YCGL - Thursday, June 29 - Monday, July 3rd - Up in the Wilds! In Fertile, which is a place and not a condition....

FYI: There's a lot of family history here.  Enter at your own risk.

 From St Cloud to Fertile is about 200 miles and about 40 years, and maybe that's just the way I like it. I think Fertile's population has been around 800 for forty or more years.  I think that Lake Wobegon is just up the road.  You know, "the little town that that time forgot and the decades cannot improve."  Garrison Keillor could have been describing Fertile, MN.  I stepped back in time on Thursday, June 29th.

Mom was born there in 1918.  Her grandfather, Askeld Morvig, and his brother Andrew were two early settlers in the county.  Askeld married Anne Brunborg in 1882 at Little Norway Church which had been founded on Andrew's and Askeld's land in 1881.  My grandmother Rosa was born in 1883 and married my grandfather Otto Viken in 1904.  Askeld had set up that Otto and Rosa were going to inherit his farm.  However, Otto was tough to deal with and he and Askeld got into a fight in 1907 and Askeld disinherited the young couple.  He sold the farm and everything on it, including the family Bible, and returned to his farm in Norway.  By 1915, he was ready to return to America.  He sold his farm and purchased a ticket, but on the last day before he was to sail, he was robbed and killed in Bergen.  

Bob and I talk a lot about family, history, genealogy, especially in the evenings into the night.  We only got into politics once, and I cut it off after a few minutes.  No reason to end a good visit on that note.  His health is tenuous, but he eats pretty well.  Bob moved down to Conroe after I left and taught history and English at the junior high school there for 25 years and then moved back to Fertile after that.  When I was young (before high school), he and uncle George jointly owned a house in Fertile where grandma lived until she died in 1971.  And being 20 years older than me, he has always been more like an uncle than a cousin.  

Robert (91), Grace (87) and Thom (73)

Friday, we drove the pickup into Crookston, about 25 miles NW and the closest city for most supplies.  (Fertile has one rather small grocery store, for example.)  It was time to change the oil in the pickup and there was a rapid oil change place there.  Bob had been talking about a very good Chinese place with a lunch buffet, so we ate there.  By chance, I saw the oil change place as we turned in to the buffet.  The food was good and filling.  

Then I had the  oil change.  It was like they had never seen a RAM truck before.  They asked me how many quarts of oil it took.  They got half way through and realized they would have to go to a NAPA store to get an oil filter.  They kept coming and asking questions til I thought I should just go out and get under the truck with them.  And when they finally finished, it cost $160.  I knew it would be expensive, so I didn't gag too much, but the $7.00 credit card charge did get me.  The oil change was necessary and sufficient, but not satisfying.  Oh Well, I've got another 10,000 miles before the next change.  Or less, because of the load I am usually pulling.

We went to visit cousin Grace in East Grand Forks on Saturday.  Grace is mom's oldest sister's daughter and she's 87.  Her son David died last year after being at the Mayo Clinic for 5 months. I had hoped to meet his wife who lives less than a mile away, but it didn't happen.

Bob had seen an ad for a Burger King Bacon Cheese Burger on TV and wanted one.  He was certain that the nearest one was in Grand Forks, about 20 minutes away.  We got there and Bob started ordering.  Bob messed his order up, confused the counter person who was trying to be helpful but was confusing Bob worse, messed up Grace's order and confused mine.  Grace ordered a Whopper Jr meal and so did I.  When the order came, Bob grabbed one of the burgers and complained about what was on it.  Unfortunately, he grabbed mine and not the bacon burger....It was a grand mess.  And sadly, it clouded Bob's afternoon.  

Still, we had a good visit overall and finally left about 5:00 after Grace had fixed iced tea and cookies.  Bob fixed dinner and we went out on a drive afterward.  The drive is a grand tradition.  We did it at least once every time we visited.  It's function was two fold.  First was to drive past the farms of the ancestors and then up to Maple Bay and Maple Lake, a distance of about 20 miles one way.  The second function of the drive was to eat something.  Sometimes, it was to eat at the Lakeview Resort and Restaurant at the far end of Maple Lake, sometimes it was just to drive around and get an ice cream at the dairy shack on the south side of town.  That was known as being "dry in the mouth."  Since we had eaten already, we just drove, which was kind of strange.  But we made a big detour that I appreciated.  We drove past the grandma and grandpa's farm in Rindal township east of Fertile.  It was the first time I can remember actually driving passed that farm.

Grandpa Viken (who died years before I was born) was a wandering soul.  He worked most of  his life as a hired man, bouncing from job to job.  My mom and dad got married in 1939.  In 1941, dad was able to purchase a farm for grandma and grandpa and for Albert and Florence.  Al and Flo wanted to leave Chicago, especially for Donny's sake.  Grandpa was finally ready to settle down and start working on his own with Al.  They were able to purchase a good milking herd and a registered bull.  But, in 1942, he was diagnosed with cancer.  I've never known what type, but my guess has been lung cancer, because he became so weak, he took to bed for almost 6 months.  Grandma said it was the best time of their marriage.  He was kind and loving, he would sit in bed and they would read the Bible together.  She said he could still remember much of what  he had memorized when they had taken confirmation together.  They sold the farm in late 1943, and dad bought his grandparent's farm in Hayfield, right next to the farm he grew up on.  

Sunday, we went to church at Little Norway.  I was more interested in helping Bob get situated than in taking pictures, so I'll use some from the church itself.  

The church as I remember it from the 1960's   The new addition to the front gives a nice entrance,

a kitchen, a coffee room to sit in and an elevator.      

There is an old chandelier hanging above the middle of the pews.  It is now electrified.  It was given by grandma's and grandpa's confirmation class, about 1898.  Many of my grandparent's families are buried here.  

My cousin Joel came from dinner after church.  Bob fixed boiled potatoes, cabbage, onions, and sausage.  It was a boiled dinner and I really enjoyed it.  But a good portion of that was talking to Joel.  Joel is 75 to my 73, and he is much like his dad.  He's big, strong, a natural story teller and with a life full of stories.  (Otis quit school after the 7th grade and took to the rails.  I don't know if he ever finished high school.  This was during the depression and it was easier on the family if he wasn't there.  He would come home to momma for a while and would take off again.  He worked for dad at the start of World War 2 in the south, but quit after a while.  He and Kay got married in Mississippi in 1941.  They moved to Georgia and had their family there.)  So Joel is an anomaly to me, a Viken with a deep southern accent.  Because they lived there, we never saw them when I was growing up.  I remember one trip mom and I took a trip to Georgia in the '50s I think, but that was it.  Otis moved back to Fertile after Kay died and lived there most the rest of his life, and that's when I remember him.  

That evening, Bob and I took a drive to the west, which we have never done before.  He showed me farms where the family lived, a country school I didn't know mom and George attended. 

Monday, July 3rd, I  had to leave the Fertile campground.  It's tough to leave, but sometimes it's time.  And it was.  

Otto Joel Viken (1884-1943) and Rosa Eline Morvig (1883-1971)
    Albert Viken (1904-1977) and Florence
        Donald Viken (1930-1990) and Sylvia (1930-) (Cousin in Rochester)
    Agnes Viken (1905-2004) and Clarence Ostgarden
        Oris Ostgarden (1926-2010) and Marion
        Clarance (Bud) Ostgarden (1927-2012) and Janice
        Grace Ostgarden (1935-) and Milton Aker
    Dora Viken (1910-1977) and Louis Hekman
        Robert Heckman (1931-)
    Olga Viken (1912-2010) and Olaf Tyssen
        Carole Tyssen (1942-)  (Cousin in Phoenix)
        James Tyssen (1946-)
        Gene Tyssen (1948-)  (Cousin in Pasco, Washington)
    Otis Viken (1915-1990) and Kay
        Janice Viken (1943-2019)
        Jerome Viken (1944-1951)
        Joel Viken (1948-)
        Richard Viken (1953-)
        Roseanne Viken (1955-2000)
        Suzanne Viken (1956-)
    Orpha Viken (1918-2020) and Sanford Edgar (1914-2000)
        Michael Edgar (1943-)
        Peter Edgar (1945-)
        Thomas Edgar (1949-)
    George Viken (1921-1993) and Elva