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Rasmus Oksendal Family

In Maddock, North Dakota
Collected and written by Karen Windheim, Oregon, USA.
Introduction by Kaare Trefall

Introduction:
Kari Nilsdotter Trefall and Rasmus Nilson Yksendal emigtared to USA, Nort Dakota in 1913. The two youngest sons, Edward and Arne Oksendal are telling about the life at the farm "over there" in the article Life at Oksendal Farm. Read about Kari's childhood at Trefall in the article Kari's stories. More about Rasmus before he married Kari.
The story:
Kari, Rasmus and Alice. Photo by Kaare	After arriving in North Dakota they started their new lives in Maddock. Kari started her new life by lying in a hotel room with the measles. Rasmus soon left for Viking to find a job, he worked as a farm hand in the haying and harvesting work, and for a time worked in the woods as a logger. When Kari felt better she was moved to Rasmus' brother Nils farm. When she was well, she too looked for work and soon found a job cooking at the hotel. When Kari came from Norway, I don't think she could speak English, but she not only learned to speak English - with an accent- but taught herself to read and write English. Their first child Alice was born in 1915 at brother Nils' farm. After Alice was bom, Kari moved above a store to live and Rasmus left to work in the woods. To earn money Kail took in ironing. "Dad left me $50 to live on while he was away, but we didn't eat much and on his return, was able to return the money".
At harvest time Rasmus returned to Viking to work and Kari got a job with the Westby family keeping house and a place to stay with 2 year old Alice. Norval was born in 1917 at Westby, Rasmus register for the draft (WWI) in 1917 when the US declared war on Germany, but was never drafted; he was a farmer raising wheat for the soldiers. The war ended in 1918. The Spanish Flu home was going through town killing many people, so the family decided to move out of town. They moved to Esmond and rented the Amonrud farm in Rich Valley, about four miles south of town, later that year buying the farm. Here all the remaining children were born. They lived on this farm for 26 years. They attended the Trinity Lutheran Church in Esmond and Rasmus was a member of the Rich Valley School Board where all the children attended school. Rasmus and son Norval drove the school bus for many years. Kari writes, "The children seemed to get every sort: of illness - scarlet fever, diphtheria, scarletina, whooping cough, mumps and measles. Arne, the youngest had whooping cough so bad that I was sure he would die, and since he was just a baby and had never been baptized, I took a pan of water, dipped him down to it and sprinkled him with water and said the same words I had heard the Lutheran minister use and baptized him. That was all I could do and believed he would go to a fiery hell if he wasn't baptized." Arne recovered however. Gladys had whooping cough so bad that she fell out. of bed and Alice recalls running to the barn to find Kari, because Gladys had turned blue. Kari came and saved another baby. The farm they bought had about 600 acres, and the 1920s must have been very good to the farmers, because Rasmus was able to buy equipment for the farm. This includes a McCormick Deering Tractor and Combine, plow, rake, seeders, mower, windrower, harrow and disk. "Dad planted several hundred cottonwood, popular, and ash trees on the north and west heep. Our farm was the first one to harvest grain in one operation. Other farmers used a stationary thresher. This required cutting the grain with a binder which bound the grain into bundles, and then someone would have to stack these bundles into a shock. Later a thresher would be pulled into the field and set up and the men would have to go around the field and pick up the bundles into hay wagons and haul them to the thresher and feed them into the thresher to separate the grain." "Part of the 600 acres was in pasture and had a small stream running through it. We called this the Little Coulee. A big Coulee was to the west and it also had a stream, but during the summer these streams would dry up. We probably had about 400 acres under cultivation and raised wheat, durim, oats, barley and a little com. The com was used for feed for the cattle and horses. We had about 7 cows that had to be milked by hand twice a day. Our house had a large kitchen, bedroom downstairs and a bedroom upstairs. The farm had a house, bam, grainery (where grain was stored until we sold it), chicken coop, pig shed and outdoor toilet. We had no indoor plumbing or electricity. The water well was located about 100 feet from the house and was only about 25 feet deep. Water was pumped, by hand and the livestock were watered here also. Dad also bought a car - I believe the first was a Model A Ford, in the 1920s, but in the 1930s we had a Chevrolet. We also had a radio and telephone." "Rasmus enjoyed politics (F.D. Roosevelt was President) and baseball. He was elected to the County Commission for the Township School Board, He smoked a pipe or cigar from time to time and he enjoyed playing Norwegian tunes on the violin and harmonica. Rasmus also spent time visiting with fellow farmers at the local bar in Esmond." "Visiting consisted mostly of Sunday dinners with his brother Nils and that family, and sometimes attendance at the Lutheran Church in Esmond. During the 1920s and until the mid 1930s, we all spoke Norwegian at home and Rasmus subscribed to a Norwegian newspaper, but he had a good command of the English language. He was over 6 feet tall, weighed in then at 180 lbs. and stood tall and straight." Edward recalls, "He never milked the cows, but as I knew him, he seemed to be more of the supervisor then a farm worker. Kari and the kids did the farm work. Nerval did nearly all the plowing, seeding and harvesting." It is believed that the Oksendal family-owned the second combine, a No. 8 International, in the valley. Norman Dunn owned the first. The combines were purchased in 1928 and 1929. Life was good in 'The Rich Valley', known not only for its rich land and harvests, but also for its good fellowship and kindliness. "A program was held on Nov. 23, 1920 at the school and many attended for the programs and basket social. There was a sale of about 30 baskets with much friendly rivalry among the youngsters and grown-ups for that certain basket. The school netted about $50 to be used to buy a kerosene stove and playground equipment." Karl was a hard worker all her life. Alice recalls her taking her and Norval out in the hay field, putting them on a blanket while she put up hay with a pitchfork. Edward recalls "Her milking cows by hand. She did a lot of canning from the garden with several hundred quarts of vegetable and fruit. She also canned Juneberries and Chokecherry jam which we picked in the little coulee south of our place and at Buffalo Lake. I think she also made chokecherry wine, but I don't recall this for sure." This means doing work outside on the farm, caring for the children, cooking meals, laundry by hand, sewing and gardening. They watered the garden by a bucket. Edward also recalls, "During the 1930s (Great Depression and Dusk bowl years), we lived mostly on Karl's cream and egg money. We would milk the cows and separate the skim milk from the cream in a hand cranked separator. We probably got about 5 gallons of cream a week, and probably about 5 dozen eggs (other than what we ate). Kari would take these to town on Saturday and sell them at the creamery or the grocery. If the kids wanted money for candy or some special item of entertainment, we would ask Kari and not Rasmus. When the girls started high school and staying in town, Kari would bring her canned vegetables and fruit, potatoes and meat from the farm for them to live on" "What did we eat on the farm? Breakfast was usually hot cereal - oatmeal or cream of wheat (groet). On Sunday wre had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy with dumplings. During the week, I recall a soup like concoction; I think we called Prim, which was really scalded milk. We didn't worry about cholesterol or getting fat. Rasmus liked Sill, which was a pickled fish. We butchered our own beef and pork and had meat. We didn't have ice. but hung the carcass in the granary where it was somewhat cool. We also had apple pie, usually on Sunday, lots of vegetables from the garden and the canned fruit. On hot summer days when we were out in the fields working, we had sour milk in a 1/2 gallon jar placed under a bundle of hay to keep cool or cool buttermilk to drink. The sour milk was sometimes laced with cinnamon and sugar, and we loved those cool drinks on those hot days." "The 1930s were very different from the 1920s. It included the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The Banks closed, the stock market crashed, and the price of grain dropped. We even had rationing and were forbidden to grind our own wheat into flour. Mom says that they had to buy dark colored flour for baking and the only way to make it rise was to put oatmeal in it. Year after year we had a drought when harvest of wheat resulted in only 10 - 15 bushels to the acre. (At Idaho Falls, farmers get up to 125 bushels to the acre). Grasshoppers would strip the grain fields. I can. recall seeing clouds of grasshoppers in the sky that would cause a shadow on the ground they were so thick. We also had hail storms that flattened some fields. Life was hard but during the 1930s we always had plenty of food to eat, and a good car, and all the things a farmer needs to farm 600 acres, We had no irrigation, but lived mostly on the cream and egg money. I suppose any money from their harvest was used to pay mortgages and gas -and maintenance bills. We didn't spend money like we do today but Ed had a bicycle, Bertha had a guitar and Ann had a radio." At the end of the 1930s or early 1940s, the family lost the farm and Kari and Rasmus moved to Lewiston, Idaho, then to Clarkston and then on to Spokane in Washington. "When we moved to Lewiston, Rasmus worked in the Potlatch Sawmill for a while, and then in Spokane at a hotel and cafe on Riverside. He applied for a job at the Aluminum Mill in Spokane, but probably because of his age, he was not hired. He said that they told him that a farmer was a jack of all trades, but a master of none. He went into carpentry work until the later years when he worked for the Davenport and Coeur d'Alene Hotels." Rasmus' last job was as a night janitor at the Riverside Theater in 1955. Kari worked as a maid in the Davenport Hotel. While they still lived on the farm in North Dakota, Kari was visited by one of Jehovah's Witnesses on a bicycle who sold her some religious books. She read these, subscribed to the WT and Awake, and began offering magazines and booklets in Esmond and Maddock. There was no meeting place and no one studied with her. The first meeting she went to was in Lewiston. She was very shy and says she stood outside across the street from the Hall several Sundays without going in. Finally one Witness approached her and invited her in. She was baptized at Cleveland, Ohio at a District Assembly in 1946, Pioneered from 1950 to 1961, traveled to international conventions in NY City twice - 1952 and 1958. Kari says that their religion in Norway was father reading from a book (not the Bible) on Sunday. "The only time we learned a little was when a man came around and had a meeting in one of the three houses at Trefail as there were 3 farms close together. He read from the Bible and said a few words about it." Kari was very active as a Witness. Her territory was on the South Hill of Spokane where the territory is very hilly. She did ail her Witnessing on foot and never was able to drive a car or ride a bicycle. She also did a great deal of street witnessing carrying magazines with her when she went downtown and offering them while she waited for the bus as well as early in the mornings. She also had many Bible Studies. She traveled to all the big conventions, NY City twice, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Vancouver, British Columbia- and her letters always encouraged serving Jehovah whole souled. In letters to her grandchildren she always tucked in Witness News. (When a Witness would come to our door in Junction City I always told them that we got our literature from Grandma. - Karen Windheim.) Before Rasmus' death, he had high blood pressure and a doctor told him to quit smoking, which he did immediately. He also had diabetes in his old age and had a leg amputated because of sores that wouldn't heal. He lived to the age of 84 years and died in Spokane, on February 5, 1969. Rasmus is buried in the Fairmont Memorial Park Cemetery. Kari lived 15 years more and died at the age of 91 years on Nov. 9, 1984. She was cremated by Riplinger Crematory in Spokane. Her headstone lies above Rasmus with daughter Bertha Lee to the right and son Nerval to the left.


Harvesting. Photo by Karen

Oksendal Farm, Benson County, Esmond, North Dakota. Foto by Karen

Family Oksendal in 1931, and the original farm house in the 20-30s. Photo by Karen