In the last 120 years communication around the globe has really changed. I wish I could tell my Grandfather how easy it is to talk to our cousins in Norway in 2020. I just meet a new one on Facebook this week!

My Grandfather, Andrew Anderson left Norway and arrived in America in 1904. Through the years he was in contact with his family through letters which at times of good/bad news were fairly frequent but at other times were scarce. He often received a post card like this birthday greeting from his Grandmother in the early years in America.

During WWII any mail sent to or from Norway was subject to search by the Germans who occupied Norway. If the mail was deemed inappropriate, it would be confiscated. The following is an envelope from a letter which Hans sent to Andrew. In the letter he tells of his wife’s death just before the war. He assures his son that he is in good heath and safe. The seal on the envelope allowed the mail to continue on it way to America and proves that it was read.

After Andrews father died in 1946, Andrew seem to quit communication with his sister-in-law, Anna, for a time. Anna had legal obligations that she had to do to close Hans’ estate. She pleaded with him for answers. She was left in Norway to handle these details with Andrew in America and Haakon in Japan. Her requests seemed to go unheard by Andrew. She begins to think she doesn’t have the right address.

Haakon was a fairly frequent writer from China and Japan. Being a missionary and away from his family for long stretches of time, letters were his only way of communicating. Andrew seemed to answer his letters but it may have been his wife, Addie who was pushing him. Haakon wrote to him in Norwegian so he had read them, Addie could not. When Addie died, Andrew wrote his brother. As the years went by so, the length of time between letters grew and the communication became less and less.

When Andrew died in 1971 and my mother found his letters from Norway which of course were in Norwegian and she was unable to read them. They were wrapped in a bundle and placed in his top drawer of his dresser. She had found an address for Anna, the woman she knew who was her Aunt so she sent her a note to tell her of Andrew’s death. She had no way to know if she would get it or not. It was returned, address unknown and was lost.

In January of 1972, my Mother got a phone call from a man in Minnesota who introduced himself as “a cousin of Sigrunn Ingwardo”. Mom did not recognize the name except Ingwardo .  He explained that she had married my mother’s cousin, Bjarne Ingwardo. Now that name she knew was her cousin in Norway. Bjarne and Sigrunn were planning a trip the America to visit family in Minnesota and were hoping that they could visit Bjarne’s family in Michigan also while they were in America. This January phone call established contact with the Norwegian and American cousins after a decade of silence.

Bjarne and Sigruun came that summer to visit and we all had a wonderful time getting to know each other. Before Bjarne and Sigrunn left to go back to Norway, my parents had already made plans to visit Norway the next summer. I was married and had a nine month old son so I stayed with my siblings while Mom and Dad took their trip. Mom and Dad met the whole family including the children.  My Father took a lot of photos.

Soon after this trip that my younger sister, Sharon and our cousin Rita became pen pals. For several years Rita and Sharon corresponded regularly.

My Mother was finally able to give Anna the news of Andrews death and we were given the news that Haakon had died the year before Andrew.  My Mother corresponded with her Aunt Anna after they returned but eventually Aunt Anna died and the letters stop too.

In 1997 I started my family history search adventure. It was after my Dad had died in 1996. About 2000, I started working on the Norwegian side of the family. I used a tool that I frequently used on RootsWeb. I posted a message on a Norway message board trying to locate Ingwardo family members in Olso. Within 24 hours, I had a response. A kind fellow Norwegian researcher, gave me postal addresses and a couple of email address.

The first email I had was to Olaf Ingwardo. Olaf was Bjarne’s older brother, I remember him from my Mother and Dad’s trip. I sent him an email and explained to him who I was and that I was trying to connect with my Norwegian relatives. We conversed quite regularly for about 18 months.

He caught me up on the family news. He told me about his three daughters and their families. He told me that Bjarne  and Sigrunn had divorced. and that he had moved to Copenhagen and had married a Danish woman. He told me that Sigrunn had died. He told me that he had divorced.

Through our email conversations I determined that he seemed angry and a bit bitter. in one email I wanted to talk to him about his father who had been a missionary in China.  I got an earful. I learned that I had to be careful with the topics of our conversations. He was bitter about the German occupation of Norway during Worlds War II, Anna and her children were in Norway and Haakon was stuck on China. Life was difficult for Anna and the children in Oslo. My Mother was still alive then and I told her about what Olaf had said. She said that they had been warned when the visited Norway that Olaf was bitter about the war and it was probably not a good conversation topic…

All the while that Olaf and I are conversing I assume that he is sharing news about the relatives in America with Bjarne and his sisters. One day he sent me a short email.  He told me that he was going to have to go to the hospital. I knew that he had some medical issues but did not know anything specific. I told him that I would pray for him and that unleashed a scathing email about God. I was stunned. He was convinced that there was no such thing as God or why would he have placed Anna and the kids in Norway and Haakon in China during the war. I was speechless. I did not know what to say. It was the last email I received from Olaf.

I waited about three weeks and I sent an email stating that I hoped he was ok and recovering…no response. Waited another three weeks, no response. Sent an apology, no response. After many months of no response I wondered if maybe he had died. So I went out to my Rootsweb Message board and sent a message looking for a Ingwardo in Denmark. Once again, within twenty four hours I received a response. They gave me a postal address to Bjarne Ingwardo in Glostrup, Denmark.

I wrote Bjarne a letter and mailed it on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in 2004. In my letter I included my address and phone number. At the time, I was living in the suburbs of Chicago. On Memorial Day, I received a phone call “ Hello Janet, This is your cousin Bjarne in Denmark! Have you had a good Memorial Day Holiday? “ I was stunned. Bjarne confirmed what I suspect. Olaf had died during his hospital visit. He had no idea that Olaf and I had been conversing for the last two years. We spoke on the phone several time in the next few weeks as he made plans to visit us.

Bjarne and Ingrid arrived on Tuesday after Father’s Day 2004 and stay for nearly three weeks. He spent most of the first week with us and I took them to see the sights of Chicago. Then I drove them to my Mother’s house in Harbor Beach where they spent a week with the family members there. My brother from Grand Rapids came and got him in Harbor Beach and the last week I went to Grand Rapids to retrieve them for their flight back to Denmark. From this time on we have been able to maintain fairly regular communication with Bjarne and Ingrid by phone and through the internet.

In 2009, my Mother died. After all the legal stuff was taken care of we, all six of her children, decided that we would take apart of our money and we would go visit Bjarne in Denmark and hopefully Norway as well. So we contacted Bjarne in the spring of 2010 and asked it we could come for a visit in September of 2010. He told us that they would be delighted to have us and asked if they could come to visit us in time for our Annual Camping trip during the summer.

 

We visited Denmark in September of 2010. In the middle of our trip we took an overnight cruise across the North Sea to Oslo where we finally got to meet our cousin Rita in person. She became our tour guide for the day as she proudly showed us Oslo. It was a wonderful tour but much too short.

I had spent many months of researching, translating and pouring over Norwegian databases. I had learned that our Grandfather was from Tjome which was an Island located on the south west side of the Oslo Fjord. While we were cruising back to Denmark about dinner time I stopped to look at the GPS map which showed me the ships current location. I was just in time to see that we were passing Tjome.  I knew someday I would return.

We speak with Ingrid, Bjarne’s wife regularly thru the internet. He is aging and his health is not good. In 2016, my sister, Sharon and my sister-in-law, Diane visited Germany when my niece Kelsey was studying abroad. During their two weeks in Germany they decided to take the train to Denmark to surprise Bjarne and Ingrid with a visit.  During that trip Sharon convinced Rita to come to Denmark to visit from Norway. They were ecstatic when she came too.

In 2017, my sister Sharon purposed that we (she and I) should go to see Bjarne since his health has been getting so much worse. She reasoned that it would not cost much because we had already done a lot of sight seeing. We would not need to do any of that!

After a bit of thought, I told her that I agreed but I was not going to go all the way to Denmark and not go to Norway. I said the trip would have to include Norway for a few days so we could visit Tjome.

Since our visit in 2010, I had made several important contacts in Tjome. I had met Inger Zeiner who was the great niece of our Great Grandfather’s second wife, Matilde.  She had helped me to fill in many holes in our Norwegian heritage. What Inger could not tell me, her friend Lars could. I had written a lengthy article for their historical society biannual publication called Tjome, about Andrew, our Grandfather and his life in America. They were looking for a Tjome native who immigrated. Where did they go and what did they do?

So we quickly formulated our plan which included Norway. She casually mentioned to her son Zach, that we were planning to go and he decided to make the trip with us. Personally I think that he thought that she and I should not do this trip alone. Bless his heart!

It was important to us to meet Bjarne’s children so we can stay in contact with our Norwegian Family.  Its quite easy these days to communicate with family around the world. I have connected with Bjarne and Olaf’s, children and grandchildren through Facebook and on the internet. And we stay in touch with Bjarne through his wife Ingrid.

What a difference 120 years makes for communicating. It is totally amazing.

Happy Hunting.

Jan