Shake Those Branches

    One Christmas after the Olson family had moved from Jewell, Iowa and were living on the "Timber Place" near Lexington, Oklahoma.  Grandpa Olson (Anders Olson) hitched up the wagon and took the kids into town to pick out a Christmas present for their mother, Anna.  This pitcher below was what the children picked out to give their mother.  Today this pitcher is probably around 115 years old.   This picture was shared with me from my cousin and her Aunt Mabel gave the pitcher to her.   

"Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea."- Charles Cook I remember hearing a story growing up about my 2nd great-grandfather's two brothers. It wasn't really a story but simply facts about their tragic deaths. Their deaths must have made an impact on Anders for the story to have been passed down through the generations. I was told that one of his older brothers Olav "Ole", was herding sheep in the mountains and he froze to death in 1874 at the age of 17. His other brother John was killed when when his ship went down at sea in 1915 at the age of 60. That was really all we ever knew. I had done a little research and knew that John had married Lydia Sjursdatter and they had seven children. The family lived in Bergen and John worked on a ship. The past week I started doing some more research on John with the help of a cousin in Norway. Together we found several docu...

 The following is a translation from the original Norwegian on the Blog:  " Heggtun "   This family story is about Anders Olson's grandmother, Ingebord Hansdotter Skeie (His dad's mother) .  The story  begins with her first husband, Tormod  Christophersen Sundsteigen (We descend from her 2nd husband...Olav Jonsson)   "In 1817, Tormod Christophersen Sundsteigen acquired two pieces of property from Judge Bing at Undarheim.  This was the first homestead of the magistrate's guard. The homestead was called Kalvatræ and the property extended down to the boathouse with a beautiful view of the shoreline.   Tormod was married  to Ingeborg Hansdotter Skeie from Rosendal and they had a son named Christopher when they got the land at Kalvatræ.  Later their sons Hans and Knut were born. At Kalvatræ, the farm family built a timber and glass shed with a canopy with a hatch and extended bulkhead.  The  stove warmed them up; with a si...

          " As long as one keeps searching, the answers come."  Joan Baez   I certainly hope the above quote is true.  I have spent the past few months contacting and researching possible locations for various orphanages near Paris in Logan County Arkansas.   My grandfather and his siblings were placed in an orphanage sometime after their mother died in 1909.   I know from looking at the 1910 census the children were living with their paternal grandparents.   My grandfather said he was in the orphanage until an uncle came and got them out when they were old enough to help on the farm.  So my guess is that they were living in an orphanage between 1911 to around 1916 or so.  On the 1920 census he was 12 years old and living with an uncle in Logan County.  His sister was living with a maternal uncle in Oklahoma.  I have not been able to find his older brother on the 1920 census, but he does show up i...