Memorial Day 2009, North Dakota

My Dad, his family, and neighbors are buried in a country cemetery in North Dakota. Trees surround it on three sides; it's open to the south. 

During a windy week last summer, I mapped the cemetery. 118 graves; a handful of headstones with photos, many with Norwegian inscriptions. 

Headstones tell a story, but I'm greedy. I want details. What did their voices sound like? Did they laugh quietly or could you hear it across the fields? How did they look when they were worried? Why did they choose those names for their kids? 

Make a list of the things you'd like someone to remember about you. Even if (especially if) it's a small thing. Like bringing lilac branches inside in late March so you could see green leaves in April. Which hat you liked to wear at a ball game. How you grabbed a handful of carrots out of the garden on your way to the tractor. The first book that made you laugh out loud.

50 years from now, your memories will be gold.

 

Prairie Skies

As I write this post, a blizzard is raging in North Dakota. For the uninitiated, blizzards cause white-out conditions and drill flinty ice into your face when you venture outside.

In North Dakota, most conversations start and end with the weather, especially if you’re a farmer. Your livelihood depends on the sky.

And what a sky! People who focus on the ground always miss the show.

When I was a kid, my aunt would visit in the summer. We would run up the hill and take pictures of the sunset—at 10pm. Then we would watch the colors slowly dissolve. I think those colors kept her going through the gray Seattle winters.

I live in the city now. But when I pay attention, I can still see cloud shadows crossing the prairie.

Trading Mountains for Clouds

The immigrant experience always involves huge contrasts, from culture and language to food and new neighbors.

When you move from Norway to North Dakota, you also trade mountains for clouds.

Brother Knut Nelson

When Sigrid's brother Knut arrived in North Dakota, he was welcomed with classic prairie weather:

Winter came one month too early and they had to close the school. They couldn’t bring the little ones to school in the cold and all this snow on the prairie. . . As I have already said – winter came too early for many – yes, entirely too early because there are many who haven’t threshed, and many had thought of building more and preparing better, but the snow wouldn’t wait till they were done. A few days ago we had a terrible blizzard for four days. It blew and snowed so all that time. Some people tied a string to the corner of the house so they could find their way inside again. Yes, that was the worst snowstorm I’ve ever seen since I came to America, and I hope I never see it again.

Live Well Letters: Introduction

In 1885 my great-grandmother, Sigrid Gjeldaker Lillehaugen, emigrated from Hallingdal, Norway to America with her three children. She joined her husband Tosten in Minnesota, and in 1888 they moved west to homestead in North Dakota.

I grew up on a farm three miles from where Sigrid and Tosten lived. Every summer we held a family reunion at their house. As I made my yearly survey of the items in her house -- spinning wheel, organ, books, tall buttoned shoes, a tiny pair of spectacles-- I wondered about their lives. Drawings and photos of sober faced ancestors watched me watch them. In a dark side room a few clothes still hung on hooks. What if I could go back just once and see what it was really like?

In 2002 I got a phone call that gave me that chance.

For years, my aunt Tess had been working on a project involving Sigrid's letters (more on this in a later post.) When it came time to publish them, I was invited to join the project, having worked in publishing for a few years. Not sure what to expect, I started reading. Right away, her voice rang through. She was even funny. "It appears to me that I have been written down in your forgotten book at your place. But to freshen your minds, I am sending you a few lines. It could happen that it might interest you." When she wrote about her sheep and spinning, I thought of my Dad. When he was a little boy, she would bring her spinning wheel and sit by the south side of their house, spinning in the sunshine. Eyes twinkling, she would tell him stories in Norwegian.

In 2004, we published Live Well: The Letters of Sigrid Gjeldaker Lillehaugen with Western Home Books. In this blog, I'll share some of her letters and tell you more about our project. Together, we'll walk through the door of her house and get a glimpse into her life 100 years ago.