Reunion with brother Lars

"When I got there, I found that Lars had moved six miles farther on, but the family that lived there now were Danes so I could talk to them. I stayed there that night and the next morning their hired man, who also was Norwegian and who was going out to herd cattle, said if I would go with him until six o'clock, he would take me to Lars' that evening. This I did gladly, because he had a horse and buggy, so we sat in that all day. He was a lively fellow, and he knew Lars real well, so he was all for having some fun with him. He made sure that any of my baggage with my name on was well hidden.

When we got there Lars was outside. They started to talk.

'So you have a stranger with you, too, this evening, and I believe he is a newcomer.'

'Ja, that is right, and he wants to stay here overnight.'

Lars thought that would be possible, but he had to know what part of Norway he was from.

'Well, he is a Halling.'

Lars was that too. What part of Hallingdal?

'Leveld.'

Lars came a couple of steps nearer the buggy, and then I got down and said I thought it was about time to shake hands.

'Is it Tosten then?'

'Yes, that is who it is.'

Here the conversation ended. Lars was too surprised for words."

Excerpt from Tosten's autobiography, written in 1917.

Tosten Mikkelsen Lillehaugen (1847–1934)

Tosten and his twin sister Sissel were born on June 21 on the Lillehaugen farm in Leveld, Al, Hallingdal to Mikkel Sevatsen and Sissell Tostendatter. On April 25, 1878, he married Sigrid Larsdatter Gjeldaker. “Seeing that was taken care of, it was to settle down for good.”

Sigrid mentions Tosten in her letters, but we don’t get a lot of detail. (My husband pointed this out.) We could speculate on family dynamics, but I prefer a simple theory: paper and time were scarce, and Sigrid’s top priority in her letters was to describe her children and their lives in the U.S.

Fortunately, we have a wealth of information about Tosten’s life from an even better source: Tosten himself. In 1917, he wrote a short account of his life in Norway and the U.S. We’re going to spend the next few posts filling in the background and details of his life.