A
Norwegian Family Comes to Burnett County
The
story of how the Liva Arneson/Anderson family arrived in Grantsburg
Donated
by Karen Kelsey
(see also Norwegian
Naming Patterns Explained below)
On May 15, 1862 a sailing
ship, The Sleipner, left the port of Bergen, Norway, and sailed directly
into the Port of Chicago. This vessel was owned by a Norwegian merchant,
Gottlieb Thomsen, who exported herring and mackerel to the United States.
The Sleipner was small, and it was rigged as a brigantine. Captain
Hans Waage was its master; he followed a northerly route, entering the
St. Lawrence River and sailing south toward Lake Ontario. As this
vessel sailed past Quebec, the consul there reported the following: “The
ship proceeded from here without landing passengers or cargo.” The
Sleipner was one of the first European ships to sail through the canals
and into the Great Lakes, so its arrival in Chicago on August 2, 1862 caused
quite a sensation. It departed for Norway again on September 6th,
fully loaded with different types of merchandise – corn, flour, pork, sugar,
salted ham, butter, and refined crude oil. It also brought the first
petroleum lamps to Bergen, and the trip was deemed very profitable!
(on-line source: http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=sleia)
The Sleipner sailed directly
into Chicago by using the Welland Canal and locks to bypass Niagara Falls.
The canal had been built by a private company in the 1820s, during the
great era of canal building, to connect Lake Ontario with Lake Erie.
In the 1840s the government of Canada bought the canal, and then invested
in its improvement by widening it to 8.1 meters, increasing its depth to
3 meters, and reducing the number of locks to 27. It paralleled the
Niagara River, and was located on the Canadian side (west side) of the
falls. After passing through the Welland, the Sleipner sailed west
toward Detroit, entering Lake Huron via the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair,
and the St. Clair River. Then it traveled north through Lake Huron,
and entered Lake Michigan via the Straits of Mackinac. The trip took
slightly over 11 weeks.
How does this story relate
to Burnett County, Wisconsin? The Sleipner also carried passengers,
and one of those families settled in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. Liva
Arnesdotter and her husband, Arne Pederson Brudem, along with their seven
children, boarded the Sleipner in Bergen, intending to make a new life
in America. Unfortunately, the voyage was a sad one because the children
and their father came down with measles. The children recovered,
but Arne died and was buried at sea. Liva and her children, ranging
in age from 3 to 20 years old, disembarked at Chicago and proceeded on
to St. Croix Falls. According to a family history, Arne Pedersen
Brudem, after he realized that his death was imminent, asked the captain
to escort his family to their final destination. The family history
says that this promise was kept, so between August 2nd and September 6th
(when the Sleipner sailed back to Norway), Captain Hans Waage brought Liva
and her children to St. Croix Falls, where they lived for six years before
they moved to Grantsburg. There were other passengers aboard the
Sleipner who settled in both Polk and Burnett Counties, and it is certain
that they helped Liva with her children.
An Atlantic crossing in the
age of sail was a long and arduous experience. Liva must have suffered
greatly due to the problems of caring for a sick family, her grief over
losing her husband, and the worry about how they would fare in a new land.
Eventually, Liva and her
family became well-known citizens of Grantsburg, Wisconsin, and her son,
Ole Anderson, was one of the owners of the flour rolling mill that was
located in Grantsburg. The U.S. government’s FDA guidelines were
established at that mill, and a monument was erected where that roller
mill once stood.
Norwegian
naming patterns explained
Norwegian naming patterns
were both traditional and complex. Most families used patronymics
as a way of giving their children a surname. This naming pattern
added a “son” or “dotter” as a suffix to the given name of the father.
Hence, one Grantsburg, Wisconsin immigrant who was named Arne Pederson,
had given his son the patronymic of Arneson, and his daughters the patronymic
of Arnesdotter
To aid in identification
- because so many people had the same patronymic - families often added
the name of their farm or town to their last name. Thus, Arne Pederson
Brudem had been a farmer in Lom Gudbransdalen, Norway, and the farm that
his family came from was named “Brudem.” (By the end of the 19th
century, however, most Scandinavians were adopting surnames that did not
change from one generation to another, often using a patronymic as their
surname.) Using this patronymic naming pattern, Arne Pederson’s father
would have had the first name of Peder - so that is why Arne’s last name
became Pederson. It was common practice to name the firstborn son
after the grandfather, and Arne Pederson followed this tradition, naming
his first son Peder Arneson. Peder had been the grandfather’s given
name, and Arneson became the baby’s patronymic because he was the son of
Arne.
Immigration often
changed names
When the Arneson family arrived
in the United States, they were given the last name of ANDERSON at their
immigration interview. Most likely, the U.S. immigration officer
could not understand them, and he thought that they said “Anderson.”
Immigrants did not worry much about name changes that were forced upon
them. Why? Their primary concern was their admission to the
new country, and they wanted to get on with their lives. They had
to travel to a further destination, find a job, or purchase land for a
farm. A misinterpretation of their last name was not a big problem.
Also, Scandinavians were used to a lot of names, and one more name tacked
on to the end was not a worry. They were given two or more “first
names” (a given name, a legal name, and names that memorialized grandparents
or dead siblings), a surname that might be a patronymic, plus names of
their farm, their town, or sometimes a “soldier name” that had been given
to some ancestor who had been in the military, since soldiers were expected
to take short, easily identifiable surnames.
Each of the Arneson/Anderson
children became citizens, so at that time the Anderson name became their
legal surname. Liva’s daughters followed American customs, taking
their husband’s last name at marriage. However, the above-mentioned
naming pattern was not unique to the Arneson family. If other Scandinavian
immigrants to Burnett County were studied, it is certain that many similar
examples of naming patterns would appear, along with name changes that
occurred at the time of immigration.
