THE SEVENTH GENERATION

37. PEDER LARSON
38. MARIT LARSDATTER
39. CARL ELIAS
40. JOHN
41. LOUISA
42. LIZA
43. LOUIS
44. CAROLINE
45. ELIZABETH
46. OLIVE
47. SARAH MARIA
48. LOUISA

49. AMUND AMUNSEN ERICKSON
b. 1862 - d. unknown

50. KJERSTINA ANDERSDATTER ERICKSON ESTENSEN
b. 1863 - d. unknown

This only daughter of Sigrid Amundsdatter Ryalen and Anders Erickson had with Esten Estensen of Akeron from Vingelen one son:

105. Andreas

51. ANDERS KNUTSON RYALEN
(probably born 1858)

52. KJERSTEN KNUTSDATTER RYALEN
(probably born 1859)

53. ANNE KNUTSDATTER RYALEN
(probably born 1860)

54. PETRONILLE KNUTSDATTER RYALEN
(probably born 1861)

There is no history of these four children of Knut Amundson Ryalen and Anne Pedersdatter Eide. Their father died as a young man after moving from Ryalen Northern to Sandmaelen in Tolga.

55. OLAVA OLSDATTER RYALEN

There is no record of her life. She was the illigitimate daughter of Ole Amundson Ryalen.

56. ANNA MARIE AMUNDSDATTER RYALEN BYERMOEN
b. 1866 - d. unknown

She married Torvald Byermoen from Grue in Solor (1858-1897) in Tolga township. Their children were:

106. Torvald
107. Astrid

57. KJERSTINA AMUNDSDATTER RYALEN KVEREGGEN
b. 1870 - d. unknown

Kjerstina married Ole E. Kverneggen of Tynset. Their children were:

108. Ella
109. Marit
110. Eldbjorg
111. Eivand
112. Oddrun

58. THEA AMUNDSDATTER RYALEN KVEREGGEN
b. 1873 - d. 1918

She married Ole Kvereggen of Tynset (no relationship to Ole Kvereggen in entry of #57)
Their children were:

113. Jon
114. Asbjorn

59. AMUND AMUNDSON RYALEN II
b. 1874 - d. 1924

In 1907, he married Barbro Jonsdatter Engavoll of Narbuvoll (1871-1953). As a courtesy to the oldest son of Amund Amundson Ryalen who reputation was impeccable in the communities (see #21)he retained the title of "The Second" (ie. II) Thereafter, all of the chidren of the male descendants were to carry the numeral following their names.

According to the translations of the history of Ryalen Northern, Amund II "had both the desire and industry, however he did not become an old man. He was plagued with asthma and the doctors advised him to find a milder climate further south in the country..."

Amund sold Ryalen Northern and later bought it back. Thus, his descendants would carry on a long tradition. Despite the expectation of doctors, Amund lived to the age of fifty years, a wholesome age at the turn of the century.

His children were:

115. Amund
116. Jon
117. Martin

60. ANNE AMUNDSDATTER RYALEN BREDESEN
b. 1880 -

Anne was the youngest daughter born to Amund Amundson Ryalen. She had one son from Mr. Bredesen of Rostvangen. He was director of the Rostvangen Mines and died in an accident on the aerial railroad between Tynset and Rostvangen. Anne lived in Oslo, Norway when these transcripts were made in 1974. Her son was:

118. Alf Meyer

61. ANDREAS MARIUS RYALEN
b. 1883 - d. 1891

This last child born to Amund Amunson Ryalen died at the age of 7 years.

62. KJERSTINA KRISTIANSDATTER RYALEN
b. 1874 - d. unknown

She was the first child of Kristain Amundson Ryalen and lived her life as a seamstress in Oslo, Norway.

63. ANNA KRISTIANSDATTER RYALEN
b. 1876 - d. unknown

There is no record of her life.

64. OLE K. RYALEN
b. Nov 5, 1889 - d. Nov 26, 1892

This first son of Cornelius and Ingeborg A. Lohn died at teh age of three years, and was buried in the now abandoned Poplar River Church cemetery in Sletton Township, Polk County, Minnesota.

65. No Name

Died at birth. Son of Cornelius Ryalen.

66. ANDREW K. RYALEN

b. Nov 22, 1892 - d. Oct 9, 1961

These are the first recorded twins born in any generation. Andrew survived and his brother was recorded in Sletton Township, simply as, "No Name".

Andrew never married but worked for farmers in the Fosston, Minnesota area and, during the years of World War One, moved west to work as a hired hand for Carl Ryland in Mountrail County, North Dakota.

He lived his last years in a rest home in Bejou, Minnesota and is probably the only person who knew where his father, Cornelius, lived after 1901. He stayed with many relatives during many intervals and would ask if they would "take me to see my father, I know where he is." (This information was given by an aunt living in Bejou in 1971.)

Andrew died at the M.C.V. hospital in Maknomahn, Minnesota on October 9, 1961 and was buried in the Bethel Cemetery in Winger at 3 p.m., October 14th. His memorial record shows one named Ingvald Lohn as pallbearer, undoubtedly a relative through his mother. There were listed the names of the few friends - no relatives - at his burial.


67. OLE K. RYALEN
b. Nov 7, 1898 - d. unknown

No record exists in Polk County, Minnesota of this fourth son of Cornelius and it can be assumed he left that area with his parents at the turn of the century.

68. ANNA K. RYALEN
b. Anna was the first daughter born to Cornelius and Ingeborg and there is no record of this child.

69. KLARA K. RYALEN
b. about 1900 - d. unknown

Stories relating to this woman place her in eastern North Dakota in the 1920's where she had married and was living south of Fargo. She has been recalled by some as "Big Klara" who might have had a disdainful personality. There are no other records.

70. IDA K. RYALEN
b. about 1901 - d. unknown

She was born to Cornelius and Ingeborg in the year they left Polk County, Minnesota. There are no available records of her life.

71. CHRISTINE O. RYALEN
b. Sept 8, 1870 - d. unknown

This first child of Oliver and Ranie Ryalen was born in Belle Creek Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota. When she was thirteen years of age, she moved with her parents to Polk County. She went to school near the town of McIntosh.

Christine was confirmed August 5, 1888 at Poplar River ( Norske Evangelik Kirche ) Church in Sletton Township. In 1884 is recorded the birth of an illegitimate daughter who father is listed
as J. D. Peasley. It was later learned that he was an itinerant laborer on the Great Northern Railroad building through Polk County in that year. There have been found no official documents, but church records show her father Oliver, witnessed the baptism of this baby and claimed it as his own on Nov 11, 1894.

119. Anne

72. KARI OLIVERSDATTER RYALEN
b. 1872 - d. 1875

The only evidence of this second daughter of Oliver and Ranie Ryalen is a notation of her birth and death in the Lutheran Church of Minneola Township, Minnesota.

This discovery was made at a time records were being reviewed in the search for other information. These records indicated the approximate location of this childs burial site, and by chance, my own daughter (Debra Lee) found the stone, partially buried under five inches of sod between the stones of her maternal grandparents, Kari Aadnesdatter (1808-1884) and Thor Tvito (1807-1886). When uncovered the stone was clearly inscribed Kari O. Ryalen.

73. OSCAR CORNELIUS RYALEN
b. Mar 18, 1874 - d. Jul 26, 1941.

Oscar Cornelius was born to Oliver K. and Ranie T. Ryalen in Kenyon Goodhue County, Minnesota at a time when his father worked as a hired hand and his mother, the cook for Harven McIntire (who was also a witness to Oliver's marriage) When he was nine, he moved north with is parents to Polk County.

His uncle, Cornelius, having been described as the adventurous member of that previous generation may have lent that trait to this nephew. Oscar grew up in Polk County and was witness to many new marvels of the new 20th century. He went to school for only a short time in the rural school north of McIntosh.

Early on, he worked with the gangs building the Great Northern Railroad as it excavated its way through the center of his fathers homestead west of Fosston. In that railroad boom town of Fosston, he saw his first bicycle and surely, it was love at first sight to watch the mayor drive down its dusty main street in the counties first motor car.

Shortly before Christmas 1897, both his grandparents died, Then after New Years, his father sold the farm and they moved for a short time into the town of McIntosh, before proceeding on to Finley, Steele County, North Dakota.

On July 2, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Oscar became the first man in Polk County to enlist in the Army. On that date he was sworn into Company F, 15th Minnesota Infantry.

There are some notes of interest to this man's short military career. His regiment was so designated by the Govenor of Minnesota to be used throughout the State during their training in parades and other functions. They were chosen because of their distinctively large physical size. (Oscar was 5' 10" tall - a large man of that period). They became known as "The Govenor's Giants)

The 15th Minnesota was at Camp McKenzie near Augusta, Georgia on the day Teddy Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" ascended San Juan Hill awaiting shipment to Cuba. The unit however, never left the United States. Within three days, nearly the entire regiment had been hospitalized during an epidemic of Typhoid Fever.

Record indicate that Oscar may not have been stricken with those earlier as he had found the opportunity to chastise two individuals in the city of Augusta. Tried by a summary military court, he was fined $2.00 before he too, was seized by the illness. As it turned out, his Company "F" was to suffer the most casualties of this illness. To war off further spread of the disease, that Company was separated from the rest of the Regiment and became known as "The Immunes" Nearly a third of the men died. (This company was written of by Lt. T. A. Turner after the war.)

Due to a shortage of hospital facilities for such a large number of men, many, including Oscar, were returned to hospitals in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the Spring of 1899, Oscar was discharged and he moved to Finley, North Dakota. He finally received permanent disability from the Veterans Bureau in 1924.

Oscar made another first when he ventured farther west than any of his family to western North Dakota, followed by his father, to Mountrail County. He stayed with his parents in that place from 1909 until their death in 1914. Joined by his brother, Carl, both homesteaded the land broken earlier by Oliver and Oscar.

In the years to follow, Oscar became the sponsor to several children in the family as they became baptized in the Bethlehem Lutheran congregation in Epworth Township. On November 19, 1916, he witnessed that of Johann Maynard, son of brother Albin. On February 26, 1926 he was present for Carl's son, Donald Munroe. For his great nephew Victor Eldo on July 6, 1930, and again on April 23, 1933 for nephews Franklin Delano, and Marlowe Galen.

On September 24, 1917, he filed homestead rights on a quarter of land in Section 22, Van Hook Township and on July 18, an adjoining quarter. This property was finally acquired by his brother Carl in the early 1920's and remains the property of Carl's widow.

In early Spring, 1941, after the death of his brother Carl, Oscar again experienced a first, as he became the only one of his generation to venture farther west beyond North Dakota. He spent three months in Cowlitz County, Washington visiting his nephew Victor and had been the first Ryalen to see both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans - a record he alone retained throughout most of the next generation.

He was admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital at Fargo, North Dakota on June 15, 1941. He died there July 26th, having outlived all his younger brothers. His burial in the National Military Cemetery at Fort Snelling, St. Paul, was attended by his sisters Clara and Alma.

There had never been a marriage, or children.


74. KARI O. RYALEN
b.1875 - d. unknown

She was the namesake of her maternal grandmother and sister who died in Goodhue County. She had also been born in Belle Creek, Minnesota.

When her family left Polk County at the turn of the century, the Minnesota Census of 1900 shows Kari as "single, 25 years of age, and working as a maid in the Fosston Hotel. She is known to have been living in Bismark, North Dakota during the First World War where she raised and educated an illegitimate son.

120. Ernest Cloudious


75. VICTOR K. RYALEN
b. 1878 - d. 1901

He was born to Oliver and Ranie Ryalen in Belle Creek, Minnesota and was five when he moved with his parents to Polk County.

he remained in Polk County with sister Kari when the family moved west to McIntosh. He stayed near Fosston and worked as a hired hand on neighboring farms.

The only known facts according to tradition, wet clothing were hung in the upstairs of the farmhouse in which he stayed. He had returned from a dance in Fosston on a Saturday night and slept in the damp room. It has been surmised that this was the cause of pneumonia and death on December 4th.

He is buried in the now-abandoned Sand Hill Cemetery in Sletton Township, Polk County, Minnesota. He was 23 years old.


76. KARL JOHANN RYLAND
b. Jun 5, 1882 - d. Nov 19, 1940

Carl (Charlie) was born in Belle Creek Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota. He moved first with his family to King Township in Polk County and then as a teenaged boy to Finley, Steele County, North Dakota.

In 1914, after working on farms in the Steele County area, he moved west to the farm built up by his father and brother Oscar in Mountrail County, North Dakota. On April 27, 1915 he claimed his fathers land under The Homestead Act after his parents death the year before. He and Oscar added the gabled roof and more rooms to their fathers shanty annd, although owned by Charlie, this place was referred to as "Old Man Ryalen's Place". In the early 1950's when his widow moved to New Town, North Dakota, this house was sold and moved to Minot where it still stands today.

On May 5, 1915, he again claimed another quarter of homestead land in Section 21, Van Hook Township, and continued to acquire more through the years, including all the land of brother Oscar. On October 23, 1922 he filed in Section 12 and on February 2, 1923 in Section 22. Even through the Dust Bowl years when brother Albin's farm failed, Charlie remained a prosperous and thrifty farmer and investor.

In 1923 he returned to Polk County, Minnesota and married Jensine Hanson, daughter of Faber Hansen and Elizabeth Ryalen. For twenty-five years of his life, his land, known as some of the most fertile in western North Dakota, prospered, as it still does today for his wife and daughters.

On November 19, 1940, Charlie walked across the north coulee to a neighbors farm. A new freeway cuts through that spot on which he died. On November 22nd he was buried at the Bethlem Lutheran Cemetery near his parents and baby son.

His children were:

121. Donald Munroe
122. Elizabeth Ramona
123. Margaret Ann
124. Lyla Corine
125. Ilene Fern
126. Franklin Delano



77. ALBIN OLIVER RYLAND
b. Mar 7, 1884 - d. June 1, 1938

Albin was the last son born to Oliver K. and Ranie T. Ryalen and the last to be born in Belle Creek Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota. He was six when he moved with his parents to King Township in Polk County where he was schooled. He was seventeen when he went with them again to Steele County, North Dakota. There, in the town of Sherbrooke, on October 9, 1909 he married Anna Oveda Erickson, youngest daughter of John Erickson and Anna Qvale of Bergen, Norway.

Albin, Anna, and three year old son Victor moved to Mountrail County at the outbreak of World War One in the year of his parents death. He worked as a teamster for Stanley Dray Company before filing under the Homestead Act on December 11, 1915 for a quarter of land in Section 11, Van Hook Township, directly north of his brother Carl. He built up a farm in the Spring of 1916 and on March 15th claimed an additional quarter. All but two of his children were born there.

The Great Depression caused Albin to lose his land and large flocks of sheep and he moved to the county seat at Stanley. Despite desperate years, he saw his oldest daughter enter Minot State Teachers College in Minot.

In 1932, he moved his family to a two room house in Manitou in the westernmost part of the county where he worked on teh farm of Ole Asheim. He acquirred a contract to carry mail south of Manitou. During the next three years he hauled mail in the winter months, relinquishing the job to his daughter Evelyn in the summer, while working for farmers around Manitou, White Earth, and Temple.

In 1936, he moved the family to Williams County on the extreme west edge of North Dakota. There he leased farms from landowners Borshiem, Bozeman, and Zahl. At the age of 54 years, on the Zahl farm two miles north of Williston he died in 1938. He was buried at Bethlehem Cemetery of rural Van Hook in the plot near his parents, son Johann Maynard, brother Carl, and Faber Hanson.

Albin and Anna's children were:

127. Victor Norris (1910-1972)
128. Evelyn Ada (1914-
129. Clarence Vernon (1919-
130. Johann Maynard (1916-1921)
131. John Maynard Oliver (1921-
132. Ardith Marion Helen (1923-
133. Raymond DeWayne (1926-
134. Inez Elaine (1929-1986)
135. Marlowe Galen (1933-1989)

At this point in the manuscript, I will enter my fathers handwritten memories from the events regarding his fathers death, and hints of life during the Great Depression in 1938 as remembered through the eyes of a child.

"The cow is out! the cow is out! That was the cry from our mother that Jack, Ray and I heard from the pump house. Mom came running from the back kitchen door into that first hot day of June in 1938. Besides we three younger brothers the only child from Albin and Anna at home was Inez, still older than me and their youngest daughter. Even big enough to go to school, she and Raymond had only last week finished for the year at the white schoolhouse over west of our place. I was glad too, it wasnt that long ago that Mom had taken me over there for Christmas doings. We'd sat and watched as Santa Claus gave out some presents. When the bearded elf called out my name and handed me a steel built ocean liner - Queen Mary The most beautiful of all the toys that day - I recognized Rays trousers under the red pants. Sullen for a moment, Mom explained that Santa couldn't possibly get to all these small stops. She explained that Raymond had given me the toy. The "Queen", sailed her way from Williams County to Van Hook. I made a trade there with Lyla or Ilene for one of Donald's old trucks. His toy looked heavier and more solid to me. Only years later would the Queen Mary become important.

Inez and Raymond were always talking about that schoolhouse. I learned what a mile was when I walked across to visit. It cost me a full day, not to mention mom's anxieties! Inez and Ray lost the rest of the day at school to walk me home. I spent that night with nightmares of spiders and bugs. I was already tired of school!

School had been closed for three days. Today Inez was around the yard somewhere, maybe over under the back porch again, She used it for a place for that doll of hers. She had that plaster one with no hair, eyes that moved independently in it's head. It had strange bumps, probably from spending too many nights outdoors, Thats what mom said. Besides it was just a place for dogs and we didnt have a dog anyway.

Inez was that way. She always dressed up in mom's funny clothes. Sometimes we'd find gunny sacks and rip them open and make a teepee. We went over by the pump house to the junkpile sometimes and she'd help me pick up enough cans and broken dishes to play store. Mostly though, she played with that old doll and wore those silly high heeled shoes. Once she caught "shingles" from wearing those shoes. Thats what Pa said. Girls were silly anyway. I had only Inez. There was some dispute about Ardith, since she lived in town with Hank and Evelyn. Marvin had said she was his sister. I didn't object.

On this June morning I was standing behind my big brothers in the door of the pump house. Jack was bent over the pump engine. Ray held some tools in his hand. Jack was always good at fixing stuff. He had been working on John Burke's threshing rig. He even worked for the Buzy Bee Cleaners in Williston driving that '33 Ford Van. Once he "almost got sucked up through the Smith Packing Company smokestack when he unloaded garbage! Thats what Ma said.

Raymond was nice sometimes. I had long ago found Ray - the giver of the Queen Mary - to be a "tease". I wasn't about to forgive him for the scar on my forehead. He had no business making me stand upright on that sled, holding a cream can. There were only spots of snow and mostly dry gravel. But I wasn't mad at him anymore. Pa had contributed the ten cents to the American Red Cross just the other day. Ma tied a bandage around my head, stuck the Red Cross pin in front and I laid for a long time on Pa's left arm upstairs. It was the nearest I'd ever been to my father. He said "Lay down here and look at the ceiling with me" he said something about counting spots of nails. I thought it so strange the way he crossed his legs that way, throwing the right leg over the left. Screaming as I knew I was, the man soothed me to sleep in a minute with lasting memories.

Being with Pa was the only time I didnt wonder about my older brother Vernie. I was used to this older brother. Maybe becuase he was around me more. I wasnt sure when times were good or bad, it just seemed Vernie was always around when he was needed.

I dont suppose it was that particular day that I recalled the Bolzman place. It had been a tenant farmhouse, smack in the middle of nowhere. It was a square place, I remember, with a hip-roof covering maybe 4 or at most 5 rooms. There was a high foundation from which led a precipitous stairway into nothing more than a rolling prairie on the east wall. I remember Vernie working every day for that farm up the hill to the southeast, the name I dont recall, coming home every night and parking the Model A as near as possible to the house and out of the wind.

Before then we'd been a tenant farmer for Borsheim. An elegant place with its twin dormered house, and a red barn. So impressive that Jacks caricature drawing of the place would be recalled for years.

By the time we'd moved to Zahl's farm, with its covered front porch on the east where the family could view civilization from any corner. The most prominent were the Swift and Company's smokestacks in Williston jutting into the sky. The family was almost complete. Althought Victor has left Montgomery-Ward in Wiliston and had gone on to the west coast, Hank was in Williston working for Northern Tank Lines. Vernie was here with Northern Hide and Fur, and Jack was buzy with Buzy Bee.

The Zahl place was a happy time for all of us. The family was closely knit and visitors and relatives were abundant. Now though, I recognised 'bill collectors" although I didnt know too much about them, I learned when Ma said, "They came all the way from Grenora for our steel wagon!" A neighbor got our chickens.

Though only five years old, by March of 1938, I knew that our home, whether it be a country place, or where my sisters lived in a town, was only a process. Everything seemed to be related. Everything seemed to happen at once.

For a five year old, the Zahl farm was still bigger and better and had more stuff around than any of the other places I could recall. The year before we'd gone to Uncle Charlies. He had a real tree, with burning candles, Evelyn and Hank had a Kodak and all of our pictures were taken. After New Years, Uncle Oscar planted the tree in a snowbank - a place to feed the birds.

We stayed home in Williston the next year. Thats the year I learned about Santa Claus, and about my brother Ray. It was the year we sat on the front porch where Ma and Pa discussed events I wasnt too impressed with. Hank and Evelyn came out too, Vernie came by and they all argued about Adolph Hitler's symbol. It was an American Indian sign, thats what Pa said. Everyone else disagreed.

Spring came and so did the visitors, The depression was about over. Pa's brother stayed a week. He made a near fool out of himself on the bicycle Mom had scrimped for Jack. Myrtle Asheim stayed a week and when leaving asking the driver to honk the horn on the way by. The horn stuck, "tooting all the way from Canfield Airport to Twin Lakes, we'll be the laughing stock of the country!!" Gus Fredrickson stayed a week. Their kids were real brats. That girl of theirs, a cousin I suppose, tried to push me out an upstairs window! I think her oldest brother was teaching Raymond how to smoke behind the silo.

The Zahl farm was a place none of us had known. For a kid, there was a fence to climb. It was a lot more than taking a stick and writing my name in the dirt. At least someone before had left a junkpile and we could throw rocks at glass bottles. We could do lots of things, except walk on the floor that covered the brick foundation north of the house, and the tall silo we were not to go near. I had no wish to be discarded to the manure pile. That would be my fate if I stepped on the nails in that floor!

We didnt have any horses. Pa and Mom told us about some they had before. Ma told about "big red plums, and harnesses and buggies" The way she carried on about them she must have been crazy for horses. Pa just smiled. I guess he liked horses too.

I remember the folks talking about lambs and sheep. About such they'd both get excited. But whenever conversation dwelled on land, or tractors, or dirt farming, Pa would get quiet. I dont think he was too interested in farming. Just the other day I remember a man named Atoll had come with a truck and loaded up our chickens. Pa didnt say a word. Penny was one of our chickens. She was the favorite I suppose. Always had been. Last winter she came into the house, sneaked into the kitchen and burned her feet. All this spring, she followed Pa around. Maybe she looked for worms after Pa had plowed and hoed, Maybe she just wanted his company. She went with Atoll the other day. I remember her real name was "Henny-Penny" she just thought she was a better chicken than the rest. Maybe thats why Pa didnt say a word.

The Zahl farm afforded a private bed for each of us, beside that new junk pile with the uncountable broken bottles, the unclimbable silo, the unwalkable barn foundation, but we had a back porch, a kitchen with a stove, a formal dining room -never used- and a front parlor. In the parlor was a phonograph with two records. We had a massive front porch. On that front porch our Pa listened to church bells on New Years Eve, 1938 and mysteriously mentioned he would never hear them again. His family simply shrugged, wondering where we would move to next. We watched the bus go by, laughing at the stuck horn.

Old Valentine was always up first. She wasn't livestock or just a cow, she was family! Though we were Norwegian, she was Holstein and, unlike us, she could do anything she pleased. Mostly she liked hanging her head through the pantry window. She knew, as we all did, that Mom was a soft touch for a treat. Today, Valentine was out on the loose, or so we all thought.

Inez wasn't with her doll on the front porch. Mom ran from the house and down the dirt road toward Number 2 highway, She carried a gallon fruit can filled with water. Raymond steering to miss Valentine standing by the house, pedaled at full speed towards the neighbors and the only telephone.

"The cow is lost! The cow is lost!" Valentine was here. Only Inez had disappeared for awhile. Now Ray was on that bike peddling his heart out. My hero Jack stood with tears in his eyes, He was seventeen and couldnt cry!

I didnt know much about death when I was five. I learned less that day when I came down from Pa's room where he lay with a towel on his face. Somehow he was different that he was as we laid with my red cross pin and all. Out in the garden this morning his face had been so different. Maybe it was the greyness in his hair, his stillness maybe, or maybe I'd seen a kind of smile I hadnt seen before.

Everything happened quickly after that. Evelyn and Hank came from town and Victor came back from the West Coast. I don't remember Mom during that time but someone picked me up at Evensons Funeral Parlor and realized then that what Mom had yelled was nothing to do with the cow. "Pa is gone! Pa is gone!"

Grownups covered our front porch at Zahls. They whispered. By then I'd seen my father twice. The blue suit, the still dark hair with the graying temples and the gray casket. What would be more fitting than gray skies? It was a gray day when I saw my father again out on the prairie near Van Hook. It wasn't so much anymore, as it was all those other men I remember. Like those others on the porch at Zahl's. Standing in small bunches, talking in that whisper, in a way my father never talked. They never said exciting things like my father did. So self conscious in their suits and brown shoes, with nothing to do but stand there. Standing there whispering with their hands in their pockets. What was so important to have these busy farmer's stop their work to come here on this gray day? Were these the ones who the Williston paper said "would sorely miss him"?

Those fast and confusing days were all of my fathers life to me. There was the fast dash to Mountrail County. The stops at Borsheims, Bozlmans, and Zahl's and I can remember no more of him.

He was gone now, just as he had been gone from home. Quiet with everyone and a disciplinarian maybe, because quiet followed him. Yet my mother told of another personality. Her husband was a gentle man, but occasionally noisy and sometimes even wild. He was remembered by her as an intelligent but stubborn man who, completely sober, disrupted a town by punching the police chief of Williston in the nose. The record shows he had no enemies, but friends remembered him thirty years after his death.


Reading through Dad's notes, such as that above, of memories of his youth during the 1930's and 1940s, I also discovered another tidbit. As you have just read, my dad lost his father at the young age of five. By and large his father was a mystery, or at least a faint image of his early years. Four years following the death of his father, and my grandfather, his mother, my grandma Anna, remarried. The following excerpt reveals his misgivings about this "new dad".

Of course my grandfather died sixteen years before my own birth. This next excerpt offers a glimpse at the man who would become at his age of 70, my grandfather.

"Another turning point came in 1942. Of course I always knew there was the chance that mom would remarry again. And as 1941 and 1942 went from bad to worse, the possibility of another marriage seemed her best hope of salvation.

Gust Bangs came to the house now and then, sometimes with arms filled with bags of groceries which he jovially spread on our table. He was short but husky, with a neatly trimmed, Clark Gable, sort of mustache, with dark graying hair. An outgoing man in his late fifties and a widower. He had emigrated to the United States as a young boy at the turn of the century and had known only farming. Now with the wartime demands, had finally become one of the most prosperous men in the county.

One day in May Mom and I sat for a long time in the shade of the house and she lingered an unusually long time, then out of the blue asked, "Do you think Gust would make a nice dad?" It was a troubling question and she saw my uneasiness when she said, "Gust is a good man and he was a friend of your Pa".

The possibility of having a father scared me and I suppose my greatest fear was of losing my mother. Though I liked Gust's spirit, and absorbed the advantages of his farm over my existence in Stanley.

I liked Gust well enough as a visitor, dropping by with his shiny new car, or truck and an occasional ice cream treat, but my heart stayed closed against him. That is, until a Saturday afternoon when I ran across him coming out of Will's Lumber Yard in Stanley. He pulled my coaster wagon around to his rear bumper, commenting with a chuckle, "We better put some pork rinds into those wheels before they fall off altogether!" With that, he took his pliers and bent a brand new six penny nail to keep a front wheel on.

Disregarding any possible laws to the contrary, he tied a rope from my handle, around the bumper and placed the end of the rope in my hand. With that he said, Okay Sparkplug, if we get going to fast, just drop the rope." "Sparkplug". Later other nicknames would pop up from time to time. "Felix", "Plink", names that I would learn to read as a gauge to his moods.

Excitement like that I had never known! Right down Main Street in front of who I thought was the whole town population the wagon rumbled on its bent wheels the full distance home!

Then, Gust Bangs got out of his car and untied the rope in front of my shocked and awe-struck mother. My quietness masked a boyish impulse to hug the man and it began a relationship into which that impulse would linger for the next thirty-five years."


KLARA ELISE RYALEN OLSON
b. Jun 19, 1886 - d.

Clara was born to Oliver and Ranie Ryalen in McIntosh Township, Polk County, Minnesota. She was baptized in the Poplar River church on December 12, 1886. Her uncle Adolph witnessed her baptism.

She was four years old when her parents moved to Steele County, North Dakota where she married and loved her life. Clara married Edwin Olson of Finley and for a time lived over the millinery shop in that place. Olson became a large, successful farmer south of Finley and a mail carrier, which the route has been passed down to his sons today.

Their children were:

136. Milton
137. Ruby
138. Orville
139. Leona
140. Elmo
141. Inez
142. Darwin
143. Lorna



79. ALMA OLETA RYALEN THOMPSON
b. Nov 27, 1889 - d.

Alma was the youngest child of Oliver and Ranie Ryalen, born in McIntosh Township, Polk County, Minnesota. She was baptized in the Poplar River Norwegian congregation in Sletton Township. Sponsors being, Jens Kvam, I.O. Sather, and his wife Sofia on July 19th.

She married Thom Thompson, a taxi driver at one time in Minneapolis, Minnesota where they lived their lives.

There were no children.



80. CLARENCE A. RYALEN
b. Jan 24, 1896 - Jul 21, 1896

This six month old son of Adolph and Louisa Ryalen was buried in the Sand Hill Cemetery of rural McIntosh, Minnesota on July 24, 1896.


81. WILLIE A. RYALEN
b. 1897 - d. Nov 28, 1902

Willie was the son of Adolph and Louisa Ryalen. Born in Sletton Township, Polk County, Minnesota. He died at the age of "Five and a half years" in November, 1902. He was buried in the Sand Hill Cemetery near McIntosh, Minnesota.



82. CHRISTINA HANSON MOORE
b. June 29, 1892 - d. unknown

She was the first child born to Elizabeth Ryalen and Faber Hanson in Sletton Township, Polk County, Minnesota. Following her mothers death, her father and sisters, Elma and Cora moved to Mountrail County, North Dakota and she married in Minnesota to Carl Moore.

In the 1930's, she moved with her husband to Stanley, Mountrail County, North Dakota where, it is believed, they separated. In the 1950's she moved with her children to San Francisco, California where she died during the 1960's.

Her children were:

144. Myrtle
145. Clarence
146. Helen