My grandmother Anne was born in North Dakota to Norwegian immigrants.
Like many Scandinavians seeking opportunity in the untouched lands of the upper U.S. midwest,
the story of Anne and her family provides evidence of the human will to overcome
and at the extreme, the capacity to survive.
To my great surprise, I made contact recently with a previously unknown relative in Norway -- my
father's second cousin. His last name is Leite, the maiden name of my grandmother.
I came to learn it's not "Lie-tea" as we pronounce it in America, but rather "Lie-tah".
Our correspondence blossomed and important facts emerged. My relative makes home in the small
town from where my family's immigration began, a Norwegian village of 700 people -- Bagn, Norway.
Having seen much of Scandinavia, I've been curious about my family's journey to America
in the 1800s. Quickly looking back at our travelogues, it took me only minutes to confirm
that my wife and I once visited Bagn, Norway. The beauty of Norway is breathtaking. So beautiful
that in many cases it needs to be seen to be believed. Why would my great-grandfather leave
this remarkably picturesque nation for the U.S. in search of farmland?
Americans think of Norwegians as sturdy seafaring people. There's some truth to that. Seafood was
essential there until the potato was introduced in the mid-1700s. But Norwegians have always been
farmers first. Leading up to the 1800s, Norway simply ran out of available farmland. Because
of that, large agricultural families struggled terribly, inspiring migration to North America.
The Leite family of Norway, I would learn, have been farmers for centuries and remain
so to this very day. History of their family farm in Norway is traceable to the 1700s.
As is customary in Norway, the family changed their surname to Leite after the farm's name.
The word Leite translates to "a place where you can see far", and from old Norwegian as "hill
or elevation". Appropriate here, the river Begna with its trout, pike and whitefish cuts peacefully
through the valley beside the farm where no land formation interrupts the spectacular view.
Coincidentally, 20 years ago, my wife and I drove along the Begna river and by the Leite farm.
Unknown to us at the time, it's from this place that my great-grandfather's journey to America
began and where shocking events unfolded in the opening days of the Second World War.
In 1863, U.S. President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, giving 60 acres of land
to a man or woman at least 21 years of age. It was required that a house be built on the land
measuring at least 10 by 12 feet. At least 10 acres needed to be under cultivation.
The applicant was to live on the property for five years to gain ownership. The Homestead Act
drew people to America in search of new beginnings. The dry, semi-arid land of the Dakota Territory,
known then as the "Great American Desert", was promoted with the promise that "rain follows the
plow", one of many discredited climate myths pushed by the U.S. government on unsuspecting immigrants.
At 29, Hans Leite emigrated from Norway with his older sister Marit, along with her husband
Mikkel Iverson and their children in June of 1883.
They landed in New York Harbor, some 20 years after the first Norwegians arrived.
My great-grandfather's new home would be in a rural farming county inhabited almost exclusively
by Norwegian settlers, a two-day horse and buggy ride from Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Four years after he arrived, Hans Leite purchased a farm from his sister's brother-in-law,
a Norwegian homesteader. After six years as a bachelor farmer, Hans would propose marriage
to a pretty norwegian immigrant. Kari would become his wife in the spring of 1892. He was
38 and she 30. Together they would bring four children into the world, one of them my grandmother.
Change came slowly to the prairie, but fate would pounce swiftly. Nine years into their marriage,
Kari Leite would become ill and pass away a week after her 38th birthday, in the dead of winter.
Cause of death, unknown. Pneumonia, flu, and tuberculosis were the leading causes
of death at the time. Kari left four young daughters -- seven, six, four, and two years of age.
My grandmother Anne was the four-year-old. There was no obituary because there was no newspaper.
Their town's weekly newspaper began circulation five years later in 1905, published once a week.
Telephone service became available 10 year after Kari's passing, and 20 years after her death
electricity became common in homes. Early Dakota Territory settlers had little to
no exposure to American culture or ideas until radio became affordable in the 1930s.
On farms and in small towns like theirs, Norwegian traditions were at the center of everything;
food, storytelling, games, music and hospitality. There must have been
talk about someday returning to the old country, if just for one cheerful visit.
Hans would indeed return to Norway sooner than expected.
A year after his wife's passing, he was summoned to Bagn, Norway, with news of his father's death.
His four young daughters would stay with relatives in their small Dakota farming town as he reunited
with family in Norway one final time. Passenger records show Hans returning to the U.S.
from his father's wake in the late summer of 1902. He steamed from Oslo to Southampton, England, then
and still one of the busiest maritime ports in the world. There he boarded a larger ship for
the transatlantic journey to New York City, a 17-day journey in all. The ship's manifest
listed him as a 47-year-old unmarried U.S. citizen farmer from North Dakota returning home,
traveling in third class accommodations. Because of the timing, he would miss his first wheat harvest
in 20 years. Hans was reunited with his daughters and continued working his farmland. But after
a few years as a single-parent farmer he'd had enough. He leased his farmland and moved
three miles into town where he purchased a small house. His four daughters would attend school and
be closer to their friends and cousins. But soon after moving to town the unwelcome hand of fate
would strike again. His eldest daughter would swiftly become ill and succumb to pneumonia.
Oline, a brilliant and engaging child known to her friends as Lena, would live just 12 years.
Then, unthinkably, five years later, Hans' second daughter, Gina -- then 15 -- would also pass.
The newspaper reported she died at home in the morning of consumption,
adding, "she was another bright flower who will be greatly missed by all who knew her".
She was buried on Christmas Eve with her gifts still under the tree.
These sudden and crushing losses are likely the reason for my grandmother's
melancholy around Christmastime, even in her final years.
The two surviving Leite girls, my grandma Anne and the youngest -- great-aunt Mattie -- would elude this
fate. They would live long and interesting lives. So would their father Hans. Remarkably, he lived
to be 88 years of age, passing in 1943 in the small North Dakota town that for 60 years he called home.
Those who knew him recalled Hans as a tall, strong-handed man with sky-blue eyes and a
colossal mustache, common for gentleman of the day. He was quiet, an observer, and a careful listener. He
read and reread the Norwegian language newspapers published weekly from Grand Forks in Minneapolis.
He loved his pipe tobacco and was never without a small paper bag of strong peppermint candy to
share. The Sunday that Hans past was like any other peaceful spring morning in North Dakota.
But on that day, with World War II raging on the other side of the world, his grandson -- my father
-- an American soldier, took part in cornering 12,000 Nazi troops in Tunisia, North Africa.
What remained of the Fifth Panzer Army surrendered before noon that day. The German collapse had begun.
In Norway, the Nazi occupation there which began three years before Hans' death was understood
in the U.S. only in broad generalities. Methods of censoring all information coming out of Norway
were in place for the five years of German occupation. For Hans, it was not possible to
understand the consequences of Nazi thuggery upon his family and their farm in Bagn, Norway.
Germany invaded Norway in an early performance of what would become World War II. The reasons for the
invasion were two-fold; to secure ice-free harbors for its naval forces to control the North Atlantic,
and to gain access to improved supply routes to Swedish iron ore. The occupation would
prepare their cold weather troops for the forthcoming invasion of the Soviet Union.
The German army's fascination with the destruction of Norwegian property is well documented. Entire
towns were sadistically burned to the ground by gleeful, rampaging soldiers. They not only set fire
to farms and personal belongings including musical instruments, but they also set fire to sheep.
Germans playfully machine-gunned dairy cows, destroying everything possible. In the first two
months of occupation, Nazi fire patrols burned 11,000 homes and 6,000 farms,
hundreds of shops, factories, schools, lighthouses, and dozens of Norwegian churches and hospitals.
The Leite farm would suffer the same cruel fate just a week after the German invasion on April 18, 1940.
The Nazi advance met determined armed resistance from Norwegian Army troops around Bagn, Norway.
The clashes resulted in hundreds killed and wounded on both sides. In retaliation, the Germans burned the
Leite farm to the ground. The farmer, Martin Leite, observing the destruction after the fire died away,
spoke in passing to a German soldier still stationed on the property. Mr. Leite said
sarcastically in Norwegian, "Here you have done a nice job". To his surprise, the German soldier
responded dismissively in a local dialect from the northern part of the valley. Before the war, the
soldier had been welcomed to the valley and was living there due to economic hardships in Germany.
Hans Leite died two years before these details could have been known to him.
Some of those responsible for the scorched earth campaign were brought to Nuremberg for trial
at the war's end. The court's ruling that burning farms and property was a military
necessity caused outrage in Norway. However, some would consider a measure of justice was
ultimately served. The German divisions responsible for the atrocities in Norway
were later isolated and destroyed by Soviet forces on the Eastern Front.
After the war, in 1945, Norwegians worked
to rebuild and bring peace to their country. The remaining Germans were expelled,
the Norwegian flag would come out of hiding, and life would soon improve
beginning with the Norwegian people returning to their daily work.
My grandmother Anne, whose birth name was Anna, was a kind and gentle soul. A laborer
working the property next to her father's North Dakota farm caught her eye in 1916. My grandmother
fell for Jacob, a determined 24 year old legal immigrant from Norway. A courtship developed
which materialized in marriage and the birth of their first child -- my father, in the summer of 1918.
Jacob's family name was Nilsen. He immigrated from Norway at the age of 16.
Sent to the U.S. because of food shortages on the Norwegian island of Bolga,
and with the recent death of his mother, a sponsoring family in the U.S. agreed to take him,
and Jacob took their surname (Nelson) as his own, later becoming a naturalized American citizen.
Together, Anne and Jacob, later known as "Jack", would have three children -- my father
Clayton, Ardis and Eleanor, all of whom were immensely proud of their Norwegian heritage.
My grandmother Anne was forever captivated by stories of her parents' homeland. Her husband Jack
spoke of Norway in his native tongue, as did many people around them. Jack, who to the end retained a
trace of his Scandinavian accent, would pass away suddenly at the age of 57 from a heart attack.
20 years after his untimely passing, her chance to visit Norway would come.
The chance of a lifetime. Anne would accompany her sister Mattie to the land of their parents.
As my wife and I traveled through Norway, I wondered what my grandmother and great aunt
encountered when they visited their ancestral homeland. Anne and Mattie worked all their lives
to preserve and advance their understanding of the language, and they often wrote to family members in
Norway -- people then unknown to us. Thanks to the generosity of my newfound Norwegian relative,
details of their 1973 visit to Norway have come to light. Among the treasures provided to me
is this film. Anne and Mattie would be hosted by the Leite family in Bagn, Norway!
The food, storytelling, music and hospitality were all typically Norwegian. They lodged at the
family home, still used today by the generations that followed. Anne and Mattie depended on their
Norwegian language skills exclusively. None of their hosts spoke English. Lovers of Scandinavian
cookies and cakes, they were in their element slice after heavenly slice. They visited the Leite farm,
the scene of so much history. Driven by a neighbor, they visited the Bagn church
cemetery, saying hello to departed aunts, uncles, grandparents and extended family.
While in the sunset of their lives, they visited a place entirely new but joyously familiar.
It would seem they'd spent a lifetime preparing for this journey. Their father, Hans, would have been
overjoyed had he known of their journey to the old country for that cheerful visit. As was his hope,
his two daughters withstood the raw challenges of the harsh Dakota prairie. Their experiences
tested the human capacity to survive. And because opportunity can greet only the survivors favorably,
grandma Anne and aunt Mattie were able to explore the land they dreamed of for a lifetime.
In a very real sense, they returned home for the first time.