Emilie Hovdesven memoir, 1957

Title

Emilie Hovdesven memoir, 1957

Identifier

NAHA 2019/945

Date

1957

Description

"From Mother to Daughter" (1957, introduction by daughter, Myrtle Hovdesven Wilson). Born in Coon Prairie, Vernon County, Wisconsin, May 31, 1864 to Ole and Mattia Sveen. Mentions total eclipse of the sun; steamboat ride up Mississippi; Thore Hong, Willmar; dugout house, buffalo skulls and Indian (Native American) relics; Hemming Arntzen Wegdahl, postmaster (post office inside corner of dugout); town of Wegdahl, Minnesota; blizzard (March 1870); prairie fires (1870); birth of brother, Ole Magnus, "We girls stayed in bed and pulled the bedclothes over our heads so as not to hear Mother's cries"; Rev. Wikre; summer of the blackbird menace..."it seemed as if there were millions of black flapping wings. Randine and I were supposed to protect the cornfield. We ran through the field all day long, shouting and putting up scarecrows, but little did they heed."; soap making; missionary Solveson and early education/schooling; fishing the Minnesota River; Ole Brusven; moving into log house (1872); Rev. Solseth; Chippewa City/Granite Falls/Motevideo; Christmas memories; Blizzard (Jan. 7, 1873); Morton Hanson; milking the cows; grasshopper plague; diphtheria epidemic (1879); spelling bees and Ole Arntzen; Marit Pederson; blizzard (Oct. 15, 1880); Mrs. George Gregg, Granite Falls, Minn., small pox epidemic and "pest house" where "all the sick were huddled together to die"; Julebukking; Orilla Wright; Winter carnival in St. Paul; and the economic panic of 1897.
Formerly part of P539.
1 folder

Language

English

Citation

“Emilie Hovdesven memoir, 1957,” Norwegian-American Historical Association, accessed March 29, 2024, https://naha.omeka.net/items/show/2399.