If this Thursday it must be postcards, 519

 

 

 

 

 

Near Voss, Norway, ca 1950

 

Another Normann postcard from Dick Thompson’s Scrapbook, this one has a photograph of the countryside near Voss.  The title and the number 11-54-31 appear at the lower left.  Normann’s signature logo is at the lower right.

 

It is possible to see that every inch of arable land is used no matter how steep it may be.  A tourist hotel is in the background but not easily seen in the photograph.  When Dick traveled to Norway in the 1950s, he stayed here for a few days.  Voss is on the rail route between Oslo and Bergen.  There are many scenic places and waterfalls along that route.  Trains and tourist buses often stop at Voss and Flåm so that tourists can take pictures.  One of the sights along the way is the magnificent waterfall, Tvindefossen.  The falls attract thousands of visitors per year.  When we visited Norway in 2014, my cousin and her husband drove us down the western coast of Norway from Ørsta to Hornnes.  Along the way we had the pleasure of stopping to see Tvindefossen as well as several other waterfalls.  

 

 

Tvindefossen, 2014.  Tourist buses can be seen at the right near the fencing.

 

 

Tvindefossen, closer view, 2014
 

There is a parking area for cars and buses.  A path allows visitors to walk up to the foot of the falls, where it is possible to enjoy the cool breeze and light mist coming from the falls.  

 

Voss is surrounded by snow-capped mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers.  It is a popular tourist area and is notable as a center for skiing, water sports, skydiving, paragliding and adventure sports.  The Voss Museum has outdoor displays of old farmsteads as well as an indoor displays from traditional farm life.

 

For more information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tvindefossen

 

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 514

 

 

 

 

 

Ørsta, More og Romsdal, Norway, 1999

 

Two used postcards with views of Ørsta, Norway are shared this week.  We were privileged in 2014 to stay with a cousin who lives in this charming community.  Ørsta is found in the Sunnmøre region of Western Norway in the county of More og Romsdal.  Distributed by Olav Lystad of Ørsta, the card has the number 667.LIX at the lower left corner on the reverse. 

 

My father’s mother, Lil Anna, came from a large family and only a few migrated to America, hence there are many cousins of varying degrees, 2^nd, 3^rd, etc. who still live in Norway and can be found mostly on the western or southern coast.  Eldbjørg and her husband, Hans, were members of a folk dancing group that was on a tour in the United States.  Before they left Norway they contacted me and provided information about where they would be performing with the hope that we could meet in person.  Happily, we were able to watch them dance and also to invite them to our home for a visit the following day before they moved to their next stop.  Luckily, another performance venue was near where my brother lives and he and his family also got to meet and visit with them.  Because my grandmother did not have brothers and sisters living in America my brother and I grew up with only 2 cousins.  Now we have found dozens!

 

 

The museum sign on the side of the building has a map of the farm

Two of the buildings on the museum grounds with sod roofs and grass and even small shrubs growing on top.  The old farmsteads raised the buildings off the ground to prevent rodents from getting into stored items.

 

One of the work rooms in the museum used to teach spinning and weaving

Two of Elbjørg's looms.  She has several looms, at least two at her home and others in storage.  These are set up and students are working on projects.

 

Wreath made from twigs displayed on the side of the museum

 

Ørsta has a population of about 11,000.  It is a beautiful, picturesque fjord hamlet that was part of Volda until it was separated in 1883.  The Brudavoll Farm, part of the Sunnmøre Museum Foundation, is about 3 miles or 5 km from Ørsta.  Eldbjørg is a retired teacher of folk art, mostly weaving, and collects looms.  She volunteers teaching traditional Norwegian weaving at the museum.  The museum grounds also contain several old farm buildings with the traditional sod and grass on the roof. 

 

The main industries include mechanical and furniture manufacturing, fishing, agriculture, and aquaculture.  There is a regional airport that serves several neighboring communities.  Driving through the Eiksund Tunnel, the deepest undersea tunnel at 942 ft or 287 m below the sea surface, was an experience. 

 

 

 

“Light impression of Norway,” undated, ca 1997

 

This second postcard has an aerial view of Ørsta with photo by Per Eide, printed by Hatlehols.  This card has the number 0106 – Ørsta, Norway at the upper left corner on the reverse.

 

For more information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ørsta

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 453

Chautauqua Hotel, 1903, New York

The other day I was looking for something in my grandmother’s (Lil Anna’s) old photo album and unexpectedly came across this postcard of the Chautauqua Hotel (New York State) identified and dated on the photo at the lower left and middle.  The card is pasted in the album and as it resisted removal and I did not want to damage it, the reverse side remains somewhat a mystery.  Since this was during the period when postcards had undivided backs and therefore only the name and address could be on one side any message would have appeared across the photo.

When Anna left Norway in 1902 she traveled with a ticket paid for by a sponsor family living in Buffalo, New York, which is not too far away from Lake Chautauqua.  Their name and address was printed on a card and pinned to her coat while she waited at Ellis Island to go through immigration.  She described feeling like a parcel post package waiting to be delivered.  This was a fairly common way for young people to be able to travel to American.  Boys would end up usually doing farm work and girls did mostly housework or tended children.  In 1907 when Anna returned to Norway on a visit she began encouraging friends and relatives to come to America.  She became a sponsor and paid for the tickets, when the ticket was paid off she turned it around and sent for the next person.  Axel and Anna even had a small house on their Lake Union property where the newly arrived immigrant could live until he or she got a job and could be on their own. 

While in Buffalo, Anna worked for the sponsor family for 2 years to pay off the passage fare and save some money so she could go to a young ladies finishing school in New York.  Unfortunately, she did not include the name of the family in her journal.  Later she worked in the garment industry sewing clothing before going to Boston, Massachusetts to live with her brother, John, and his wife, Lydia for a short period of time and eventually traveling by rail across the country to Seattle in time to visit the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo in 1909.  She married Axel Schroder in Seattle in 1912.

Anna Hornnes Schroder, 1912

Lake Chautauqua is about 17 miles or 27 km long and 2 miles or 3.2 km wide with a maximum depth of 78 ft or 24 m.  Buffalo is on Lake Erie and Chautauqua is not far from Lake Erie.  The name of the county and the lake come from the language of the Erie people who lived in this area.  The Erie language is now extinct.  The lake is used for boating, fishing and tourism.  There are many shops, restaurants and entertainment.  There is also a stern-wheeler replica, the Chautuaqua Belle, that offers sight-seeing cruises on the lake. 

Since it is a souvenir card, and more than likely purchased while on a vacation, it seems likely that sometime during the 2 years Anna worked for the family in Buffalo they took a trip to the lake and that is how the card came to be pasted in her photo album.

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua_Lake

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 377

Costa Blanca, Alicante/Alacant, Spain

Following up from the postcard shared last week here is another one from the same area, the Costa Blanca, Spain.  The photograph is by Joan M. Linares and Triangle Postals published the card. 

The Costa Blanca or White Coast spans over 120 miles or 200 kilometers along the Mediterranean in the Alicante province, southeastern coast of Spain.  The warm, sunny weather and white sandy beaches make it a popular tourist destination.

Villajoyosa, Spain

We visited two beaches on the Costa Blanca, one at Villajoyosa a little north of Alicante where we were able to meet with another cousin who lives in Norway but spends several months in Spain.  I did not expect to ever meet her in person since she lives on an island in northern Norway and it did not seem likely that I would go that far north.  However, here we are, three, second cousins on the beach in Spain!  The beach at Villajoyosa is also a long sandy beach like the one shown on the card.

Three cousins meet in Spain

We also visited Torrevieja, south of Alicante, where the shoreline is rocky and there did not seem to be as much of a sandy beach.  Instead there was a long boardwalk and a stone walkway that had steps and a ramp down into the water.  It was windy the day we visited and there were waves crashing onto the rocks, even so we saw some people surfing there.

Torrevieja, Spain

For more information, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Blanca

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 352

Fish Creek, Chelan County, Washington, ca 1930

Alfred G. Simmer was the photographer of the Black & White picture on this 1930s postcard.  The name Simmer and the place are written in white at the lower left of the card.  It is identified as Fish Creek, Chelan, #191.  My grandmother, Lil Anna Hornnes Schroder received this card from her brother John as a Christmas and New Year’s greeting in 1930.  The rushing water of this creek or river may have reminded both of them of the Otra River in southern Norway where they grew up. 

Fish Lake is a small lake located northeast of the larger Lake Wenatchee.  On a current map there is a creek or small river exiting Fish Lake called Fish Lake Run and I think it is possible that it may have been called Fish Creek when this card was published.  Both lakes and nearby rivers and streams are known to be good fishing areas.  Today outdoor activities near Wenatchee include hiking, water skiing, kayaking, windsurfing and swimming.  Nearby trails are open to hikers, bikers, horseback riders and there are areas for rock climbing as well.  In the winter Wenatchee State Park is used for cross-country skiing, dog sledding, snowmobiling, and ice climbing.  

There is a brief biography of Simmer, titled "Simmie," on Ancestry.com by Bill Miller, as part of Public Member Stories.  That plus the picture of Alfred G. Simmer, above, was taken in Alaska, both appeared in an article from Highway News, a publication of the old (Washington State) Department of Highways; From Highway News Feb 1953, v. 2 no. 8.  It was unexpected and fun to find a picture of the photographer.

As a photographer, Simmer, is known mostly for the pictures he took in Alaska of Eskimos and local scenes between 1905 and 1907.  His wife appears in several of the photographs he took while living in Alaska. 
I wondered what happened to him after 1907.  He turns out to have had an interesting and varied life.  Born in Germany he came to the United States at about age 15 and lived with his aunt and uncle in San Francisco while he continued his education.  He was a drafter and civil engineer as well as a photographer.  He married Mary Louise (Mitzie) Setil in Seattle 1903 and soon after they moved to Nome, Alaska where they built a home.  Both of their children were born while the family lived in Alaska, a son, Edwin, in 1905 and a daughter, Dorothy, in 1908.  After they left Alaska they moved back to Seattle in 1910 where they lived for several years before moving to Wenatchee in 1922. 

It was while they were in living in Wenatchee that Simmer became self-employed as a portrait and commercial photographer.  After 17 years of studio photography work he went to work in Olympia, Washington for the Highway Department in the Bridge Division and the Planning Division doing special photography work.  Sometime after his wife passed away in he moved to San Joaquin, California.  His two adult children were married by then and living not far away in the San Francisco Bay area, Edwin in Santa Cruz and Dorothy in Navato.  Alfred George Simmer was born in Danzig, Germany 11 February 1874 and passed away 15 April 1958.   Mitzie was born in Vienna, Austria in 1882 and passed away 25 April 1946 in Olympia, Washington.


For more information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chelan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wii/Lake_Wenatchee_State_Park
Ancestry.com

Didrik "Dick" Thompson, Update

 The last stone to have the plaques with names of Scandinavian immigrants attached

 Example of a plaque attached to the stone

Seattle has a Leif Erikson monument at the Shilshole marina near Golden Gardens Park.  The names of Scandinavian immigrants appear on the standing stones that surround the statue and on the base of the statue of Erikson.  The last stone will now have the final plaques added and there was one final notice sent out in January for any additional names.  In the past I had submitted Axel and Anna Hornnes Schroder and their names, dates of immigration, and where they came from can be found on a plaque on the base of the statue. 

 Leif Erikson monument, Shilshole, Seattle.  The last set of names will be attached to the large stone at the left side.

When this recent notice arrived saying that there was still limited space on the final stone I thought of all the people I could add and almost didn't send anything in since there are still so many in the extended family who would qualify.  Then it occurred to me that if I had to choose just one perhaps Dick Thompson was the best choice since he was a well known local policeman and appeared many times in the Seattle newspapers.  

Dick directing traffic in downtown Seattle, ca late 1920s

The unveiling ceremony for the last stone and plaques will be the 29th of April 2018.  I have a feeling Grandpa Dick would like to have his name displayed on a stone.  

John Hornnes & Lydia Marstad, Update- 2

John Mikalsen Hornnes and his wife, Lydia Gabrielsdatter Marstad, ca 1901

As extended family members will recall, Lydia Gabrielsdatter Marstad was the wife of John Hornnes, the son of Mikal Alfsen Hornnes and Anne Gundersdatter Uleberg and the older brother of my grandmother, Lil Anna Hornnes Schroder.  Anna lived with John and Lydia for a period of time before moving to Seattle.  The last time Anna saw Lydia was just before leaving Boston to come to Seattle for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in 1909.  At that time Lydia was very ill with tuberculosis.  Using that date plus the 1910 US Federal Census records that showed John widowed we were able to place Lydia’s death between 1909 and sometime in 1910.  After several fruitless months of searching I finally found Lydia’s death.  She died 2 February 1910 in Melrose, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts.  The Wyoming Cemetery in Melrose could possibly be where she is buried. 

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend who is from Boston and returns there to visit his parents at least once a year.  He said he is very familiar with the Wyoming cemetery and the next time he goes back he will see if he can find the grave and perhaps get a photograph.  With his help and knowledge of the area we found the street address where John and Lydia lived while in Melrose, 282 East Foster Street.  The pictures below from Google Maps show the street.  They lived in the house situated off the street in back of the large white house with the flag.  In the aerial view the house is on the left side, dark brown with a red-tan roof.  There is a park across the street.  It appears to still be a very nice neighborhood.

 Above & below, Google Maps images, 282 E Foster Street, Melrose, MA

I have been trying with little success to find out when and where Lydia and John’s little boy, Mikal Alfred Hornnes, died.  I found his birth and christening record in the Helleland, Rogaland, Norway parish register:  #18, page 32, born 2 June 1900, christened 8 July 1900.  Sometimes when a child dies very young there will be a notation in the margin that will give a death date or at least a cross marking a death but there is nothing in the margin of this record.  The family moved often due to John’s employment with the Norwegian railway beginning with a short stay in Flekkefjord, moving next to Helleland where Mikal Alfred was born, and ending up in Voss north of Bergen before they returned to Kristiansand then leaving Norway for America.  All the moves makes it more difficult to discern where Mikal died or if he lived long enough to accompany them to the United States in 1901.  In 1905 when John applies for US citizenship he says he has no children so we know that Mikal died sometime between 1900 and October 1905. 

In the process of looking for this little boy I noticed that someone I did not know or recognize as an extended family member had posted pictures of Lydia and John from this blog on Ancestry.com.  I suspected that whoever had posted them might be related to Lydia’s family, the Marstad line, and that proved to be the case.  Lydia was one of 10 children born to Gabriel Johan Sivertsen Marstad and his wife Olene Elisabeth Olsdatter who is sometimes found as Alene or Line on the records.  Several of Lydia’s siblings also left Norway for America around the turn of the century.  Many thanks to Kelby Sodeman who very kindly sent me a genealogical fan chart of the Marstad family that was originally compiled by Gladys McKee and Sidney Marstad in the 1960s and later amended in 1993 by Ruth Hanssen and Edna Marstad.  Although this chart does not have places and dates it does have all the names of descendants of Sven and Ingeborg Marstad from 1775 forward in time up to the 1990s when the chart was revised. 


The Marstad family name comes from a place or farm located not far from Flekkefjord and Kristiansand.  On the map below the place is marked with a large dot to indicate the location; however, it is not as large a community as Flekkefjord even though it appears so on the picture.  Evje og Hornnes where John was born and lived is at the upper right, the port city of Kristiansand is at the lower right and Flekkefjord is just above Marstad.

Map as found on Digitalarkivet.no, digital collection

A previous update to Lydia’s information, found in the blog on 2 February 2013 can be viewed by putting Marstad in the search field.  Lydia’s siblings are listed in that update.  Kelby asked what I knew of George Olai Johan Bernhard [now it is confirmed the Bernhard should be Elexanhard*].  What follows is what I told her in an email reply. 

George’s complete name on the Hidra parish register is really difficult to make out.  When magnified the image is still hard to read and it is not clear whether the name is George Olai Johan Bernhard or Alexanhard/Elexanhard* or something else beginning with a C.  The old handwriting style also complicates things a bit.  The original blog entry, as noted above, gave the 4th name as Bernhard with a birth date of 13 December 1873 but the correct date should be 3 December 1873.  The corrected middle name should be Elexanhard (*see correction below) as found on his Railroad pension papers.  His name is often found in a variety of spellings in different records and he does not always use all of his names.

What I learned about George is that he came to the USA in 1892 and might be the first of the Marstad children to emigrate.  He and his family appear to have settled in and lived in New York from the beginning.  George became a naturalized citizen with one petition dated 1918 and another 1920.  He married Johanne Kristine, known as Christina, Tønnesen Sunde on 4 November 1905 in Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, New York.  She was 11 years his junior and came from Nes, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, Norway. 

Kristine/Christina left Norway for the USA in 1902.  The children of George and Christina as found on the 1930 US Federal Census:  Edward age 24; Mabel age 22; Clifford age 16; and Helen age 14.   Not found on the 1930 census is another child: George Clifford born 1910 died 1912.  His death is listed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church records, 1826-1945 at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church.  He is buried next to his parents in the Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

The 1940 census has children, Clifford and Helen single and living at home with their parents, George and Christina and Jacob Sunde, brother-in-law (Christina’s younger brother) and William Sunde, nephew, living with the family. 

On the 1885 Norway census Kristine’s parents are given as Mikal Tønnesen Sunde and Amalie (Malie) Tønnesen Sunde.  Kristine’s birth year is given as 1884.  The Nes, Flekkefjord parish register lists her birth as 23 October 1884, christening 16 November 1884.  Since I had access to the bygdebok for Nes it seemed worth it to look and see if there was anything more about Christina's ancestry that might be interesting.  It was a common tradition to name children after grandparents and Christina was no exception.  She was named for her paternal grandmother, Johanne Kristine Olsdatter Sunde (1827-1862).  The fascinating thing about her ancestry is that her great-grandmother, Christiane Rosenvind Steen, was born in Greenland in 1796 the daughter of a Greenland colonist, Johan Christian Steen who left Greenland and settled in Flekkefjord where he is listed as a merchant.

George was a boat captain and worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad.  He died 9 February 1956, Queens, New York, New York, USA and was buried at the Green Wood cemetery 14 February 1956.  He was 82 years old.  Johanne Kristine (Christina) died in 1969 and was buried next to her husband and son, George Clifford (1910-1912) on 17 June 1969. 

I am still searching for little Mikal but if in the process I find more about some of the other Marstads, I will do another update at a later date.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Name spelling correction:

The Bygdebok for Hidra herred, Gård og slekt, volume II, by Jan Helge Trelsgård and published by Flekkefjord Historielag, pages 522 and 523, have the correct spelling of George Marstad's complete name.  It is Georg Olai Johan Eleonhard Gabrielsen (Marstad).  His first name has the Americanized spelling George.

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 337

Nine doors

This week’s postcard is a little different.  It is an unused Image de nos Campagnes, photo edition “France Regard,” with the reference #121708 in the upper right corner on the reverse.  The picture shows nine different doors.  When I travel I frequently take photos of doors just because I find them interesting and it is fun to think of what might be on the other side of the door.  Also the knobs and hinges, the lintels and frames can be varied and works of art at times. 

My friend, who often sends me postcards, chose this card without knowing how much I enjoy interesting doors.  It turns out that he also finds them fascinating.   So, I suppose, this is an invitation to others to look for interesting, ordinary items and appreciate them. 

This doorknob was located in the center of the door to our hotel room in Nîmes, France and proved to be quite pretty when examined up close.

How many times have we seen a loyal dog waiting patiently by a door?  This pooch was near a shop in Les Baux, France.

 Also found in Les Baux, France is this old studded door with the knocker in the center

 A very simple door with long hinges and a lever instead of a knob is near Hornnes, Norway on a small hunting hut.

 This door dates from the 1600s and is on a storage building called a Stabbur in Hornnes, Norway where my great-grandfather, Mikal Alfsen Hornnes lived at one time.

 Gorgeous carved lintel and door posts bracket the massive wooden doors found on this building at the Bygdøy folk museum, Oslo, Norway

 We saw more than one of these raised doors with no stairs.  This one is on a castle wall in Salzburg, Austria.  Notice the slit in the wall for arrows

 A door within a door at the Festung, Salzburg, Austria

 This doorway was discovered within a wall of the Festung.

An elaborate doorway within the Festung

 Fancy ironwork on this door

 A door with a small peek hole at the upper left found in a wall

 The door above was from the living quarters in the Festung.  The door below is also found in the Festung.

A new modern wooden door in the style of the very old doors.  Found on a house in Hallstatt, Austria.

And last, but not really least, the tiny door into the children's room at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Preserve in Austin, Texas.

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 295

 Oriental Limited, Great Northern Railway, 1912

This week’s postcard is the American version of the Canadian railway postcard previously shared.  Part of the “See America First” promotion by Great Northern Railway, the line went between Chicago, Illinois and Seattle, Washington then could connect with trans-Pacific Great Northern steamships headed to the Far East.  It was called “Oriental Limited.”  Great Northern produced the card with the photograph dated as 1912.  The stamp is a green George Washington profile, one cent, postmarked April 4, 1914 with the handwritten message in Norwegian.  This card like last week’s two from the Canadian Pacific Railway were found at the Washington State [model] Train show.

Reverse, showing logo, stamp & date

The Oriental Limited began in 1905 going from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle with Chicago added in 1909 the year of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition held in Seattle.  My grandmother and a few of her nieces traveled from the east, Boston and New York, to Seattle in 1909 by train to see the Fair. They all ended up staying in the Pacific Northwest and not returning east.  Now I am wondering if they may have traveled on this train at least from Chicago the rest of the way west but it is impossible to tell.  There were other trains going west that were not as luxurious as this one.   The “See America First” route was advertised as the National Park Route although it did not go through the parks but was next to them.  It was possible to get off the train at various points, such as stations at Glacier and Yellowstone, and take some form of transport to visit the parks.  By 1926 the train was advertised as being able to make the journey in 70 hours. 

In 1929 the Empire Builder was introduced and by 1931 the Oriental Limited disappeared a causality of the Great Depression when Great Northern operated only one train on this route.  The Oriental Limited name returned in 1946 when a second train was added but became the Western Star in 1951.  Among the amenities offered on the train were services such as, passenger telephone access, afternoon tea, maid service in the Lounge car, a parlor car, and showers for passengers, as well a dining car with table linens and full service meals. 

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Limited