A Very Special "Long Friday"

Across the Fence #280

I've written before about the Good Friday we spent in Norway, but thought this story was very appropriate for this week.

Our trip to Norway in 1999, included Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday weekends, or Paske, as it’s called in Norwegian. We attended the Palm Sunday service at Salemkirken in Oslo where our relatives Per and Esther Søetorp were members.

On Good Friday, or Long Friday as it’s called in Norway, we attended the service at the Lund Lutheran Church in Moi, where all my Østrem and Sherpe ancestors had been members. Our relatives, Arne Olav and Vivi Østrem, and Vivi’s parents attended the service with us. We appreciated them accompanying us to the service. They knew it would be a special experience for me because of my ancestral connection. Per and Esther were taking part in services at the Pentecostal Church in Moi, while we were at the Lund Church.

The alter painting was the first thing Linda and I noticed when we sat down. It was the same painting as the one in the Country Coon Prairie Lutheran Church in Westby. It’s a copy of the one in the Oslo Trinity Church painted by Adolf Tidemand showing the baptism of Christ. Many people from the Moi area settled around Westby and my ancestors helped start the Coon Prairie Church. I imagine they wanted something familiar from their church in Norway and had Norwegian emigrant artist, Herbjorn Gausta, paint a copy for the Coon Prairie Church.

As we sat there, I looked around at the alter, the baptismal font, and pews, and thought of all my ancestors who had worshiped in this same church. They were baptized, confirmed, and married here, and many funerals were conducted here for them. It was the one place that was central to the lives of all the Sherpe’s and Østrem’s who lived around Moi before immigrating to America. They had spent time here during both happy and sad occasions, and probably sat through some long-winded, fire and brimstone sermons too!

The Long Friday service included a communion service where everyone went and kneeled at the alter rail. I watched how others took the offering of wafer and wine. It was the same way we did communion at the Coon Prairie Lutheran Church in Westby when I was young. As I knelt at the rail, I thought, “This is the same place where my Sherpe and Østrem ancestors once knelt for communion.” That made it very special for me.

The service lasted about an hour and a half and of course was in Norwegian, so Linda and I were rather lost most of the time! Jeg snakker ikke Norske! (I don’t speak Norwegian!)

After the service, they had arranged for a member of the church to show us around and explain the history of the Lund Church. It was first mentioned in 1429. There’s an old burial vault under the church where several clergy members and their families are buried. Twenty-four coffins lie in the vaults under the church. They’re from the 1600’s and 1700’s and the coffins are well preserved. I couldn’t help but wonder if some were my ancestors, since at least one was the minister of this church in the 1600’s during the funeral when Hothead Sven got into trouble.

A model ship hung from the ceiling in the center of the church. This is quite common in Norway and symbolic of the ship of life. In 1877 a wood stove was installed. It must have been cold sitting through a winter service before that time. Perhaps the fiery sermons added enough heat to keep everyone a bit warm!

After our tour and history lesson, we went outside and I wandered off through the cemetery to look at tombstones. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the view was magnificent as I looked toward Lundevatnet (Lund Lake), at the far end of the cemetery, with the mountains in the background. In the days of the Vikings, my ancestors pulled their long ships onto boat landings on the shore where the church now stands. Two, large Viking burial mounds are nearby.

I was walking among the bones of my ancestors and relatives, probably hundreds of them. However, there were no tombstones with their names on them. As is the practice in Norway, after a hundred years the tombstones are removed and the graves reused, if no perpetual care has been arranged. Below the newer coffins, with new headstones of newer generations, lie the remains of many ancestors. The wood coffins have long since deteriorated. It’s not like today where we use vaults to hold expensive coffins. It would be hard to piggy-back them!

As I came back around a tall hedge at the front of the church, everyone had disappeared. They had also taken a stroll through the cemetery and I didn’t see them because they were in another part, looking at the resting place of Arne Olav’s father.

Just then I saw Per and Esther coming up the path toward the church to meet us. I asked if they had seen where the others had gone. Per smiled and answered in a booming voice, “Why do you seek the living among the dead!?” It was a very powerful and appropriate statement on a very special “Long Friday.”

March Madness and Observations

Across the Fence #279

When many people think of March they think of high school basketball playoffs and the college “Big Dance.” There’s a madness in all of that, but March is also a time that can drive us mad as we yearn for spring, but winter doesn’t want to end its long stay.

March came in like a lamb this year. By the time you read this, we’ll know if the lion is getting ready to make an appearance as March makes an exit. After the beautiful spring weather we had today, I’m ready to put away my skis, snowshoes, and snowblower and start tuning up the bike and lawnmower.

March is that transitional month when we’ve got to be ready for anything. March is what guys referred to as a tease in the dating game. Just when you were getting your hopes up and you thought spring was just around the corner, you got a cold blast of winter to cool you off again. That’s March.

We just endured a week of heavy fog and rain. The sun was nowhere to be found. It was case weather without any tobacco to take down. That kind of weather does have a way of beating your spirit down after a while. I can understand how some people suffer from depression when sunshine takes an extended vacation.

That’s March; cool, drab, and dirty… the month of transition. As the snow retreats into the safety of the wooded, northern slopes, it exposes what the snow had hidden from our sight for the past several months. As I was out walking today, the ditches were filled with more than running water. Pop cans, beer cans and bottles, water bottles, crumpled up McDonald’s bags and cups, and animal carcasses in various stages of decomposition. The animals I can understand. They didn’t look both ways before crossing the road and it was lights out. All the discarded cans, bottles, and paper bags is another story. It’s maddening. Littering is just lazy and thoughtless behavior on the part of a few people, but it sure makes a mess.

Winter throws a blanket of snow over all the accumulated junk around the countryside that becomes exposed like an unmade bed with the arrival of March. Our lawn is littered with sticks, clumps of grass, and small rocks. They seem to arrive each spring, like a rabbit out of an empty hat. They weren’t there in the fall.

Another thing the melting snow exposed on our lawn was a network of tunnels in the dried grass, created by little rodents, most likely voles and mice. It was certainly a safe and comfortable place for them under the snow in their little shelters, out of the wind and cold. Now that March has arrived, their tunnel systems stand exposed and unused. I wonder where they’re living now?

The birds are starting to return. I saw and heard my first flock of geese heading north. That’s always a welcome sight. A huge flock of Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds also visited our back yard this week. There were several hundred birds in it and they all rose together, like a black cloud, each time something frightened them. I’ve yet to spot my first Robin of the spring, but other people say they’ve seen them. We always have Mourning Doves in the winter, but during the last week, up to fourteen have been feeding on the ground under our feeder at one time.

The melting snow has created a small stream in the little valley behind our house and filled the pond. Now I’ll keep track of how long it is before the pond is empty again. It held water all year round before, but now it seems to disappear into the ground. I suspect our pond has turned into a sinkhole. The area around here is cratered with sinkholes. That concerns me when it comes to manure runoff that could get down into our water table.

Seeing the water running, brought back memories of my younger days when playing in the water from melting snow was a March ritual. We made channels through the snow and mud so the water could run freely. We also got very wet and muddy, but never seemed to mind back then. What strange force attracts young kids and dogs to puddles of water and makes them stomp through them? It must be part of the March madness.

Another thing that’s a bit maddening in March is getting adjusted to Daylight Savings Time and trying to remember how to change all the clocks. I especially have trouble with my wristwatch. I lost the directions a long time ago. Another thing, how did we end up with so many clocks? There should be no excuse for anyone to ever be late to an appointment. When Ole first heard about Daylight Savings time he said, “Only a government official would believe you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket!” I think Ole’s right on that one. Ya, it’s March madness all right.

March, those sunny, water running, muddy, bird’s singing, uplifting, short sleeve, sixty-degree temperature days, followed by foggy, rainy, depressing, sleet-filled, wet, slushy, snowy days when the winter jackets come out of the closet again. It’s madness… it’s March.

Making Your Ancestors Come alive

Across the Fence #278

Sven ran his calloused, thick fingers slowly through his thinning hair. His bloodshot eyes peered up at the bar-covered window in his small, dark cell. The first light of dawn was now visible behind the mountains that rose high above Hauklandstølen. A few lights dotted the landscape as the residents of Moi began to stir and prepare for the day many had dreaded to see arrive.

Sven turned away from the lights and retreated to the darkness of the room. The thick log walls and heavy wood door captured the chill of early autumn and the small room was cold and damp. His large body shivered as a chill shot through it. They would come to get him as soon as it was light and it would all be over.

A wave of despair swept over him and he sank slowly onto the straw-covered, wood bed along one side of the room. He sat on the edge of the bed and buried his head in his large hands as tears rolled down his weathered face and disappeared in his bushy gray beard.

Sleep had not been possible this night as he thought about his life and what awaited him at dawn. He didn’t want to die. He lay back on the hard bed and covered his eyes with his large, muscular forearm, trying to block out the light of the coming dawn and the fate that awaited him.

His thoughts drifted back to younger, happier days when he roamed the hills and mountains surrounding their small farm at Skåland and later at Steinberg in southwestern Norway. He wished he could undo the events that had brought him to this moment, but there was no going back.

Sven Pedersen Skåland was my 10th generation great grandfather. Sven lived during the 1600s so I have no idea what he looked like or what he was thinking. Thanks to my longtime interest in genealogy I have many accounts about his life from history records in Norway. During our visit to Norway several years ago, I found out more about him from relatives, and visited the log jail where he was held before being executed.

The new TV program called “Who Do You Think You Are?” generated these thoughts about ancestry, and where we’ve come from. It follows celebrities as they discover their ancestry and roots. If you’re interested in your family history, this show is for you. If you aren’t, it might peak your curiosity to see what you’ll discover in your family tree.

I’ve been lucky enough to trace our family back to the Viking Age in Norway. I’ve also discovered many relatives here and in Norway through genealogy research. I find it sad when people can’t even tell me the names of their great grandparents. I once read, “In 100 years, most of our direct descendents won’t even remember our name.” After discovering how many people couldn’t name their great grandparents, I realized there’s a lot of truth in that statement.

That’s why it’s important for me to find my ancestors. I don’t want them to be forgotten. At least I’ll leave a record of their existence after I’m gone, in case anyone else is interested in our family’s roots. After all, I owe my being here to them, even those ancestors that many people don’t want to find, or include, in their family tree.

Sven Pedersen Skåland is one of those. He was known as “Hothead Sven.” I found why after researching his life. He had a quick temper that got him into trouble on several occasions. The first part of this column is the intro from a historical fiction story I’m writing about Sven. He killed two people in disputes over land. The first time he got off with a self-defense plea, but lost his farm. The second time, in 1639, he got into an argument and stabbed a man to death during a funeral. Sven was defending his younger brother, who had been thrown off a farm by the man so one of his nephews could live there. Sven’s hot temper got the best of him. Brynild, the man Sven killed, is also one of my 10th generation great grandparents. He’ll never make sainthood either. Brynild got into a fight with a man at a Christmas party and killed him, but got off on self-defense.

Sven wasn’t as lucky. He was arrested on the spot by the sheriff, another of my 10th generation great grandfathers, and was thrown into the jail we visited. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Our relative, who showed us the jail, said Sven was pulled apart by horses. What a horrible way to die. The 1600s were tough and violent times.

That old jail, in Moi, Norway, has been preserved, right down to the simple cot, table, chair, and old handcuffs hanging on the wall. They put the handcuffs on my wrists, the same ones that once held Hothead Sven. I tried to imagine the thoughts that must have gone through his head on that morning of his execution. I took in every detail of that dark room. I knew there was a story I needed to tell about the life and death of this man, Hothead Sven, whose genes I carry. Even though they are dark genes, he’s part of me. Even those ancestors deserve to be remembered.

I'm A Winter Olympics Junkie

Across the Fence #277

I've got to admit it; I’m a Winter Olympics junkie. I seldom watch television, but for the last two weeks, I’ve been plunked down in front of our TV each evening. On the evenings when I had meetings, I recorded the coverage so I could watch it later, even though I knew the results by that time.

I like the Winter Olympics better than the Summer Olympics. Maybe it’s because we live in the Frozen Tundra, where the snow is as high as an elephant’s eye, and it “sometimes” looks like its climbing way up to the sky. Maybe we can change the name of that song from Oklahoma to Wisconsin. It might also be that I’m more familiar with those winter sports and have participated in several of them. Not at an Olympic level, needless to say.

I don’t know a Double Salchow from a Triple Toe Loop, but I’ve ski jumped, downhill skied, and raced cross-country. However, I’ve never tried those crazy aerial maneuvers and jumps. I’ve had some spectacular falls that may have rivaled a “forward 180 with a double-twisting, 360 backward, face-planting, belly-flopper,” but I wasn’t trying to do any tricks at the time. As anyone who’s skied knows, every once in a while, a snow snake will jump up and grab your ski.

We never ice skated when I was young, although we did play hockey… sort of. We’d clear the snow off the pond in the back forty to make our hockey rink. Our hockey sticks were made from tobacco laths. We’d cut a foot-long piece from a lath and nail it at an angle to another lath. I can’t remember what we used for a puck. We didn’t have skates so we just used our winter four-buckle boots and we were ready for action. Unfortunately boots are rather slippery and we took some nasty falls. It’s surprising we never got seriously hurt. I guess I bounced better when I was young.

Those tobacco laths were also used for ski poles. Needless to say they didn’t work real good because they didn’t have baskets like real ski poles, but they were better than nothing. Many times they got stuck in the snow and we kept going. Then we had to stop, and go back to get them. It’s surprising how many things a simple tobacco lath could be made into. You didn’t have to go out and spend a lot of money on fancy equipment.

I think everyone has gone sledding at one time or another. Now it’s an Olympic event called luge. Most of us would lie on our stomachs and go headfirst instead of on our backs as they do in luge. We also didn’t rocket down a hill at 90 miles an hour, although that would have been rather exciting. Almost as exciting as crashing into a tree or barbed wire fence, that most of our sledding places seemed to have an abundance of.

Perhaps another thing that draws us to the Winter Olympics is the high degree of danger involved in many of the sports. It’s like going to a stock car race. It gets pretty boring unless you have a few spectacular wrecks. It’s the old thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. How many times did we see that poor ski jumper fall and go bouncing off the scaffold on the Wide World of Sports?

I can also sympathize with skier Lindsey Vonn and her bruised shin. While downhill skiing one night, I hit a patch of ice and went flying into the trees alongside the ski run. I slammed into a tree hard enough to pop both skis off and ended up straddling the tree. The sight of me sitting there, in agony, hugging the tree, would have made a great cartoon. Once I determined I could still stand up and nothing appeared to be broken, I skied to the bottom of the hill. By the time I took my boot off, I had a knot on my shin the size of my fist. There’s no way I could have skied again for the next month. I don’t know how she did it. A bone bruise on the shin is very painful for downhill skiing.

Speaking of painful, if you’ve ever tried cross-country ski racing, you know what painful can be. I raced for 15 years and know how those skiers felt when they crossed the finish line and collapsed. I wish I was in half the shape I was when I raced. Those Olympic skiers have to be some of the most fit and conditioned athletes in any sport. They use both upper and lower body muscles and their heart and lungs need to be in super shape to go at the speeds they maintain for over two hours straight. I’m glad they finally showed some cross-country events. As a Norwegian-American I had to cheer for Petter Northug from Norway. After he won the 50 K race in a sprint to the finish, I was so fired up, I grabbed my skis and headed for the ski hill in Timber Coulee. Petter is safe, I’d never come close to him in a race, but I had fun.

Now the 2010 games are over and I’m in withdrawal. I guess I’ll get off the couch, head outside, and enjoy the snow before it all melts.