Run For Your Life - A Story of Strength from World War II

Many of our ancestors faced situations that required every bit of strength and courage they could muster.  But few of those situations could compare with running for your very life from the Nazis.

My grandmother, Lisa Hammer, had a life that repeatedly required strength, from the time she was a toddler pining away for the home and mother that she'd never return to, to teaching and ministering to the poorest children in Norway, and much more in between.  But the astounding story of her fortitude during World War II shows what she was made of.   At the time of this story, she was a teacher in Kjøllefjord, Finnmark in northern Norway. I can't tell the story like Lisa could, so I will let her do it.  Keep in mind as you read the story that she got terribly seasick on boats, and that the Nazis had mined the waters.  Also please keep in mind that English was not her first language.

With that, may I introduce my guest host for this posting, Lisa Hammer.

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In 1940 the World War II broke out and lasted five years.  There was very little food around.  We fed the kids oatmeal soup and cod liver oil in the school and when the weather was bad, the fishermen stole the fish they had sold the day before.  The kids were not fed the way they should be and many times it was a lot better to give them a bath and teach them history and something else.  After the war I got a year off and went to a garden school.

The country was neutral but in big trouble because the Germans took the food for the soldiers.  For three weeks at the school we ate sour rhubarb jam with no butter on the bread.  The people were often put in camps because they didn't join the Nazis and they were starving to death.  The farmers in the south smuggled food in in empty garbage cans.  We could not write to our mothers because all mail was opened up and every telephone call taped.  All radios were taken away and nobody knew for sure who the next man was so we never dared to talk freely.  I stayed with one of the teachers at the school and had a very good year with them.  We made a lot of potato flour to take home and we bought a lot of caraway seed for tea.

Kjollefjord, 1928.  Original source of photo unknown.

In 1945 the Germans lost the war but before they left they burned the country and they evacuated us to the southern part.

We heard the news about the burning but did not know how serious the situation was before we saw the smoke come rolling over the mountain from Kjøllefjord.  We came together for a meeting and decided that all the men should go home and pack and all the women should bake bread so we could take it with us the next day.  It was in November and still no snow on the ground.  I lived alone but neighbors helped and we all worked together.  I went to bed and slept to 5 A.M.  Somebody knocked on the door and asked if I would go with my friends who had an old mother and were leaving.  I said no because I was sad and there were many who needed help.  I slept again until 7:30 A.M. and had another knock on the door.  This time the Germans were on the harbour, shooting down the pier and coast light.  I took the bike and my valuables up in the mountains to a small lake where we had water.  The Germans threw hand grenades in all the houses and that evening, not one house was left.  We had bought coal for heating for winter and all was burned up.  They put us in a fishing boat and said go to the south.  They were sure we would be bombed on the way but the first night the weather was so bad we couldn't go to the boat.  We made a big fireplace outside and fried sheep meat and drank beer.  We roasted the sheep and ate them.  The cows were running wild around; we milked them before we left and took as many pails with us as we could.  Of course we were to have food for three days.

Lisa's home in Kjollefjord

It was early Sunday morning the Germans come and they threw the grenades in the houses and we were all up to and before evening came, there wasn't one house left from all the places where we had the winter coal saved for the next year.  And we went down there and tried to find ourself but we couldn't find it because it was too dark and I was wondering where my map was at and all my papers and I couldn't find it and one of the neighbors who was born there, she came with a lantern and she said you follow me and I will find it, and she found it up in the rocks that night.  We had big bowls of sweet stuff, the cranberries, the blueberries and the snowberries we had saved for the winter, we dug them under the sod in the fence of the graveyard.  When we saw we couldn't take it with us we sat and ate out of the crocks.

It was very bad weather that night so we couldn't enter the boat - it wasn't possible to come to the boat so we were a mess.  We roasted some sheep, fried them on the fire and we drank some beer.  Milked some cows, packed silver in the shoes and boots so we could take as much as possible and next morning we went to the boat.  It was a fishing boat - we were laying in the bottom of the boat.  One man got crazy but we had a basket that was made up ready to go to the hospital if somebody should be sick.  Of course it was far away to the hospital.  So we tied him up in that basket, it was the only thing to do.  And every place we went by that day there was burning and burning and burning.  We tore apart sheets and bedspreads and washed the kids and one woman got her pants filled up screaming what should we do and throw it in the ocean, no, no, no we can't afford to do that, but there was nothing else to do.

So, for three days we went south and the Germans were sure we would all be bombed and died.  But later the weather got beautiful, we didn't see a plane.  We came to a city Phlocea.  They backed us into some cattle wagons with no windows, just one door, no lights and the rest room outside.

So we came down to a city called Mansus.  That is a side road going down to my home country and I took two families and we ran away in the dark.  The rest came south and I come home to my mother and my father with my two families.

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Lisa eventually went back to Finnmark and continued on to build up a fine school district from virtually nothing, and 30 years later she left it all behind for a new life in the United States with my grandfather.


Many thanks to Elizabeth O'Neal for hosting the Blog Party

Wordless Wednesday - Lille Finnkirka

Wordless Wednesday - Kjøllefjord Kirke, 1945

Burials in Norway

DIS-Norway pretty much dominated my morning.  And that's a good thing!

I was unaware of their website, at http://www.disnorge.no/gravminner/global1.php, until the kind folks at Ancestry.com notified me that they may have burial information for my great-great grandmother, Olea Ganesvik, pictured at left.   I clicked the link, and for the next several hours was engrossed in searching for all of my Norwegian ancestors.  I was able to find burial information, among other things, for many of them.

The database, something on the order of an early Find-a-grave, exists to aid genealogists in locating the burial sites of their ancestors, and has received grants from the Norwegian Arts Council to aid in their work.    The bad news is, the site is in Norwegian.  The good news is, you can get an English search page at  http://www.disnorge.no/gravminner/index.php?language=engelsk    The bad news is, other pages on the site don't offer an English option.  But the good news is, if you use Google Chrome, the browser will offer to translate for you.  The bad news is, nothing is infallible, including Google's translation.  "Olea Ganesvik" translated to "Olea Gane Deceit", so proceed with some caution and perhaps consider keeping the Norwegian version open in a separate browser tab for easy comparison.

The information available on the site may differ from one ancestor to another, but typically, name, date of birth, date of death, date of burial, cemetery name, and location within the cemetery are typically given.  I would assume the database is far from complete.

Another piece of good news - the database does allow for corrections to be made.   In the table of search results, the right-hand column contains an icon that when clicked, whisks you away to another page containing the same data, but with columns for corrections/additions, and also a place to add comments, along with your name and email address.  Whether or not the comments and contact information will be added to the website is anyone's guess, but it wouldn't hurt to try, and you never know - it could result in making contact with a distant cousin.  In addition, source information can be found on the correction page.  The primary source of information for my ancestors was the website of The Norwegian Church at  http://www.kirken.namdal.no, where photos of some of the churches and graveyards could be seen.  I was very glad to see  photographs of Steine Church and cemetery, where my paternal great-grandparents are buried, a beautiful place that I will probably never be able to visit in person. 

Something initially confusing was the date format - for instance, a day of death is written as "0805" which is 08 May, NOT 05 Aug.  One other thing that I eventually figured out is that the search box will take more information that simply names.   For common names, adding a birth or death year, if known, might save you from looking through page after page of results.  And, since  only 10 results can be viewed at a time, if you have hundreds to go through, this will save you many, many mouse clicks. 

All in all, I was delighted to find this website, and very grateful for the information gleaned from it.  Check it out when you have a few hours!

Wordless Wednesday - At the Grave of her Husband

Wordless Wednesday–A Warm Reunion in Kjøllefjord

100th COG Edition - There's One In Every Family: The Upbuilding of a School District

On the northern coast of the Land of the Midnight Sun, in the village of Kjøllefjord, a school system was built up from nothing to a thriving environment for learning, by a woman I’m proud to call my grandmother.

   Kjøllefjord, Finnmark

The year was 1925, and 23 year old Lise Klungseth had just graduated from teacher’s college in Oslo, and like every other graduate, was looking for a job.  The market was flooded, and teaching positions were generally hard to come by.  However, Lise had read about Finnmark, and the work of Pastor Otterbeck, who was trying to bring Christianity to the laplanders and Finlanders in the area, many of whom did not speak Norwegian.   There weren’t many teachers willing to go there because, as Lise put it, there were times “when the sun does not shine for two months,” and the area was nowhere near as cultured as southern Norway.  She described Kjøllefjord as “about as far away from home as you can get.”

map courtesy of Google Maps.  The pin marks the location of Kjøllefjord

Lise soon found herself employed in one of the poorest districts in Finnmark.  Her teaching position was split between three different schools, one month at each place, traveling between them by boat.  Her schoolhouses consisted of single rooms in private houses, with no books, pencils or papers.  Lise provide what they needed out of her own pocket.  Eventually, she was “promoted” to only having two schools.

When World War II broke out, the people of Kjøllefjord had to run for their lives.  Lise went back home to her parents’ home, and the following spring, to her sister’s home in Trondheim, where she was offered a very good teaching job.  While there, she received a telegram from the director of schools in Finnmark, asking her to return to Kjøllefjord. Recalling what little she had to work with there, she asked: Do you have a schoolhouse?  No.  Do you have desks for the children to sit on?  No.  Do you have books?  No.  What do you have?  Children.

Something inexplicable led her to say yes, quit her job in Trondheim, and head north.  She said, “I was the happiest person in the world, just like everybody else who was coming back because the Germans were gone, the country was ours and we were able to build it up again.” 
Once there, they were able to arrange for a log cabin, which had served as a hospital during the war, to use as their schoolhouse.  The mayor of the village asked Lise what she needed – she asked for carpenters, and was given them.  She worked alongside them, finishing the rooms and commencing her classes.  She taught from 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m.  She was able to get three students from Oslo to come and help with the teaching duties.  They made do with whatever supplies they could find, until one day a mysterious box, sent from Canada, arrived at the school, filled with paper and pencils.  More boxes followed – with books!  They never did find out who sent those badly needed supplies, but they were grateful beyond words.

The new school building in Kjøllefjord 

Lise continued to build up the school, and was eventually promoted to Principal, with six teachers employed, a new and modern schoolhouse, complete with an intercom system, among other "luxuries.”

 
Her life was diverted from the children of Kjøllefjord in 1952, when she received a letter from my widowed grandfather, who was a lifelong friend, asking her to come to the United States.  She did, and the rest is history.  But I’m certain that leaving Kjøllefjord, where she had invested so much of herself, was probably one of the hardest things she had ever done.  She left behind her permanent gift to that village – an educational system to be proud of.

Lise, on a visit back to her old school in Kjøllefjord, in the 1980s.  Notice her picture on the wall, at left, a copy of which is below.

Tombstone Tuesday – a “What?!?!” Moment…

It was the first speechless moment I’d had in a long time – and I’m rarely lost for words…
My father had a huge trunk full of loose photos that had belonged to my grandmother, Lisa, who immigrated to the US from Norway in her 50’s, to marry my grandfather.  Very few of these photos were labeled, and I had sat up late for several consecutive nights going through them, and scanning the many extremely small photos that must have been quite popular back then.  I had to scan and enlarge them just to get a good look at the faces and places, all of which still went unrecognized.  About halfway through what was seeming like a very un-fruitful job, I picked up this tiny little photo, scanned it, and to my amazement, recognized the names on the stones as being my grandfather’s parents in Norway.  I knew little about them besides their names at that point.  Seeing this very tangible proof of their existence brought them to life immediately for me.  I would love to have yet another speechless moment, paying my respects in person, if someday possible.