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Nordic American Voices Nordic Heritage Museum Interview of Henrik Sortun February 20, 2010 Auburn, WA Interviewers: Gordon Strand, Mari-Ann Kind Jackson Mari-Ann : [0:03] Yeah. And we'll just leave this one right in the middle, like we won't touch it. Gordon : [0:08] Strand: Yeah. OK. Is it going? Mari-Ann : [0:12] Yeah. Gordon : [0:13] Today's date is February the 20th, 2010. And I am Gordon Strand. And we are at Auburn, Washington, and we're going to be interviewing Henrik Sortun for the Nordic American Voices Project, of the Nordic Heritage Museum. Henrik, would you repeat your full name, and when you were born, and where? Henrik Sortun : [0:33] My name is Henrik Olav. "V", with a "V", not an "F". Olav. [laughs] Sortun, and I was born.[September 5, 1922]..Our farm was where we took our name from. It was called Sortun. It was part of a description of that area. [0:56] We had a huge farm, probably a couple of hundred acres. But probably 10 acres of it was tillable. The rest was all mountains and rocks. But it allowed us to graze sheep. Our main income in Norway was from sheep. [1:14] But my dad came here first, when he was 17 years old. And stayed with - he had an aunt called Ullaland, Marianna Ullaland - and he stayed with them, and worked in logging camps. Then, when he became about 24, he got a letter from his dad saying that if he wanted the farm, he had to come to Norway. [1:38] The oldest son always got the farm. So he then went to Norway and took over the farm, and [got married and] proceeded to have 10 children. [laughs] And when we came here, nine of them were girls, eight of them. Excuse me. Eight of them were girls. There was eight girls and two boys, at that time when we came here. [2:00] And we took a little putt-putt boat from Florø [to Bergen]. Our place was called Eikefjord, a very small town which was, the closest town of any consequence was Florø. And from our farm, down to Eikefjord was about seven miles, English miles. NORDIC AMERICAN VOICES Page 1 of 22 [2:26] I wasn't old enough, but the girls had to walk when they went to confirmation. They walked all the way down to Eikefjord to go to church for their confirmation. And I don't know what...how to prattle on. But my father said, when he was home, after he could see he wasn't getting anywhere... [2:48] Norway was a hard country during those days. It was not the affluent country it is today. And he said [my father], he could see he just wasn't gaining anything, and he was struggling to make ends meet. So he came to America again, strictly to make money to bring the family [to America]. [3:06] We had a farm that was fairly self-sustaining. My mother was a working fool, and she had a hired man. And so what he made when he was in America, he could save, and he was pretty frugal. So he worked about four years, and then had saved enough money to bring his family to America. [3:27] And of course, we left [from] Bergen. There's a cute story there too. We stayed overnight with an aunt in Bergen. And she took us all downtown and bought us hats. She said, "You can't go to America without hats." [laughter] [3:38] In our first picture you can see all the girls with their big hats on. And the boys had hats too. So we came across the Atlantic on a boat called the Stavangerfjord. And we went - my father, or somebody, found it was cheaper - we went to Halifax, Canada. [3:57] We didn't have to go through Ellis Island because, I guess, he had proved that we had all our shots. So we went to Halifax, Canada. Then we went, by rail, across Canada. And the first place we hit the United States was at Blaine, Washington, and that was on Friday the 13th, of September. [laughter] [4:15] That's what changed my mind about Friday being an unlucky day. Because it was a lucky day for us. [4:23] And my father had already purchased the farm in advance, so we had a 40 acre farm up on the east hill of Kent that we moved into almost immediately when we came here. Thank God for that farm, because, also, that was when the Depression hit, so we had some tough years there. But we had that farm, and we raised practically nearly everything we needed, except for sugar and flour. White flour, my mother used to say. [4:52] We had 40 acres and five of those were in raspberries. So, that was a fairly - even during the Depression, that was a pretty good income. My dad used to take the berries, and then sell NORDIC AMERICAN VOICES Page 2 of 22 them house-to-house, in Seattle. He made more money that way, than he would have if he'd sold them to the canneries. [sighs] [5:13] I don't know what else I should prattle on about. [5:18] Of course, I started school. We were about two weeks late. School had already started, and we had a teacher named Espeseth, Marie Espeseth. And she always talks about how -it was her first year of teaching, and here came 10 kids in there that couldn't speak one word of English. [laughs] [5:41] And she is still alive. She is 101 years old, and lives in Bend, Oregon. Her name now is Marie Hauge. She was married. Her married name is Hauge. Anyway, I talked to her about three weeks ago, I guess. She's getting kind of feeble, but her memory was good. She remembered me. I tell her, "Why do you like me so well? You kept me in the first grade for two years." [laughs] Because I did spend two years in the first grade. [6:10] But, to me it was kind of a blessing, because my younger sister - her name was Solveig-- she caught up with me, and so we went all the way through school together, and we were bosom buddies. To me it was a blessing that she caught up with me. We had some great years together. [6:29] And, let's see. After [grade] school, I went to a high school, called Meridian High School, and graduated there in 1942 with no specific honors, or anything. I was really into athletics. In every season, I loved each athletic event - baseball, football, and basketball. I played all of them. And, because it was a small school, I was also adequately good to be able to play in all of them. [6:58] Then, when I graduated - within three days after graduating from high school, I was on a fishing boat, on my way to Alaska. [laughs] I went in to talk to skippers, and kind of get acquainted. And, some way - there had been a strike - and the strike got settled. Everybody, of course, was in a hurry to go up, too. I got a call. If I could be in Everett by 10 o'clock, I had a job. So, I got to Everett by 10 o'clock, and I was on my way to Alaska. And I fished and for the first 10 years of my life. Mainly fished halibut. [7:37] That is one of the reasons I still speak Norwegian fairly well, because during those years, there were always Norwegian newcomers that were fishing with us. And they kept me up, so I could retain my language, and I helped them to speak English. [7:56] [After two years] I was married, and then had five kids. My wife pleaded with me -- they were all boys -- and Doris pleaded with me to stay home and help her, before they killed each other. [laughs] So then, I quit fishing, and I went to work for Texaco Oil Company. And I worked with Texaco then, until I retired at 65 years old, so that was a good company to work for. NORDIC AMERICAN VOICES Page 3 of 22 [8:22] I started out as a truck driver, and became a dispatcher. This was the title. Then, I became an agent. I got transferred up to Anacortes and I kind of ran the sales part of Texaco out of Anacortes. I wasn't at all involved with the refinery. I handled all of the products that came out of that refinery except by sea. Truck and trailers, tank cars, and things like that I handled out of Anacortes. Then I got transferred back to Seattle and ended my career with an oil company called Seattle Fuel. Texaco added their own oil company, and it was right by the Ballard Bridge, Seattle Fuel Company. I managed that then for about five years. Then I retired. So that's pretty much my working year’s story. I really don't know what else is interesting in life. [9:30] I’ve belonged to a Kiwanis club. It's a community service organization that I've belonged to since 1964 I think it was. They sponsor a youth group called Key Club which is a high school youth group. I have been working with Key Club also since 1964.