Bjerkreim Reunion
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Figure 1 Believed to be portrait of Svale Staleson Hytland, also known i n Chicago by the Americanized names of Samuel Larson and Samuel Lawson . Original in possession of Reidar Efteland, Klepp, Norway. Given to him by Lovise Luthersdtr. Hytland, who was Svale's grand-niece. Bjerkreim Reunion by Gary T. Johnson On August 17, 2000, at a farm known as "Hytland" in the mountainous township of Bjerkreim in the county of Rogaland, Norway, a family from the near-by town of Klepp and a family from Evanston, Illinois, stood together on an old dirt road . Until that day, they had never met, but they shared a common bond . In 1853, in that same place, Svale Staleson Hytland had said goodbye to his older brother, Sigbjorn, and headed down the country road that led away from Hytland to a new life in Chicago . He left the port of Stavanger on about March 16, 1853 . As far as we know, Svale never came back to Hytland and none of his many descendants ever returned until that day when Svale's great-greatgrandson, Gary Johnson, and his wife Susan, and two of their children, Timothy and Anna, stood at Hytland with Sigbjorn's greatgrandson, Reidar Efteland, and his wife, Oddbjorg Alice . It was a letter that brought them together . Gary had an interest in family history and in 1991 his first effort had been to discover the background of one of his most unknown family branches, that of Svale Staleson . He put a short book together for the family in the U.S . that traced Svale back to Hytland Farm #2 in Bjerkreim . Svale was known by various names in Chicago as he Americanized Svale to "Samuel" and Staleson to "Larson" or "Lawson ." "Larson" probably came from the fact that his father had been Stale Larsson, and many Norwegians who came to the U.S. took on the American custom of having the same last name as their fathers , rather that constructing a last name from their father's first name in the old Norwegian style . "Lawson" was the last name that he gave all his children, and that had a good ring to it in Chicago, where a prominent Norwegian family had changed its name to Lawson . "Lawson" also was a play on the last part of Svale's original last name — Staleson. In fact, it was in a family tree put together in about 1960 by Svale's great-grandson and namesake, Lawson C . Lunde, that Svale's original Norwegian last name was recorded as "Svale Larson (or Stollawson)" and these various names were linked. ' Gary put the book aside and turned to other branches of his family, but in 1999 he notice d that two books of a three-volume project had appeared about the people who had lived over th e centuries in the township of Bjerkreim .2 Towns in Norway are producing local histories , "bygdeboker," based on a wealth of information — church and land records, probate papers, judicial orders and the photographs and papers kept by families . He borrowed these books from the Vesterheim Genealogical Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and found this tantalizing referenc e to Svale Staleson: "Svale born 2 January 1823 . To USA (attested date 16 March 1853) . Lived in Chicago. Reidar Efteland from Klepp has a letter from 1859 which Svale sent from Chicago to hi s brother, Sigbjorn, at home in Hytland . It describes people from Bjerkreim who lived i n Chicago, among others several siblings from Austrumdal farm ."3 Who was Reidar Efteland? In all likelihood a relative and one with a passion for famil y history. Otherwise, why would he have kept this old letter? Reidar Efteland . A quick search o n the Internet yielded a clue almost immediately . First, a webpage from a young man living near Stavanger named Frode Efteland gave the e-mail addresses of the people in his life, including hi s father, Reidar Efteland. Gary sent Reidar an e-mail from his law office on October 19, 1999, asking about the letter and suggesting that they might be related . He had a reply the very next day, confirming that Reidar indeed was Sigbjorn's descendant . The two branches of the family were back in contact. A few days later, Gary received another e-mail, this time with an attachment. It was a photographic copy of Svale's letter back to Sigbjorn at the Hytland farm . His letter had come full circle back to Chicago 140 years later . The letter is faded with age and in a local dialect from before the time that Norwegia n settled into its two main standard versions. (See translation in Appendix.) It was an "America letter," a letter written from a Norwegian immigrant to the family back home describing life in the Vesterheim — the Western Home . It described life in Chicago, a city with such wonders as water pipes. The letter contained a decisive statement: Svale had decided not to return to Norway . Why? Among other things, there were no civil wars . Remember, this was in 1859! And how could he have known that he and his pregnant wife, Bertine, would witness the destruction o f their adopted city in the Great Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871? The letter conceded that ther e were swindlers in Chicago, but weren't there swindlers everywhere? In any event, Svale had buil t a house and he was going to settle down. The family in Norway had kept the America letter, but no later information remained about Svale and his life in Chicago . If he had written again, nobody living knew about it . The family in Norway today did not even know if Svale had married, let alone if he had been a father . It must have been very startling to hear from one of Svale's great-greatgrandchildren and to learn that he had many other descendants, as well . What was the rest of the story? By the time of the U .S. census of 1860, Svale was married to Bertine Borreson, also from Norway, but we don't yet know exactly where .' They eventually had six children, including Minnie Marie Lawson,5 great-grandmother of Gary and his generation, and three others who lived to adulthood . ' The family tree prepared in about 1960 by Lawson Lunde identified 49 direct descendants of Svale and Bertine . (Forty years later there are many more, but — sorry to say — the details are not complete. The family in America has spread far and wide.) Svale worked in trades such as cooper and shinglemaker and owned a house a t 1116 West Grand Avenue.' Svale died on January 22, 1901 in Chicago, and Bertine died o n March 22, 1913 in suburban Park Ridge . That's the rest of the story . -4- Something else : Reidar also had what he believed to be a picture of Svale, and that, too , was dispatched as an e-mail attachment and printed out in Chicago . This also was extraordinary . The family in Chicago did not have a picture of this rather elusive forbear, but the Norwegian family did! It was given to Reidar by Lovise Luthersdtr. Hytland, who had lived in Bjerkreim and had been a link to Bjerkreim's past .' Reider had interviewed her in her old age and had drive n over the roads of the township with her, recording her memories . She thought that this was a picture of her greatuncle, Svale, probably sent back to Bjerkreim from Chicago . August 17, 2000, was a busy day for the families of Svale and Sigbjorn. Bleary from their trip from Chicago, the Johnson family had a hearty Norwegian breakfast at their hotel in Stavanger and awaited the arrival of Reidar and Oddbjorg . The Norwegians arrived in two cars, and the first stop was the medieval monastery of Utstein Kloster, on Klosteroy Island in Stavange r Harbor. This was not only a tourist destination, but the site of the farm where the Kloster family, another branch of Gary's family, had taken its name . (Ingeborg Kloster,' another original immigrant to Chicago, had married Ola (Ole) Olsson Anda, 10 and it was their son, Olaf Mandius Anda," who married Svale's daughter, Minnie Marie Lawson . 12) The Kloster ancestors had worked as tenant farmers and probably had little contact with the gracious living quarters in the old monastery where the actual owners of the farm lived . The Kloster farm remains one of th e largest farms in Norway. After touring Utstein Kloster, the families visited the neighborin g islands of Mosteroy and Rennesoy, where the female line of the Kloster family had originated . ' Then, back through the long tunnel under Stavanger Harbor and on to the township of Bjerkreim. The first stop was Vikesa, known as one of many places in Bjerkreim where the distant ancestors of Svale and Sigbjorn had come from. It was the first view of the beauty of Bjerkrei m for the Americans, a township that includes barren and rocky peaks, a landscape punctuated wit h cascading streams and idyllic lakes . The lake at Vikesa is particularly serene . They had a lunch, typical of the county of Rogaland, that included potato balls . Now, on to Hytland itself, but first there were many encounters with sheep, up close an d personal! Sheep long have been important to the farmers of Bjerkreim, and they range over the peaks and across the roads. Their grazing makes it impossible for many trees to grow on the peaks, which adds to the barren majesty of the township . Soon, the twisting road gave a view o f a small group of houses : Hytland farm.