Family Reunion

I’m on the Fjordveien, a rather small ship, leaving Karmoy Island after 3 days of family, family, family. (Karmoy is located at the southwestern corner of Norway between Bergen and Stavanger.) The sea is a bit choppy and the wind is blowing as we leave Skudeneshavn (Skudenes Harbor) at the very southern tip of Karmoy (-oy on the end of a word means island). It is an idyllic old port with white, wooden houses along narrow street and another PPLH(picture perfect little harbor). It’s quite something to meet about 80 people that I’m directly related to through our mutual grandfather, David Slaattebrekk. He has evolved from a handsome, sturdy, young man in the formal wedding portrait that I grew up with to a 130 kilo (X 2.2 for pounds) man who was very strong, had an easy laugh, was interested in everything, loved to talk to the neighbors, and all the grandkids loved him. He never finished anything--he would start a task like plowing the field and always find something better to do and call my Uncle Lauritz over to finish it for him! His house was filled with unfinished writings and research on various subjects.  Now, my grandmother is another story--contrary to the story my father told me -that his mother died when he was born in 1911, and gave that for the reason he grew up in a town named Hjelmeland with his maternal grandmother--all of Dad's four sibling were borne between 1913 and 1923 by his mother, Berta Elisabet Lauritsdatter who appears in in the same wedding portrait as a delicate, beautiful young woman in a bejeweled bunad. She actually died in 1941 after 10 years in bed and none of my first cousins remember her or have heard anything about her from their parents. In fact, my cousin, David, said his father, Uncle Lauritz, must have had some bad feelings towards his mother and would never mention her. None of their five children are alive now.

I am from the oldest generation alive now-- the first cousins. All of my first cousins that are still living came to the reunion except my two brothers. I have a cousin in Oslo, one in Bergen and another from a small town further up the west coast, but most live within a few miles of the farm where my great grandfather was born in 1851, my grandfather in 1886 and my father in 1911 and has been owned by his family for hundreds of years prior to that. I thought the reason that I didn’t know much about my Norwegian family was my father’s immigration and how quiet and reserved he was—as someone told me once “you Goddam, silent Scandanavian”—guess that was true for not only my father, but also for his whole family! My cousins, with one exception, know less about the family than I do! And much of what we think we know wasn’t true! Uncle Lauritz once took a train back home rather than ask for direction from a stranger. Aunt Helene talked incessently, but when it came to any family information that my cousin wanted to know, she clammed up sayinng, "certain things are better left unsaid." My Aunt Tora was an attractive young woman who suffered from severe depression and cousins only remember her as sitting in her chair and speaking "ja" (yes) and "nei" (no). Aunt Berta Davida is a shadow figure who no one said anything about.

First a little history about the region my family lives. Norway has been inhabited since the last ice age, but Norway as a country came into being in 872 when Harald Fairhair , one of the constantly battling chieftans, won a battle near Stavanger, conquered many other provinces and declared himself the first King of Norway. It took many more years, lots of bloody battles by mostly cruel and oppressive Kings with names like Eric Blood Axe to achieve actual unification of Norway’s far flung kingdoms . As the Viking age ended after 250 years of terrorizing the coasts of Europe and Leif Eriksson’s discovery of North America in 1001 (the Scandanavian historians are much kinder to the Vikings and prefer to focus on their trade and colonization of previously uninhabited places such as Greenland, Iceland and Orkney and Shetland Islands.) Karmoy's history dates back to the saga times when it was the “northway” shipping lanes that gave Norway it’s name. My cousin, Oskar, lives in Kopervik where burial hills, mounds, and stone pillars have revealed habitation back to the Bronze Age. He and his son, Knut, took me to the small town of Avaldsnes and St. Olaf’s church, built in 1248, where his mother-my aunt is buried. Near the wall of the church is a strange, 20 foot tall stone monolith leaning close to the church wall called St. Mary’s needle. Oskar said when the stone touches the wall Judgement Day will come and it’s currently just inches from the wall! The above King Harald Fairhair was always believed to live near and in the last two years, an archaeological dig adjacent to St. Olaf’s church has been ongoing on the site where artifacts were discovered during plowing of a field—they now know it’s the castle of this first king of Norway. The historic town of Ferkingstad 8 miles up the west coast a is where my father’s family’s farm is located at a district called Vikra. There are many small farms all over Norway and all are recorded in record books that are now available online and my cousin showed me the entry for Vikra farm #7 and a list of who has owned and lived on the farm. My father as the oldest son would have inherited this farm, but since he was in America, the next male, my Uncle Lauritz, inherited it on the death of my grandfather in 1956. All the houses in the neighborhood are owned by family members including a large white clapboard house that my great uncle Jacob built after working in America for several years at the turn of the 20^thcentury. Currently, several of my first cousins seen in the picture have houses clustered around each other on the farm. Interestingly, the original house, mostly dating from 1816 was sold by my cousin Liv Karin (the one in the Norwegian costume earlier) a few years ago to a Norwegian woman who lives in England and uses it as a summer residence!

It is almost claustrophobic to see all of this, hear my father’s history, and think about how most of the family reside in such close proximity to each other. Young people move into family homes and some build new homes close to their parents. In Norway, as almost everywhere else there is an exodus to bigger cities like Oslo and Bergen, but not for my family.