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Note: es Tobias Johannesen and Anna Sorensdtr.on the Biktj�rn farm near Kvinesdal, Norway. She was born on June 26, 1872 and christened on September 26 of that year. She immigrated to America, at age 20, probably alone, on May 28, 1893. This was two years after her older sister Thrine immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Perhaps Thrine wrote and told Marie to come and perhaps Marie lived with Thrine and her husband Nels initially. Anyway, she lived in Milwaukee for four years before she married a sailor who had immigrated from the H�land farm near Flekkefjord in Feda, Norway. This was Anders Severin Samuelsen who had immigrated in 1888, at the age of 28, five years before Marie came. Anders was 37 when they married on September 6, 1897 in Milwaukee and Marie was 25. By then she had abandoned the name of Abel and went by Marie. Anders had come to Milwaukee in 1890 to be in partnership with his brother, Captain Andreas Samuelson. They sailed his ship on Lake Michigan with Anders serving as his first mate. Their first three children were born during these early married years in Milwaukee; Anna in 1898, Samuel in 1900 and Hedvig in 1904. They lived in a house on 645 Washington Street. Apparently this shipping business on the lake soured when the sailors lost a load of fruit in a storm which was not insured. Anders used his remaining limited assets to move his family to White Earth, North Dakota to homestead and try the farming life. He filed for the land on September 8, 1904. It is unknown what Marie felt about this change. She had her sister there, who also had a family in Milwaukee, and probably had lots of church activities and friends there. One could guess it was a difficult change for her. They must have packed up the family and limited belongings and probably traveled by train to White Earth, North Dakota. They arrived in White Earth in April of 1905 and possibly had a difficult first year trying to build a sod house and barn before winter. They probably didn�t know anyone there and how does one shelter a family with three small children until one gets set up? The claim was in Myrtle Township about 7 miles south of White Earth, and in the country. Life was certainly hard those days. Marie, in writing Ander�s obituary for a Norwegian paper, describes it this way: The drought burned up the crops and we got no returns from the land. We lived in high hopes that things would get better. Each year we had new courage, but things got worse. But they also seemed to have some more enjoyable times too. Various pictures show Marie on the back of a horse and one where she is standing on a chair, holding a large book and seemed to be preaching to the prairie winds. Her ample calves are in view. Many of us seem to have inherited them! She was a rather large, square shaped woman often pictured in photographs in later years as plopped on the ground with her legs stretched straight out from her. Marie could not tolerate the winters on the prairie and often left - either she would take Hedvig to Milwaukee or Chicago to stay with a sister, or she would rent a place in Williston and put the children in school wherever they might be living. In Chicago, Bertina's husband threatened to leave once if Marie stayed so long. Anders sometimes went to Williston with the family, and at times stayed alone out on the farm. The travel and rental expenses took a financial toll and they never could get ahead. Their fourth child, Arnold, was born in 1912. By 1931, the children had grown up and gone and Marie and Anders were still struggling on the prairie. It was that fall that the minister came over to tell them that their daughter Hedvig had been murdered. This was the final blow. Sam and Arnold, now living in Minneapolis, drove out to White Earth and moved them to Minneapolis. Poor Marie, who was in deep mourning over the death of her dear daughter, and now was suddenly uprooted from her home and was forced to leave most of her belongings behind. They had to share a small apartment with the newly weds, Sam and Hilda. Marie found that her faith in God was her only hope. She began to seek out support and solace in the many churches in Minneapolis. She would walk to services and attend funerals of people she didn�t even know. She would participate fully and loved to join in the singing - always loud and off key. Everyone noticed her. People would gather around her after the service. She would cry and tell them she was Hedvig Samuelson�s mother which gave her great notice and fame. She would also mention that her son, Samuel, had just opened a doctor�s office in north Minneapolis. She was a great publicity agent for him in a bizarre sort of way. They continued to live in the apartment with their son, Sam and his family until they all moved into a house on 2940 Vincent Avenue North. In 1938, Sam built a separate house for his own family on Xerxes Avenue and Marie and Anders continued to live in the Vincent Avenue house by themselves - probably a great relief for everyone. Sam had built a hospital, Victory Hospital, nearby and Marie could walk there in just a few minutes. They often spent Sundays with Sam�s family, and Marie busied herself with church activities much of the week. An existing letter she wrote to her niece Martina in Norway describes her church schedule: �I go to church meetings on Tuesday, Bible class on Wednesdays and I have more meetings on Thursday. On Saturday, I go to meetings on how one should lead souls to Jesus and on Sunday there are regular services again. There are also ministers preaching on the radio and I like to listen to them too.� This probably beat the isolated life on the prairie for her and she could more fully serve her Lord Jesus. She also communicated often to those left in Norway. She was thirsty for information about her family and friends there and curious about what changes had happened since she left. She worried deeply about them during the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II. She sent and received 50 Christmas cards one year - many from Norway. She longed to go back to the place she �ran as a child�, but also realized that this would be sad since so many of her relatives and friends had died. She wrote often to her niece, Martina, and about 6 letters have been selvaged and translated. She missed the Norwegian Christmas with the nissen - Santa Claus was just not as good. On New Years Day of 1941, Marie had another great shock - her dear Anders died. Marie wrote some detail about this day to Martina about a month later. She tells that �Anders got sick in the morning. I called Sam and said he was having a heart attack. Sam took him to the hospital at 11 a.m. and he died there at 3:30 p.m. He was fully conscious the entire time and could talk. I didn�t believe the end was so near. I thought he would get over it. He had such an attack before. It was like a light went out - without any death struggle or great pain. Before we took him to the hospital, he told me to tell the children �I am a sinner full of need and am without value but that Jesus died and paid for all of my sin�. I stood at his side until his soul went home to God. He asked me not to leave the room but I didn�t get to say good-by to him. I am so glad that he is at home with God, free from pain and all evil. But the loss is so large my heart breaks.� Besides living with a broken heart, the event brought new large changes for Marie. The house was clearly too big for Marie to live in alone. Anna invited her to come live with she and Phillip and their 6 children in Chicago. Marie declined. It would be noisy, they really didn�t have room for her, and she liked Minneapolis. She liked her own place where she could come and go as she wished. But the house was sold and she found herself again living with Sam, Hilda and their family. After about a year, they all moved out to a new home in Golden Valley on a small lake. She had more room but not real privacy. Some of the children and their cousins living there at times delighted in playing jokes with her. They were known to have placed a phonograph under her bed that played a record that only laughed. She didn�t seem to know what was going on, or was this really an act she put on for the children? She also seemed to delight in the children. She often invited them into her room and played such games as hide the thimble. She would hide her silver thimble and would tell the children when they were �hot� or �cold� while searching until it was found. She loved to hold the smaller children on her lap and read Bible stories to them while she rocked in her rocking chair. She also read them other stories - one of those remembered was about the �Sultan� which she pronounced with a Norwegian accent. Her church activities were curtailed since she could no longer walk to her favorite places. She was also aging. It seems that she might have had a small place again by the hospital later in life. It must have been in the early 50�s since some of Sam�s daughters remember going over there on Saturdays to help her clean. She developed breast cancer and had a mastectomy. She started needing more care and was eventually moved to an annex off the hospital that had long term type care. She died there on April 24, 1955. She passed on her deep faith to many of the next generations and is remembered with love.
Note: Abel Marie Johannesdtr. was the third of the six children born to Johann
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