After the war, in 1918–19, we could come to Denmark; the border was open. I had my four years of apprenticeship that was necessary to enter the engineering institute in Copenhagen. We got a good education there, about three and a half, four years. After my schooling, I got a job in a dairy machinery outfit in Kolding, Denmark.
I went to the United States in 1923. I was getting to be up in years, twenty-seven. There was not enough work in Denmark. They couldn’t use all the technical men they made. I had been ’round in the world, been working in Germany, in the war. To go to America, I didn’t think there was much to that!
*Some six thousand Danes from Slesvig died in German uniform during WWI; an additional seven thousand ended the war as invalids.
Sigfrid Ohrt
“He slipped out of the country.”
Sigfrid Ohrt left Norway with her mother in 1901, at the age of ten. They settled in the Dakotas, and Sigfrid held many different jobs while obtaining a business education. She and her husband moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1919. They raised four children.
We lived in Eidsness, a rural community up on a fjord, and my father made his living by working in Bergen. He did various things. He worked for a newspaper, wrote articles and witty things, and was involved in a bank. My mother had a child every year. She came from a mountain family where they had been in dairying. She did the farmwork; it was a small, small acreage.
In those days, the families made their own clothes. They had sheep and used the wool. My mother had a spinning wheel and I can remember winding up yarn for her. She had a dressmaker come in to sew for us, a shoemaker come in to make shoes. She did a lot of things, but she couldn’t do everything. So, that’s the kind of a family we were on a small place. I was born September 26, 1891.
I remember being quite an active child. My brothers would make a big swing between two trees, one boy on each tree; they’d swing me almost around in a circle. We played with boats in the little inlet and we did fishing. In the winter, you could skate on the lake. I don’t recall ever swimming there. Girls could wade, but boys could swim. One of my brothers snared birds. We frown on that today, but then it was sport. We played games with rocks. We’d pick up little rocks and throw them up in the air, and they’d land on the back of our hand, and we’d throw them up and catch them again. That was one of our favorite pastimes.
We started school at the age of seven and had school six days a week, Saturdays as well as other days. I was very excited the first day of school. My sister Inger and her friend, who were three years older than I, took me to school. They each held a hand and escorted me into the schoolroom. The schoolmaster was a young man who sat me in a seat and gave me some instructions. He asked me to write a “4.” I wrote it upside down. He said, “In our school, we do it this way.” We used slates and slate pencils. I was given one and felt very important.
We had to memorize our lessons. I used to get up real early every morning to do my studying. We were very well disciplined; we did our work. I was not the best student, but I did try to memorize. Religious training was done in the school. We had catechism and Bible history.
On Sunday, the neighbors used to gather. They had a big boat, big enough for the neighbors who wanted to [go to] church. About four men would row across the fjord to the church. They were long services. My mother used to have us children on the floor in front of her. The seats were high-backed seats so we couldn’t be seen. We’d be playing on the floor there while the service was going on. I don’t know how she kept us quiet; she was a very good disciplinarian. After the services, we looked forward to getting out and looking at the graves [in the churchyard]. I can still remember admiring the beautiful roses.
My grandfather Eidsness was a very fine old man. When I was a little wee girl, grandfather used to hold me on his knee and sing to me, “Ride, ride ranke, hesten heter Blanke.”* He was living with his second wife in one part of the house. The house was built with two stories and we had half of it, the bigger half. Grandfather and grandmother had their room and a storeroom. We were never allowed to visit them without permission. But I used to follow grandfather around the grounds; and when he went fishing, he’d have me in the boat with him. Grandmother had a great big apron she wore and whenever she went out some place away from the house, she’d gather up sticks and things for her stove. They were very thrifty and she was especially so.
Our mother seldom left her home; she was so busy there. But she did go to the Christmas program at the schoolhouse with us. We danced around the Christmas tree and sang Christmas carols. They had one ring of adults. And the next [ring] would be coming the opposite direction with teenage children and at the outside were the little ones. We’d go in different directions. That was the highlight of our celebration. It was a free and easy evening. That was where I drank my first cup of cocoa; we really thought that was something special.
And the community celebrated the Seventeenth of May.* They would get together and march two by two to the schoolhouse and back home. Somebody would be carrying a big flag at the head of it, and each one of the children would carry a small flag. We looked forward to that.
We left Norway when I was ten. I had been in school three years. My father was the kind of a man who was quite talented and he was very, very generous with his time and talents—to the extent that his family was neglected. In time, he got himself into trouble. He couldn’t fulfill his financial obligations, so he slipped out of the country. That I understand was quite common in those days. His income wasn’t sufficient to take care of his big family, so the house was about to be taken away.
So my mother’s father, and also a brother, came to our home and helped her pack and dispose of things. She had to get out of there, and she was doing the best she could. She had three brothers in South Dakota who had farms. They were just young men who had recently come to America. They sent money for the tickets so she could pack her family to America. Also, they needed help in South Dakota, so my sister Inger who was then thirteen and John who was sixteen were sent tickets to come over by themselves, before we were ready to go.
I can remember my mother hiding things in the hayloft for her family. She hid a saddle in the hay and there must have been other things, too. She brought her hand sewing machine and her spinning wheel with her; she couldn’t part with them.
The day that we left, I had a special friend that I wanted to say goodbye to. And when the rest of the family were carrying the stuff to the boat landing, I slipped around to this house to say good-bye to that family. And my grandfather came down. He was very sad and he said, “I know I shall never see any of you again.” He wandered back to the empty house with tears rolling down his cheeks.
We were loaded into that big community boat and the neighbors rowed us over to the little landing where the boat picked us up. We stayed overnight in Bergen and the following day we were taken by boat across the North Sea to England.
When we left Norway in 1901, we really never got together as a family anymore. We were scattered through no fault of our own, just circumstances. So that’s it.
*Nursery rhyme similar to “Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross.”
*Norwegian Constitution Day, the national holiday.
Andrew Johnson
“We were raised like regular puritans.”
Andrew Johnson and his family left Sweden for Tacoma in 1914. Andrew
