“I was born in Roonsolan, Norway on November 3, 1845. I lived on a nice farm in the Old Country, which was located in a valley between a range of mountains. This valley was one-half to two miles wide and fifteen miles long. Our farm wasn’t a large one, consisting of only ten acres. Our house had five rooms, and was built from logs cut from the big trees that grew on our farm.”

Here in Ambrose, Mrs. Ness lives with her daughter [Berntina]. Her boys [Anton, Hilmar and Ragnvald] purchased a house in town for her, but she didn’t want to live alone, so her daughter came to stay with her. She is known to all her friends as Grandma Ness. She is very active for her age and she hopes to reach the century mark. Until these very late years, she had been weaving rugs, which was her trade in the Old Country. There are a number of her rugs in most every home in Divide County. Her daughter took over the work, and has been doing very well.

”I have not had very much schooling in all my lifetime. About three months of school life, and all that I have learned has been by myself. I have always done a lot of reading. Not much along the educational line was done in the Old Country. The neighbors would hire someone to teach us the three R’s, and after we learned that, we had to stay home and work. I started to work in the rug factory when but a small girl. I was getting paid twenty-five Ore a day at that time.”

“Religion was very important in the Old Country. Everyone belonged to the United Lutheran Church.”

“I was married when only sixteen years of age, and all six of my children were born in Norway. There was one girl and five boys, and they are all here in America. Two of my boys are dead [Hans M. and Oluf J. both died in 1928] and the rest of my children are living here around Ambrose.  Roy [Ragnvald], the youngest, was but three years old when we migrated to America. My husband died two years earlier.”

“I came to the New World because three of my children were there already, and they wanted me to come over and keep house for them. There was not anything to do in Norway as work was hard to get and Roy was just a baby, so it was best to go to my children. I knew they would take care of me, so as soon as I received my ticket, I sold what little I had and was on my way. I received about a hundred krones for all the possessions I sold. All that I took with me, besides my clothes, was the weaving loom.”

“My maiden name was Romson, and my husband's full name was John E. Ness."

“I left Norway in the year of 1902 [at the age of 57].  I went to Appleton, Minnesota, where my sons and daughter were then residing. In the year of 1907, we all came to North Dakota and homesteaded. I kept house for them until one by one they all married.  In 1915, they bought a house for me in Ambrose, and here I worked on my rug loom up until the last three years when I started my daughter on the making of rugs.”

Grandma Ness has been a good church member all through her life, and is a faithful reader of the Bible.

The only newspaper she has is the Decorah Posten, published at Decorah, Iowa. She only reads in Norwegian and neither speaks nor reads in English. She knows a few words in English.

She gets around fairly well for a woman of her age, but uses a walking stick when walking. She likes to visit with people and can keep a conversation going for a long time. Her hearing is good and she can read without glasses.

If she had her life to live over again, she said that she would have come to America sooner if she had known how much better it was in this country.

She receives an old age pension of $17.00 a month.

Their home is a very comfortable home, being one of the few houses in town that are steam-heated.

Inconsistency noted:  The fact that Cecilia left Norway in 1902 when Roy was but three years old is not consistent with the dates of 1890-1953 on his headstone.

Family history taken from an interview conducted by a WPA field worker.
(Unedited except for comments enclosed in brackets)
From the collection of Liz Ness