Life and Death, Inextricable

A few years ago, I stood at the window in a hospital room watching traffic. Outside was life, inside was illness and eventually, death.

Life and death are, were, and continue to be inextricable. Many of us try to ignore this fact -- until we can't.

Death is woven throughout Sigrid's letters, here it takes her neighbor's children. Even so, life stubbornly persists.

"We have a new neighbor, namely, Sander Lofthus. They came this spring and bought a quarter of land. They have now built a house and moved in. Margit was with us two weeks. They now have one daughter left. Their two sons died right after they came here this spring, that was sad for them, and the people are kind to them. They have gotten three calves and Knud Lokken (or Turke Knud) feeds them three months for nothing. That was worth a lot of money to them. And still he gave them a calf and helps them in many ways, so they say they like it here, so I suppose they do."

Getting Settled in Dakota

On June 1, 1888, Tosten, Sigrid, and their children moved into their new home in Walsh county.

Tosten writes, "I bought the improvement from a Bohemian . . . with the understanding that I file on that quarter, which I did. The improvement consisted of a log house 24 by 16, a well, a stable, and 25 acres that had been broken. I paid $150 for this. I did not have the money but was to pay it in the fall."

Neighbors banded together. "There was plenty of hay and pasture land around about us, but to get the hay together was not so easy. I had neither team nor machinery at first. So it was to exchange work with neighbors, and that took lots of strength for one man. When I came, I had a yoke of oxen three years old. So when I got them broke and got a wagon and rack, I could haul my own hay with the help I had. So things started to get better."

Sigrid also describes the first years. In 1892, she wrote, "The crops were good last year, the first wheat harvest in Dakota. Now we will see if it will be better here. Some have given up their land and moved away.

Tosten and Micheal have much work in the barn, as we have many animals. They also bought a team of horses. There is much to buy when a man is beginning to farm, and here it is expensive. Machine and tools we need, but we are afraid to buy before we can pay."