The Norwegians Visit America

John Nickoli passed away at the age of 96, nine years after he returned from Norway. His journey opened the door for Norwegian relatives to visit us in America. The first to arrive was John’s nephew, Kåre Sylvesterson, who came twice while my grandfather was still alive. Although he spoke only Norwegian, there was no language barrier when he was with Erling and Grandpa John. Kåre enjoyed my parents’ home on the waterfront near Deception Pass because the area reminded him of Norway. When he crossed over the mountains to visit us in Wenatchee it was a different story. He could not understand how I chose to live in what he considered to be such an arid, god-forsaken place. He would have been even less impressed with the California desert where we eventually settled.

Twentyfive years later, Lars Åge Nogva, the son of my second cousin, Agate, followed his grandfather, Kåre, to America. By the time Lars Åge arrived, two of our sons were living in San Luis Obispo on the central California coast. He stayed for several days before driving up to western Washington to see for himself why our Norwegian ancestors had decided to settle in that part of the new world. He was able to contact Ingvald Jacobson’s daughter, Irene, at the family homestead on Lake Campbell near Anacortes. Irene had moved from Morro Bay back to Washington after her husband was lost at sea. His commercial tuna boat mysteriously vanished 75 miles off the California coast on its maiden voyage in 1969. Irene’s son, John Dahl, would have been on the boat if he had not enrolled in college weeks earlier.

Lars Åge also drove through Lakewood where Ingvald’s brothers planted their roots. The area had changed dramatically after the farms were sold. A public high school occupied the pastures where Nils’ cows once grazed, and the traditional old Lutheran church had been replaced by a modern structure with a completely different aesthetic appeal. Gone, too, was the Rasmus Jensen blacksmith’s shop where horses were shod and plough shares forged. Trains still passed through the town but they no longer stopped.

There was no visible dairy activity on John’s property nearby. Economies of scale made forty-acre farms unprofitable, and wetland issues limited the possibilities of future development. Badly in need of a new coat of paint, the old red barn stood proud but unoccupied. No longer were young boys leaping from perches high in the loft onto mounds of freshly cured hay. John had boasted in letters to Nesna that his was the nicest barn in Lakewood. The claim could still be made because urban sprawl had overtaken the community, and there were few barns left.

Demographics had changed as well. The immigrant community, which was once so solidly Norwegian that even Swedes felt out of place, came to reflect the diversity of our population as a whole. Ethnicity was a source of security and pride for my grandmother. When a second generation middle European named Crishano bought John Anderson’s neighboring farm, Anna lamented, “Johnny, Lakewood is going to the dogs, all these foreigners are moving in.”  Lars Åga’s sister, Kristi Lizbeth, followed him to America with her husband, Jon Marstol, and their daughter, Marte. We arranged for them to stay at the five-star Marriott Desert Springs Hotel in Palm Desert, California. Marte later returned with a friend on a one-way trip around the world.

When Marte’s brothers Stein Erik and Tore Marstol arrived, they were invited to join us for dinner at the winter residence of Art and Marianne Skotdal in Palm Desert. The Skotdal family owned a successful real estate development company in Everett, Washington, located fifteen miles south of my grandfather’s farm. We were all related through Art’s grandmother, Mathinka, who had followed her older brothers to America in 1904.

Stein Erik and Tore expressed an interest in attending an American rock concert. When asked if they had a favorite group, they answered, “Queens of the Stone Age,” not knowing that the lead singer, Josh Homme, had been a classmate of our youngest son at Palm Desert High School. Unfortunately, the band was on a European tour at the time. As a consolation, we were able to put the boys on the phone for a conversation with Homme’s mother, Irene. I think they were impressed. (Josh Homme was not with his other band, “The Eagles of Death Metal,” in 2015 when eighty-nine people were killed in a terrorist attack at the Bataclan theater in Paris.)

Mikael’s daughter, Zoe, was only a year old when the youngest of the Nogva siblings arrived in 2006. He gave her a cuddly stuffed animal that she named “Skjlag, the Bear” in his remembrance. It remains a favorite and still sits in the corner of her bedroom.

*Tragedy stalked Ingvald’s family. A young son drowned after falling through the ice on a nearby lake. In 1924, their house burned to the ground. Irene was only two years old at the time. Invald died in 1937 after falling from the roof of a barn under construction.