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015 NAME: His name is Peder Garberg and he was born in Selbu,
Norway on December 8, 1898.
023 PARENTS: His parents were Ingebrikt and Kari. They were
farmers. Both of them were from Selbu.
034 CHILDHOOD HOME: Peder grew up on a farm. They had a little
dairy. The farm owned some forest area, in which they logged
every year. Since he was young, he worked in the forest. They
logged in the fall and transported the logs to a sawmill where
his dad sold the lumber. They had 6-8 cows, some sheep, and
a few goats. There were four children in the family. His oldest
brother was Ingebrikt. He also had a sister, Ane, and Peder's
younger brother Arne who died during a flu epidemic in 1919,
a couple of years after Peder left. Ane stayed in Norway and
took over the home farm. Her son is running the farm now. Ingebrikt
Jr. died rather young, 42 years old. Ingebrikt Jr. went to college
and became a teacher. There were four teachers in the family.
His mother's brother had two boys and two girls. They all went
to college and ended up as teachers. Another one of his mother's
brother had a son who also was a teacher.
108 RELATIVES IN AMERICA: His dad visited the U.S. before Peder
left Selbu. Ingebrikt Sr. had five brothers. Five out of the
six brothers had been in America. Some of the brothers returned
and some stayed their entire life. Three of his brothers were
in Alaska during the gold rush in Klondike and Nome. Two returned
to Norway. Peder's father returned to Norway after four years.
Peder's uncle Pete was in America for about seventeen years
before he returned around 1906, when the gold rush slowed down.
Uncle Chris returned in 1910, he had been in America for around
nineteen years. Chris did well in the gold rush, but lost a
lot of it in a bank in Norway. Uncle Andreas lived in America
and died in Seattle. He bought a place, broke up some land,
and built a nice home there. Uncle Pete was married and bought
a farm in Norway. Peder came over in 1917. His uncle in Seattle
had died a couple of years before Peder went to America.
169 FATHER IN AMERICA: His father was in Minneapolis, MN, where
he worked at a sawmill and in lumber camps in northern Minnesota.
He was not married at the time. He returned to Selbu and bought
a place, got married, and traded with his oldest brother, Pål,
for the home place. The oldest son was supposed to take over
the farm. Peder's father was number 3, out of the 6 brothers.
Pål had been in America as well, in Seattle. Pål did not marry
and he never had children. It was a pattern for young men to
go to America to earn money and then return. A lot came back,
but several did not.
210 PEDER'S REASON FOR GOING TO AMERICA: The lust for adventure
helped Peder decide to go to America. Two neighboring boys were
going and he joined them because his brother was going to inherit
the farm. One of the two he traveled with also went to LaCrosse,
WA.
227 WORKING ON THE FARM: After confirmation he did the same
work. He transported logs the last winter he was in Norway.
He was eighteen at that time. The sawmill was close to the farm
in the mountain and he used a horse and a sleigh to transport
the lumber to the mill. Peder's father worked with him for a
while, they had two horses, and after a while they hired one
of the neighbors to help them. When spring came, he transported
the timber to the highway. He received some money from the family
to go to America. This was the only money he obtained for the
work he did on the farm.
257 TRAVEL TO AMERICA: The ticket to America cost 440 NOK, which
included transport from Trondheim, Norway to LaCrosse, WA. To
be able to enter America in New York you had to show that you
had 25 dollars and you had to have an address of the person
you were traveling to. He did not have any addresses because
he did not know any people there. When they were on Ellis Island,
they were divided into lines to get their train tickets. They
were supposed to call the person they had an address for. The
immigrants were stacked like sardines. The boy he traveled with
was ahead of him in line, so he had his train ticket long before
Peder got his. Peder went to the Norwegian Seaman's Mission
after he got his ticket and the Norwegians were supposed to
wait until their train departed. When the neighbor boy did not
see Peder, he thought he was lost, and went back to Ellis Island
to look for Peder. They met when Peder was getting his train
tickets. Then they walked together, Peder missed the telephone
booth, or they missed him, so he did not call anybody here in
America. Both were headed for the same farm in LaCrosse, WA
and they traveled together until they got to LaCrosse.
299 SEAMAN'S MISSION: They had a room and had something to eat.
They had to wait there for quite a while before they boarded
the train.
307 IMMIGRATION: Peder had information about the railroad from
Norway. They were in Oslo for 3-4 days and before they got on
the boat they had to show papers to the American Consulate there,
so his papers were cleared back in Norway. They arrived in New
York in the morning. The American citizens on board could walk
ashore immediately. Peder and his friend had to wait on the
boat until the next morning because they were immigrants. Then
they were allowed to go to Ellis Island. They were split into
lines according to what railroad you were going on. If you did
not know what company was the right one, you had to look at
the company name, and try to figure out what the right one was
and then take a chance with one window. If that was not correct,
a person had to try to find another line, and stand in line
all over again.
341 TRIP TO AMERICA: Peder and his friend went by train from
Trondheim to Oslo and boarded "Bergensfjord" in Oslo, heading
for New York. The weather was good, so it was a nice trip. They
witnessed a burial at sea. A woman died so they stopped the
boat. They had the body in a wooden box on the upper deck. The
captain gave a service speech and the box were lowered it into
the water. Almost a week into the trip they picked up a fisherman
from Newfoundland, Peder thinks he was Portuguese. He had lost
orientation and had drifted away from the big ship he was on.
The fisherman was sitting in a small rowboat without an engine.
"Bergensfjord" picked him and took him along to New York. There
were several people on deck when the fisherman was rescued.
People knew something was going to happen since the ship suddenly
stopped and started to turn. Peder was in his room and when
he looked out the window, he saw something on the water. Peder
got scared because this was during World War I and he thought
it was a submarine. The trip happened in August, so the weather
was warm and nice.
392 DECIDING TO GO TO LACROSSE: Peder came to LaCrosse because
his friend talked to someone in Norway who had been in LaCrosse
before. That person had worked in the woods in Spokane and on
the farms during the harvest. Lumberjacks usually worked in
the forest during the winter and helped with the harvest when
it was necessary. Peder's friend had gotten the name and address
for someone in LaCrosse that could help them. Peder's friend
name was Per Garberg but they were not related. The farmer in
LaCrosse was named Haldor Kjøsnes, but he was not related to
Peder's wife, who was born Kjøsnes. Kjøsnes and Garberg are
common names from Selbu.
420 ARRIVING IN LACROSSE: Peder and Per came to LaCrosse on
August 7. They had gotten a name of a doctor in LaCrosse that
could speak Norwegian, so Peder contacted him. The doctor knew
two boys, Tim and Tom, who worked on a farm. They were in the
LaCrosse delivering a load of wheat. Per and Peder contacted
them and rode with them from LaCrosse to the farm on the empty
wheat wagon the same evening.
He does not remember much about his first arrival in LaCrosse
because he was very tired. He does remember that it was very
warm and he had very warm clothes.
441 TRAIN TO LACROSSE: Peder did not sleep much on the train
because it was an uncomfortable trip. The train was a combination
of passenger and freight train. They had first class tickets
but they were not able to use them. Peder and Per came through
Chicago and Omaha, Nebraska. He also came to Pendleton, Oregon,
where he changed trains. They got to Pendleton during the night;
he was very tired and laid down on the lawn to sleep. Then they
traveled on the WRN from Pendleton to LaCrosse. They bought
the food they ate on the train. They also bought some cured
meat from Norway. On the ship a rat smelled the meat and managed
to eat some of the meat.
470 "BERGENSFJORD": From England he took the boat to Halifax,
Nova Scotia because of World War I. The Englishmen examined
the boat for propaganda and spies and they looked through everything.
They stayed in Halifax for two days before they were allowed
to continue to New York.
480 LEAVING NORWAY: He did not make any plans when he left.
He had not told his parents if he was returning. Before Peder
left, friends of his parents called and told his parents that
they should not let Peder go to America. His mother answered
that there were five people in the close family that had lived
there before, so Peder was not the first person to go. His father
had been there before, but did not say much, except that he
told him to stay out of the cities and work on a farm.
495 ON THE WIGEN FARM AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: Peder worked
the first winter on the Wigen farm with Wigen's two sons. The
eldest married and had four small children, which gave him several
opportunities to learn the new language. Wigen had a four-year
old girl that tried to help him all the time. Peder stayed there
until the next spring. Wigen had another hired man and Peder
was offered a better deal on another farm. He worked on several
different farms for the next four years, until he leased his
own farm in the area.
513 SALARY AND WORKDAY: The usual arrangement was $60 a month
with free room and board. The salary could be better in the
harvest season, but the average salary in spring was $60 a month.
Jobs in the field were easy to find when Peder arrived in LaCrosse.
He usually got up at 4am. The horses were out during the night
so they needed to be gathered and fed before they could start
working in the field. They were not finished until 7-8pm in
the evening. Peder did not get much time off to go into the
city. The salary in the harvest season also depended on the
job you had. The farms usually used a stationary thresher. Wagons
with four horses transported the crops to the machine. Working
in the field was three dollars a day, feeding the thresher was
four dollars, if you worked filling the wheat in the sacks,
the salary was five dollars a day. That was a difficult job,
especially on the machine. That was very hard, could be 500
sacks. On a combine, there was a chute on the side, where the
sacks were dropped. That was not so hard. A sack could weigh
about 145-150 lb. Peder worked with the sacks for one season,
and he remembers getting tired after a day's work with the sacks.
He worked mostly for Norwegian farmers.
563 LEASING HIS OWN FARM: Most of the people were satisfied
with the farming they were doing. Peder did not think of going
anywhere else, so he leased a farm in the area for 41 years,
until it was sold and he bought his own house in Spokane. The
lease was dependent on the crops and the rule was that the landlord
received one-third of the crops. He paid the lease from 1921-1927
until the man that owned the place said that Peder could have
the place without paying lease as long as the owners lived.
Peder ran the farm until 1962. When the owner died, the three
sisters took over the lease and they wanted to sell the farm
in 1962. The farm was small, 320 acres and it was a wheat farm.
Peder had some milk cows, some chickens, and some hogs. The
property was never for sale, so he never had an option to buy
the farm.
593: PRICE OF LAND: The price of land in 1921 was around $60
an acre. In 1928, a neighbor sold for $80 an acre. Then the
Depression came and brought very hard times. In 1931, 800 acres
that partly bordered Peder's place was for sale. This piece
of land could be bought for $37 an acre because people did not
have any money. Now the land sells for around $1,000 an acre
in the area.
612 MARRIAGE: Knew his wife, Brynhild Kjøsnes, from the time
he came to LaCrosse, because he used to visit her parents on
Sundays after he got there. He was working on the Wigen place,
and Brynhild's parents owned the neighboring farm. He had brought
some things for Brynhild's sister from Norway. Peder and Brynhild
were married in Spokane, WA at the Old Holiday Hotel, in the
manager's apartment. Her parents were there for the ceremony,
with Peder's brother and Per Kjøsnes. A Lutheran Pastor, John
Rockne, conducted the ceremony from Our Savior Lutheran Church.
The sermon was conducted in Norwegian. They did not go on a
wedding trip; they went directly back to the farm. The weddings
were usually completed in Spokane at that time.
637 CAR: His first car in America was a 1917 T-Ford, which he
bought from the person who had leased the farm before him. He
bought the car along with nine horses, three cows, some hogs,
and chickens. Peder had not driven a car much before so the
oldest brother on the Wigen farm gave Peder driving lessons.
The Wigen's had an old Dodge. Peder had the car until 1928,
when he bought the first four-door A-Ford in LaCrosse.
SIDE 2
066 ADVICE FROM UNCLE: He decided to go to LaCrosse because
Per had contacts there. He did not know what America looked
like, except that Uncle Chris said that he should go to Seattle.
Chris and Uncle Pete worked in Alaska in the summer and spent
the winter in Seattle. Pål owned some land not far from Seattle.
Pål married in Norway and visited America frequently. Chris
told Peder to avoid LaCrosse and go to the West Coast instead.
Chris had been in LaCrosse before and he did not like the area.
Chris had visited a first cousin here, Mrs. Karlsen. He usually
visited here in the spring when it was dusty. Peder never went
to Seattle. Uncle Andreas had a nice house by Lake Washington
but he married a bad woman.
143 LIVING IN AMERICA: Not everyone had it as good as Peder
in America. The majority stayed in LaCrosse, but some returned
to Norway. There are mostly 3rd and 4th generation living in
LaCrosse now.
170 CITIZENSHIP: Peder became an American citizen in 1936. For
the exam he studied the American government. Both had to take
the exam to be able to stay. A Federal examiner held the exam
from the superior court. The exam was held in the Colfax county
superior court, in Colfax, WA. The examiner had one big question:
"Have you ever heard of the checks and the balance system in
our Government?" Peder knew the answer and explained it in detail
to the examiner. The examiner answered: You have been studying,
I see." He had no special reason why he took the citizenship
exam in 1936. The exam looked hard and someone he knew had been
there before and gotten turned down. His wife took the same
exam a few years later.
218 CHILDREN: Their oldest daughter Clara was born October 4,
1922. Clara was married twice; her first husband owned a sanitary
service in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. She had gone to Business
College, so she was the bookkeeper. Clara's husband passed away
in 1951 and left her with four boys, and 3-4 trucks and 8 men
working in the business. She ran the business for some years,
before she remarried. She is a head cook for a retirement home,
run by the church in the area. They serve several hundred people
there every day. The kitchen is run on charity basis, and they
serve mostly senior citizens.
Their son Irwin was born on August 17, 1925. He is married and
has three sons, Earl, Paul, and Gerry. Gerry is living in New
York and is a graduate from Columbia University. After he was
in the military for four years, Irwin went to trade school to
become a mechanic. Now he is a shop clerk for At CAT-dealer
in the area.
Sadie was born on July 6, 1928 and is married to a farmer, Gene
Allen and they own a farm south of Spokane, in Valleyford, WA.
Phyllis was born on September 5, 1935 and she went through Business
College and works for a bank/credit card company in Spokane.
She is married to John Maynor and has two boys, Jeffrey, and
Kevin. They are both married and have children as well.
318 COMMUNITY/NORWEGIAN GROUPS: They attended church activities
in the Selbu-Lutheran Church. All activities were conducted
in Norwegian until they built a new church. Then the congregation
got a new pastor who knew Norwegian, so he preached both in
Norwegian and English. The church was a part of "Den Norsk-Lutherske
Kirke I Amerika." In 1931, all the sermons were conducted in
English, because the young people did not know the Norwegian
language. The name of the church was changed to the Evangelican
Lutheran Church. Peder and Brynhild belonged to this church
until 1962, when they joined the American Lutheran Church in
Spokane.
In the beginning, the congregation shared pastor with Moscow,
ID. Pastor Hall was the last one of them; he was there until
1918. The pastors lived in Moscow and came down on the train.
The pastor stayed on the different farms when he was visiting
the area around LaCrosse. The church building was about 8 miles
from the town. The church was located in the center of the area,
in which the Norwegians lived. Land was donated from the farmers
to build the church. They had problems gathering funds for building
the church, and getting the pastor there, but that is the same
today.
401 TRIP TO NORWAY: They were in Norway for a visit in 1964.
That is the only time they went back. The trip was much quicker
than when they left for America. They went on a plane from Spokane
to Trondheim, via New York, Denmark, and Oslo. Peder's sister
and her husband met them at the airport. The biggest change
was that people had cars; cars did not exist in Selbu before
they immigrated. Farming methods were different. The land was
steeper in Selbu, Peder's father used to farm it all, and they
used a scythe to harvest the crops. Now the farmers used silos,
but several still hang the hay on racks to dry. His nephew used
a hay-dryer on his farm. The timber was logged differently.
Cutting in 1964 was much more systematic, they cut it all, and
new trees were replanted. Earlier they cut one tree here and
one tree there. He did not like the new method.
458 NORWEGIAN HERITAGE: Peder does not feel that there is anything
special with the Norwegians; a person's personality determines
who the person is no matter where they are. He does not feel
anything special about being a Norwegian. Peder does not think
that there is much difference in any nations. Peder has not
passed on anything special to his kids. He gave his kids American
names because he was in America, and he felt that that was the
way it should be.
511 NORWEGIAN NEWSPAPERS: He subscribed to "Decorah Posten"
and later the "Western Viking." Peder's sister sends him the
local newspaper from his hometown, "Selbyggen."
522 CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION IN NORWAY: (This part is conducted
in Norwegian): They ate lefse, fattigmann (Christmas cookie),
and brewed their own beer. Peder had two weeks off during Christmas,
from December 25 to January 13. They did not keep many of the
Christmas traditions when he came to LaCrosse.
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