Hi Tracy,
Thanks for sending me the links. I haven't had a chance to look at them but will soon.

There were five brothers and two sisters who came over from Norway. Bert, Tom, Otto, Iver and Ola. The sisters were Rena and Tena--both Americanized names. One married a Lund and the other a Pederson. Both lived in Dunn County. I don't have my info with me to give you the most accurate information but will do so later.

I didn't know that Rena's daughter was still alive. I plan on making a trip back there next summer and would like to meet as many of the relatives as possible.

I will also copy letters and photos for you. My address is as follows:

Mary Beth Green
1014 O'Connell Drive
Bozeman, MT 59715

My great-grandfather Bert was a painter by trade. He painted the fire trucks for the St. Paul Fire Dept. and did all the fancy work with gold leaf paint. My grandfather Lonnie (Bert's son) learned the trade from his Dad and continued working for the fire department until around 1963.

Bert married Anne Marie Larsen, who was from a Danish family that immigrated when she was two years old, around 1870. They had eight children altogether. My grandfather Lonnie was third oldest. They had Neil, Marjorie, Lawrence(Lonnie), Leon (died as an infant), Elsie, Roy, Donalda, and Alberta. Marjorie died in 1917 from complications of childbirth. She had two children, and they and their families are in the family tree that I have. My great-grandparents died within less than a year of each other--in 1921 and 1922. Bert died from a kidney ailment directly related to lead exposure, which makes sense, unfortunately. My grandparents Lonnie and Beth lost their two year old son the next year to encephalitis, so there was a lot of tragic loss during those years. When Bert and Anne died, their youngest, Alberta, was only 14. Their oldest daughter Elsie took over her care as well as Donalda's, who was 16 or 17. Alberta married at 18, and Donalda went through nurses training and left St. Paul at a young age, ending up in Massacusetts, where she died in 2003 at 99 years old! Elsie married at age 29 and had three children, one of whom is Mary Bowler Furth, whom I found via this website. I met her brother Bill in St. Paul last summer. Mary now lives in Arizona.
My grandparents Lonnie and Beth were wonderful grandparents and very involved in our lives, even though we lived in California. I lived with them during my junior year of high school so became especially close to them. They had retired by then and had sold the house in St. Paul and built a home near Vining, close to the summer cottage. I went to high school in Henning. I am still in touch with people there who knew them well. Even though they have been gone a long time (Gramps died in 1973, Gram in 1986) they are somewhat legendary! They offered a lot to the community and were very involved in the Vining Lutheran Church. They also were generous about the use of the cottage and invited friends and family to visit and use the lake facilities all the time. Gramps was an ardent fisherman. He couldn't swim, but he loved being on the lake. The cottage is no longer in the family, but my brother Bill is seriously thinking about buying a lake cottage either on Stuart Lake or close by. We are all emotionally tied to the place, that's for sure!

I will add more to this later when I have my facts in front of me! I hope you will tell me more about you and your family, too.

Take care,

Mary Beth