Tales from Gåseflå -- Gunnie Osmund

 Gunnie Osmun, ca 1911

After I posted the story about Gunnie Osmun I received a note from Inger Frøysaa whose father, Mikal, was Gunnie's half-brother.  Inger said she remembered a story told about Gunnie.  When she was a girl, before she left Norway, Gunnie was called Bitta (little girl) because she was so small and tiny when she was born.  The family story was that they spoke of her weighing about 800 gr. or approximately 2 lbs.  She was put in a shoebox filled with cotton and placed near the fireplace.  As is usually the case with oral history it really isn't possible to prove all the details.  

After this story was told Inger's father always said "And she got to be the strongest of them all."  Her mother, Randi, was a strong woman too.  After the birth she went back to the fields to finish her work. 

Thank you, Inger, it is always nice to add some family history stories!

Gunnie Osmun

Gunie/Gunnie Osmun and Lil Anna Hornnes, December 1911

Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå was married twice.  His first wife was Randi Eilevsdatter Dalehepte and they were married in 1881.  Osmund and Randi had four children:

1.    Baard Osmundsen Gåseflå, born 12 August 1882
2.    Ragnhild Osmundsdatter Gåseflå, born 7 March 1884
3.    * Gunhild (Gunie/Gunnie) Osmun (Gåseflå), born 1887
4.    Mari Osmundsdatter Gåseflå, born 1 March 1890

Then Randi died at Gåseflå in Hægeland, Vest Agder, Norway in 1892. 

Osmund next married Anna Mikalsdatter Hornnes 25 October 1895.  She was sometimes called Store Anna since she had a younger sister also named Anna who was called Lil or Lill Anna.  When Anna and Osmund married his children with Randi were ages 13, 11, 8, and 5 so Anna had four children to take care of before she began having her own children with Osmund.  Osmund and Anna had five children:

1.    Mikal Osmundsen Gåseflå,  4 August 1896
2.    Ragnvald Osmundsen Gåseflå, 27 July 1898
3.    Arne Osmundsen Gåseflå, 3 December 1900
4.    Ragna Osmundsen Gåseflå, 13 June 1903
5.    Ogla Osmundsen Gåseflå, 20 December 1905

Lill Anna stayed with her sister Store Anna from time to time helping with the housework and the children.  She knew Gunnie, was close to her in age and was her friend.  Gunnie was one of several friends and relatives that Lill Anna persuaded to leave Norway and come to America.  Lill Anna had set up a sort of perpetual emigration fund that she and Axel continued after they married in 1912.  She would act as sponsor and pay the ticket then ask for repayment turning that money back into the fund and sponsoring the next person.  So far I have identified six people they helped in this manner (Sadie, Anna and Marie Stean, Gunnie Osmun, Anna and Oline Espetveit) and there may be others.  The Schroders also had a small house that they let out to new immigrants until they could get jobs and pay their own way.  
 

Sadie Stean, Anna Hornnes, Gunnie Osmun, Anna Stean, ca 1911

Lill Anna paid for Gunnie’s ticket and sponsored her in 1910.  Gunnie left Norway and came to Seattle in May of that year.  When she arrived in America she chose Osmun as her surname instead of the farm name of Gåseflå or the full patronymic of Osmundsdatter or Osmundsen.  Her given name is found written both as Gunie and Gunnie.  

In 1914 Gunnie and Marie Stean (Sadie’s sister) returned to Norway.  Marie was very ill and could not travel alone so Gunnie went with her and also had a trip home to Norway for a visit much the same as Lill Anna had done in 1907/1908.  Among the papers and pictures that Gunnie saved was the ship booklet from 1914 showing her return route from Norway to America.  By this time Gunnie had enough money to purchase a second-class ticket herself instead of steerage or third class so she had a nicer cabin than many.  When she came in 1910 she was 22 years old, did not know the language but had friends waiting to welcome her to her new home.  On her return trip in 1914 she was 26, knew English and had adapted to her new country. 

Route card

In addition to a list of the passengers the booklet contains the names of travel agents, shipboard regulations—where one could smoke, what kinds of bathing facilities, hours of salons, etc.  Arrival and departure dates were provided and the map above with the route indicated.  The route is especially interesting because it shows ports of entry in Nova Scotia, Canada and New York, USA.  Rather than stopping in England the ship picked passengers up in Kristiansand, Stavanger and Bergen then sailed directly from Bergen, Norway to North America over the top of Scotland.  The voyage took ten days.  Gunnie traveled on the S.S. Kristianafjord a Norwegian American Line ship built in 1912 and launched in 1913.  The ship could carry 1200 passengers, 100 first class, 250 second class, and 850 third class.  The ship was not in service very many years, she wrecked off Cape Race, Newfoundland in 1917.  No lives were lost but the ship broke up and was destroyed two weeks later in a storm.

SS Kristianafjord
[photo:  Wikipedia, postcard--see:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Kristianiafjord_%281912%29]

By 1912 Lill Anna had married the Dane Axel Schroder who had a Swedish friend from his sailing days named Linus Raynald Swanson or L.R. as he was usually called.  Axel and Anna introduced Gunnie to L.R. and Rev. H. Stub married them on 7 January 1915.  I think Axel may have been a pretty good matchmaker as he also introduced Sadie Stean and Herbert Solwold, Anna Stean and Al Bensen, and Anna Espetviet and Ed Grodvig (perhaps others I don’t know about yet).

Gunnie, L.R. Swanson, and Lill Anna, ca 1915

L.R. and Gunnie purchased property for a farm in Central Valley near Silverdale, Washington and built a small house.  They had one child, Agnes, born 1923.  In 1937 they built a larger house and it still stands today looking much as it did when it was built.  Agnes married Lyle Allpress in 1943 and they had two sons and a daughter.  After her parents died Agnes and Lyle continued to work the farm and she lived there until her own death. 

The first Swanson house, Silverdale, Washington, ca 1920

The Swanson/Allpress farmhouse, 2006

In 2006 I took my mother out to the farm to visit Agnes.  Mom was 87, Agnes was 83, both in good health at that time.   They had not seen each other for many years and it was a fun day for all of us.  These pictures of the house and the farm are from that day.  Agnes is in the doorway and Mom is walking up to greet her in the photo above.

Fruit trees and vegetable bed ready to plant, 2006

In later years the farm was divided into four parts with the old farm house where Agnes and Lyle lived on one parcel and each of their three children with their own lots.  One son continues to farm the land the other brother and sister have town jobs but help with the farming as needed.  They still have chickens, Percheron horses, acreage for hay or alfalfa, a large vegetable and flower garden and fruit trees.  This, I think, is what is called sustainable small farming.  The three giant silos are a well known landmark and get dressed up as candles for Christmas holidays.  Many people stop by during the holidays to admire the decorations. 

Three silos, 2006

L.R. Swanson died in 1950, Gunnie in 1951.  Lyle died in 1992 and Agnes passed away in 2009.  In the years just before her death Agnes was busy organizing all the old pictures and trying to write a history of the farm to pass along to her children and grandchildren. 

Anna Mikalsdatter Hornnes "Store Anna"

Anna Mikalsdatter Hornnes, (d.e.), ca 1898
[photo courtesy of Inger Frøysaa]

Quite often in large families one of the children will end up as the “keystone” who keeps track of all the others, whose home is where the extended family meets for special occasions, who takes care of the others when necessary, a gathering place for the whole group. I do not know for certain but I think Anna who was born on Christmas day (25 December) 1866 in Hornnes, Aust Agder, Norway, the third child of Mikal Alfsen and Anne Gundersdatter, was that person in this particular family group. Hers is the home where the extended family met when the youngest daughter, also named Anna, came home to Norway from America in 1907 bearing gifts for everybody in the family. Hers is the home where many of the nieces and nephews went for their first employment away from home. She is the one who was the kindest to her sister, Marie, who had three children out of wedlock, she is the one of the sisters that Anna, Sadie and Gunie most remember in their journals and letters.

Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå, ca 1898
[photo: courtesey of Inger Frøysaa]

Anna married Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå, 25 October 1895. He was a widower with four children and 13 years older than she was. She was 29 when they married in 1895 and became an instant mother to the children Baard, 13, Ragnhild, 11, Gunhild (Gunie) 8, and Marie (Mari), 6. Osmund and Anna had an additional 5 children together, Mikal, born 1896, Ragnvald, 1898, Arne, 1900, Ragna, 1903 and Olga, 1905. One of her grandchildren, Inger Frøysaa, shared the cute stories about the rascal boys from Gåseflå that appeared in an earlier post.

The house at Gåseflå was large, and they did hire a couple of farm boys to help out including Sadie’s brother, John Steen (Stean), as well as having both Lil Anna and Sadie help in the house from time to time so I think they were better off financially than Sadie’s family. Lil Anna mentions going to help when her sister had a new baby but I don’t think this was employment so much as just helping out the way family members are expected to do in a situation like that. The oldest boy, Mikal, remembered Lil Anna’s visit and all the presents that were passed around. He would have been about 10 or 12 years old at that time (1907/1908).

Anna and Osmund were present when her brother, Torkjel married in 1907 to his second wife, Ingeborg Gundersdatter Tveit, and this photograph was taken.

Lil Anna, Osmund, Ingeborg, Torkjel, Store Anna, and an unknown friend, 1907
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå and Anna are sitting on either side of the small table. One of Marie's granddaughters, Ellinor Johannesen, asked me if I noticed Anna’s eye and I looked carefully to see what she was talking about. She told me that Anna had been poked in the eye by a cow’s horn and that was why it looked strange. I asked her what had been done when that accident occurred and she said “Nothing.” Today I think to do nothing in such a situation would be shocking and horrifying as well.

Anna was remembered with great fondness by her nieces and nephews and her kindness to her sister, Marie, was spoken of by Marie’s grandchildren with love and appreciation. I think she must have been a lovely woman and as I can see a little bit of a smile on the faces of both Osmund and Anna it leads to like both of them very much.

Anna Mikalsdatter Hornnes Gåseflå, ca 1907
[photo courtesy of Alf George Kjetså]

Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå, ca 1907
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

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Note:

Osmund died in 1921. Anna died in 1942.

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 7

Norwegian Fjord horse and woman from Hardanger, Norway, ca 1900

I have just a few postcards and pictures of these wonderful creatures one of which appeared previously in Postcard Thursday, 6, last week. We have three pictures I have found so far that show our family owned some of these horses.

“Pil” and Lars Stensland at Gåseflå, ca 1905
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

Here we see close ups of the farm hand Lars Stensland holding on to the Fjord horse, 'Pil' and in the picture below, although it is blurry, we see Notto Mikalsen Hornnes in the wagon with the horse hitched up and ready to go to work.*

Notto Mikalsen Hornnes and Fjord horse hitched up, ca 1870
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

Lillejordet farm in near Ulefos, Telemark, Norway with horses in the field, ca 1900

Lillejordet was the farm belonging to I.C. Lee's father, Kristen Rollefsen Lillejordet.** Here we can see the horses working in the field with the farm houses and people in the background. There is even a flagpole and flag. Many of the houses and farms in Norway do display the flag in this manner.

Horse and rider
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

This cropped version of a picture that previously appeared in the blog is a good example showing the size of the horse in comparison with the rider. I cannot tell for certain if this is a Fjord horse. The color and markings seem correct but it is definitely large enough to be considered a horse not a pony.

Fjord horses were much coveted and used on the farms in Norway and are still used today although mostly to haul tourists around in carts or a bridal couple in a small horse drawn buggy.

Current day postcard showing tourists riding in horse drawn carts near Birksdal glacier.

Norwegian Fjord horses are a special breed and are sometimes referred to as ponies because of their size but they are considered horses even if they are smaller than the normal cutoff for height. They are small but very sturdy and strong, capable of carrying a human and pulling heavy loads.

Most Fjord horses are dun colored although there are five shades that are recognized by the breed registry. The most common color is brown dun but as you can see from the picture, Pil, looks rather darker in color, although that may just be the quality of the photograph. These horses are one of the oldest breeds and have been used for hundreds of years as a farm horse in Norway. It is thought that they have been around since the last ice age and were domesticated over 4,000 years ago. They have a good temperament and can be used with harness and saddle. Although the mane does grow long it is usually trimmed or roached so that it stands up in an attractive manner that also accentuates the horse’s neck. The short mane helps to keep the horse looking well groomed. The ears are small and the eyes are large. Their coat becomes heavy and thick in the winter.

Fjord horses pulling sleds filled with logs, early 1900s, most likely in Telemark

You can see how sturdy they are in this picture as they pull a load of logs through the snow. This next card looks as if the photo was taken at a farmer’s meet or fair where the horses may have been judged, bought and sold.

Fjord horses at farmers fair in Telemark, Norway, early 1900s

In the last card all we can truly see is the shadow and the horse’s legs and hoofs but we also see the back of the wagon and a girl in a Setesdal bunad, light cream colors this time instead of the usual dark colors but still with the traditional bands of brighter colors at the waist and at the hem.

Setesdal girl in cart, ca 1900s

I love the look of these little horses. They remind me of the ponies that the Hobbits used in The Lord of the Rings.

For more information and pictures of Norwegian Fjord horses you may want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord_horse

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Notes:

* Gåseflå is located in Hægeland, Vest Agder, Norway. Lunnen farm is in Hornnes, Aust Agder, Norway.

** Lillejordet, as noted, is near Ulefos, Telemark, Norway. An abbreviated form of the farm name Lia is where I.C. and his brother, A.C. took their American surname of Lee.

The Lees are from my maternal line and the Hornnes/Gåseflå families come from my paternal line.

Tales from Gåseflå

The four children in the front from the left: Ragna, Arne, Ragnvald, and Mikal. Standing behind from the left: Anna (Store Anna) Mikalsdatter Hornnes, Osmund Bårdsen Gåseflå, Marie, Gunie, John Stean (Sadie’s brother), Lars Stensland. The horse was named “Pil.” The photo was taken ca 1905.

[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

On an earlier post there is another view of this same photo but I am repeating it here to go with a couple of stories that Inger Frøysaa related about her father and his brothers who are the little boys in the picture.

Father’s watch

“A little story from the Gåseflå brothers.

"
Ragnvald could not resist a desire to see his father's pocket-watch on the inside and of course also the parts separately. But it was not easy to put it together again and after a while he gave in. Then he took his father's hat and coat went to his mother and said with a deep voice:

‘My dear lady. I am the watchmaker from the city I must unfortunately tell you, madam that it would be terribly expensive to repair this watch. It will be much more inexpensive to put it together yourself.’

It was told that it was difficult for his mother to hide a smile.”

Red Currant Berries

“The rascal boys from Gåseflå: The railway came in 1896, the same year as my father was born. I think he was" a good" teacher for his younger brothers.


“The train passed 2 or 3 times daily and the boys were almost always staying next to the tracks and waved to the passengers. The ladies waved back to them and thought that they were such cute little boys. In the summertime the ladies often wear white dresses and hats. These were people who left the city in the summer and had their holidays at the countryside.


“Grandmother had a lot of currant bushes and the little cute boys made "snowballs" with their hands and the goal was the ladies on the train. And guess if they hit ??!!
 After a few days the conductor informed the passengers, when they approached Gåseflå that everyone had to stay inside and all windows had to be closed. At least as long as the currants season lasted.” 


Thank you, Inger, these are such cute stories and help to bring our history alive.

Bård Gåseflå from the 50th anniversary of Otterdals lumber mill

[I think he looks a bit stern and ferocious but perhaps they all did in those days.]

A 50 year anniversary booklet about the Otterdals saw and lumber mill was published in 1918. In this booklet are several pictures of the people and the mill. Bård Gåseflå, the father of Osmund Bårdson Gåseflå who married (Store) Anna Mikalsdatter Hornnes, is found on many of the pages. The booklet is quite interesting but it is too long to post all of it so here are just a few pages including the picture of Bård Gåseflå.

Cover page

First page of text.

One of the pages on which Bård Gåseflå appears. He is on several pages.

The top photo shows the men all lined up and ready to saw the logs into boards.

This last page shows the lumberjacks sitting on the logs getting them ready to take to the mill. The bottom picture shows a family at Naanes in front of the house with a horse and all dressed in their national costumes. That must have been for the photograph since they probably did not wear such finery when working.