[Life in the Old Country]

I was born in Roonsolan, Norway on April 10, 1888.*  The population of Roonsolan was about one thousand at that time and it was a large farming center. The farms were rather small and few of them were larger than fifteen acres. Our farm buildings were built of logs as were most of the buildings in that region. These buildings were very warm and were large. Our home had seven rooms in it and several other buildings on it.

I did not receive much education in Norway as we were poor people and I did not have much of a chance to secure an education as I had to stay home and help with the farm work. We would have three months of school each year and I was indeed fortunate if I attended three weeks of the term. The school days were six days a week, but the last day which was Saturday was set aside so that the children could p1ay most of the time, and was called “play-day”. We were taught reading, writing, history and spelling. There were also several hours set aside each day for the study of the bible and other religious training. We would also read bible stories and learn the catechism. Before we finished school we had to be confirmed and in our last year of school we would have to read for the minister throughout the winter until Easter when we would be confirmed. We were usually confirmed at the age of 16 and after our confirmation we were considered grown ups and were ready to make our own living in the world. But we had to work regardless of how old we were so this was nothing new to us. I helped in the hay fields when I was seven years of age and helped with other work also. When I did have the opportunity to go to school I had to walk five miles and in the winter time I would ski all the way as there was always plenty of snow in the wintertime in Norway. It would be dark in the morning when I left for the school and would be dark when I got home in the evening.

The religion in Norway was taken more seriously than it is taken here, and I started to attend church when I was very young. We attended the Lutheran church which was our state church. The church was kept up by the government and the money was paid to the government in the form of taxes levied on the people for this purpose. The preacher was also paid by the church. It did not make any difference if you went to church or not you had to pay the taxes in order that the churches remained open the year around. The churches were very large in Norway as they were far apart and would have to accommodate many families. No one was excused from church except in sickness or when someone had to stay home with the young children. Mother and father attended regularly all the time but sometimes mother would stay home in the winter time when it was too cold for her, but she could not work when the services took place. The church services would last from ten o’clock in the morning until about one o’clock in the afternoon. The people of the church had to go and get the minister and furnish his transportation to the church, each family taking turns in this. The minister received about $10,000 krones per year salary including his house and about ten acres to farm. We would also have a collection on church days and special collections for the minister on holidays. When you were confirmed or married, it was the custom to give the minister from one to ten krones. The minister I think had a soft life as he always had one of the congregation help him with his work and there was always some of them helping him the year around with other kinds of work he had to do. He also would have one of the congregation’s daughters working for him in the house which was supposed to give the girls extra training which he said they needed, but which I thought was a lot of bunk, and was just an excuse to get someone to work for nothing. The attendance was always good at the church rain or shine, because it did not make any difference how cold or rainy it was we had to go to church whether we liked to or not. The confirmation classes were quite large and if I remember rightly there were about a hundred in my confirmation class when I was confirmed. The minister was sort of a king in Norway at that time and could get by with most anything.

The methods of farming in Norway were very crude and slow compared to the methods of farming in this country today. The acreage cultivated there would not make a good pasture here. The plow we used did not have a mole board on it and would dig in the ground and leave a kind of ditch making it necessary to drag the field many times in order to get the ridges out of the field. The fields were seeded by hand and dragged again several times so as to even out the seeds and cover it up to a certain extent so that it would sprout sooner. When the grain was ripe it would be cut by hand and then shocked and tied. The shocking was hard work and was done quite different than it is done in this country. First, a pole was acquired which was about eight to nine feet tall. The first row was placed at the bottom of the pole about six inches from the ground in an upright position, then more bundles were shocked around the pole until sometimes the grain would be 10 to 12 feet high. This grain was threshed in this manner as the ground was always moist and the bundles had to be kept from touching the ground and to prevent the grain from rotting. The threshing was done by taking the bundles to the granary placing them on the floor and beating the grain from the bundles with a flail, which is a long stick with a joint about half way, so that the stick on the other end of the joint is movable. We would then gather up the grain and chaff and put them into sacks, and clean the grain by pouring the chaff and grain from the sack into a pail when the wind was blowing which blew the chaff out of the grain. The grain raised was oats, barley, wheat and winter rye. We never sold any of the grain but saved it to feed the stock. We always kept about fifteen milk cows and sold a lot of butter and cheese. Our livelihood was derived mostly from the cattle as did most of the other farmers in that region.

It seemed that the government of Norway was controlled by the large farmers and the land seemed to be divided up amongst these large land owners. It was impossible to rent land at that time but a person could get a small piece of land from the big farmer by working for him, this was called renting and the person who farmed under these conditions were usually poor people and were known as “Housemen”. Most likely you would get about five or ten acres of very rough land, and probably brush land. You would of course have to spend most of your time clearing this land in order to cultivate it for farming. This was a poor method of farm ownership as the poor man who tried to make a living in this manner had a hard time of it. But later on the government stepped in and bought some of the land from the large land owners and sold it back to the poor people who wanted to start farming. The payments were made on a yearly basis, and on land that was not cleared. The government paid them so much for clearing the brush from the land. This was deducted from the price of the land and in this way the total price of the farm did not amount to so very much. The reason the government did this I believe was because so many of the Norwegian people were leaving their homeland and were coming to America.

The only taxes I can remember were the church taxes which were about one Krone per family per year, the income tax which compelled a person to pay 10 percent of his earnings in a year to the government and there was also a property tax which had to be paid each year.

The labor conditions in the Old Country were very poor, as the wages were very meager. For farm work one could receive from 100 to 300 Krones per year which would be about 100 to 300 dollars in American money. With your wages you would also receive your board and room and clothing. I did not hear of any labor organizations, however there may have been labor organizations in the larger cities, but as I worked on the farm most of the time, I would not know about the cities.

We did not have much recreation in the Old Country and I believe I attended about three dances while I lived there. We were never permitted to go to parties or to dances while I was living at home, as father was very religious and would not permit it.

The Norwegian weddings were gala affairs and I attended my sister’s wedding in Norway when she was married. First of all, one had to get a marriage license which would cost about 2 krone and take it to the minister who would announce the intention to wed three Sundays in a row, which was so that no one could have more than one wife. After the third Sunday, the bride and groom would dress in their best clothes and be married in the church. After the ceremony the parents would have a party for them which lasted from two days to a week. There would be plenty of good things to eat and plenty of ale to drink. There would also be dancing and the guests would sing songs and play games.

[Coming to America]

The reason I came to this country was almost the same as the other Norwegians who came here, to get a home of my own and to become self-supporting. In Norway it was practically impossible to obtain land for farming unless one wanted to become a “Houseman” and this was one thing I did not intend to do. I had two brothers who had come to America some time before who had wrote telling us of the wonderful opportunities and the chance to homestead land here.

My brother sent me a ticket to come to America, or I probably would still be in Norway. I did not bring anything with me but my clothing and I left Norway embarking from Oslo on March 1, 1908 and I sailed on the White Star Line.

From Oslo, I took the boat to Hull, England and there took a train through England to Liverpool and from there I took a much larger boat to America. The trip was very enjoyable and I did not get seasick and it was fun for me all the time I was on the ocean. I landed in New York on the 21st of March and took the train to Appleton, Minnesota where my brothers lived. My folks intended to come over shortly after I left, but they did not come over until I had been in this country for two years.

When I first came here it did not look very good to me but after I had been in Minnesota I got used to it and become to like it very much better than the Old Country. I would not have returned to the Old Country for all the money in the world at that time. I worked for my brother as soon as I arrived at his farm and worked there until 1909 when I then came to Divide Country, where my brother had located some land for me and on which land I intended to homestead.

Farming here in North Dakota would be almost perfect if we could only get the moisture when we need it, as the soil is of the best and we have the best farm machinery that can be had. I raise mostly wheat on my farm and do not raise any cattle, but I think every farmer should have four cows and could depend on them when the grain crop fails. All of my land is broken up and if I had my life to live over again, I would not have broken up so much.

No, I did not sell any cattle to the government in 1934 as I only had four head at that time and I butchered them and my family ate them. I needed the meat and would not sell them to the government and cattle was very cheap at that time and I did not think the government could get more benefit from them than I could. I think the government did the right thing by butchering them and giving the meat to the poor people at least the moneyed fellows did not get the cattle, which is a consolation to me.

The Country Agricultural Association has helped the farmer and they should be grateful for this aid. I did not know what many of the farmers would have done had it not been for this program. This allotment check surely comes in handy and is especially appreciated when we do not even get our seed back. I suppose the WPA and FSA are necessary evils but I suppose they are all right.

[The Helmer Ness Family]

My wife is Norwegian and was born in Minnesota and we have two boys and one girl. Walter is 23 years old, Orville is 23 years old, and the girl is 20 years old. When they went to school they studied hard and obtained diplomas from the eighth grade as well as a high school diploma. They are all married except Orville who works for his brother in the summertime on his fishing boat. He is going to college in Washington. The girl was married last June and her husband is a garage man in Seattle, Washington.

I take the Fargo Forum, The Divide County Journal and the local paper, the Ambrose Herald. The only foreign paper I take is the Decorah Posten. I read the American language as well as the Norwegian language and I talk mostly American. We hardly ever spoke the Norwegian language when the children were here except when we did not want them to understand us which was a good idea, I think.

About the only fun I have now-a-days is to go to town and play rummy or whist. I am getting too old for any foolish thing like going to dances and shows. I enjoy listening to the radio.

Yes, I was in favor of America entering the World War as there was nothing else we could do under the circumstances. But, it is just the moneyed people and Hitler who want war, not the poor people and the ones who have to fight in the battles.

[The World War referred to above would be WW I.  In 1940 WW II had not yet begun from the perspective of the US.]

I wonder how long it will be before we will get into the present struggle and have been expecting the United States to enter long before now. And, I am curious as to our remaining neutral but I hope it will last. I think Germany should be taken over and off of the map and I cannot understand how Germany took Norway so easily, but I believe that Hitler was planning this for a long time. He should have been stopped long ago before he got such a grip of such nations. If we can help in someway so that we will not have to send our men over there, I would be in favor of sending every possible aid short of war.

I am glad that I have lived in America and we are lucky that we do not have any war over here. There are of course some things in one’s life they would like to change, but I guess there is nothing I can do about it.

[Inconsistency noted:  The dates of 1878-1953 on Hilmar's headstone are not consistent with his opening statement.]

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