The Bergans--A New Branch on my Family Tree

One of the "mystery photos" in my collection, from Tacoma, Washington.

Which one is Peder O. Bergan?  I now know he is the one on the left!!

Update on December 29, 2012

EUREKA! I FOUND IT!!

After all these months I have located an identified photo of P. O. Bergan (see below)

This photo, possibly a wedding photo, is identified as P. O. Bergan and his wife Anne Hadland on the left,

and N. Hadland (brother of Anne) and his wife Gina on the right, therefore the top photo

is an older version of P. O. Bergan on the left, in Tacoma.

           

The title of this Blog may be a little misleading.  The Bergan family is not exactly “new,” they have been there all the time, but I have just recently pieced a part of the puzzle together to connect our relationship. 

            This mystery has been plaguing me since 1993 when there was an Enger family reunion in Kindred, North Dakota, and a family member from Spring Grove brought some unidentified vintage photos.  She knew they were family and showed them around to all that were there, but no one knew who the people were.  Then she offered them to anyone who wanted to take them and do some research to find out the identities.  I volunteered, of course, because one thing you need to know about me is that I hate old photographs without names;--what good are they to anyone if they are unknown?  I get almost nauseous when I see vintage photos for sale in antique shops of marriages, and babies, and grandparents, with  no names.

            I took the photos with perfectly good intentions of finding out who these people were.  Most of the photos had photographer logos from Spring Grove, one or two from Moorhead, Minnesota and then one very intriguing one of two dapper looking gentlemen, taken in Tacoma, Washington.  The Spring Grove and Moorhead photos were understandable since our Enger ancestors had settled in both of those places, but Tacoma??  No one knew of anyone in our family who had gone to Tacoma!

            Well, these photos have rattled around in the depths of my genealogy materials since 1993—(Someday I will probably be found in my office suffocated under a mountain of paper).  From time to time the photos would surface when I was looking for something else, and then I would vow once again to put names to the people who were staring back at me—all with vaguely familiar “family-looking” faces.  Each time I would work on it for a few days,  hit a dead end and then put them back in the box for another time.

            Fast forward to 2012 when I was working on this blog—I went back and re-read the Enger family history that had been written by Ida Enger Berg back in the 1960’s and had been distributed to us at the aforementioned family reunion by her nephew Keith “Skip” Enger.  I guess I read a little farther and a little deeper than I ever had before, and all of a sudden when I came to the section on the Bergan family, this sentence jumped out at me: 

            “Peder (Bergan) had an urge to write so after locating in Tacoma, Washington, he published a paper called “The Budtikken.”  This rang a bell loud and clear, those mystery photos were more than likely the Bergan family.  So now I will start from the beginning and tell where the Bergan branch fits in the Enger family tree.  Again, I will quote Ida Enger Berg:

            “Ingeborg, the eldest daughter of Peder and Aase Enger, was born near Eggedal, Norway in 1838.  In 1860 she was married to Ole Kristiansen Jokstad.  A son Kristen was born to them in 1861 and shortly after that Ingeborg’s parents emigrated to America.  Peder Enger sold them the Elling-Engar gaard (farm) and the newlyweds chose to remain in Norway.  They were the parents of eight children. Kristen 1861; Peder 1862, died 1864; Peder (2) 1865, went to America in 1882; Martin 1867; Aase 1869, died 1874; Ole born 1873, came to America in 1890; Jorgine 1875, died 1884; Anne Marie born 1880, died 1900.

            Ole Kristensen Jokstad died in 1898 and his wife Ingeborg in 1893 and son Martin took over the farm.  Kristen, the eldest son, married Berte Asle Saastad of Bergan and three of Ingeborg and Ole Jokstad’s sons adopted the last name of Bergan since they lived on the Bergan farm with Kristen.

            Peder Bergan came to America in 1882 (changed to Peter) at the age of 17 years. He went directly to Spring Grove, Minnesota to live with his grandparents, Peder and Aase Enger, and later he went to Moorhead where his Aunt Sigri (Enger) lived.

            Peter Bergan married Anne Hadland Bakkos who was about 14 years his senior.  She had saved her earnings so they decided to go west.  Peder had an urge to write so after locating in Tacoma, Washington, he published a paper called Buttiken (The shop).

First issue of the Tacoma Budstikke, December 25, 1889

            I have now learned that the paper published by Peter Bergan with partner Peter Julseth,was actually called “The Tacoma Budstikke” and I was excited to locate copies of three editions of this newspaper at the Tacoma Public Library.  (Note:  I was nearly as excited about the fact that they were in Tacoma as I was in finding out who they were.  Finally, a chance for me to do family research in my neck of the woods.  The Tacoma library is about ten miles from my house!)

The Budstikke was only published for a short time, from December 1889 to 1891 when Peter left Tacoma for other adventures.  Two of  Peter and Anne’s daughters, Ilma and Olga, were born in Tacoma.

                 Ida Berg quoted from a granddaughter, Adell Swanson:  “The venture (Budstikke) was not too successful, not because of Peter’s lack of ability (he loved journalism) but because he and his fine friends would party and forget to get the money-making part of the paper--namely the ads--into their publication.  The subscribers soon lost faith and he was forced out of that business.” 

Tacoma City Director of 1890

Peter T. Julseth, solicitor of Tacoma news, and Peter O. Bergan, publisher, Tacoma Budstikke

            In 1891, with his family, Peter Bergan and his cousin Ole Rustan moved to Britton, South Dakota where they bought a section of land and started farming.  A third daughter, Nora, was born there. Their living quarters in Britton was a sod house with the inside plastered over the exposed roots.  There was no floor but the ground inside the house was covered with mint as a protection against sand fleas. 

The Indians and cattle barons resented the farmers who interfered with their hunting grounds or pasture lands and would retaliate by setting fires to force the settlers out.  One day the fire came and the Bergan family was forced to take refuge on a square of plowed land that had been prepared for just such an emergency.  Everything was completely burned and after that the family moved to Felton, Minnesota where they lived for twelve years.  While there Peter was assessor for 9 years.  As quoted by Ida:  “He was a true frontiersman, he loved to break the first furrow in the sod but when it became everyday he was ready to move on.”

            Politics and local or national issues were always Peter Bergan’s big interest and he constantly contributed articles to local and national publications.  After his death clippings from the San Francisco Examiner and Hearst Publications were found among his possessions, all bearing his trademark signature “P.O.B.”  He was a strong advocate of Free Trade and most of his writings were on this subject.  One of the reasons he contributed to so many publications was to get free subscriptions and reading material.  “Not only did he read the newspapers from headlines to ads, but also all the magazines available,” his granddaughter stated.

            In 1906 the Peter Bergan family moved on again, this time to homestead in Saskatchewan, Canada. On the way they stopped off in Moorhead, Minnesota where daughter number 4, Anne, was born.  Saskatchewan was wild and unsettled when the region was acquired by the Dominion of Canada, but when the Canadian Pacific Railroad was completed in 1886 the settlers started moving in.

            Peter’s claim was at Invermay, Saskatchewan, and because of a chain of sloughs in the area the land needed drainage before it could be cultivated, so Peter the entrepreneur, preceded his family to Canada and went into the dredging business.  His family at Felton were left behind to do the harvesting and the moving.  Daughter Olga remembered helping to drive the cattle to Kragnes station and loading them into cattle cars.

            Meanwhile Peter, in Canada, had built a log cabin at Invermay where the family lived for nine years.  The farm prospered, Peter continued the dredging business and became the sales representative for an imported Swedish cream separator.  During the time in Invermay, two Bergan daughters, Olga and Nora, married brothers Ole and Nels Espeland. 

            In 1915 the Bergans moved to St. Joseph’s Island, Ontario, a beautiful wooded island abounding in wild flowers and fruit.  Daughter Nora and her husband, Nels Espeland, joined Peter Bergan there in buying abandoned property and they had quite a profitable little real estate business for a while.  For three summers they went to Flint, Michigan where their daughters Ilma and Annie lived and worked.  Mother Anne did practical nursing and Peter was foreman on a road construction project.

            Later they raised sheep and sold wool and lambs and Peter cut cord wood and sold it.  They only received mail two  or three days a week, and the day after they received the mail Peter was so busy reading he hardly took time to eat.  He became active in local government and wrote stirring articles in local newspapers trying to get a law passed forbidding hunters to shoot deer on the island when they were swimming.  On November 16, 1927, the day after hunting season opened, Peter was informed that hunters were in the area, he took his gun and posted himself where the deer usually came into view.  He died there of a heart attack at the age of 62.

            There ends the saga of Peter Oleson Bergan, a colorful character and a truly adventurous pioneer.  His wife Anne died of a ruptured appendix just six months after her husband’s death, so as quoted by Ida from the granddaughter Adell Swanson, “This was the beginning of the end of a fun time at Sterling Bay (St. Joe’s Island).”
              From Barbara Davies of the St. Joseph Island Historical Society I have learned the following about the Peder Bergan family:

• Peter Bergan died Nov. 16, 1926 and is buried in the Tenby Bay Cemetery. His cause of death was “chronic myocarditis.” 
• His wife Annie, nee Hadland, Bergan died on May 12, 1927 at the Red Cross Hospital, Richards’ Landing, St. Joseph Island. The cause of death was appendicitis.  She is also buried in the Tenby Bay Cemetery.
• Their daughter Anne married Einer Gilbertson on April 3, 1920 and she is buried at Tenby Bay Cemetery, death date unknown.
• Nora’s husband Nels Espeland died October 14, 1937, “Death by hanging--suicide.” His birth date was May 12, 1873, born in Norway and is buried in Tenby Bay.  His parents were Osten Espeland and Asloug Boen, both born Norway. His brother Ole Espeland was the informant.
• The sawmill purchased by Peter Bergan was Peter Chesterfield’s Mill located at Sterling Bay.  After the mill closed it was the site of a summer boy’s camp in the 1930’s.

Family members who visited St. Joseph Island at a later time placed stones on both the Bergans’ and Espelands’ burial sites.  Daughter Anne’s was unmarked, and when the Tenby Bay Cemetery Board raised enough money through bake sales etc. simple stones were placed on all the known unmarked grave sites, including Anne’s.



Postscript to P. O. Bergan Story: (Dec. 29, 2012)

          An article found on the Genealogy Bank website under Historical Newspapers, comes from the Grand Forks Herald dated 9-16-1892, and intimates that P. O. Bergan and associates  may have been involved in some questionable real estate activity in Washington State. 

           The article states that the following advertisement appeared in Normanden of February 25, 1892.

    

       "The Bergan City Real Estate Building Association, with a capital of $25,000, and with one-third of the original townsite under its control, will next spring, as soon as the rainy season is over, commence the erection of several business and residence houses and a shingle mill in Bergan City.  For that purpose this association has issued under the laws of Washington 500 shares of stock at $30 per share, that can now be obtained from officers in the association or its authorized agents.  A similar organization commenced business about five years ago with a capital of $30,000 and have today a taxed evaluation of $2,000,000.

     Friend, wherever you might be, whoever you may be, young or old, rich or poor, man or woman, "go thou and do likewise."  Here you are offered a rare opportunity to invest your savings in an enterprise that cannot but bring you 100 and probably 1,000 fold in return. You run no risk as the shares are backed by real estate that will enhance in value every day that passes.  "He who don't risk don't win." the proverb says. By securing shares in the Bergan City Real Estate and Building Association you have no risk, but everything to win. A half dozen shares may secure your financial independence and become the foundation for a fortune.

For further particulars address any of the trustees and directors of the association.

M. O. TEIGEN, President; P. O. BERGAN, Treasurer; H. A. FOSS, Secretary."

         

       The author of the article goes on to say " Now the spring is gone and the fall has come and there has not been erected a single business house, nor a single residence, nor a shingle mill.  Excepting P. O. Bergan's claim shanty there is not a single house in the "city." The writer intimates that the enterprise is a swindle, plain and simple, and that "the company with a capital of $20,000 has as yet been unable to pay for their advertising they had done in our paper." 

        I guess my next research will be to try and find out where "Bergan City, Washington" was located. I remember that when I accessed  the available copies of the "Tacoma Budstikke" (P. O.  Bergan's newspaper) at the Tacoma Public Library last summer there were some advertisements for property for sale on the Olympic Peninsula which involved P. O. Bergan.  Now--back to the library at the first opportunity!

  OLE BERGAN

            Another of the Bergan brothers, Ole, born in Norway in 1873, came to America in 1890 at age 17.  He wrote Peter Bergan of his plans to come to America, and asked advice of his older brother.  Ole asked Peter how the men shaved in America.  Peter responded by saying that American men shaved off their eyebrows, so Ole, in good faith did just that.  When he arrived in America and discovered that his brother had fooled him he was much embarrassed and justifiably angry!  But, as Ida noted, this type of humor seems to be typical of the Enger men—a bunch of practical jokesters!

            Ole Bergan was evidently not an entrepreneur like his brother Peter.  Ole came directly to Washington State and spent his entire time at Issaquah, (then called Gilman) King County, Washington (about 20 miles from my home.) He worked in the coal mines for Kaiser Coal.  According to Ida Berg he continued to work in the mines until he was in injured in an explosion accident which put him in the hospital for three years and reportedly his face was almost blown off.  Later he was crippled by arthritis and remained in a wheel chair for the remainder of his life. He died in 1944 and he never married. (See postscript for an updated version).

            Since learning about this relative who lived near my present home, I went to Issaquah to try and find  more information about him.  From the New York Passenger Lists on Ancestry.com I found that he arrived in America on July 5, 1890 in New York on the ship Island, which departed from Copenhagen, Denmark.

In the 1900 Federal Census he is living in Gilman, King, Washington, age 26, single.  In 1910 he is living in Newcastle, (another coal mining town) King, Washington in a boarding house of William and Marguerite Gill. In 1920 he is living alone in Gilman again, and in 1930 he is still in Gilman with Herman and William Hagland and he is not working, so that was apparently after he was disabled.  My research on Ole is ongoing.

           

I still don’t know the individuals names in the photos in my possession, but at least I know what family they belong to.  I guess that’s progress!  I will publish some of the photos on this site in the hope that a family member will see them and be able to identify the people.

Here are some of the unidentified photos. Can anyone help?

                      Caledonia, MN                   No location, could be Norway

      

Both photos from Spring Grove

Both by C. Engell, Spring Grove

Moorhead, Minnesota

Possibly the youngest Bergan daughter, Anne, who was born in Moorhead Circa 1905 (?)

Postscript to Ole Bergan story: 

         Since publishing this blog initially, I was delighted to receive some new information about Ole Bergan from the Issaquah Historical Society in the form of an obituary,  published January 20, 1938, in the Issaquah Press.

             "Suffering from a heart attack, Ole Bergan died at the Alfred (Boss) Anderson home Friday afternoon (Jan. 14) of last week. He was sitting talking with friends, got up and walked around the floor to get a drink of water and fell over, dying immediately."

           "He was born in Norway 65 years ago.  He came to Issaquah in 1892 and worked in the old mine and Grand Ridge until he became too badly crippled to work.  He owned a small home and a lot on the hill immediately under the water tanks.  Ole was a cousin of the late Gilbert Weston.  (Should be Rustan).  Buried at Hillside (cemetery)."

              It is interesting to note that Ole Bergan died in the same manner as his older brother Peter, from a sudden heart attack. 

           After receiving this obituary I visited the Flintoft's Funeral Home in Issaquah and the director kindly did a quick search of Hillside Cemetery records for me.  Ole Bergan is not on the cemetery maps, and I learned that there are many unmarked graves in the old lower part of the cemetery.  Apparently the previous funeral home did not keep accurate cemetery records, but I did go there and take a photo.

          A peaceful resting place for Ole Bergan in Hillside Cemetery, Issaquah, Washington

Additional information was that his house was located east of town in the plat Issaquah Park.   He bought the house on March 26, 1920. The house was later moved to Fall City in about 1956.  It was located in Block 5, Lots 8, 9, & 10 lying southerly of Sunset Highway, less mineral rights.   I am in the process of obtaining a picture of the house from the King County archives.

Ole Bergan cabin as it was on March 14, 1940;

It even shows smoke coming from the chimney!

Postscript #2 to Ole Bergan story:   I received a scan of the Ole Bergan property and cabin in  Issaquah, as part of a project to photograph all King county properties with improvements done by the WPA in 1938, the same year Ole Bergan died. The information states that Ole bought the property March 26, 1920, and the cabin was built in 1915 so the cabin was in place when he bought it. The building is only 12x20 (240 sq. ft.) with a 4x12 shed. The type of construction says "cheap"(!), condition poor. It had a stove for heat, a spring for water,  and a dugout basement.  The property was sold to the state of Washington in 1952 and the cabin was moved off to make way for the new Sunset Highway.  So ends the story of Ole Bergan, bachelor coal-miner, who came to America for a better life but apparently didn't find it!  Although, his obituary states that he died in the company of friends, so maybe he was happy anyway.  Rest in Peace, Ole!

Scan from the King County archives

          

       



Bill and Effie Enger, The Final Chapter

This is the blog I have been dreading but the time has come--the final chapter in the lives of two incredible people--my parents!
In 1960 my brother Billie and Ruth made a life-changing decision to throw in the towel on the farm life and they moved from Mora to Princeton, Minnesota where they lived for the rest of their days.  A very good move for them.  Billie went back to his former occupation as Auto Parts manager for Odegard’s garage in Princeton.  Ruth obtained her LPN license and worked in the Princeton Hospital until her retirement in 1990. Billie died in October of 1982 at age 61 after a difficult  battle with lung cancer, and Ruth continued her life as a widow until she passed away in July of 2011 at age 84.  Together Billie and Ruth raised six wonderful children who, all but one, live in the Princeton vicinity with their families and I have enjoyed my time with them so much when I go back East in the summers..

Gale and Cece stayed on the farm with Dad and Mom for several more years after Billie left, but in 1966 Father Bill was finally contemplating retirement  from the farm, and Gale started putting out feelers for jobs further west. That year he and Cece and son Larry packed up and headed for Palisade, Colorado a beautiful fruit-growing valley on the western slope of the Rockies.  Alan stayed behind to finish his senior year in high school before joining his parents in Colorado. Gale first worked for a lumber company in the mountain town of Colbran, quite a drive morning and night, and eventually was hired as manager of the Clifton Sanitation District where he stayed until retirement.

Bill and Effie’s last  home together at

3043 F ¾ Road, Grand Junction, CO

Meanwhile, Bill and Effie put the farm up for sale and Gale had talked them into coming out west to Colorado.  The farm market was bad at that time, but Bill finally made a deal with a buyer, had a huge and very traumatic farm auction where they sold the farm equipment and most of their furniture, and Bill, still the perpetual farmer at heart, found a six acre mini-farm about two miles outside of Grand Junction with a small two bedroom house.  He soon had horses, a few chickens, a tractor, and a garden, and Effie—once again—dutifully followed her husband in this new venture.

A challenge for Bill in this desert country was learning the ins and outs of irrigation—water was a precious commodity in the Grand Valley—and the irrigation water was jealously guarded and highly regulated.  My Dad, as usual, made friends right away with all the neighbors, dabbled in race horses, got involved in politics, wrote letters to the editor, started a taxpayers association and even sued the Grand Junction Port Authority for making million-dollar improvements at the Grand Junction Airport without a vote of the people.  He won!

All of us at Mom and Dad’s 50^th anniversary in March 1970, in

Grand Junction, CO; Gale, Billy, Mom, Dad, Dianne, Hope

Effie gradually retreated more and more into herself and in the early seventies began having health and anxiety problems.  She found a doctor who believed in treating every complaint with a pill, and gradually  Effie was taking prescribed pain pills, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, anti-depressants—all at the same time.  During one visit I made to Grand Junction my dear Mom spent most of her day sitting in the chair watching the clock for when her next pill was due. It was heart-breaking to see her in that state of mind.

Bill tried to get Effie away from taking all the pills and one time in frustration he flushed them all down the toilet, but somehow she was able to get more.  In the mid-1970's Effie began showing signs of paranoia about being left alone, so whenever Bill got in the car to go to town, even it was just for a newspaper or to fill up with gas, she would jump in the car with him.  During the Christmas of 1975 Bill went on a brief trip back to Minnesota to visit his brother Earle who was dying of cancer.  Effie didn’t feel well enough to go with him so he left her at Fort Morgan, Colorado to stay with Hope and Swede.  During her stay there Hope was alarmed by her mother’s mental state, and was broken-hearted when one day she asked Effie if she would make a graham cracker pie for Christmas dinner and her reply was “I don’t know how.”  That had been our whole family’s favorite dessert that our Mom had made for special occasions all the time we were growing up!

When Bill came back from Minnesota Effie clung to him like a child and said, “Don’t ever leave me again!”  We all knew something was wrong, but none of us could have ever envisioned the tragedy that was to come.

On a memorably infamous day in February of 1976, the phone was ringing as I walked into my real estate office in Quilcene, Washington where I was living with my husband, Don Kirst, (another story for later).  I answered and on the other end was the sobbing voice of my sister Hope. “Nonie, you’ve got to come right away, something terrible has happened, Mom shot herself!”  I was stunned, “Are you kidding? Hopie, that’s not funny!”  “No, it’s true and she’s not dead, she’s in the hospital, you’ve got to come right away!”

In a virtual daze, I ran across to the Quilcene Café where my husband was drinking coffee with the usual crowd.  I called him outside and told him I had to leave for Colorado right away.   I was like a zombie, packing my suitcase, the two hour ride to the airport, the flight to Denver and the shuttle to Grand Junction.  All the while the thoughts were rolling around in my head, “It must have been an accident, she must have been moving Dad’s gun and it went off. I’m sure the bullet just grazed her and she will be all right.” I didn’t allow myself to utter the word “suicide” or think about the possibility of her death—that is until that night when I walked into that hospital waiting room and I saw my grief-stricken father sitting there with his head down and his hands over his face.

The story I pieced together is that on that fateful morning Dad had come in from outside and told Mom that he was going to run to town and to the gas station, did she want to go?  And for once she answered,  "No I think I'll stay home this time."   Dad was surprised but also happy to think that maybe she was starting to feel better.  He was gone for less than an hour, and when he got in the house he found her, on the floor, with a bullet wound in her head.  She was alive but unconscious, then the ambulance came and took her away.

When I arrived at the hospital, after consoling my father, I was directed to the  hospital room where they told me my mother was.  There were four beds, and I  first walked up to the wrong bed where there was white-haired lady.  That wasn't my Mom!  My sister led me to the bed  of an older woman with a bandage around her grotesquely-swollen head and two black eyes.  She was unrecognizable, but that was her.

 For the next 24 hours we talked to the person in the bed who didn’t look like our beautiful Mom,  we listened to the mournful sound of the life support machine which I wanted to smash but I knew it was the only thing that was making her chest rise and fall..  It was surreal, like some horror movie but it was real life!  The next day the doctor came to us for a family meeting and told us point blank, “Your mother is brain dead, if she survives she will be in a coma, perhaps for years, and be like a vegetable.  It is the family’s decision whether or not to take her off of life support.” 

 None of  Effie's children could bring ourselves to say the words, and we left the decision up to our Dad.  He knew that my Mom would never want to be left in that state, and he finally  gave the okay to the doctors to remove her from life support and let her die peacefully.  From that moment on I watched my father slowly fade away and turn into a small frail old man until his death six years later.  Bill and Effie were just one month away from their 56^th wedding anniversary when the tragedy occurred and he was never the same. Somehow we got through the funeral which all of us thought, for obvious reasons, was to be a closed-casket service.  But just before the end of the service the funeral directors walked up and opened the lid for a viewing  The funeral home had done their best to make my mother presentable for viewing, and when my father saw her he thought she looked so beautiful (compared to what we had seen at the hospital) that unbeknown to us he had asked the minister to have the casket opened at the end so everyone could see her. One of  her grandchildren fainted!

                                                                Effie’s Memorial on March 3, 1976

Her untimely death was a shock to all who knew her!

Bill tried batching it on his own for a couple of years after Effie was gone but he became increasingly more lonely and sad, and due to a few “mini-strokes” which affected his speech and his driving ability, he finally decided to sell out—the house, his beloved  horses, the household goods—everthing but a few keepsakes, and move in with daughter and son-in-law Hope and Swede Reyman across the mountains in Fort Morgan, Colorado northeast of Denver.

Hope and Swede did everything they could to give him a good home and to make him happy.  They encouraged him to go to the Senior Center to play cards, which had always been his passion, but Bill seemed to have lost his zest for life.  He just didn’t want to do anything.

My Dad came out to stay with me in Washington a couple of times while he lived with Hope, the last time in the fall of 1979.  He would spend most of his waking hours sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a bottle of wine, and his cigarettes.  He would check the balance in his checkbook over and over.  Since he had liquidated everything he owned, his money was all he had left to worry about. 

He was always a chain smoker but now he was dangerous.  If he took the cigarette pack out of his pocket first and the matches next he was fine; but sometimes he would take the match book out first, and then light a match, set the match book on fire, and throw it on the floor when it flared up.  We found that we didn’t dare leave him alone.

Iconic pose of  Bill after Effie’s death, by the kitchen table with

red quilted jacket, Stetson hat, cards, wine bottles and ashtray.

My father had always been a great story-teller—all my life I had loved listening to his tales of years past—but now he would tell the same story over and over.  He would start telling about an incident that involved his mother and his two sisters, and by the end his story it had evolved to his wife and two daughters.  Everything was all jumbled together in his mind and he was definitely in the throes of dementia. 

Because of the  TIA's  (small strokes) sometimes the words Bill wanted to say just wouldn’t come out of his mouth and he would start stammering.  If we tried to guess what he meant and we were wrong he would get really mad at us. (He never forgot the cuss words!)  The funny thing was that my youngest son Donnie, who was just six at the time, always knew.  He would say, “Don’t you know what Grandpa is trying to say? It is (whatever)!” And he was  right.  Those two had a special bond!

My Dad was in Washington with me on his 80^th birthday, November 19^th 1979, and we invited some friends and family over for a birthday party.  The next week was my 40^th birthday and Dad had stayed in bed most of the day as he wasn’t feeling well.  I didn’t think he even knew it was my birthday, but by the time my husband came home from the office that afternoon Dad was up and sitting at his usual spot at the table.  He said to Don, “You have to take me to town because I have to get something.”  That was a slight problem because in Quilcene, Washington where we lived the “town” consisted of a grocery store, two gas stations, a small appliance store, and a tavern.  The next town for shopping was 30 miles away!  So that left only the appliance store for the shopping trip.

Bill’s 80^th was celebrated in Washington, November 19, 1979

The scenario, as I heard it later, went something like this:  The Quilcene Appliance owner Herb Nylund showed my Dad several small appliances such as mixers, toasters and the like, but he didn’t want any of those, and he was getting disgusted with the two guys that were trying to help him.   Finally he spotted a microwave oven, and his eyes lit up. “Hopie has one of those,” he said. “I’ll take that one!”  So here they came back home with my very first microwave, a Deluxe Amana RadarRange which covered a huge piece of the kitchen counter.  That was the last present I ever received from my Dad and it was so special to me that I couldn’t bear to get rid of it for nearly 30 years, long after I had stopped using it.

One other time on that last visit, my husband Don was trying to get Dad interested in doing something and asked him if he wanted to go out and cut some wood for our wood-burning fireplace and a wood stove in the kitchen.  Don figured that since my Dad was an old lumberjack that it might bring back memories for him and he would enjoy it.  A couple of hours later they were back with a trailer full of wood, but Dad had only thrown in a couple of pieces and had sat in the Scout the rest of the time. 

The next week Don said, “Well Dad, do you want to go cut some more wood?”  Bill looked at him with a glare and said, “The hell with you!  How much does a cord of wood cost?”  Don told him about $30 a cord.  “You call them up and tell them I want two cords!”  When Dad went back to Hope’s house in Fort Morgan he told her, “I fixed that guy out there;--he wanted me to work but I fooled him, I just bought two cords of wood!” 

Back in Fort Morgan, the dementia, his health and his behavior became increasingly worse.  Even though he was only allowed to smoke at the kitchen table he would sneak the cigarettes into his bedroom and light up, and the ashes would fall on the bed or carpet.  When Hope would take him uptown to the bank or to a store he would cuss out the tellers and the clerks, one time because they didn’t have the right underwear that he always bought. Finally a very difficult decision was made—mostly by his doctors—that he be admitted to a local nursing care facility in Fort Morgan. 

The next summer when I visited him he didn’t know me at first, and then he finally said, “Oh yeah, you live with that guy out there. He was a cop, and he made me work!”  (That memory stayed with him!)  He didn’t know my brother Gale when he came either, after they had been together in the lumber yard, the farm and Grand Junction—Gale’s entire life.  That was a hard pill to swallow for my brother.  He just couldn’t bear to go there again.

Bill’s last birthday at the Fort Morgan nursing home,

November 19, 1981.  He passed away May 26, 1982

In the meantime Hope was at the nursing home every day making sure that Dad was well taken care of.  In the spring of 1982 my husband had been hired as a deputy by the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department and we had moved to Sequim, Washington.  In May I talked my sister Hope into coming out for a brief visit, and Swede promised that he would watch over Dad and visit him everyday.  On May 26, 1982, towards the end of Hope’s visit, the phone rang in the late morning and Swede had to give us the bad news that our Dad had passed away in his sleep.  Hope was devastated (and still is) that she was gone when he died but for her sake I have always believed it was better for her that she wasn’t there.

Bill and Effie's grave in Memorial Gardens, Grand Junction, Colorado

Rest in Peace Mom and Dad. I love you always!

So there ends the Saga of Bill and Effie Enger.  How two such unique and totally opposite individuals stayed together for 56 years is a wonder—the dynamic, volatile, impulsive, fun-loving, entrepreneurial husband and the quiet, stoic, poetic, artistic and long-suffering wife.  But one thing is certain—the two of them together were the most wonderful parents any child was ever blessed with. 

That’s all for now  I have been working on this blog for weeks, but when I would come to the bad and sad parts I couldn’t make myself go on—the memories were just too painful.  Today I decided it was now or never.  Every story has a beginning and an end, but the good part is that the story of Bill and Effie Enger never really ended.  They still live today in the minds and the hearts of those of us they left behind, and I truly believe that they are still together in Eternity.
Love you always, Mom and Dad!

Your daughter, Nonie

BILL AND EFFIE ENGER, CONTINUED

In my last blog “Happy Days Were Here Again” in Worthington, Minnesota.  World War II was finally over and our boys were coming home! At least some of them did, and thank God the Enger boys were among them.  In a telegram to Bill and Effie from son Billie, dated Sept. 26, 1945: “Dear Folks, Expect to dock in New York about the first of the month. Am working in the Orderly Room again and am busier than a cat with fourteen kittens. Don’t write any more.  Love, Billie.”  As usual, a man of few words, but that was all he needed to say—he was coming home!

Gale, on the other hand, sent a more wordy missal, in the form of a letter postmarked January 3, 1946 at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.  He had come back from overseas after VE Day and VJ Day and was biding his time at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin to serve out the remainder of his term.  He wrote: 
“This morning I sent out a duffel bag crammed full of stuff that I’ve picked up around here.--Things look pretty good for an early discharge now. Maybe even by the 15^th of the month. That’s a pretty optimistic point of view, but it could really happen.”  (In actuality Gale’s official separation date was January 26, 1946.)

(Note to the younger generation:  V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, and V-J Day stands for Victory over Japan Day. After the German surrender a treaty was signed in Reims, France on May 7, 1945 and President Harry S Truman declared May 8 as V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe.  However the war did not officially end until the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945.  Japan signed the terms of surrender September 2, 1945 on the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, and that date was designated as VJ Day.)

While the Enger sons were away Bill Enger the father had taken the plunge to start his own lumber yard.  The younger Albinson brothers had taken over Albinson Lumber Co. from their half brother Clarence Albinson so Bill’s services were no longer needed.   Bill, Effie, Hope and Nonie had spent the winter of 1943 in Crookston, MN where Bill was operating saw mills in the area but that was not a good life for the family.  By 1945 Bill’s innate entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and he decided to take the gutsy plunge to open his own lumber yard in competition with Albinson—Enger Lumber Co. was born at Oxford Street and Smith Avenue. Somehow Bill was able to finagle a load of lumber on credit, and he started selling the boards right off the vacant lot.

It was an opportune time for this kind of venture.  Thousands of young service men were streaming back from overseas, getting married, and starting families, and the Number One need would be for housing!  Bill was there to get in on the ground floor of this post war boom and he jumped in with both feet.  He sold the house on Smith Avenue and bought an old dilapidated house right across the highway from the lumber yard where Oxford. and Smith Avenue met. 

The first lumber pile and the first office of Enger Lumber Company, Worthington, Minnesota.

The  new lumber shed was under construction in the background.

The first lumber yard office was a small square shed surrounded by piles of lumber. Soon a larger lumber shed was added to keep the boards under cover, and Enger Lumber Co. was off and running.  Now that Billie and Gale were home Bill wanted to bring them into the business, but Billie still had unfinished business in Redwood Falls. He went back to his pre-war job at the auto parts store, and back to his former church, the North Redwood Evangelical where Oscar Monson had been the Pastor when he left for the service and had recently moved to Rochester, Minnesota.

Rev. Monson had kept in touch with Billie during the war years, and Billie faithfully tithed to the church all the time he was in the Army.  His letters home would often contain instructions such as: “Today we got paid for Feb. and March; I received $103.00 and bought an application for a Money Order blank for $100.00 which I will send to you as soon as I get it.  If I have any money at home now, I would appreciate it if you would give $10.30 to Monson (at Redwood) or Heitke (at Worthington church) for my tithe.”

But one thing had changed while Billie was away.  During the three and a half years he was overseas the preacher’s daughter Ruthie Monson—just a kid of 16 when he left—had grown into a lovely young woman and romance soon blossomed!  Ruth had attended Western Union College in LeMars, Iowa to become a teacher and was teaching in a country school.  William J. Enger and Ruth Naomi Monson were married on August 22, 1946 at the North  Redwood church where they had met, with her father, Rev. Oscar Monson, presiding.

August 22. 1946 in North Redwood, Minnesota

Ruth Naomi Monson married William John Enger.

Sister Hope had been married eight months earlier, January 1946, to Durward “Dude” Reyman of Valley Center, Kansas.  He was a first cousin of Aunt Vivian’s husband Clarence Erbes, and Hope saw a picture of him in uniform when she visited Clarence’s parents, Carl and Lizzie Erbes, in Round Lake, Minnesota.  There was a big campaign on during the war urging people on the home front to “write to our service men overseas,” so Lizzie suggested to Hope that she should write to Dude.  Hope did, Dude answered, and before long the letters turned from “How are you” to “I love you!”  Much to Effie’s consternation Hope and Dude decided they were engaged to be married without ever meeting in person.  A mother’s nightmare!

January 19, 1946, Evangelical Church, Worthington, Minnesota

Hope Carol Enger married Durward Lee Reyman

After the letters had gone back and forth for a while Swede was on leave and wanted to come and see Hope.  Even though I was just five years old, I still remember the scene, it went something like this:  The phone rang and my Mom answered:  “Mrs. Enger, this is Durward Reyman and I would like to come and visit your daughter.”  Effie:  “I just don’t think that would be a good idea, please don’t come!”  Hope:  (Lying on the bed sobbing as though her heart were broken): “But I love him!”  Effie: “How can you love a man you’ve never met?  You don’t have any idea what he is like!”  After being rejected by Effie, Dude talked to his Mom in Valley Center, Kansas and she gave him some sage advice:  “If you love her you’d better go after her!”  He did, and the rest is history. When Dude (by then known as Swede) passed away from cancer in 2009 he and Hope Enger Reyman had celebrated 64 years of marriage, had raised four boys together, and were blessed with a big, wonderful family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

Gale Edward Enger and Cecelia Marian Roberts were October 31, 1947

in Worthington with brother Bill and  Ruth as attendants

Gale was the last holdout in the marriage department, but after coming home from the Army, he met a Worthington girl, Cecelia “Cece” Roberts.  On October 31, 1947—also known as Halloween—they were married at the Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Worthington.  As of this writing and after many adventures they are now living in retirement in Poteau, Oklahoma.  Last October they celebrated their 64^th wedding anniversary.  They have two sons, four grandchildren, and several greats.

Enger Lumber Company in Worthington,Minnesota, Circa 1950

As the three older Enger kids were being married off one by one, Bill Enger was prospering in the lumber business.  Gale had joined the firm and was drawing the blueprints for houses and in 1950 Billy and Ruth moved from North Redwood to Worthington with one-year-old Timothy and a second baby on the way, who turned out to be Thomas Richard.  Billy went to work at the Enger Lumber Co. and both the boys built houses in the new Sunset Addition to Worthington just off  Diagonal Road.  . Aunt Vivian’s husband, Clarence Erbes, also came to work in the lumber yard and built a home on MacMillan Street where they lived with son Steve, born January 21, 1947, and Grandma Hannah Enger.

Bill and Effie eventually remodeled the old house on Oxford Street and made it into quite a showplace.  The old front porch was torn off and a large living room was added across the entire front.  The former living room became a large dining room, and a room next to the dining room became my bedroom 

A variety of wood paneling, apropos to the lumber business, were featured throughout the home— birds-eye maple in the living room, red cedar above the fireplace. etched-wood paneling in the dining room which was painted and then wiped so the etched grooves were accented with color.  My bedroom was knotty pine with built in wardrobe, desk and dressing table and a private ½ bath with blue fixtures. Quite a novelty for that time!  The kitchen was wainscoted in tile with leatherette paneling above. The master bedroom was paneled in mahogany.  Bill and Effie made several trips to Daytons in Minneapolis to choose the furnishings which included wall to wall carpeting, custom made sectional couch and matching draperies in “dusty rose”.  A huge enclosed porch with concrete floor was added across the back at ground level along with an attached double garage.  Only the old attic with small guest bedroom and the basement were left pretty much as is.

Emmanuel Evangelical United Brethren Church in Worthington, now United Methodist

Times were good— Effie was in seventh heaven and Worthington was her Eden.  She loved her newly remodeled home, and her involvement in the Evangelical United Brethren Church where Grandma Hannah, Vivian and Clarence and the Doedens also attended.  Effie was a Sunday School teacher and an active member of the Ladies’ Aid..  I can remember wonderful Sunday dinners after church with Aunt Hazel and Uncle Herman at the Doeden farm, where the women visited, Aunt Hazel cooked on the wood stove, the men argued about politics and I played with my cousin Janet who was just a year older.

To make life even better the grandchildren began arriving for Bill and Effie!  Gale and Cece produced the first grandson, Alan William, in 1948, and three months later Hope and Dude’s first son, Durward Lee Reyman, Jr. was born.  The next year, 1949, Gale and Cece had Larry John in February, followed soon after by Billie and Ruth’s first son, Timothy John.  One year later in 1950 Thomas Richard was born in February to Billie and Ruth, and Hope and Dude followed in May with William Craig Reyman and on Valentine’s Day in 1952 there was James Mark Reyman, born shortly after Hope and Dude had moved to Linch, Wyoming.  After seven boys in a row and no girls, Bill offered a $100 prize for the first girl (which didn’t happen until several years later).

Bill’s entrepreneurial spirit was in full force during those years as it had been throughout his life.  He joined Frank LaPachek in a partnership to build the Shady Lane Cabin Court on property which was an old apple orchard next to the lumber yard.  It featured an office building and a dozen or so individual log-sided cabins and later six motel-style units were added.  The Enger and LaPachek partnership also purchased a small acreage with large trees outside of town for future development, called Whispering Pines, but that project never happened.  Bill even started a branch lumber yard down the road in Jackson.

Shady Lane Log Cabin Court

, Worthington, Minnesota

Bill was into horses, too.  He had a big, beautiful riding horse named Blaze and joined the Saddle Club. I got a little black Shetland pony named Black Beauty, complete with red saddle, bridle and martingale.  I can also remember a horse named Betty and finally, a spirited half-Arab called Stormy Weather. The horses were kept at the horse barns at the fairground which was a short distance from our house.

Bill on Blaze

Bill, always a farmer at heart, in 1950 invested in a farm 250 miles north of Worthington at Mora, Minnesota which started out to be a “gentleman farmer” project.  He sent one of his lumber yard employees up there to live year around as the hired man in the “big house” and oversee the farm and the animals.  The plan, as I knew it, was that we would go there for vacation times in the summer and stay in the “little house.”  That was a lot of fun for me because I usually got to take a friend with me, and since it was summer we could spend our days catching frogs in the pond, playing with the kittens in the barn and experiencing farm life without having to do the work!

But little did I know that this idyllic life of ours was about to take a sinister turn!  In October of 1952 Bill was on a quick trip to Mora checking on the farm and Effie and the daughters-in-law had spent that Sunday afternoon cleaning the lumber yard office from top to bottom.  All at once in the early evening the sound of a fire alarm pierced the air and soon the sirens became louder and louder.  I quickly learned that the Enger Lumber Co. office and main lumber shed were on fire, and what a conflagration that turned out to be! 

I ran to the corner where a crowd was already gathering across the street from the fire, and I was horrified to see people standing around watching, casually talking and laughing as the flames grew more and more spectacular.  Why wasn’t everyone else as upset as I was?  I stood there sobbing and then finally ran away to hide and cry my eyes out.  Paint cans exploding inside the building sounded like bombs going off and the wood in the lumber shed crackled like a huge bonfire!  Billie and Clarence heard the news and rushed over to try to get inside to save what they could, including a brand new lumber truck in the shed, but they were stopped by the firemen.  All they could do was stand there and watch along with everyone else.

When the fire was finally out the office and the lumber shed were virtually destroyed.  When my Dad arrived home I thought that he would start making plans to rebuild as soon as possible.  But I was dead wrong!  After the dust settled my father announced to me, and I assume he had already told my mother, that he had decided to sell the lumber yard property and move all of us to the farm in Mora. 

“NO!!!  I’M NOT GOING!!” was my immediate reaction.  How could my father even think about taking me away from Worthington where I had been born and lived all my life, where all my friends were, my beloved Grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins and our beautiful home!  The old farmhouse in Mora didn’t even have an indoor bathroom!  In my mind my father—William D. Enger—instantly became the meanest man on Earth!

It took a while after that to clean up the lumber yard details and make all the arrangements for the move but true to his word, one year later in October of 1953, Dad, Mom and devastated Me were headed for Mora, Minnesota with all of our worldly belongings.  Looking back I am sure that my Mother was as unhappy as I was, but she went about the process as her usual stoic self.  Whatever Bill wanted to do, that’s what they did and that’s the way it was—always!

Aerial view of the Mora farm in it’s heyday, circa 1960

The farm that I had loved in the summer time now looked old, and dark, and dreary.  I won’t even go into the indignities I suffered by having to use the outhouse that first winter after I was used to my own private bathroom;--and how do you think I felt at age 13 to walk into a brand-new eighth grade class that had already been together for two months and not know even one soul.  Of course everybody stared!

But Mora was a small farming community, and the school was small compared to Worthington.  Most of the kids lived on farms too, and it didn’t take long to make friends, both girls and boys!  Before that first school year was over I had to admit to my parents that I actually liked it there.  It helped that after the spring thaw we were able to install a septic system and a former nursery room on the upper level was converted into a large INDOOR bathroom!

The Enger farm house in Mora, Minnesota

The farmhouse was huge and had been built before 1900, but it had been constructed in the old hand-crafted style, and with a little sprucing up it was actually a beautiful house.  It had dark woodwork and hardwood flooring throughout which was restored to its original beauty   Mom painted all the rooms, which included a big eat-in kitchen, dining room with sitting area (which later became our TV room), a parlor which was hardly ever used, and an office/bedroom on the main floor. Upstairs there were four large bedrooms, the nursery/bathroom, and another steep stairway up to an unfinished attic for the keeping of treasures.  A full cellar underneath housed a huge coal and wood furnace. There was an open porch with columns outside the parlor door, a screened porch facing the road, and a closed-in porch which opened into the kitchen.

My Dad, as usual, jumped into farming with a vengeance.  Before long a brand new milk and hay barn with siloes  was under construction, an old log barn had been torn down and replaced with a new hog house, and since Gale and Billy were moving their families up to join the farming operation, the “little house” was remodeled and two bedrooms added for Gale, Cece and boys. Another farm with a very old house was acquired just down the road where Billie, Ruth and kids would live.  The farming operation was incorporated into “Engco Farms” and was truly diversified, with an award winning dairy herd, sheep, hogs, some beef cows, chickens, and crops such as oats, alfalfa and corn.  Of course all of this activity required lots of labor and my Dad, being a workaholic, was in his glory.  He could sit all day on a tractor and watch the soil turning over behind the plow,which he always said was the most beautiful sight on earth.

Effie, on the other hand, went into kind of a “retreat mode” on the farm.  She didn’t drive so she quit going to church; she and Cece joined the Leisure Hour club in the neighborhood, but she mostly worked at home.  In addition to taking care of the big house, she and Cece were given the added chore of washing milking machines every day, and at harvest time literally “cooking for threshers.”  My belief is that Effie always yearned for her Worthington life but she never complained.

Billy and Gale were not as enamored with farming as was their father.  If you ask Gale even today about his years on the farm he will tell you, “I never want to see a black and white cow again as long as I live!”  When you have a dairy herd, they have to be milked twice a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, and there is no such thing as a day off!  Billy had a herd of milk cows at his farm, and he was expected to do his own work and also work at the “big” farm.  Bill bought another small farm with a lake he called the Cook Farm, and they leased more farming land from the airport, where Gale also started a flying school in his “spare” time. 

I was oblivious to the problems and conflicts that were going on behind the scenes as I was too busy being a teenager, but I later learned that my Mom often took the role of “peacemaker” between Dad and the boys.  Dad didn’t understand Billy’s quiet and easy-going ways, and he and Gale were too much alike in temperament.  Still, at its peak, the Enger farm was a real showplace in Mora and always on the list for one of the top dairy producers.

Dianne Enger at age 15 and a Junior at Mora High

By the time I was 15 years old I believe my middle-aged parents (age 55) were overwhelmed by dealing with a teenager and I pretty much was allowed to do my own thing. I started dating at age 14 and had several boyfriends but nothing serious, until around Christmas time of my sophomore year, I fell head over heels in “love” with a boy two years older and a grade ahead. His name was LeRoy “Roy” Gries, the “tough-guy-leather-jacket” type, a football player, and as handsome as all get out!  He came from a family of six boys and two girls, and he and his brothers had the nickname all through school as “the fighting Gries’s.”  My biology teacher. Miss Rasmussen, warned me several times to stay away from “his type” as it would only lead to trouble, but of course that is exactly the type I wanted!  To make it brief, a year after we started “going steady” we eloped during Christmas vacation in 1955—me just barely 16 and he 18—but that is another story for another time.  The next summer in June of 1956 Roy and I moved to Linch, Wyoming where Hope and Dude were living, and Roy was hired on by Conoco Oil Company, so my parents were finally empty nesters at 56 years of age!

That’s all for now, but this is far from the end of the story.  Stay tuned for the hardest and final chapter in the Bill and Effie Saga, coming soon!