Janet Elaine Guthrie - New Land, New Lives: Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest

New Land, New Lives

Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest

NEW LAND
NEW LIVES

Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest

Janet E. Rasmussen

Foreword by Odd S. Lovoll

Norwegian-American Historical Association Northfield, Minnesota

University of Washington Press Seattle & London

Copyright 1993 by the Norwegian-American Historical Association

Second printing, 1994

Printed in the United States of America

Typesetting by Charles Ellertson,

Paste-up by Steve Frame,

Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Design by Audrey Johansen Meyer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rasmussen, Janet Elaine.

New land, new lives : Scandinavian immigrants to the Pacific Northwest / Janet E. Rasmussen ; foreword by Odd S. Lovoll. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-0-295-97711-9

1. Scandinavian AmericansNorthwest, PacificSocial life and customs. 2. Scandinavian AmericansAlaskaSocial life and customs. 3. Scandinavian AmericansNorthwest, PacificInterviews. 4. Scandinavian AmericansAlaskaInterviews. 5. ImmigrantsNorthwest, PacificInterviews. 6. ImmigrantsAlaskaInterviews. 7. Northwest, PacificSocial life and customs. 8. AlaskaSocial life and customs. I. Title.F855.2.S18R371993

979.5004395dc2093-22999CIP

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Contents

Foreword

I n New Land, New Lives, Janet E. Rasmussen tells us what she, as a thoughtful and compassionate listener, found to be instructive and emblematic in the personal accounts of ordinary people whom she and her assistants interviewed orally over a period of several years. The narrators all shared a common experience of emigration from one of the Nordic countriesNorway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, or Icelandand they all found a home in the Pacific Northwest.

Their evocative recollections cover a broad array of human experiences, ranging from the festive to the mundane tasks of everyday living, and give precious insights into their time and place in history. They all emigrated as children or young adults during the early decades of this century. Distant memories and emotions are recaptured as retrospective accounts of their childhood surroundings in the old country, the meaning of their arrival in America, and their lives as strangers in a new land. Here they for the most part entered the culture of the working class in occupational pursuits common to the earlier Nordic immigrants settling on the west coast of the United States. It is the voices of unknown everyday people, the participants in history who rarely speak directly to us, that we hear in these life histories.

Janet Rasmussen demonstrates her mastery of oral history in these interviews. She uses them with great care, with sensitivity, and with knowledge of the literature on the investigative techniques. She thereby avoids the pitfalls associated with this kind of documentation. The recorded narratives ring true to the historical situation and provide vivid impressions only possible in oral history of individual attitudes and values. She is currently Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Modern Languages at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Rasmussens major scholarly focus, as evidenced in publications of high merit, has been on women and their life choices. In addition to a series of in-depth studies of Norwegian female literary figures, she has investigated and published articles on domestic service, marriage patterns, familial values, and feminist ideologies among Scandinavian immigrant women. Some of the latter pieces grew out of the same project as the present oral history anthology.

Finally, I wish to thank the University of Washington Press, and most especially its managing editor Julidta Tarver, for enjoyable and efficient collaboration on this important project. And, again, it is my pleasure to acknowledge with much gratitude the contributions of Mary R. Hove, my editorial assistant, in preparing the manuscript for publication.

Odd S. Lovoll, Editor

The Norwegian-American Historical Association

St. Olaf College

Preface

A n experimental course on Scandinavian women in the Pacific Northwest that I taught during the spring of 1979 provided the initial impetus for documenting the life experiences of Scandinavian immigrants. My students eagerly sought out local female informants in order to learn about such things as food traditions, home remedies, and ethnic organizations. At the same time, they learned the value of first-person testimony.

In the months that followed, two of the students and I launched, with support from the Presidents Office at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), the recording of oral history interviews with persons of Scandinavian heritage. For this pilot project, we focused on individuals who had played important roles in the history of the university.

Expansion of the collecting effort was made possible by a two-year grant from the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation of Oakland, California. The grant allowed us to define a broader target populationfirst-generation Scandinavians who had settled in the Pacific Northwest during the early decades of the twentieth century. The grant-sponsored interviewing and tape processing began in 1981, with dedicated involvement by several PLU students, former students, and staff members. Additional funding for the development of an oral history archive came from the Joel E. Ferris Foundation of Spokane, Washington, and the Norwegian Emigration Fund of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo.

The resulting oral history archive is housed in the Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Collection in the Robert A. L. Mortvedt Library at Pacific Lutheran University. The interview material presented here has been drawn exclusively from that archive. As such, it represents a new source of information about the Scandinavian presence in North America.

I am very grateful for the capable assistance rendered by fellow interviewers Inger Nygaard Carr, Cynthia S. Klein, Donna Mallonee, and Morrene Head Nesvig. Serving as student assistants for the project were Linda Carlson, Carol Skog Fox, Becky Husby, Kimberly Labes, Andrea Leuenberger, Phillip Nelson, Karen Olson, Julie Peterson, Patricia Sargent, Laura Schubert, and Laurie Stumme. Media services supervisor Layne Nordgren and his student assistant Damon Kirk helped with specific tasks, as did community volunteer Patricia Nelson. As Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Molly Edman facilitated the requisite outside funding. Isabel Watness and other members of the PLU Humanities staff provided essential office support.

Mary Sue Gee supplied valuable research assistance during the final stage of project activity and helped me select the interviews for this book. PLU archivist Kerstin Ringdahl shared her expertise and enthusiasm throughout. Both Kerstin and Mary Sue have my deep thanks. I also gratefully acknowledge the indispensable advice and encouragement of Norwegian-American Historical Association editor Odd Lovoll. Other friends and colleagues who smoothed the way for this publication include Sue Davidson, Bjrn Jensen, Pat Kelley, Joanne Klein, Steve Murray, Harald Naess, Tiina Nunnally, Audun Toven, and Solveig Zempel. My work also benefited greatly from a sabbatical leave and a Regency Advancement Award from Pacific Lutheran University, a grant-in-aid from the American Association for State and Local History, and a Faculty Growth Award from the American Lutheran Church.