Many people, including people of Norwegian descent, aren’t aware of the historical significance of Syttende Mai, and why people of Norwegian blood celebrate it. It’s to Norway what the 4th of July is to the United States. The constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvoll, Norway on May 17, 1814. The constitution declared Norway to be a free and independent nation. But it wasn’t until 1905 that Norway finally gained its independence from Sweden.
Just like St. Patrick’s Day, when everyone becomes an Irishman, Syttende Mai is when everyone wishes they could be a Norwegian. Even the Swedes become Norwegian wannabes for the day and join in the celebration. I can say that because I have several good Swedish friends. It seems that we Scandinavians are the only people who still have a sense of humor.
My Irish friends don’t like to admit it, but they have a lot of Norwegian blood coursing through their veins too. My Viking ancestors spent a lot of “summer vacations” touring Ireland and plundering and pillaging. Many people aren’t aware that Norwegian Vikings founded the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and others. They also established settlements in Scotland, Northern England, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetlands, and Orkney. Linda is Irish on her mother’s side. I tell her that if we could trace our families far enough back into Ireland, we’re probably related.
During this Syttende Mai, we should all take time to reflect on our heritage and roots. I’d also like to challenge everyone to write down or tell your story to someone. There are lots of stories to be told. Our family history and our stories are very important.
Maybe you think your story isn’t important, or that what happened in the past is of no consequence. “Who’d be interested in all that old stuff?”
That was the problem I encountered when I wanted my father, Hans Sherpe, to tell me about his life and things he remembered. He said he couldn’t remember anything, or that he didn’t want to talk about it. Then when he moved to The Friendship House, an assisted living facility in Westby, there was a man living there who had written up his life story and given copies to all his kids. “At least they’ll know what I’ve done,” he told my dad.
The next time we visited Dad, he said to us, “I really should write about my life, but I can’t write good anymore.” That was all the opening I needed. I told him, “You don’t need to write it down, I’ll set up our video camera and you can just talk. Before you know it, you’ll forget the camera is even there.”
The next weekend we were on our way back to Westby. I set the camera on a tripod in his room, turned it on, sat down, and started asking questions to get things going. It went slow at first and was like pulling teeth to get him to talk about things! But soon he was volunteering all kinds of information and stories. He DID remember. He talked about so many things I’d never heard about before. As we went along, I would ask questions about some event or some person and he would tell stories about what he remembered.
I’m so thankful we took the time to do this. He died two years later. He would have taken his music with him to the grave and all that information, and all those stories, would have been lost forever.
Much of what my father told about was what it was like to live in the 1920s through 1940s when he was young; the things they did for fun; Smith School memories; the struggles of the depression years and how it affected our family; what it was like to farm with horses and do most work by hand; what they did for recreation; courting our mother; the struggles of having no money and being forced off farms to make room for buyers instead of renters; the changes he had seen in over eighty years of living; and the list could go on and on.
I’m sorry I didn’t do the same with my mother. By the time I was really into family history, she was having all kinds of health problems. I didn’t want to bother her with asking about her life, thinking she might look at it as being near the end of her life, and now I wanted her to tell things before she died. If I could do it over, I’d ask her, and I suspect she would have been happy that someone wanted to know about her life. Now it’s all gone and we can never find out the details of her life and her thoughts about things.
Don’t take your music with you when you leave! Share it with others. Someday people will want to know what things were like when you lived. A personal family story is really a history lesson for those who come after you.
Regardless of who you are; 100% Norwegian, Norwegian by marriage, a Norwegian wannabe, a German, or even a Swede, your roots and your story are important! This Syttende Mai, start telling someone your story.
This is one Norwegian-American who’s proud of his roots and why I like to say that I stand in the present, with one foot in the past and one in the future.
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