I will start back in 1911 when I was a little girl.  My father, Charles Nance, and a friend Shorty Cumsford, drove across country with a wagon and team from Belfield, North Dakota.  Belfield is where two of my sisters were born.  I was born in Lisbon, North Dakota. Mother and we three girls came via the Soo train to Ambrose in 1911.

Father worked at hauling freight from Ambrose to Whitetail, Montana and I remember his many tales of storms and difficulties.  One of his stopping places was the John Leininger farm, near Fortuna where Mr. Leininger still lives.

Many a Sunday we drove twenty miles with a team and buggy to visit neighbors.  We lived in Ambrose until the spring of 1912 when we moved to a farm owned by George Stout.  Then in 1913 Father bought his own farm near the Canadian border.  We attended school and the Presbyterian Church in town as long as the church held services.

My only brother, Charles, was born in Divide County. He passed away in 1959 at Tacoma, Washington. The name, Nance, died at this time too.

In 1925 I met my husband Clarence at a house party.  Like me, he was one of the old timers who arrived early in Ambrose with his folks. The Carl Opperud family came by train in 1907 on the seventeenth of May.  Even that late in the spring they had to unload their stock off the cars onto snow banks.

Carl Opperud's family in the Spring of 1909 on their homestead in Lincoln Township.  Carl came in the spring of 1907.  The people in the picture are Clarence on the horse, Oscar with the derby hat, Nettie Opperud Ulledahl behind Josephine who is holding Edna Opperud Johnson.  Behind them is Agnes Opperud Bakke, beside her is Elmer who died of diphtheria in 1919, then Harry Red Opperud next to Carl Opperud.  (Photo and description from James Opperud, son of Clarence.)

They came from Fingal, North Dakota and were able to find a location in Lincoln Valley Township, where he grew to manhood. Along with his brothers and sisters, he attended school in an old homestead shack.  Soon a school building was erected in the northern part of the township.  In 1917 a consolidated school was built in the center of the township where as many as fifty-two pupils attended. Nowadays there are thirty-two, and that after reorganization.

Clarence and I were married in Crosby in 1926 and lived near Ambrose until 1960 when we pulled up our deep roots and moved our home to Crosby.

Our three boys attended school in Ambrose and also the Presbyterian Church.  Everett was drafted in 1945 and lost his life in Korea in 1951.  Ernest enlisted in 1946.  He stayed in the army for fifteen years. He married a New York girl and they have a little girl.  He is still working for the government in communications and is living in the Philippine Islands.  James, the youngest son, was in the Ambrose High Class of 1952 and attended Minot State College.  After teaching in Divide and Renville Counties he went to Portland in 1960 where he works for John Hancock Insurance. His wife was a North Dakota girl.

This ends my story up to date.  My husband and I live in Crosby and will for many more years.

Family History taken from pages 42-43 of the
Stories and Histories of Divide County 1964, Crosby, North Dakota
(Edited for content)