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Favorite Stories from Bear Lake THOMSENS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN good story-tellers. Here are just a few favorites. Chuck Roast Keith Thomsen Glimpses of Cornelius Keith Thomsen Stories of Wimbledon, North Dakota Ralph Thomsen How Sailors Manage Their Money Ralph Thomsen The Secret of the Garrity Clearing Keith Thomsen Story of the Old Spinning Wheel T. G. Thomsen "Cornelius Thomsen's Cutter and His Horse Dan" Conrad Thomsen "How Dad and George Brought Christmas to Old Frank" What's in a name? Jean Thomsen The First Bicycle Tolleif George Thomsen in the “Saga of Western Norway” The Storm Keith Thomsen Ralf or Ralph – Which Name is Right? Conrad Thomsen How the Norwegians Almost Invented Jazz Lloyd Arntzen Marie Has a Tooth Pulled Marie Gurine Thomsen Winter Illness Johanna M. Forsgren Hank Goes to the Circus Haakon "Hank" Thomsen How Leif Thomsen Lost His Left Hand Conrad Thomsen How Alf Shot His Arm Off Conrad Thomsen Ragna on the Prairie Arnt Arntzen Old Norwegians Gwen Thomsen Rhoads
Chuck Roast Many of the Thomsen boys from Bear Lake had fond memories of cutting hay on the meadows just south of McGrath. They called them meadows back then. Actually they were swamps, but to Norwegian farmers busy pulling stumps on their homesteads, all that swamp grass looked pretty good and they called the areas meadows. It was hard work cutting hay with a scythe, but my dad, Joseph “Bud” Thomsen and his brothers liked the job because the meadows were too far away for them to return home every night. They got out from under the burden of their regular chores and parental supervision. They got to do wild and crazy things like stay up late at night and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes around a campfire. Dad told a story about how he, Hank and Leif were on one of these outings to the hay meadow. After several days of hard work, the three were tired, dirty and very hungry. They'd been living on a strict diet of dry bread, fried eggs and bacon seasoned with wood ashes and, on one memorable occasion, a cigarette butt. The cigarette butt had been fried right into the egg. Dad variously blamed Hank and Leif for the culinary miscue, while they blamed him. So the three boys were in a lean and hungry state and were pining for a good home-cooked meal one night when the delicious aroma of roasting meat was wafted on the breeze to their campfire. The aroma was coming from a nearby camp of some Indians who'd been hired to cut hay for another farmer. Dad, Hank and Leif followed their noses to the Indians' camp and gathered around a fire on which something was cooking in a big Dutch oven. It smelled wonderful. "What are you cooking," one of the boys asked nonchalantly. The Indian who was tending the Dutch oven looked up from the fire, sized up the boys briefly and turned back to his work. "Woodchuck," he said. Hank, Leif and Bud turned a little green around the gills. They'd never heard of such a thing. How could anyone eat a woodchuck, a greasy little rodent that is little more than a giant rat? Still, it smelled really good, and they were really hungry, so they hung around and stared at the Dutch oven. The Indian said nothing. "How's it taste?" one of the boys asked after a while, trying to sound as if he was just trying to make polite conversation. The Indian kept a straight face as he replied: "Great. Just like porcupine." - Keith Thomsen Glimpses of Cornelius Cornelius Thomsen seems to have been a wise, quiet, mild-mannered man who kept somewhat in the background. There are no dramatic, action-packed stories about him in the family lore. But many people told anecdotes about Cornelius that help reveal his character. Here are a few, with the sources noted. From an interview with Ralph Thomsen, a son of Cornelius, taped by Neil A. Thomsen in 1994: Bill Nelsby, Nels Johnson and Ted were the three big boys in the eighth grade at Cedar Lake School, and they thought they were hot stuff, really tough guys. The teacher called pupils to the front of the classroom to give lessons, ask questions or find out if they had studied. One day when the three boys were called, Bill Nelsby made some nasty crack to the teacher, and Ted said, "You tell her, Bill." This wasn't the first that the teacher had had trouble with the three boys. The teacher had had enough and expelled both Bill and Ted from school. Ted had to go home in the middle of the day and tell his dad that he couldn't go to school for a week. "Dad never got excited; he just listened quietly and then he said, 'Okay, now, in the morning, you go to school and you apologize to that teacher. Then you come right back home. I've got A LOT OF WORK lined up for you this week.' " From a memoir by Helga Jardine , a daughter of Lorentz, published in "Thomsen Family Reunion" in 1971. She was six-years-old when she and her family sold their Bear Lake farm and moved to Saskatchewan: My memories from Bear Lake are very sketchy, but I do recall, among the commotion of the farm sale and packing, about my small box of treasures. I wanted to be sure and take it to my new home, but my father wanted to toss the box away as so much junk. Uncle Cornelius intervened and said, "Oh, Lorentz, don't do that; it means a lot to Helga." The box was packed among the other things. From a memoir by Bertha Lennardtz , a daughter of Cornelius, published in "Thomsen Family Reunion" in 1971: Some summer evenings Dad would say if we would get the chores and supper done early, we would drive to Mille Lacs Lake to watch the sun set. This also meant a stop on the way at the Opstead store for ice cream cones, a real treat ... When in a relaxed mood, watching the sunset, Dad delighted to tell us of his boyhood in Norway. He always loved to watch the sun sink in the fjord waters there, too ..." From a memoir by Ted Thomsen , a son of Cornelius, published in "Thomsen Family Reunion" in 1971: Dad's health was good; however, in 1929, he had to seek medical aid in Duluth (for heart disease?). This is when he called us three older boys (Ted, Ralph and Leif) together. He asked one of us to take over the farm and home responsibilities. None of us wanted to be tied down. When he turned to me and said, "You are the eldest; it is your responsibility," I somehow didn't have the heart to say no. That's how he turned the reins of the home over to me. From stories about Cornelius told by Bud and Ted and recalled by Keith Thomsen: After Ted agreed to take over the farm, Cornelius said that he would be glad to help with the chores and work as much as he could and that if Ted ever needed any money, up to and including the sum of $32 dollars, he should feel free to come to his father for it. When Cornelius died 12 years later, a passbook for a savings account at Lakeside State Bank in Isle was found among his things. The account contained $32 plus interest. Ted was a new broom at the farm and made some modern improvements, including buying a tractor. At first it was hard for Cornelius to accept the tractor because he had always farmed with horses. It wasn't long, however, before Cornelius began driving the tractor for Ted during haying season. But old habits die hard. Whenever the tractor started going too fast on the hills of Bear Lake Farm and Cornelius got a little flustered, he would start yelling "Whoa! Whoa!" at the machine. Stories of Wimbledon, North Dakota The small town of Wimbledon, North Dakota, played a large part in the stories of four of Cornelius Thomsen’s children. The link between Wimbledon and the family began about 1925 when Albert Bredahl started farming there. He asked Cornelius' oldest daughter, Johanna, to marry him, and they were wed in Wimbledon. Their first child, Arthur, was also born there. Albert became ill, however, and the family had to move back to the McGrath area for a time in the late 1920s. Albert and Jo's second child, Don, was born there in 1928. By 1929 Albert was well again and wanted to return to Wimbledon to try grain farming once more. He lacked the money to do so, but by all accounts he was a very resourceful and ethically flexible man who was personally fearless and a glib talker to boot. The 20-year-old Ralph had $1,000 he had saved while sailing for three years aboard the Great Lakes ship Herbert F. Black. Albert talked Ralph into becoming his partner on a North Dakota farm. Albert, Johanna, their two children and Ralph moved to North Dakota, and they were joined there by Bud and Leif, who went to Wimbledon to work at times. Albert and Ralph were sharecroppers. Their landlord provided the farm and the seed but and got a third of the harvest in return. In a good year, such an arrangement could be profitable, but Albert and Ralph's timing for starting to farm was unfortunate. The early 1930s saw the start of the Great Depression and a long drought on the Great Plains. Crop yields went down to 20 bushels an acre. Wheat prices fell to 27 cents a bushel and oats to 8 cents a bushel. Other prices fell as well. Ralph recalled that a neighbor sent a big pig to market and received a bill for $1.62 cents instead of the expected profit from the sale. The price of the meat hadn't covered the cost of transporting the pig to market. Albert and Ralph stuck it out for three years and then gave up on farming. Ralph didn't blame Albert for getting him involved in the venture, however. Ralph said he went to North Dakota with a Model T Ford and $1,000 and came back with a 1927 Chevrolet sedan and $250. "That wasn't too bad; most people lost their shirts then," Ralph said in a taped interview. "And I probably had the $250 because of Al Bredahl." Here are three of Ralph's Wimbledon stories that may shed some light on why that statement is probably true. The stories were recorded in 1994 by Neil A. Thomsen. Al wasn't afraid of anybody. He was a fearless man and he always had a story for everything. By the early 1930s things were really bad because of the drought and Depression. The farm equipment dealers were desperate to sell something but no one had any money. Finally one of dealer offered Albert a deal on a combine. "You take this combine and use it, but if you make any money with it I expect you to make a little payment on it at the end of the harvest," the dealer said. Albert agreed. He harvested his own crop and the crops of his neighbors with the machine, but when the dealer asked for some money, Albert demurred. "I didn't make any money," Albert said. "But I tell you what I'll do; I'll pay the interest that would have been due you if I'd actually bought the combine. In return you let me use it again next year." The interest came to $22. The dealer suspected he was being taken for a sucker but finally agreed since $22 was better than nothing. At the next harvest Albert kept the machine busy again. The suspicious dealer started coming to his house or to the fields to dun him for money, but Albert always had a story to put the dealer off, like "I haven't been paid by this farmer yet" or "I should have the money next week." Finally Albert and the driver of the combine were down to the last part of the last field when the dealer showed up and parked his car at the end of a swath of grain. Albert told the driver to open the throttle and keep going no matter what happened. Albert pretended not to see the dealer yelling and shouting for him to stop and kept right on harvesting until he was finished. Albert and the driver parked the combine and walked away. The dealer was beside himself when Albert told him once again that he hadn't made any money with the combine, but there was nothing he could do. "Well at least drive the combine to your own yard so it will be safe," the exasperated dealer said. "Give me $10 and I'll do it," Albert replied. * * * * * At this point in the interview, Ralph recalled another farm equipment salesman who had called at the Bredahl home near Wimbledon. Jo was really impressed by this salesman from International Harvester who was so polite and well-mannered and always said please and thank you. She was my big sister and she'd helped raise us kids when my mother died, so she always telling me what to do. She always had something on me so I had to listen. " 'Why can't you be more like the International salesman?' she was always asking me. She kept throwing him up as a role model for her rude, crude brother," Ralph said. "Then we found out about a year later that the salesman had been arrested and imprisoned for forgery. I always kidded Jo about that later - how she'd wanted me to be just like a criminal." Whenever Ralph told this story in later years, Jo retaliated by telling another story about Ralph. Harvest time in North Dakota meant extra work for farm women because they had to cook three big meals a day to feed threshing crews. Jo wanted to be well prepared, so one evening she sent Ralph to Wimbledon to find out if the harvesters would be coming to their farm the next day. Ralph discovered that the harvesters had been delayed and wouldn't be there until the day after. That meant a day off for him, so he decided to celebrate by having a few drinks too many in town. He made so much noise coming back to the farm and getting into the house that night that he woke up Jo. Judging by all the ruckus, she thought the threshing crew had arrived and got up early next morning to cook a big breakfast for the crew. The only people who showed up to eat were her own family and a rather worse-for-the -weather Ralph. But back to Ralph's stories: * * * * * Things got so bad at one time that Albert and a neighbor, Ellwood Krebs (? Ralph was uncertain about name) came up with a plan to hijack 400 gallons of grain alcohol from a Fargo bootlegger and sell it on their own. This was during Prohibition when booze sales were against the law. The bootlegger wouldn't be able to complain to police about the theft. Albert ordered the alcohol from the bootlegger using an assumed name, Frank Harrison. The exchange was to be made behind the hotel in Wimbledon. Albert, Ellwood and Ralph were to hide there and seize the alcohol when the bootlegger arrived. Ralph couldn't recall for certain if he was armed but he believes at least Ellwood had a pistol. He didn't think the hijack plan was a good idea at all but felt that he had no choice but to go along with it. The plan went awry because there was a snowstorm the night that the hijacking was planned. The bootlegger was delayed on the road. The three would-be hijackers became impatient with waiting after about an hour. Albert went inside the hotel to make a phone call to the bootlegger to find out what had happened. He was unable to reach him, but the hotel desk clerk overheard Albert use the name Frank Harrison. The hijackers eventually decided the bootlegger wasn't coming and went home. The bootlegger got to Wimbledon several hours late and went into the hotel looking for Frank Harrison. The clerk said he didn't know who Frank Harrison was but said that Albert Bredahl did. The bootlegger phoned Albert at home. At this point, Albert knew his cover story was blown and that he might be in some trouble with a very shady character. Ralph absolutely refused to have anything more to do with the plot, but Albert drove into town to meet the bootlegger. Albert gave him some story about Frank Harrison having left when the alcohol shipment didn't arrive. "This looks like a set-up to me," the angry and suspicious bootlegger said. "You tell 'Frank Harrison' that he was lucky he got out of town when the getting was good." Behind the bootlegger was a bodyguard, a big gangster type who kept his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, where there were suspicious objects that had the outlines of pistols. - Ralph Thomsen How Sailors Manage Their Money Some of the old Great Lakes shipping companies in the 1920s and 1930s were known as money-savers, something that didn't endear them to the free-spending sailors on "the boats." These companies gave their ship captains bonuses for keeping monthly expenses to a minimum. The sailors got paid on the first of the month, but they could "make a draw," or get a $10 to $15 advance on their salaries, on the 15th of the month. Sailors had to apply directly to the captain for the draw. On a money-saving boat, the captain always tried to keep the draws to a minimum. Aboard one of the boats I was on was a crusty, cantankerous old fireman who was as independent as a hog on ice. When he applied for a draw, the captain tried to discourage him from asking too much. "How much do you have to have?" the captain asked. "As much as I can get," the fireman replied. "And what are you going to do with all that money?" the captain asked. "I'm going to spend some of it on whiskey and some of it on women," the fireman said. "The rest I'm going to spend foolishly." - Ralph Thomsen The Secret of the Garrity Clearing My father, Joseph "Bud" Thomsen, told me the secret of the Garrity Clearing in November of 1979. I remember incident well, because it was the last time I went deer hunting with him. Thomsens have hunted back of Bear Lake since 1893. Of course, Bear Lake doesn't really have a back or a front; that's just our name for the large area of forest that lies northeast of the lake. After more than 110 years, we are very familiar with that area, and all of the places there have names. Some of those places, like Buck-Run Camp and Champagne Hill, refer to hunting adventures. Othes are geographic features - the Beaver Dam, the Ash Swale, the Point. Still others have to do with logging, such as the North Road, the Horse Barn and 20 Below Landing. But most of the places where we hunted back of Bear Lake were named for people - Kristoffer's Island, Gustafson's Hill, Old Frank's, Lind and Fogger's, Otterson Creek, and the Garrity Clearing. These people were all homesteaders who tried, and failed, to create farms or homes and make a living back of Bear Lake. They all starved out, and now the land lies largely empty again. Uncle Ted was the patriarch of the Thomsen hunting gang, but even he didn't know who Kristoffer or Gustafson were. But all of us could remember Old Frank Pompi, who died back of Bear Lake in 1971. He had settled there in 1926 and became a hermit by accident - all of his neighbors moved away. Lind and Fogger were loggers who had a cabin on Oak Hill. They got into a feud one winter and split their cabin down the middle. They continued to work together for several months without speaking. All that was left of their shack in 1979 was a rusted-out stove and a few pots, pans and cans stattered among a stand of young red oak trees. The Garrity Clearing, however, had fared better. It was a 40-acre square of open land in the midst of hundreds of acres of woods. The ground that John Garrity cleared there was so poor that trees still hadn't been able to reclaim it by 1979, more than 65 years after it was abandoned. I look on the Garrity Clearing as a monument to broken dreams. It offers graphic testimony that hard work is not always rewarded in this world, and that dogged determination does not always manage to feed 12 children. After barely hanging on there for several years, John Garrity and his family moved away about 1910. On opening morning of deer season in 1979, I was on a stand at the bottom of Oak Hill near Lind and Fogger's. Dad made a drive to me from Old Frank's and the Ash Swale. Afterwards, we sat on the trunk of a windfallen tree for a while and chatted; then father suddenly said, "Let's walk to the Garrity Clearing; I want to show you something." The Garrity Clearing is about a half-mile north of Oak Hill. It has a ridge with a few birch trees on it across the north end. A swale sweeps from the Northwest corner to the eastern edge of the clearing. The rest is gently rolling hills, and the old homesite is roughly in the middle of the clearing, atop of a knoll overlooking the swale. By 1979, nothing was left of the Garrity home except a gnarled, half-dead lilac bush, a few scraps of roofing, and some rotten wood beams lying across the cellar hole. It was there that Dad began his story. "One day last October I stopped at the McGrath Liquor Store after work," he said. "The only customers were an old lady and a middle-aged woman who was with her. The old lady kept staring and me and finally said, 'I know you; you're Bud Thomsen.' It was Adeline Garrity." Adeline was one of John Garrity's children. She must have been about 80 years old in 1979. As I recall, she was then living in Moose Lake, but she had kept up ties to the McGrath area. She and Dad started talking about the old days back of Bear Lake, and Adeline said she'd give just about anything to be able visit her old home once more. Well, one thing led to another, and father ended up volunteering to take the old lady back to the Garrity Clearing. The middle-age woman, who was one of her daughters or daughters-in-law, tried to pour cold water on the idea, but Adeline was adamant about going. They waited for a nice, warm October day to make the trip. Dad moved his tractor to a turn-off on the Bear Lake Road, put an old car seat on his logging trailer, and slowly drove Adeline to the Garrity Clearing. She was accompanied by one of her sons and his children. The son was also opposed to the adventure but went along to keep an eye on his mother. "When we got there, she poked around in the weeds and brush for a while and then started talking. She told us how everything used to be, how nice it had been, where she played as a little girl, and where the well and the garden and the buildings were; stuff like that," Dad said. "Then her voice started to quaver a bit; you could tell she was leading up to something." Then Adeline turned toward the slope on the eastern edge of the clearing. "And over there on that hill is where my baby brother is buried," she announced. The son looked at his mother in shocked disbelief. Later he told Dad she had never mentioned her lost brother before. Adeline said her brother was five-months-old when he died of scarlet fever. The body was kept wrapped in a blanket beside the house for a time because the ground was frozen. She was just a little girl then, but she remembered the day very well. She remembered looking out the window and watching the men build a coffin for the baby (John's brother Walt lived nearby). They had made long, curly wood shavings while planing the boards. She wanted to play with those shavings, but her father angrily ordered her to go away when she tried. She couldn't understand why he was so mad. Adeline's son questioned her about the incident, and that led to other details and other stories as memories kept emerging from the dim past. But always she returned her gaze to the slope on the east side of the clearing and to the story of the death. Perhaps an hour went by; the son said it was time to go and took his mother by the arm to help her on the trailer. She pulled away and returned to the homesite. "You're not going to believe it, but then that woman sat right down here by this hole in the ground and sang 'Home Sweet Home' with tears streaming down her face," Dad said. "It was just about the saddest damn thing I've heard." Dad fell silent. I stood beside him staring at that hill across the way. The only sound was the wind moaning in the treetops in the woods around the clearing. Try as I might, I could find no sign of a grave anywhere among the weeds and the ratty, threadbare blanket of snow that tried and failed to cover the ground. But somewhere on that hillside lay the body of a child in an unmarked grave, like a good seed planted in bad ground. Somewhere on that abandoned Northern Minnesota homestead were the remains of five-month-old baby, long forgotten by everyone except his 80-year-old sister. That is the secret of the Garrity Clearing. It's just about the saddest damn thing I've ever heard. - Keith Thomsen Note: This short essay was written by Tolleif George Thomsen, 83, and apparently given along with the spinning wheel to his son, Thor, in 1947. The essay gives details about a family heirloom, but it can also be read as a tribute to T.G.'s mother, Marie Magdalene, who used the spinning wheel for so many years. I've amended the text in places for the sake of clarity and modernized the spelling, but basically the words are still T.G.'s. The way he writes and expresses himself strongly suggest his native Norwegian language. Story of the Old Spinning Wheel (spinde rakk) How old the spinning wheel is exactly I do not know, but father and mother were married in August 1862, and it seems to occur to me that it was a wedding gift. The wheel was made by a man who lived at that time on a farm by the name of Kjåsebå at Bjoastrand, about 40 miles southeast of Bergen, Norway, so his spinning wheels were called Kjåsebå Racks (Rakker). The maker was a cripple, I was told. He could not walk, so all work was done sitting down. It was said his wife threaded the turning lathe for him, and with these few simple tools he one by one made his locally famous spinning wheels. When we in 1882 emigrated, father took the spinning wheel apart and packed the vital parts in the old featherbed. And now it is in your possession and a keepsake; take care of it. I gave the old family Bible, printed in 1847, to Marie. And my old musket, made in 1847, is now 100 years old. And my father's handmade furniture; they are relics from a time gone by. T.G. Thomsen Cornelius Thomsen's Cutter and His Famous Horse Dan Cornelius Thomsen and two of his children at Uncle George's house. Circa 1917 Cornelius had a horse named Dan who was balky. A balky horse is one that won't move if he doesn't want to. One time Cornelius was using Dan in the woods to skid logs when he balked. Cornelius was so mad that he decided to leave Dan in the woods all night. Cornelius just walked home. About nine that night Cornelius felt bad for Dan. He went and got the horse, led him home and put him in the barn. Ralph said Dan balked only when he was pulling a heavy load with his mate Dick. Dan never balked when pulling the cutter or cultivator for the kids, so Cornelius let them use the horse. One could drive the cutter but it took two kids to cultivate corn. One child controlled the walk-behind cultivator and the other held a stick attached to Dan's bridle and walked in the next row so Dan pulled straight. Once Ralph and Leif were cultivating corn. When they got to the end of a row, they rested old Dan and let him eat some grass. Well, Ralph and Leif fell asleep, and Dan walked home dragging the cultivator behind him. Cornelius was worried that the kids were hurt, but he found them sleeping in the grass on a sunny day. Ralph said that his Dad was raising chickens and needed special feed that he had to buy in Isle. Ralph would take Dan to Isle through Redtop once a week to get the feed. Cornelius never worried about Dan balking on the cutter because it was easy to pull. Dan was later sold to Albert Iverson for $10. Cornelius' cutter was stored in the tractor shed up in the rafters. In 1954, David and I tried to talk Dad into taking it down so we could play with it and use it with the horses. The first winter Dad wouldn't take it down; he said that it wouldn't last very long outside because of dry rot. Well, the next winter he took it down for us. We had fun with the cutter that winter using King or Duke to pull it. I don't ever remember seeing it again because Dad was right. The sled rotted that summer when it was sitting outside. Oh, to have that cutter now! The cutter's runners were made of small trees that had a bend. They were hand-hewn with a broad axe to get the right curve and size for the square runners. The box was made of white pine lumber. It was never painted. I don't know if the shafts were homemade or store-bought. They were offset so the horse could walk in the tracks at one side of a bobsled trail. That made easier walking for a single horse. When I enlarged the accompanying photo I could see that the lines are made of rope. Dan also has a rope around his neck tied to his hames so he could tethered in town. I have the rope-maker that Dad and Cornelius used to make rope in the old days. It still works, and I use it once and a while. Now who are the people in the picture? My guess is that the picture was taken the spring of 1917 when Buddy was about a year old. I showed the picture to my mother and she thinks that the house is Uncle George's because of the buildings in the background and the shades and curtains in the window. She said Cornelius never had curtains or shades. She thinks the man is Cornelius and two of his children. - Conrad Thomsen Keith Thomsen note: When I was talking to Aunt Bertha last winter about Conrad's story, she said she once rode old Dan to her sister Johanna's house to help after the birth of Johanna's second child, Don. Johanna and her first husband, Albert Bredahl, were living on the road from Field's Corner to Solana at the time, a distance of perhaps 15 miles. Bertha used a gunny sack for a saddle. She admitted that a Paul Revere-type ride wasn't really necessary since other means of transportation were available. She said she did it for the sake of adventure and to thumb her nose at her brothers, who had never done anything like that. Don was born in April of 1928, so Bertha was 14 at the time. How Bud and George Brought Christmas to Old Frank This story is about Christmas and the holiday season, but you'll have to wait a while to find out why. We have to start with the hunting season. The Thomsens always hunted deer back of Bear Lake every November. The hunting party always included Uncle Ted, my father, a varying assortment of my brothers, and my cousins Conrad and David. The hunting was governed by various traditions, and one of those traditions was to visit a hermit named Frank Pompi who lived near Oak Hill, the center of our hunting operations. There'd be a momentary lull while Frank opened the door to his low-walled, 10- by 12-foot cabin and stared gloomily at us. "Come on in," he'd finally say, then turn his back on us. As we stacked our deer rifles against the side of the cabin we could could hear lids banging and pots clattering inside. Frank had started to make coffee on his wood cookstove. We'd all file in and sit on the edge of his bunk like a bunch of crows perched on a fence. The area around the bunk was dark and dreary because the cabin only had two windows. Frank sat opposite us on the cabin's only chair by a small table. Light from one of the windows streamed in on the table, so we could see Frank very well. He had once been a big man, but now he was old, thin and bent over. He'd lost most of his teeth, which gave his face a permanent scowl. He always wore at least two pairs of bib overalls and flannel shirts that were especially matched so the holes in them didn't overlap. And he always wore a snap-brim cloth cap. Conversation started slowly and awkwardly because Frank was out of practice. Frank lived a mile and a half from the nearest road or nearest neighbor, so deer season was about the only time anyone came back to his place. He also seemed to regard our visits somewhat suspiciously. I suppose our curiosity about the way he lived showed, and he found it intrusive. Frank had no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing, no human companionship and very little money. Having coffee with Frank was a bit of an ordeal for another reason as well. He made it with water that trickled out of his "well," a nine-foot deep trench he'd dug into the side of a hill at the edge of his clearing. The water was so muddy that it already looked like coffee before he started heating it on the cookstove. When it was tepid, which usually took about a half-hour, Frank filled an assortment of cracked and/or handleless cups with five or six heaping spoons of Folger's Instant Coffee and added a similar amount of water. The result looked like oil drained from a crankcase after about 100,000 miles. It tasted even worse. Frank asked us how the hunting was. We inquired about his health and the weather back of Bear Lake. Gradually he warmed up to company and began to tell us strange things, such as how many flies he'd killed the previous summer and fall. He kept a journal and recorded his daily bag as well as a running total for the year. He usually got 800 to 900 flies a season. Frank would also tell us how many chunks of firewood (both split and round) he'd cut each year and how many bundles of birch bark he had gathered for starting fires. Sometimes Frank voiced caustic opinions about the world beyond the back of Bear Lake. For example, he hated the U.S. Air Force because its pilots flew jets over his land without his permission. The pope in Rome in particular and Catholics in general came in for criticism. That meant he also despised President John F. Kennedy. Once Frank even went so far as to write Kennedy a very nasty letter about the jet traffic, which prompted a visit to McGrath by two dark-suited, crew-cut Secret Service agents. When they found out who Frank was and where he lived they said screw it and left. But Frank's true, undying hatred was directed at two Minneapolis radio announcers. His sole modern convenience was a small transistor radio that he kept going with a stable of about 20 almost dead or dying batteries that he stored in a tin box on top of his stove. This kept them as warm and as lively as possible. Listening to the radio meant waiting until the middle of the night when reception was better, arming the radio with the freshest batteries from the tin box and then straining to hear the faint voices coming from the metropolis many miles to the south. Even so, his radio reception was sporadic at best and confined to WCCO in Minneapolis. Frank wanted to hear the weather forecast, but "those bastards" Franklin Hobbs and Chuck Lillegren only talked about themselves all the time. While we sat and listened to Frank we gaped and stared at the cabin itself. It was a masterpiece of the odd and unusual. Frank didn't have much, but then he never threw anything away either. Every square inch of his shack was crammed with junk arranged in an unusual and artistic manner. The background on all the walls was provided by layers of ancient newspapers. They kept out the draft, but many were clippings or pictures that Frank thought were interesting, such as an article about the triumphal visit of a famous female Finnish accordionist to Houghton, Mich., in 1934. Frank apparently had a crush on her. The door was covered by valentines and children's school pictures. It was kept closed by an elaborate and intricate, three-stage door lock Frank had invented that used various pieces of scrap metal. Not far away hung his patented four-way mouse trap, an object of special pride that wasn't actually used to dispatch mice on that account. One part of the cabin featured shiny tin-can lids nailed to the wall in a pattern. He said they reflected heat, but Frank obviously liked the way they looked too. Still another section was entirely covered with side panels from boxes of Land o' Lakes butter. These panels featured a comely Indian maiden kneeling and holding a box of butter in front of her chest. Generations of McGrath boys used to cut out the box of butter she was holding and fold up the panel so that the Indian maiden's bare knees showed through the space instead. With nipples provided by a budding artist, the Indian maiden appeared to be showing off a magnificent pair of breasts, a spectacle sure to make the adolescent male heart beat faster. All of Frank's panels were still in their original state, however. Two wood cookstoves took up about a quarter of Frank's living space. "When you live out here, boys, you've got to have a backup for everything," he explained. One of the stoves was used for heating and cooking. The other stood with its oven door open. Inside lurked a feral cat Frank had taken in but hadn't bothered to name or tame. It glared at us and hissed loudly whenever one of us made a sudden move. We often asked questions about his early life but Frank was evasive and gave us only a few basic facts. He was born in 1900 in New York Mills, a Finnish community in western Minnesota. His parents were poor and had a large family. Frank left home at 12. He bummed around, mostly working on farms and threshing crews. He came to the Bear Lake area in 1926, bought 40 acres of cut-over pine land for $40 and built his cabin. He sawed the lumber by hand with a bucksaw. The boards were randon width and about two feet long. Back then, Frank wasn't a hermit; he had lots of neighbors. There was a small sawmill just west of his place for a few winters. There were the Wardells, a farm family; a couple of gypo loggers named Lind and Fogger; the Geherty boys, Robert and Walt; the Gustafsons; and a Swedish trapper known only as Crazy Lars. But a mass exodus from northern Minnesota land like Frank's had already begun in 1926 and would be nearly completed by the end of the Depression and the start of World War II. The good timber was gone, and the land was worthless for farming. Settlers went broke, starved out, or moved away in search of a better life. Back of Bear Lake went back to woods. Only Frank hung on and became an accidental hermit. He was the victor in a survival contest that wasn't worth winning. Frank worked on a farm near Owatonna during the summer, building up a small stake so he could live through the winter at his cabin. In the 1920s, Frank's way of life was no more unusual than the place where he lived. The agriculture and timber industries depended on armies of casual laborers like him to cut timber, pick potatoes and fruit, harvest wheat and do a host of other seasonal work. But both farming and logging became mechanized. That reduced the demand for labor and kept wages low, forcing many workers to move elsewhere, particularly to the West Coast during World War II, where they found better jobs and better living conditions. Frank didn't join them. Again, he hung on to what he had and knew, and the world passed him by. Most people around McGrath knew Old Frank lived somewhere in the woods back of Bear Lake but few knew exactly where. Occasionally he was seen hiking into town. Sometimes he got a ride with Pete Larson, the mail carrier, but mostly he walked to McGrath and back every two weeks to get food and mail. When Frank retired in 1962 to live on a Social Security pension, he was making about $600 a summer. His first pension check was $24.60. About that time Dad started visiting Frank more often than just deer season. As father grew older he became more preoccupied by the past, and he sought out old-timers to talk to about the old days at Bear Lake. He got into the habit of buying Frank a few food luxuries, like Oscar Meyer weiners, Copenhagen snuff, or a six-pack of Buckhorn Beer. The weiners were a particular treat for Frank; he had very few teeth and the processed meat was easy to chew. Dad would stow the stuff in a packsack and head back of Bear Lake on Sunday mornings . Sometimes one or another of us from the hunting gang would go with, but Dad's most frequent companion on his visits to Frank was his buddy George Hemmila from East Lake. George spoke Finnish, which pleased Frank immensely. George also brought Finnish bread and goodies that his wife had made. Frank was very sensitive about accepting charity, however, and there was a limit to what Dad and George could do for him. The man was extremely poor, but he angrily refused to accept anything more valuable than weiners and beer. He had his pride; he could look after himself; he was not a charity case. This fact was the seed that grew into a plan to bring Christmas to Old Frank. (See, I told you this story was really about the holidays.) The basic idea was to buy Frank things he desperately needed and to give them to him under the guise of Christmas gifts that he couldn't refuse. On Dec. 24, 1970, Dad and George went to the East Lake Co-op Store and bought a pair of bib overalls, a flannel shirt, a set of long underwear, wool socks, a box of chocolate-covered cherries and a Christmas card. A supply of spirits was acquired at the McGrath Liquor Store, and five or six of us were recruited to charge off into the woods on snowmobiles to bring Chistmas to Old Frank. I can't remember exactly who was involved besides dad and George, but likely suspects are Uncle Leif, Uncle Ted, Conrad, David or my brother Lowell. We rendezvoused on the snowmobiles at place called Sam's Gate on a back road known as Sawdust Alley. Ten minutes later we roared into Frank's clearing and stopped the snow machines a discrete distance from Frank's cabin. "Are you there, Frank?" Dad yelled. "Hell no!! I've gone to Florida!" came the sour response from within the cabin. It was Frank's version of a friendly greeting, and the exchange had become a tradition between him and dad. When Frank opened the door we all charged inside shouting "Merry Christmas" and forced the gifts on Frank. An awkward silence ensued. Frank stared at the untolled wealth of overalls and underwear spread on his table. His face was a battleground of conflicting emotions ranging from pleasure and appreciation to anger and injured pride. We became uneasy; this wasn't going well. Then someone, I believe it was Uncle Leif, broke the silence with a question: "Aren't you going to offer us a drink, Frank?" That tipped the balance. Frank sprang into action and became the perfect host. The cracked and handleless cups were filled with blackberry brandy instead of vile coffee, and a package of store-bought cookies and the chocolate-covered cherries were passed around. As the brandy worked its dark magic, the volume of talk increased, and the stories and jokes started to flow. The little cabin rang with our laughter, and Frank even loosened up enough to grin and chuckle. The party got better and better. Then Frank the perfect host said, "What we need is some music. Can any of you boys play the mouth organ? My lip is gone." He rummaged around in some boxes and came up with an ancient Hoerner harmonica. Well, George was a master of that instrument and he soon was belting out old-time tunes that had us singing and tapping our feet. Frank's face had an expression of joy on it that we'd never seen before. His scowl was gone. He got more and more agitated. Then he did two amazing things. First he started to dance. That's right, he danced. He did an old-time logger's stomp. A logger's stomp is an Irish jig performed in heavy work boots; there's a whole lot of fancy and very loud footwork but practically no upper-body motion. It was a form of entertainment adapted to the crowded bunkhouses of turn-of-the century logging camps. The old-timers who could do it were practically gone; I'd seen it done only once before in my life. We were all shocked, surprised, pleased and astonished; George almost swallowed the harmonica but managed to keep on playing. He swang into another chorus of the polka he was working on. Frank stomped with the most amazing agility as George played faster and faster. Finally Frank went out of control and collapsed into his chair. Then the second amazing thing occurred. Frank laughed. Not just a chuckle or a snicker or a guffaw, but a full-throated, roaring belly laugh of pure joy and amusement. We all joined in and applauded his dancing like madmen. Our mission had been accomplished; we'd brought Christmas to Old Frank. By then the pale winter daylight was dimming in Frank's cabin windows. Someone said it was time for us to go. We had family Christmas Eve parties to attend. Frank became quiet and subdued but the scowl didn't return to his face. He busied himself lighting a kerosene lamp as we put on our coats and caps again. He stood silhouetted in the yellow light of his cabin door and waved as we disappeared into the darkened woods. It was a bittersweet ending for our Christmas adventure, but we all agreed it had been a very good time and vowed to do the same thing again next year. Bringing Christmas to Old Frank looked like it would become part of our holiday tradition. But it was not to be. On a late October day the following year, Dad walked into Frank's clearing with a packsack of food and shouted, "Are you there Frank?" This time there was no answer. - Keith Thomsen What's in a name? Grandpa (Tolleif George Thomsen) entered wholeheartedly into his American citizenship, but there were at least two things from the old country that he felt should always be given their just due. These were Norwegian food and Norwegian names. He was proud of the Thomsen lineage, and it distressed him that his American-born daughters-in-law never chose old country names for his grandchildren. I have reason to know that his American-born sons were just as reluctant about those odd, old names, but somehow we girls felt guiltier about spurning them. Each time a grandchild was born Grandpa George always made a bid for a really suitable name. Something like Thoralf, Taulerius, Gudrun or Ragnhild would have been his choice. But each time he lost the decision, usually with good grace. One time though, I saw him reduced to a state of sputtering incoherence. This time the child was to be named Gary. As far as Grandpa was concerned, that wasn't a name. It had absolutely no meaning, had come from nowhere on Earth that he knew of and was an abomination. He could have stood for George, John or Mary. Those weren't really first-class names, you understand, but they were endurable. But Gary! Grandpa paced up and down the room, stomping his cane and trying to put his indignation into words. His mustache stood on end, and when he finally found words to speak, they came out in a thick Norwegian accent, "Gar-r-r-y! What kind of a name is that?! I am so mad I could spit." It wasn't often that Grandpa became so upset, and he got over it quickly. He loved the new little Thomsen, of course, scandalous name and all... Excerpted from an article by Jean Thomsen (Alf's wife) in "Thomsen Family Reunion 1882-1971," compiled by Carolyn Thomsen Mutchler, © 1971 Keith Thomsen note: Uncle George, as he was known as in the Cornelius Thomsen branch of the family, didn't confine his naming suggestions to his own daughters-in-law. My mother said that when I was born about a year after Gary, he wanted her to name me Knute. Four years later, he suggested that my new brother be named Cornelius. Mother partially conceded to his wishes by naming the baby Neil. Tolleif George also practiced what he preached. His own children were named Marie Gurine, Thor Brynjulf, Erling, Alf, Haakon and Astrid. All of us have had trouble getting people to spell Thomsen correctly; you can imagine the problems T.G.'s children had. The First Bicycle My uncle, Hans Jacob Olsen, was probably the first man in Norway who made bicycles. He was born in 1832 on the farm named Enstabovold (Einstape paa voll), Valestrand, Sunnhordland. He was trained as a mechanic and lived in Stavanger, where he built all types of farm machinery, such as fanning mills, plows and hand machinery for threshing. In the beginning of the 1870s he got the idea that he wanted to experiment with bicycles, having heard about them being made in other countries. The bicycle he made consisted of two high wooden wheels banded with iron, pedals without brakes, a wooden seat with leather covering and handlebars. When he entered the house, the maid told him his sister had gone to a neighbor on an errand but was expected home soon. He went in and rested on the sofa. In a little while his sister came in the kitchen laughing and asked the maid if they had company. The maid said, Yes, your brother came. My aunt said, I thought so. I met Lars Haukaas. He had just come from the mill, and he told me he had nearly been run over by the Evil One himself in the bend in the road. He rode on a machine such as no one had seen before. It had two wheels, one behind the other. His feet went like drumsticks, and the sparks were like a streak of fire stretching behind him, and he went so fast that anything flying could not catch him. Thus the terrorized one had finished the story. My aunt said, I better go in, I think my brother is here. He makes machines like that. I have not seen one, but the description fits. - George Tolleif Thomsen The Storm This is Uncle Ralph's most famous story about "working on the boats." It's about a fierce Lake Superior storm that struck with little warning. It's about an antiquated ship that didn't sink when it could have. And it's about 30 seamen who missed their long anticipated Thanksgiving dinner but still figured they had a lot to be thankful for.
The time was the afternoon of Nov. 25, 1942, the day before Thanksgiving. The place was aboard the steamship Cetus, about half way across Lake Superior on a voyage from Toledo, Ohio, to Duluth, MN with a cargo of 8,000 tons of coal. The Cetus' captain, Irving Hallberg, had just received a radio report from Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., that a winter storm was moving in from the northwest and that gale warnings had been posted for Lake Superior. Hallberg knew that November gales on Lake Superior are exceedingly dangerous; more Great Lakes ships have been lost in storms during that month than any other.
Going into Bete Grise Bay meant a delay, and ship captains are not encouraged to tarry on their voyages. Moreover, the United States had entered World War II less than a year before, and the nation was gearing up for a supreme war effort. It needed every ton of coal and every cargo of iron ore that ships like the Cetus could move. Finally, Hallberg knew that the navigation lights and buoys had already been removed from Bete Grise Bay in anticipation of the end of the shipping season, and he had never taken a ship there before. Hallberg consulted his chief engineer, Dan Stockwell. "I've got good bunker coal this trip," Stockwell said. "I think I can squeeze another knot out of her." Hallberg thought for a moment, then made up his mind. "That settles it; let's make a run for it," he said. He ordered the wheelsman to steer a course for the North Shore; he was going to try to beat the storm. One was the Thanksgiving meal planned for the next day. "Thanksgiving dinner on the boats was something to write home about in those days," Ralph recalled years later. "You'd come into the dinning room and all the places were set. Beside each plate was a napkin, a cigar, a pack of cigarettes and a glass of wine. And they always served three kinds of meat - turkey, goose and probabably duck - as well as all the trimmings and goodies you could eat." Ralph and the other crewmen had been on the ship since March working eight hour days, seven days a week, while the Cetus went back and forth between the same Great Lakes ports. The holiday was a big event, a novel occurrence in their otherwise monotonous lives. The approach of Thanksgiving also meant the shipping season was drawing to a close, another cause for celebration. He was wrong. When Ralph made his way back across the deck to his regular post in the engine room about a half-hour later, he got soaking wet. There were still no waves to speak of, but the wind was blowing so hard that it picked sheets of water off the surface of the lake that drenched him. The waves came soon enough, and it wasn't long before the Cetus and its crew were fighting for their lives. The ship was only 40 or 50 miles from the safety of the North Shore when the storm struck, but it would take the Cetus 31 hours to reach it. The ship's speed slowed to less than a mile an hour as it plowed into waves up to 30 feet high and wind estimated at 60 to 70 miles an hour. Waves broke over the pilot house and washed down the deck. As the temperature dropped, water started freezing on the ship. Soon the pilot house and bow were covered with ice more than a foot thick. In order to see out, Hallberg, his officers and wheelsmen had to leave a foot-square window open to the weather. (left) The crew kept one window free of ice so they could see as they navigated the storm. But seeing where they were going wasn't their big problem just then. That was keeping the Cetus afloat and headed into the wind and waves. When the storm struck, the ship lost radio contact with land. There was no hope of rescue if the ice-laden ship started to go down. All that night and the following day the Cetus struggled against the elements. Thanksgiving dinner was cancelled. Most of the engine room crew settled for sandwiches and coffee in the galley. Others were seasick and couldn't have cared less about eating. The deck crew and officers, who bunked in the forward end, went hungry. The galley was in the aft end, and it would have been suicide for anyone to try to cross the icy, wave-washed deck of the pitching ship. The sailors stood their watches and then went to their bunks to try to sleep, something that was very hard to do because of the continual creaking and groaning of the bulkheads and the flexing of the deck plates as waves rolled over the ship. One of the older sailors, a man with salt-water experience, told his bunkmates that it was the worst storm he'd ever been in. "I've seen bigger waves on the ocean, but at least I was in a ship I was sure would hold together," he said. "This thing could break up at anytime." The Cetus' position was precarious. Like other Great Lakes ships, it had been built long and narrow so it could be loaded with chutes at gravity-fed iron ore docks on Lake Superior. But that configuration made the ship vulnerable to capsizing if it ever broached, or turned sideways to the waves, during a storm. If the Cetus and her crew were to survive, the ship had to meet the waves head-on. Once the storm hit, it could not turn back. The Cetus had two factors working in its favor. One was that the vessel was loaded with coal. That kept it stable in the water. The coal also filled the cargo hold to the top. The Cetus' cargo couldn't shift and cause it to list at a critical time. An equal tonnage of iron ore wouldn't have filled the hold and could have moved. The other factor favoring the Cetus was Stockwell, the chief engineer. He never left the engine room during the 31 hours of the storm, and the crew said afterwards that his seamanship probably saved the Cetus. "Stockwell was a hard man to work for, and a lot of the engine room crew didn't like him," Ralph said. "But he sure earned everybody's respect for what he did in the storm." Just how Stockwell helped save the Cetus requires some explanation. First, the ship needed all the power that Stockwell and his men could coax out of the engine to maintain headway into the wind and waves. Without enough power to steer the ship, it would almost certainly broach, capsize and sink. But the engine could not be going full-throttle when the huge waves lifted the stern and propeller out the water; the Cetus' engine had no governor. If the propeller had been turning full speed when freed from the resistance of the water, the engine would have "raced" - started turning so fast that it would have torn itself apart. A ship without power would also broach, capsize and sink. Stockwell's answer was to "throttle" the engine for hours on end, methodically turning it off when he felt the propeller coming free of the water and turning it on when the prop settled back into the lake. From where Stockwell sat he could also see the quadrant, a big half-moon-shaped gear in the fantail of the ship that controlled the rudder. When the quadrant moved away from the midships position, Stockwell knew the Cetus was being blown sideways by the wind and the wheelsman was trying desperately to bring it back. When Stockwell judge that the quadrant had moved too far for safety, he stood up and opened the bypasses, valves that sent super-heated steam directly from the boilers into all three of the engine's cylinders at once. It was a move that pushed the engine to the very limits of its capacity. It could have caused an explosion that sent scalding steam through the engine room, killing the crew, but it gave the ship badly needed extra power in the emergency. Stockwell silently watched as the seconds and minutes dragged by and the quadrant slowly crept back to its proper position. All the while he "throttled" the engine and kept his ears tuned to its sound for any hint of trouble. Finally, when the rudder and quadrant were back amidships, he closed the bypasses and sat down again. This drama was played out many times during the 31 hours of the Cetus' agony. Once the ship was 13 points off the quadrant, but Stockwell managed to muster enough power to bring the ship around one more time. Finally, early on Nov. 27, the day after Thanksgiving, the storm broke. It blew itself out just as the Cetus finally made the North Shore. Against the odds, the ship had survived the worst that a Lake Superior gale could do. The entire crew turned out at dawn to clear the deck and hatch covers of ice. They worked for several hours, but even so the Cetus was drawing six more inches of water than it should have when it passed under the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth. That meant the ship was still carrying an added cargo of 220 tons of ice. After the Cetus was safely tied up at an ore dock in West Duluth, the crew finally got their Thanksgiving dinner, complete with wine and cigars. As for the Cetus, it sailed for two more years, but on Nov. 7, 1944, it was taken out of service and "run into the mud of Erie (Pa.) Bay," Ralph said. Officials of the Interlake Steamship Co. said the Cetus was too uneconomical and unseaworthy to sail any more. It was sold for scrap in 1946. - Keith Thomsen © 1987 Ralf or Ralph - Which name is right? On Jan. 8, 1910, Cornelius (39) and Anna Thomsen (22) had a baby boy they named Ralf Sigurd Thomsen. They gave all the information of his birth to the clerk of Idun Township, Ole T. Langerud. But somehow the spelling of the name was changed, unknown to either Ralf or his family for 33 years. He went to the Cedar Lake School for 8 years as Ralf. All his family and friends knew him as Ralf. His father died in 1942 at the age of 70 when Ralf was 32, and his mother died in 1917 at the age of 29 when he was 7. Both passed away not knowing that there was a mix-up with Ralf's name.
This is how the spelling error came to be known: In the winter of 1942-43, Ralf went to school in Cleveland, Ohio, to get his marine engineer's license for the Great Lakes. He was told that he would have provide a certified copy of his birth certificate to authorities. When the certificate arrived, Ralf noticed that his name was spelled Ralph, but he never thought too much about it and submitted the document to officials. On April 21, 1943, in South Chicago, Ill., Ralf shipped out on the steamer Cetus as a second-assistant engineer. This was during the Second World War, when all iron ore carriers on the Great Lakes came under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Coast Guard. All Great Lakes engineers and mates were put in the Coast Guard for the duration of the war to make sure the ships were adequately manned. One day the chief engineer got a letter from the Coast Guard instructing him to have Ralf Thomsen report to the Coast Guard office when the ship arrived in port. The chief and Ralf were worried that something was wrong, but they didn't have any idea of what it might be. Ralf hadn't done anything bad that he knew of, but he was scared. At the Coast Guard building a receptionist took Ralf to a room where there were two stern-looking officers. Ralf said they had more brass on them than there was in the engine room of the Cetus. And they weren't smiling when they started questioning Ralf about why he was using two names. Ralf didn't have any idea why his name was spelled wrong on his birth certificate, so he tried to talk his way out of it. Eventually the officers were satisfied but warned him he had better start going by the name on his birth certificate. That was the end of the name "Ralf" officially, but it took him years to completely get used to the new spelling of his name. He figures that either the township clerk or someone at the Aitkin County Courthouse misspelled his name as Ralph. The only question that I have is, who did Mary Loomis marry on Feb. 2, 1942? Conrad Thomsen How the Norwegians Almost Invented Jazz When I was just a kid living on the wind-swept, desolate shores of Bad Lake, Saskatchewan, my mother one day took me upon her knee and said, "Lloyd, though your little overalls are worn and ragged and you have no shoes for your tiny bare feet, and we are as poor as it gets, there is one thing you can be proud of." "What's that, Mother?", I asked. "You can always hold your head high because you are a Thomsen. (She was a Thomsen before she married my father, Arnt Arntzen.) And we Thomsens are related to Ole Bull." "Wow!" I said. "Mother, who was Ole Bull? "Son, Ole Bull was a Norwegian virtuoso violinist of the nineteenth century famed the world over for his renditions of the works of Paganini." "No kidding!" I exclaimed. "Mother, who was Paganini?" She didn"t know. And so I have compiled a bit of history so that you too, like the Arntzens and Thomsens and all those related to these illustrious families, no matter how thinly, can proudly tell your children, "We, too, are of noble birth, but the rats ate the will." This is the story of how the Norwegians invented jazz. Of course, the world is aware that Scandinavia in general and Norway in particular have produced many fine jazz musicians in the latter half of the previous century but it is virtually unknown that Norwegian invented jazz in the first place! Now, it is possible that some people would find that last statement a bit strong. Perhaps I should modify it somewhat. Let me say instead that Norwegians played an important and fundamental role in the invention of jazz. No, lest the nit-pickers find fault with that statement too, let me say that there were Norwegians in New Orleans when jazz was being born. I'm not sure how many Norwegians were present for the birth of jazz, but I can say without fear of contradiction that there was at least one present at the time and that he was from Narvik and his name was Arnt Arntzen, who later became my father. There! Let them find fault with that! This eighteen year old Norwegian, who at the time had no idea that he would either become my father or the inventor of jazz, landed in New Orleans in 1908 as a seaman aboard a British freighter. He didn't want to return to England because times were tough there. So, being Norwegian, which is to say, resourceful and morally flexible, he jumped ship and entered the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as an illegal immigrant. After a short career (one day) as a dishwasher in a French restaurant, he landed an important position more fitting his talents in a dairy on the city outskirts as milker of cows. He still had no idea that he might become the inventor of jazz or my father. But just a short streetcar ride away, in the center of the city, important things were brewing. Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Kid Ory, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton and others were engaged in creating the only unique art form America would ever produce, New Orleans Jazz. And here is this young Norwegian from Narvik who would later become my father and who was an enthusiastic musician and who would have gotten on with those guys like a house afire. All he had to do was pack up his guitar, take a short streetcar ride downtown and there play his part in the creation of America's finest gift to the world. Unfortunately, he never took that streetcar ride. He almost did one Sunday, his day off, but at the last minute the boss called him in to work overtime. One of the other milkers had been kicked by a cow and Arnt had to take his place, an example of how small events can alter the course of history. Thus, this young man from Narvik, who would eventually become my father, narrowly missed his first chance to invent jazz. But he had a second chance. Finding the daily routine of a dairy too confining for his Norwegian adventurious spirit, he took a job as a sailorman aboard a Mississippi steamboat plying the river from New Orleans to St. Louis. As before, this young Norwegian still had no idea that he might be the inventor of jazz, or my father for that matter. In fact, he had no idea how narrowly he had missed his first chance to invent jazz. How could he? Nevertheless, here he was, about to get his second chance. All the world knows how important Mississippi steamboats were to the development of jazz. These floating roccoco palaces were famed for the music they carried aboard - the steam calliope and orchestras led by Fati Marable. Many great muscians played on these boats and my father almost did. He rushed down to the levee for his job on a fine old Mississippi sidewheeler, thereby getting his second chance to be the inventor of jazz although at this time, he was still unaware of the fact that he might be so. Unfortunately for my father and the glory of Norway, the steamboat he shipped out on didn't have an orchestra, not even a steam calliope, and so he sailed northward blissfully unaware that he had almost invented jazz. Arnt Arntzen kept going north further and further until he got to Bad Lake, Saskatchewan, where he herded cows, raised wheat and married an American girl of Norwegian descent and finally became my father. He still had no idea how close he came to inventing jazz and bringing well-deserved glory to the Norwegian nation. Bad Lake was not a hotbed of jazz activity. And although we were dirt poor, I have always been able to hold my head high and take pride in the fact that I am the son of the Norwegian who almost invented jazz, and through my mother, a relative of Ole Bull, famed for his renditions of Paganini, whoever he was. - Lloyd Arntzen Lloyd's mother was Ragna Thomsen, the daughter of Cornelius Thomsen. Note: T.G. Thomsen's oldest daughter, Marie, wrote this story for the 1971 family reunion book. It shows how isolated Bear Lake still was 20 years after the Thomsens homesteaded there. And it shows how much things have changed. One of the towns mentioned in the story, Redtop, disappeared from most maps more than 50 years ago, while the other, Wahkon, has perhaps 150 residents. The railroad that once linked them with passenger service is just a memory. Marie was 14 years old when she had this adventure. Marie Has a Tooth Pulled It was a day in August 1918. Dad was down on the hay meadow near McGrath. He stayed there all week during haying season. Mama was home with the six of us. I had been suffering with an aching tooth and decided it had to be pulled. This meant a trip to Dr. Swennes in Wahkon, a town 16 miles away. Dr. Swennes was the only physician for miles around, and as there was no dentist, he took care of dental work too - tooth-pulling only; filling cavities was not even considered. It was about 10:30 a.m. when I left Dr. Swennes' office, and I had to wait until 5 p.m. for the return train. There were very few ways to amuse oneself in Wahkon. I walked around town, visited the one store, and then went to the (Mille Lacs) lakeshore to watch the boats. I had a lunch with me from home, which I ate as well as I could considering my sore mouth. Train time finally arrived, and I went to the depot glad to be on my way home, only to be told the train would be about two and a half hours late. I walked downtown again and, fortunately, I met Dr. Swennes. He was surprised to see that I was still in town. I told him the sad story about the late train, and he invited me home to have supper with his family. You can imagine how happy I was to accept the invitation. I was very hungry, and supper was delicious. After supper I went back to the depot and finally got on the train at 7:30 p.m. It was getting dusk when I reached Redtop and walked to the Kahlberg's for the bicycle. Mrs. Kahlberg wanted me to stay there overnight, as it was getting too dark to ride. I thanked her but refused, saying my mother would be worried if I didn't come home. There was no phone, so I couldn't let her know where I was. The only person I met on the way was Delbert Oquist, who stopped to admire the bicycle. As it got darker and darker, I had to walk wheeling the bicycle beside me, and I kept hoping the wolves wouldn't howl. The walk was long, tedious and frightening in the dark. The woods on either side of the road seemed to be full of danger, and my imagination sometimes got the better of me. After what seemed hours, I reached the old Hegna place (about 1.5 miles from home). I saw a light approaching, and, to my delight, there was Uncle Cornelius coming with a lantern in his hand and a gun on his shoulder. He said Mama had started to worry when it got so late and I hadn't come home. She sent Thor over to ask Uncle Cornelius if he would go to look for me. Uncle Cornelius told me to hide the bicycle behind some bushes and Thor could pick it up in the morning. Even though I was tired and footsore, the rest of the way seemed short with the sturdy presence of my uncle beside me. And even though this was the era of kerosene lamps, the lights of home never shone brighter when we arrived. I was happy to be safe and sound and welcomed by a big hug from Mama. Thor, with true brotherly solicitude, said, "You shouldn't have left my bicycle in the damp grass; it will get rusty." I knew he was glad to see me though. - Marie Gurine Thomsen Winter Illness The last part of January 1916 was very cold with lots of snow. My mother (Anna Anderson Thomsen) was very sick and needed a doctor. It was sixteen miles to Wahkon, the small town where Dr. Swennes lived. That was many hours by horse and sleigh, and, since there were no telephones in rural areas in those days, the only way to reach Dr. Swennes was by letter. The train that picked up the mail went through McGrath at 9 a.m. and passed through Wahkon about a half hour later. It was daylight when I got to the McGrath Post Office to mail the letter in time. Then I went to Aunt Tina's home for something to eat and to rest. It was sunny and still very cold when I arrived home in the afternoon. I remember that Dr. Swennes did not get to our home until late that night. Many people in the neighborhood were sick, so he had to stop at several places. He had his own pills along as there were no drug stores at that time. Dr. Swennes had to make up whatever medicine there was in his office. All the children were sick with high fevers. Ted, my brother, was deaf for a while after the fever left him. I became delirious during the illness and had many wild dreams. Dad had to bring me downstairs, partly because I was screaming and partly because the unheated upstairs was terribly cold. Many of the children in the neighborhood lost some of their hair during this seige of illness, but it later grew back. When my mother died a year-and-a-half later, she only had a few strands of long hair; the rest was short and curly... - Johanna M. Forsgren NOTE: Aunt Jo was 11 years old when she made her trip through the woods to McGrath with the letter. Her mother, Anna, 30, was still recovering from the birth of her seventh child three weeks earlier when she became so ill. When Anna died in May 1917, Jo, then 12, became a mother in many ways to her younger brothers and sisters. NOTE: If Hank was 6 years old when the circus came to McGrath, Hank Goes to the Circus When I was about six years old, I heard there was a circus coming to McGrath. I begged and pestered my dad (T.G. Thomsen) to let me go. My brothers Thor, Erling and Alf were all camping on a 40 acre meadow about a mile south of McGrath to put up hay. They would be able to go because they were already close to town. But Mama and Dad thought I was too young to go by myself, and we didn't have a car so there was no way to get me there. My job at home was to bring the cows in from the pasture every morning and evening for milking. If I left, no one would be home to do this. But my sister Marie offered to get the cows for me, and my parents finally gave in and let me go to the circus. Dad gave me $5 so the four of us could get into the circus and have some peanuts as well. In the afternoon I walked the five miles to the hay meadow to meet my brothers. In the evening we went into town for the performance. As it turned out, the tickets cost so much that there was only enough money left to get two bags of peanuts for the four of us. But, man, what a circus! It had six monkeys, a lion, a cheetah, some dogs and an elephant. The elephant was the most wonderful animal. It was so big all I could do was just stare and stare at it. But the most wonderful part of the trip to the circus was the next morning. I started walking home from the hay meadow after spending the night camping with my brothers. I had just got to the road when along came the circus moving to Opstead for its next show. There were six wagons with four horses pulling each one. Behind the train of wagons was the wonderful elephant. I walked behind him in his tracks all the way home. I thought this was just great! - Haakon "Hank" Thomsen How Leif Thomsen Lost His Left Hand Leif Thomsen lost his left hand while helping fill silo at the Pasch family farm near Wimbledon, N.D., in September 1933. He was 21 years and 11 months old. The filling crew had just finished the last wagonload of corn bundles for the day when the accident happened. It had been a dry year in 1933. The corn was to dry that they had a hose running water into the filler. That added water to the corn so it would make better silage. After the last bundle of corn went through the silo filler, Leif tried to take the water hose away while Carl Pasch shut the tractor down. Leif was reaching across the blower for the hose when the strong air flow sucked his left hand toward the fan. Before Leif could react his left hand was cut off and blown into the silo. The cut was just about at the knuckles. The doctor cut Leif's hand back a little further to use the strong padding of Leif's palm to cover the end of his stub hand. After the accident, Leif moved back to Minnesota. He soon recovered and learned to make the best of his injured hand. He found out that he could do almost any job. According to what he told David Thomsen, all Leif could remember about the accident was feeling three taps, then looking at his hand and finding that his fingers were gone. David also noted that one day Leif's dad told him to harness the horses. Leif replied, "I can't do that." Cornelius said, "In your life you will say that a thousand times." That advice could have been the turning point in Leif's life. After that, the only thing that Leif couldn't do was button the right sleeve of his shirt. If he wore a button shirt, the right sleeve was usually left open. He also wore a lot of western shirts that had snaps. Then he could fasten the sleeve himself. Sometimes when he had button shirts, he would stick his right hand towards you. Nothing was said but everyone knew that he wanted his sleeve buttoned. Leif taught me how to tie my shoes using one hand. The kids in school tied their shoes different, but I didn't know any other way. Somewhere I learned how to tie my shoes like other people, but I just got my shoes to see if I could still tie them the way Leif taught me. I haven't forgotten! - Conrad Thomsen A note from Keith Thomsen: "My dad said Carl Pasch hated feeding silage to the cattle all during the following winter because he was afraid he'd find Leif's hand in the corn. The hand never showed up, however." How Alf Shot His Arm Off Alf Thomsen shot his right arm off at the elbow while hunting deer in October of 1927. He was 18 years old. The accident occurred less than a quarter of a mile southeast of Ted Thomsen's mailbox a long a high birch ridge. The ridge runs north and south on the east side of a beaver dam (NW1/4 of the NE1/4 of Section 9, Idun Township). A neighbor named Cliff Bowen, who was about 30 at the time, was making a drive to Alf. Alf was standing on a big pine stump to see better and was resting his right forearm on the barrel end of his shotgun. As he turned to see what a noise was, the butt of the gun slipped off the stump. The hammer caught on the edge, causing the gun to discharge. Alf was using a shotgun loaded with double O buckshot, a shell commonly used for deer hunting at the time. As a result, most of Alf's forearm was shot off except for some skin, and he was bleeding very badly. Cliff Bowen, who had some knowledge of first aid, put a tourniquet on Alf's upper arm and told him to release it every so often. Then Cliff walked Alf out to a spot on the township road just east of the mailbox. Alf waited along side of the road while Cliff ran about a mile to Uncle George's farm on Bear Lake for help. My dad, Ted Thomsen, told this story to me years ago. When the Isle newspaper came out on Oct. 22, 1997, a news item caught my eye about what had happened 70 years ago. It included Alf's accident. I called my uncle, Bud Thomsen, age 81, to get more information. Bud was 11 years old when the shooting happened. Here is what he remembered: It was a Sunday afternoon. Leif (age 16), Bud, Haakon (Hank) (age 16) and others were playing Mumblypeg (see note below) out by Uncle George's barn when they heard someone yelling. They looked up and saw Cliff Bowen running as fast as he could toward them shouting that Alf had been shot in the arm and was bleeding bad. Bud recalled that there was mass confusion when they tried to start a car so they could bring Alf to a doctor. Bud figured that it must have been Thor's (age 22) car or Erling's (age 20) car that they were trying to get started. Thor was out west with Ted, while Erling was sailing. Their cars had been stored at the farm. Bud said that Uncle George (age 63) and Aunt Caroline (age 57) did not own or drive a car, so it was not clear who drove the car that took Alf to the doctor. On January 26,1998 I received a letter from Alf's sister, Astrid Thomsen (age 12 in 1927). She remembered Cliff coming to the house with the story of Alf having been shot in the arm. The following is part of her letter: "Dad and Momma went with when they took Alf to the doctor in Isle, Mn. Momma held Alf, because of course he was weak from the wound and the loss of blood. Mother said afterwards she had always wondered how she would react if something would happen to one of the family. She surprised herself by keeping calm and holding up well. "The arm was so shattered there was no question it had to be amputated. Doctor Chester Holm was a good surgeon, and Alf had no infection or setback in healing. He was in the hospital for two weeks. I remember visiting him there. There was a nurse, Mrs. Thiede, that was so good to him. In fact, he got very special treatment. So he was in good shape when he got home. Except having to get used to not having a right arm. "I remember Cliff Bowen crying, and feeling so guilty because he had asked Alf to go with him that afternoon." The next Sunday at Meeting (Plymouth Bretheren service), John Rowe (a neighbor and fellow member of the Plymouth Brethren) preached about the evils of hunting on Sundays. Uncle George, Alf's dad, responded, "I told him not to go hunting." On October 30th I talked to Ralph Thomsen. This is what he had to add to the story: In the spring of 1927 Erling, age 19, had got Alf and Ralf, age 17, jobs as sailors on the Great Lakes. The jobs were on the ore carrier Hubert F. Black. Ralf was a porter in the galley, while Alf was a coal-passer in the engine room. Alf hated this job; he told Ralf, "This is like being in jail." As Alf was an outdoor person, he wanted to hunt and trap. He had to sail until after the first of July to get his train fare paid from the spring. When the ship docked in Duluth on July Fourth, Alf got off the ship and never sailed again. On May 25,1998, I talked to Bertha Thomsen Lennardtz (age 14 in 1927, now 84). Here is what she recalled: She was at Uncle George's playing with Astrid and can remember Cliff Bowen coming running and saying Alf had been shot. She was sent home as everyone left to pick up Alf. Bertha also thinks that Cliff Bowen drove the car that took Alf to the hospital. "I can remember seeing Alf roll his own smokes with his stub arm. He would put the cigarette paper on his stub arm and open the sack of Bull Durham with his teeth and left hand. He would put some tobacco on the paper, then close the tobacco sack the same way. Then he used the fingers on his left hand to roll the cigarette. When tailor-made smokes became cheaper, roll your own smokes went by the wayside." Alf's left arm became quite strong, as he had to chop wood, milk cows by hand, and carry feed all with one arm. He could even carry two pails of water. His stub arm would stick straight out with a pail of water hanging under it, while he carried another pail with his left arm. Below is the item from the Mille Lacs Messenger of Oct. 22, 1997, that appeared under the heading "This week in history": "70 years ago - 1927 Alf Thomsen of Idun Township lost his arm when his gun accidentally discharged while he was setting wolf traps." What actually happened was that they were hunting deer illegally in the McGrath State Game Refuge. They couldn't report what they were actually doing, so they came up with the story about setting wolf traps. Conrad Thomsen NOTES: Alf was born on April 22, 1909, at Bear Lake and died in Orofino, Idaho, on June 12, 1962, at the age of 53. Mumblypeg is a game played with jackknifes and a pine board. Each kid had his or her own jackknife with a short blade and a long blade. During play, the long blade stuck straight out and the short blade was cocked at 90 degrees. The game would start by sticking the big blade in the pine board. One would flip the knife in the air with a finger. And if the short blade stuck, you got some points. If the big blade stuck, you got fewer points. If the knife landed on its back with blades straight out you got the most points. The game was usual played with 6 kids, two to a team. The lucky winners got to choose a new partner. Cliff Bowen lived on a farm in the southwest corner of Section 3, Idun Township. The farm was in the clearing northeast of John Walters' mail box. Ragna on the Prairie Note: In the winter of 1926, Lorentz Thomsen visited his brothers at Bear Lake for the last time. When he returned to Saskatchewan that spring, he brought his 18-year-old niece Ragna with him for a visit to the prairies. There she met and married Arnt Artzen of Narvik, Norway. Their life together on a Saskatchewan ranch was difficult, as the story below will show. Later, recalling the adventure for Canadian writer Rolf Knight, Uncle Arnie called the incident "one of the worst scares I ever had in my life." And this was from a man who had been a sailor, seal hunter, river-runner, ship-rigger and commercial fisherman. Ragna was 24 at the time. ... We were more isolated on that ranch than is usual for the prairies. Our nearest neighbor was about three miles away. When my wife was pregnant with our second child we had miscalculated the time she was due by about a month. I had been planning to take her to the hospital in good time (Ragna's first child, Lloyd was born in a neighbor's house when she and Arnie were unable to get to the hospital in time). Well, on the twenty-ninth of February 1932, we were sitting in the kitchen. There was a raging blizzard outside. My wife says, "Wouldn't it be a joke if you'd have to go and get the doctor tonight." ... It wasn't half an hour afterward that she started to get labor pains. I didn't know what to do. I now know I shouldn't have left the house, but I thought I'd be able to get help from the neighbors in time. Because a woman would know what to do better than me. I set out across the prairie heading toward where our neighbor's house should be. You couldn't see nothing, but I steered by the wind. I was lucky and I hit their house. My neighbor and his wife hitched up a horse and sleigh, and I walked ahead leading the horse with a lantern held down to the ground. You couldn't see nothing of the road - all drifted in - but you could feel it with your feet. When we got back to the house and I opened the kitchen door, I see blood spattered all over the floor. I rushed into the bedroom, not knowing what I might find. And here is my wife lying with our new born daughter in her arms. She had a great big smile on her face and she said, "It's all right. And it's a girl, just what I wanted." Ever since that, whenever I have any fight with my wife, like married couples do, I just think back on how she looked there and I can't be mad at her anymore. She was as brave as anything. Beverly was born just after I left. - Arnt Arntzen, as told to Rolf Knight Old Norwegians I was raised to respect and admire my Thomsen aunts and uncles. To me, they were a good-natured and benevolent presence in my early life. But as I grew up, I gradually tuned out the stories they told about the old days at Bear Lake and about Norway where my grandfather Cornelius was born. I became a young adult eager to pursue my own interests. I think I used the 1970s term "relevant" a lot. But time passes, and decades later I became more interested in family history. In 2003 I visited ancestral sites in Norway with three of my brothers, my husband George, and a nephew. One stop was at beautiful Engesund, Tolleif Thomsen's trading post. Engesund was built on an island along a shallow sound and was a farm since about 1600. It was also a trading post from early times. Tolleif Thomsen bought it and built his large house in 1842. As the boats of trading post customers got bigger and needed deeper channels, the business at Engesund fell on hard times and was gradually abandoned. Being left alone for many decades, but well-cared-for by the current owners, the Kleppes, was a blessing for us. We could visit our great-great-grandfather's property and find it much as it was. One hundred and sixty-one years after it was built, we sat and had a meal together in great-great-grandfather Tolleif's kitchen. We explored the island and house. Late that afternoon, I went inside to rest. I was tired from jet lag and the odd experience of the long, long days of light in the far north. George went off to explore on his own. Later, when we were back at home in the US, he handed me a shard of pottery he found along the shore at Engesund.
As you can see, there's a little heart on it. Of course, the rational mind (and anyone who watches "Antiques Roadshow") will know the shard is probably not historical. However, I was touched at the serendipity of a symbol of affection. The bit of pottery now has an honored place in a glass cupboard in my house in Oregon. It reminds me of my inherent bond to the Old Norwegians who were our ancestors. --Gwen Thomsen Rhoads
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I was born in April 1864, and my earliest recollections circle around that old spinning wheel. It woke me in the morning, and by its sound lullabyed me to sleep at night. With a small flock of sheep and a pair of wool cards, mother managed to make the yarn that provided us with stockings and mittens, and yarn to be woven into clothing for our backs. It seemed as if the old wheel was never still from early fall until spring called for more outdoor kinds of work. And if there was a rainy day or a spare hour, the whistling of the wheel filled the house. 
About 3 p.m. on opening day we'd file into Frank's clearing and stop at a respectful distance from the cabin. Father would call out, "Are you there, Frank? We wanted to warn him that we were coming. 
In 1874 the post road from Haugesund to Tittleness was finished. The next summer Uncle wanted to visit the relatives in Sunnhordland. He took the steamship to Haugesund, where he went ashore, and, riding his bicycle, took the road north through Sveia. At a sharp turn in the road just before he reached the Haukaas farm, he nearly ran over a man coming from the mill with a sack of flour on his back. The sack got a good push, and the man nearly fell down. Uncle was going fast, and when he saw the man was not hurt he went on his way. A short time later he arrived at Haukaas farm, where his sister lived. 
The Cetus would have to find shelter, but where? Hallberg had two choices. His ship was about 10 miles off Keweenaw Point, a long thumb of land that sticks into the middle of the lake. He could order the Cetus to turn back and anchor in Bete Grise Bay on the east side of the Keweenaw to wait out the storm, or he could have the Cetus make a run for Minnesota's North Shore about 80 miles away. There it would be sheltered from the worst of the wind and could continue its voyage southwest to Duluth. 
But a run for shelter on the North Shore was also risky. Built in 1903 in Superior, Wis., the 436-foot Cetus was underpowered and obsolete by 1942 standards. Its top speed was only about 8 knots; the ship would need nine to 10 hours to make the North Shore. It's course would take it near Isle Royale and its dangerous reefs, where many ships had foundered in November storms. 
Ralph, who was then an oiler, went on watch at 8 p.m. His first duty was to check the steering engine in the bow of the Cetus. As he walked up to deck toward the forward end, he was thinking about two things. 
The other thing on Ralph's mind was the U.S. Weather Bureau. He'd heard about the gale warning at supper, but as he walked up the deck at 8 p.m., the lake was calm and the air warm for November. "Another screwed up forecast," he thought. 
Early in the morning, I used my brother Thor's bicycle to ride six miles to Redtop to catch the 9:30 train. I left the bicycle at John Kahlberg's home. Reaching Wahkon I went directly to Dr. Swennes' office. He was home, so my tooth was pulled right away without the luxury of novacaine. It was a great relief to be rid of the aching tooth anyway. 
My father (Cornelius Thomsen) wrote a letter asking for the doctor's help and gave it to me to deliver. I had to leave home before 7 a.m. It was pitch dark when I walked to McGrath about four miles away, first over the frozen lake and then through the thick woods. I was rather scared in the woods because in those days there were still wolves. 
"This is a present from your great-great-grandfather," he said.