they carried out tables and chairs and we were wrapped in wool plaid blankets and were served hot coffee and Danish rolls. Were they ever delicious! Then, when it had warmed up some, we walked to the pasture to see the cows and sheep, and picked wild flowers along the way. Buttercups and Johnny Jump Ups were all over the place, like little pansies.
They asked us if we wanted to see the pigs. Oh yes, sure, we wanted to see the pigs. When we walked into the big long room in the barn, it was full of pigs, sows and 99 little pigs and one pen of pigs ready for the market. They were waiting for the truck. They produced some of the feed on the farm.
When we came back to town we had a very nice dinner, made and served by Jullu's sister-in-law. Jullu's brother, Luke, and little Peter came home from school for a few minutes. We just saw Luke for a little while, as he had to be back to school to teach. We had taken pictures in their back yard with all the flowers. Everybody has flowers on their tables over there
We went to Ingamar's fish factory where they cleaned and froze fresh fish to sell, picked seashells and had fish sole for dinner from his place. That evening they drove us all through Asso and to another big church and cemetery much newer than the ones we saw before. Had coffee rolls and when we got back to Jullu's house. We went to our hotel.
The next day Alex and Christine had to go back to Lemvig, Denmark, to the college where he was president of the school. So we rode with them to Aalborg, Denmark, to catch our train to Germany at 12:00 pm. So we bade them goodbye. We rode all afternoon till 3:00 am. Before we go to Kassel, Germany, our suitcases were in Hamburg, where he tried to get them. but couldn't, so left them behind. We got to Brilon Wald, Germany about 3:00 pm. to Myrtle's friends, Val and Jay Adams and family. We spent one week there, but that was because we had not got our baggage yet. Erma or Val called the depot and told them we had to have our baggage as we had to be in Oslo on the first day of July. He told her he would have them there in 24 hours, which he did. So we left Brilon Wald on June 24 for Copenhagen.
We crossed the water on a train ferry at sunset time from Warnemunde, Germany, to Gedesby, Denmark. It seemed so different to be on a train out in the middle of the water. We got to Copenhagen at 10 pm. Saturday evening. We went to our hotel. Sunday I was sick, but in the late afternoon we made it to the depot to have dinner. I ate very little. Monday we walked down through Copenhagen. We went to Tivoli Park, like Disneyland in the U.S.A. We spent three hours there and bought a tour ticket to Hans Christian Anderson home in Odense, Denmark, 1868. Our tour was 200 miles long. It took from 8:30 am. to 8:45 pm. just to get back in time to catch our train to Stockholm, Sweden. Had dinner on the ferry going to Jutland and supper on the ferry trip back to Copenhagen. The ferry crossed at Korsor, Denmark, to Nyborg, Denmark. It took 45 minutes to cross. Had 400 cars, many trucks and buses on the ferry.
We left Copenhagen 9:15 that evening and got into Stockholm at 9:00 am. We called a relative and went to her house for dinner. In the early evening we took a cab to our hotel, left our bags and had Ann Marie with us. We walked for 2½ hours downtown Stockholm and she took the subway home. We went to bed.
The next morning early she came, and we started walking for 2½ hours more. We went to the King's Church Palace. It was very interesting and we saw so many beautiful things. We had dinner at the Sheraton Hotel. Then we went to the depot. We took a train at 4:00 pm for Oslo, Norway. We got to Oslo at 10 pm and went to the Hotel Mission. The next morning we walked to the park. After lunch we walked downtown by the King's Palace. The next day I suggested we take a shortcut downtown. "Oh" Myrtle said, "We might get lost!" "Well" I said, "We can't get lost with the King's Palace on the hill". So we started downtown and the shopping area. There are no streets. You just walk around big buildings where they also drive this way and that. We got down to the shops. We looked here and there and Myrtle bought a sweater in one shop. We kept on going, shop after shop, till we were down by the Grand Hotel and you could see the King's Palace on the hill. I bought a wool sweater also. We bought gifts to go home. It looked like rain, so we started back to the hotel. When we got there, it rained real hard. That evening we were going to take Frank and Arvild out to dinner. We went to a little restaurant with dim lights and pictures of all the famous people of Norway on the wails. We had chicken dinner, and wine and music. It was very nice.
Sunday morning we went to the American Church and from there to a friend's house for coffee, Mrs. Dagna Carlson and daughter and granddaughter. Later we took a streetcar to Frank Ronning's home where we had a late super. We took a streetcar back to our hotel. We got lost when we got off the streetcar. We got to our hotel and took a cab to the Student Byrne, where we were to leave for the airport in the morning.
We left for the Airport and left Oslo on July 3 at 1:00 pm with 251 passengers aboard. We stopped at International Airport in Iceland. It took 45 minutes to refuel and we bought some souvenirs. Stopped at Bangor, Maine, for customs, which took two hours. It took 40 minutes to fly from Duluth, Minnesota, to Fargo, North Dakota. We arrived in Fargo at 8:45 pm, which made us late. Harry and Dick had waited three hours for us
On my Grandmother's homestead, long after she had passed away, l was a child and I picked flowers here. Then in later years, my mother and I went to visit this wild flower garden on the hillside.
There was about a three-acre triangle by the cart road and highway above a little blue lake. We walked down through the flowers on this June day. They were so thick no grass grew there. There were tall ones and short ones, tiger lilies, wild Sweet Williams, Grandpa Whiskers, and hundreds of other kinds of every color you could imagine. It was a beautiful sight, this hill of wild flowers. We decided to nick an armful of all the different ones. This is when we discovered that some smelled good and some did not smell so good. In the early spring it would be blue with wild crocus, so it produced flowers all summer long.
Then during World War II, somebody plowed it down, so this was the end of a virgin flower garden. Now it is back to weeds and sod. I only wish they would have left is as it was. It is hard to find wild flowers nowadays. Between big farming and highways, there is no place for wild flowers to grow. The wild crocus is so hard to find. Just one place I've found some is on a creek bank on the prairie. The state flower, the Lady Slipper, we had many years ago, but around here they are all gone.
So God's beautiful wild flower garden is no more
A child sees and hears many things. I remember the sound of train whistles on the Soo Railroad at Callaway on a clear evening, not too many miles away. It sounds like it is behind our barn, coming toward our house, almost a frightening noise to a child's ear. Then we saw the Monster Engine coming down the track in 1907.
Horse and buggies were the going transportation in these days.
Here comes the first cars with high wheels down our road and stops at our door, a ride we would have liked to have, but did not get. Now the radio came, first to listen to by earphones, then a loud speaker, which picked up the voices and music out of the air and brought it to your living rooms.
A large man-made bird flew the sky, a plane was built to fly the sky to use in World War 1. Later it was used to transport across and around the world, and from city to city in hours.
Now we look at a picture on a screen from hundreds of miles away. The television came to bring us entertainment in our homes. These days we have color TV to color up the news, weather reports and movies.
In 1969 we flew men to the moon. As a child we said a rhyme, "the man on the moon, the cow jumped over the moon", now we have had men on the moon. This one night when they were on the moon, we stood hand in hand looking at the big full man, wondering just what part of the moon they were on, with a thrill in our hearts at such a great adventure, a man on the moon.
| Previous Chapter | Contents | Next Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Leave a comment on the genealogy page. | ||