Norwegian Family - Part II

"Carl J. Gravseth - Evensen family"

The lineage of Carl J. Gravseth (my grandfather) also goes back to the 1700s to Anne Olsdatter and Andreas Paulsen. They were born in 1750 and 1751, respectively. Andreas's parents were Paul Andersen and Beret Olsdatter, which places them in the early 1700s.

As a side note to this, in studying the family's Norwegian names, I began to notice a connection between surnames and given names that is fairly consistent (up until immigration to America). Datter appears to mean daughter and sen appears to mean son in Norwegian. For instance, Paul Andersen's son's last name became Paulsen (after his given name). Therefore a daughter would have been Paulsdatter. Of course, all this changed when families immigrated to America, but it's an interesting system of placing more importance on one's given name--a system I assume worked well.

 

Jrgeborg Oline Karlsdatter and Jonan Evensen

This also explains why Carl Graveth's name changed when he came to America at the age of 22. In Norway, he was the son of Jrgeborg Oline Karlsdatter and Jonan Evensen. Family records indicate Carl's last name was really Johnson (a variation of Jonansen?), but when he arrived at Ellis Island on the vessel, Ivernia, in 1906, he said his last name was Gravseth (see Naturalization Paper), which was really the name of the farm region he was from. It was also at this point Johnson (or John as he told some became his middle name and Karl became Carl with a "C." As for the spelling of Johnson with a "son" ending, on his marriage certificate it is spelled Johnsen with a "sen" ending (which is more accurate).

U.S. Immigration 1906 Declaration of Intent - Carl J. Gravseth

Eventually, Carl made his way to Egeland, North Dakota (Towner County) where he worked on the farm of Norwegian friends. Lillian said he had sent money to his girlfriend in Norway, whom he planned to marry, but he never heard from her again. He was still living there in 1916 at age 32 and working as a farm laborer. At 180 pounds, this six-foot, fair, blue-eyed man must have been one of the strongest men around, but besides having girlfriend problems, we know he had a tough time adjusting to his new environment.

Oddmund Gravseth of Norway recently described an early letter Carl had written to the family in Norway about his life in North Dakota. Carl wrote of a dangerous encounter he once had had with a bull in which he found himself eyeball to eyeball with the angry beast, pinned tight. "He gazed into what seemed to be a cannon." It took him eight months to recover from the injuries that resulted. Carl also wrote of one miserable morning in the winter of 1910 when he attempted to make pancakes. "There was an old, broken oven in the cottage, and finally he managed to get it warm. For a while, everything went well. But suddenly the fire went out, and by the time he did get it to burn again, both the pancakes and the batter were frozen as if they were stones."

Sometime around 1908, Carl decided to visit Odin and Pauline Carlsen in Troy, Idaho, who were family friends from Norway. There he met and took a liking to their seventeen-year-old daughter, Marie, but she was engaged to a minister in Troy at the time, a marriage that would never take place. (Marie and Carl would later marry).