Bits By Betty

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on Nov. 18, 1943.
         A resident in this part of Minnesota for over 60 years, Mrs. Carolene Anderson, Kenneth, can truly be classed as one of the pioneer women of this community.
         Now living with her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Vande Velde in Kenneth, she is in good health, although her eyesight is failing. Her one big regret is that she can’t work as much as she’d like to. “I do a little housework,” she said, “but I wish I could work in the store where they need help, and it’s so hard to get.”
         Mrs. Anderson was born at Konsmosogn, Norway, June 7, 1857, the daughter of Ole and Seerie Torkelsdatter Olson. Her father was killed in an accident when she was eight years old, and after his death, her grandfather operated their farm. She helped contribute to the upkeep of the home by herding and helping to care for cattle and sheep, as there were no sons in the family. She earned $5 from spring until fall.
         Her father met his death, she explained, when he was on his way home from town where he had gone to buy rye, fish and leather for the family’s supply of food and shoes. He was driving homeward with his team, one of which was a horse he had recently bought, when the tragedy occurred. In some manner, the strange horse shied away at a bridge, and the other horse followed him down a steep embankment. When her father was found some time later, he was dead.
Mrs. Anderson tells about how a traveling shoemaker came to their home every year and made their year’s supply of shoes. And another thing about Norway at the time she lived there, she says, was that women did all the dairying. “As long as I was in Norway, I never saw a man milk a cow,” she said.
Mrs. Anderson remained at home with her mother until she was 15 years old, and they began working for the neighbors in the community when she had the chance. At the age of 18, she went to the town of Grimstad where she did housework in various homes. She was thus employed when her cousin, Gaar Aanenson, who had come to Luverne, wrote to her and told her to come to America. His description of the country and its opportunities appealed to her so she made arrangements to make the trip. Mr. Aanenson sent her enough money for her passage, as she was unable to save enough out of her own earnings.
She left Christiansand, Norway, July 16, 1881, going from there to Liverpool, England, and thence to the United States. She suffered so much from seasickness that the ship’s doctor had engaged a place in a hospital in Boston for her where they planned to take her after they landed. She vowed, she said, that once her foot ever touched ground again, she would never travel in another ship as long as she lived. She recovered sufficiently after reaching shore to continue the remaining part of the journey, and on August 5 she arrived at the depot here.
As her train came in to Luverne, she anxiously looked around for someone she knew, but no one was there. “What shall I do now?” she thought as she stepped onto the platform. Nels Nelson, pioneer Luverne merchant, happened to be at the depot, and it was he who consoled her with the statement that her relatives would soon come to get her, which they eventually did.
She had a chance to go to a show the second night she was in Rock county, she recalls, but refused to do so on the grounds that she had no decent hat to wear. “I had a real pretty hat,” she said, “I had used it for a pillow on the train, so it really wasn’t the thing to be wearing to a show.”
She attended school the following winter where her teacher was Dan Matthews, son of a Congregational minister. Through the school and through her five cousins who were about her age, she learned to speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. She then secured work in Luverne, and was employed at the Dr. Spaulding and the J.A. Harroun homes until her marriage. Her salary was $2.00 per week.
Her marriage to Ole M. Anderson of Luverne took place at the Gaar Aanenson home, August 29, 1889, Rev. Thurmo performing the ceremony. They spent the first few years of their married life in Luverne, and Mrs. Anderson recalls that her husband on many occasions drove a team for Charles Lamb and Jack Perser, Englishmen, who had come to Rock county, and who were ardent wild game hunters.
One of the thrills she experienced some years later was seeing President Theodore Roosevelt who stopped here while making a tour on a special train.
They rented a farm six and one-half miles northeast of Luverne where they lived 20 years before moving into Nobles county, where they bought a farm, and which was their home until they retired and moved to Kenneth in 1935. Mr. Anderson died there in 1940.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson became the parents of six children, all of whom are living. They are John O. Anderson, Vienna township; Carl H. Anderson, Luverne; Mildred S. Anderson, Chicago; Lillian R. Anderson, Kenneth; Mrs. Henry Vande Velde, Kenneth, and Elmer M. Anderson, Hardwick. She also has 11 grandchildren.
Mrs. Anderson has no living brothers or sisters. She, herself, was a twin, but her twin sister died at birth.
Mrs. Anderson is a member of the Kenneth Lutheran church, but belongs to no other congregations. She attributes her long life to the will of God, stating that “each and every man has an allotted time to live, and that time will not be changed, regardless of how hard he has worked, or of anything else that he might have done.”
Mrs. Anderson reads well enough yet to keep abreast of the days’ happenings. She also can see well enough to do mending and other similar needlework for short periods of time.
 
         Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on Nov. 4, 1943.
Thor Berg continues his life story from last week.
Mr. Berg was always fond of the out-of-doors and since his boyhood days, has been fond of hunting and fishing. In Norway, he often donned a pair of snow shoes and went hunting in winter for hours at a time. After coming to this country, he hunted ducks, geese and prairie chickens, all of which abounded in great numbers. Fish, too, were extremely plentiful in all the rivers and creeks, and he states he has caught many good sized pickerel in the Rock river. He still enjoys reading magazines dealing with outdoor sport.
He managed to escape harm in the blizzard of 1888, but he recalls how the day was as beautiful as it could be in the forenoon, with a genuine January thaw in progress. By five o’clock in the afternoon, however, the storm raged in blinding fury. He recalls how two men were frozen to death when they were unable to reach shelter.
Mr. Berg worked on farms north of Luverne in Mound and Vienna townships practically his entire life after coming to this country. He never married, and has only the one brother, Nels, with whom he resides here in Luverne.
Despite the fact that he is nearly 90, he is still active, can hear well, and can read without glasses. He often makes a trip down town, and he enjoys visiting with his older friends.
Mr. Berg is a member of Blue Mound Lutheran church, and for years served as janitor there.
         Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on Nov. 4, 1943.
         One of Luverne’s oldest residents, Thor Berg, who will be 90 years of age next January 3, is the only Diamond Club member thus far who at one time fished for a living. Although Norway and fishing are synonymous, as fishing at one time was one of its greatest, if not its greatest industry, no previous Diamond Club  member, and there have been a number who were born and reared in Norway, has ever claimed to be a professional fisherman.
Mr. Berg, only brother of Nels Berg, last week’s member of the Diamond Club, was born near Drammen, Norway, the oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Ingebreckt Berg. As soon as he completed his common school education, he became interested in fishing, and he was about 14 when he first put to sea.
Bulk of the fish caught were cod or herring. Cod, Mr. Berg explained, was used mainly in preparation of “lutefisk,” a favorite food of virtually every Norwegian.
“We’d get about five or six cents each for the cod,” Mr. Berg said, “and about $1 per barrel for the herring. That’s not very much now when you consider the price of fish when you have to buy it, but in those days, it provided a living for many.”
Many times, he and a companion went out 25 or 30 miles to set their nets. Sometimes, when they had extremely good luck, their haul would be four or five tons. Rowing a boat that heavily loaded through choppy and sometimes extremely rough waters provided the men with plenty of work and plenty of scares. However, he never had any serious accidents during the time he was a fisherman.
He served in the Norwegian army one summer, he reports, and he enjoyed it very much. Forty-two days were spent in war games in a wooded part of the country, and this life in the open was enjoyed greatly by the Luverne man.
An uncle, Ole Berg, who had come to the United States, induced Mr. Berg to come to Rock county. He came directly to Luverne from Trondheim, Norway, in 1876, and at that time, Luverne was a small frontier town trying to get a start in life. Philo Hawes’ log cabin was still standing on the bank of the river near where the city power plant now stands, and much of the residential district was then in wheat, or was still virgin prairie.
“When I got off the train and came up town,” Mr. Berg recalls, “I saw a man playing croquet at the place where Backer’s hardware store is now located.”
Mr. Berg was employed on a farm in Mound township, and has walked behind many a plow drawn by ox-team. He has stood on a Marsh harvester and bound grain by hand, and remembers the days when wheat was the county’s chief crop, and the farmers didn’t believe that corn would ever become a paying crop north of the Iowa line.
Roads were wherever a person’s team chose to go, Mr. Berg stated. Wagon tracks led everywhere, and a stranger could easily pick the wrong one and become lost.
He well remembers the famous wind storm that moved the Blue Mound Lutheran church from its former location, west of the Rock Island railroad tracks, to its present site. “The wind just picked it up, carried it 35 or 40 rods, and set it down again,” Mr. Berg said. “Although it was not completely wrecked, it had to be torn down and completely repaired.
(Continued next week.)

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on Nov. 4, 1943.
(Continued from last week when Nels Berg, in his first four months in Luverne, broke 100 acres of prairie with oxen.)
When my brother told me I could guide an ox by talking to him, I wouldn’t believe it, but I soon learned to say ‘gee’ and ‘haw’ and the oxen understood what I meant.”
Mr. Berg explained that he did not learn any English while staying at the Haga home, as the boys would always play tricks on him when he asked them to say something in the American tongue. That fall, after repeated requests from friends, he decided to go to Canton, in hopes that there, he’d have a better chance to learn English. One day he started from Luverne at 5 a.m. and that night at 6 o’clock, tired and hungry, he walked into the hotel at Canton. He had never been to Canton before but managed to get there without any help, he states. In case he would have become lost, however, he had a note pinned to his shirt, which read, “Please direct this man to Canton, S.D.,” which might have helped him if he had become lost among people who could not understand Norwegian.
When he told the man in the hotel that he had walked the entire distance from Luverne, he was treated royally, and received a bounteous dinner. He recalls how they told the cooks, “Here’s a man who walked all the way here from Trondheim, Norway, and is mighty hungry. See that he gets all he wants to eat.”
In the hotel, all the women employees were Norwegian except one. Mr. Berg made a bargain with her that if she would teach him English, he would teach her Norwegian. “We had school every night,” he recalls, “and we both profited by it.”
He was staying in the hotel at the time of Canton’s big fire. He was the first one in the hotel to notice the blaze at the other end of the block, and it was he who gave the alarm in the hotel. “The minute I hollered ‘fire’, you should have seen the people pour out of their rooms,” he declared. The blaze destroyed nine buildings before it was brought under control, Mr. Berg stated.
He worked in Canton as a carpenter, and later, obtained a job with a building crew which was constructing depots and warehouses along the railroad from Mason City, Iowa, to Chamberlain, S.D.
It was while thus employed that he had an encounter with the Indians at Pukwana, S.D. The crew was out of lumber one Saturday afternoon so he and another companion went out along the drive to enjoy a picnic. They were enjoying themselves, discussing various subjects, finally coming to the topic of Indians. About that time, Mr. Berg was looking in the distance, and there looking at them was an Indian. “We were plenty scared, but we didn’t let on we’d even seen him,” Mr. Berg said. “We left our lunch and began turning handsprings and summersaults, and acted like we were half crazy. All the while, though, we were getting closer to a little valley. The minute we got into the valley and out of sight, we beat it for home. We never did see the Indians again, but we didn’t go around for them either.”
When he came back to Luverne from Canton, he entered the employ of George Soutar, contractor and builder, with whom he worked two and one-half years before going into business on his “own hook.” Many of the buildings in Luverne have known the pounding of his hammer during the many years he was actively engaged as a builder. He retired about 12 years ago.
Mr. Berg was married in the old Presbyterian church here in 1884 to Anna Lee. They became the parents of six children, two of whom are living. They are Frank Berg, Minneapolis, and Mrs. Ruth Fanford, of near Beresford, S. Dak. He also has four grandchildren. Mrs. Berg died two years ago, and now he and his only brother, Thor, live at their home on East Lincoln street.
He has been in poor health for a number of years, suffering with asthma. For five and one half years, he never slept in anything but a chair, it being impossible for him to lie down. He is able to sleep in a bed now, however.
Mr. Berg is a member of Zion Lutheran church here and attends services regularly. He is interested in world affairs, and reads both daily and weekly newspapers and listens to the radio.
Discussing the war, and the world at large, Mr. Berg gave his philosophy as follows: “I don’t know if it will be in this war, or whether it will be something worse later on, but I’m afraid of the people if this country don’t mend their ways, they are going to suffer even more than they are now. We know how God punished the ungodly in early time because of their wrong doings, and He is the same God today as he was then.”
Mr. Berg says he never entered politics. “I was always too busy with my other work,” he declared.
         Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.
 

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on Nov. 4, 1943.
One of Luverne’s oldest living retired carpenters is Nels Berg, 85, who came here in 1881, and who with the exception of a few years spent in South Dakota and Iowa, has lived here ever since.
Mr. Berg learned his trade in Norway. His father, who was a stone mason by trade, but who also did some carpenter work, wanted him to learn the shoemaker’s trade, but the idea did not appeal to the young man, so he chose instead to become a carpenter. He served two and one-half years as an apprentice, receiving only his board and room while doing so. His training gave him considerable experience in the making of many different things. He states he helped to make coffins, boats, cabinets, weaving looms and furniture in addition to building frame structures of various kinds.
Mr. Berg was one of two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Ingebreckt Berg. He was born near the village of Drammen, Norway, May 13, 1858, and grew to young manhood in the land of his birth. He completed his common school education, and then attended high school until he no longer had funds to continue his studies. He clerked in a store for a short time, and then was employed by the postal department at $60 a year. The latter was considered a high wage for a young man of his age at that time, he states.
Speaking of his life in Norway, he recalls he earned the first money he could call his own by helping his father and another man rip logs into two-inch planks for use in ship building. He explained that the log would be placed on a high scaffold, with one man sawing from above and one from below. It was his job to drive a wedge into the log, at the end where the sawing had been started, to permit free movement of the saw at all times. His wages for the job amounted to two cents per day.
Mr. Berg states he came to the United States mainly to get out of serving a year with the army. Norway at that time had compulsory military training, and Mr. Berg states that he could see no reason at that time why he should learn to handle a gun and bayonet, so he took his brother’s advice and came to the United States.
“I really didn’t like the idea of coming to this country very much at first,” Mr. Berg stated. “Everything they said about America sounded too good, and I thought they were bragging about something they didn’t have. When my brother told me that I could come here and work a little while and earn enough to go back to Norway if I wanted to, I decided to take the chance. I’ve never been back to Norway, and have never regretted coming to this country. Although I’d have liked to have visited in the old country when I was younger, I was always too busy to go.”
He recalls that when he first came to Luverne, the post office was located where the Skoland residence is now, on east Main street. W. H. Glass was the postmaster, and in addition to his duties in that capacity, he operated a drug store in the same building. There were still two log houses here then, and William Jacobsen was in the mercantile business almost directly across the street from where the post office was.
The first four months in this country he was employed on a farm by Ole Haga in Vienna township. The fact that he could earn $20 a month served as an inducement for him to decide that America wasn’t such a bad place to live after all.
“Don’t get the idea a fellow didn’t have to work to earn his money though,” Mr. Berg declared. “I’d be up at 4 or 4:30 in the morning, and would work until 9 and 10 o’clock at night. That fall, I broke 100 acres of prairie with oxen.
(Continued next week.)

The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on October 11, 1943.
Two of Hardwick’s oldest residents, and two of its most respected citizens are Mr. and Mrs. John B. Iverson. As business man and postmaster, Mr. Iverson has watched the progress of the village since its infancy, and as his wife, Mrs. Iverson, too, has noted many changes since she came to Rock county as a bride in the 1880’s.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Iverson were born in Norway, but it wasn’t until they came to the United States that they became acquainted and were married.
Mr. Iverson was born near Oslo, the son of Edward and Kristina Ulrang, on February 5, 1863. His father was a farmer, and as Norway had little to offer a farmer’s son in the way of opportunity, he and two neighbor boys decided to come to the United States. At that time he was 16 years old. Of the three, Mr. Iverson was the only one who remained to make Rock county his home. He worked for an uncle near Luverne for two years, earning enough money so that he was able to go to St. Olaf college. He had obtained a common school education in Norway, and in two years, had learned enough of the American language so that he felt fitted to attend school in this country. It was while he was at Northfield that he met Gertrude Oldre, and at Faribault, on March 9, 1885, they were married.
Shortly, thereafter, they came to Rock county and settled on a farm in Battle Plain township, living there for five years before moving to Hardwick. Hardwick, then, was hardly more than an overgrown farm place. For a number of years in the late 1880’s, there were no business places except a station where grain was purchased by Otter Otterson, and a blacksmith shop operated by Engebret Olson. In 1891 the first building of permanent character was erected. The following year several businesses were established, and the townsite was surveyed that fall. From that time on, Hardwick continued to be a prosperous town.
Mr. Iverson was one of the town’s first merchants, and operated a general mercantile store for 13 years. In 1902 he built a brick business block which he later sold so that he could devote his full time to his duties as postmaster. His appointment was made in the spring of 1897 by President McKinley, and he held the position until he retired in 1940.
When the village of Hardwick was incorporated in 1898, Mr. Iverson was elected the first president of the village council, an office to which he was re-elected for four terms. All in all, he served about 30 years in various capacities on the city council, and was clerk for 20 years or more of the Hardwick school district.
Mrs. Iverson was born at Valdres, Norway, in August, 1860. She attended the public schools there, and because she was the oldest of five girls in her family, it fell her lot to learn how to make clothing for the family. She could spin and knit at the age of 12, and also learned how to weave.
Every article of clothing worn by the family at that time, she states, was made by hand. Home grown wool was carded and spun, and later woven into cloth or knitted into garments of various kinds.
­She left home at the age of 20 to come to Northfield where an uncle and a brother lived. She was employed there until she was married.
Mrs. Iverson fell several years ago and fractured her hip. She is able to get around with crutches, and spends considerable time knitting for her friends and others. The trouble now, she says, is the difficulty of getting the yarn she wants.
Although there have been many changes throughout the world, Mrs. Iverson states she still retains one possession that she had when she left Norway. That is her faith in God. Mrs. Iverson and her husband are members of Immanuel Lutheran church in Luverne.
Mr. and Mrs. Iverson were the parents of seven children, five of whom are now living. They are E. U. Iverson, Pipestone; Howard Iverson, Groton, S.D.; Mrs. William Kartrude, Sioux Falls; Mrs. Rudolph Juhl, Luverne and Mrs. John H. Jensen, Luverne.
Two sons, Henry and Albert, died this year, the former at Jasper, late last winter, and the later at Wadena on August 12.
As far as Mr. Iverson knows, he has one sister living in Norway. She is two years older than he is. Mrs. Iverson, one of a family of nine, has one sister, Mrs. Inga Remme, Kenyon, Minn.
 
         Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.