Small Towns on the Great Plains

It is football season on the Great Plains. It is Friday Night Lights.   Last Friday we drove over to Wheaton where my hometown of Hancock would play.  The high school building signage said Wheaton High School, but we played Border West.  Go figure. How could this be?  It is a story of change, a story of transformation, and it has impacted each of us.  Let’s look at it.

Over a century ago, the railroads fanned out onto the Great Plains, moving westward from St. Paul.  The bison and the Native Americans were swept aside as immigrants from Norway, Sweden, and Germany settled near the railroads.  It was called Manifest Destiny.

Small towns, like Hancock, popped up along the Great Northern Railroad.  They were a place where grain could be stored in giant bins.  They were a place for shopping for groceries, purchasing hardware and farm machinery.  Small country schools of the immigrants were scattered across the plains but would merge into small town school systems.  Some of my Hancock classmates started out in country schools.

The land was cheap and was neatly divided into Sections of 640 acres.  One section could support four farms in those days.  The farm families were often large and provided lots of children for the small-town schools.

Then the transformation of the Great Plains continued in earnest.  The farmers that fed their families were called upon to feed the world.  The giant food companies of Minnesota, like Cargil, Pillsbury, and General Mills, would form the mechanism to acquire grain from the small farms and ship it down the Mississippi, or up to Duluth and out the Great Lakes to feed the world.

Large scale operations, like corporate farms, and large-scale farm equipment would transform the Great Plains into a huge factory of grain production.  It would come with a cost.  The smaller farms began to disappear.  For example, Dianne grew up on a farm near Clontarf.  It is now plowed under.  The driveway is gone, the trees are gone, and the buildings gone.  Plowed under.

With fewer farms on the plains, there were fewer school kids to feed the school systems.  When I grew up, my hometown of Hancock had two hardware stores, two grocery stores, a drugstore, a clothing store, two cafes, a veterinary clinic, and a doctor’s office.  All gone now.  Hancock is just a shell of what it once was.  The school system keeps the town alive.  But the 11-man football team is now 9-man.  

Friday, as we drove to Wheaton for the football game, we passed through the small towns like Alberta, Chokio, Graceville, and others which once comprised the Pheasant Conference.  They are also mere shells of what they once were, victims of the great transformation on the Great Plains.  The Chokio schools merged with Alberta, then both merged with Morris.  On and on, the transformation continues.  The small towns on the Great Plains are being slowly swept away, like the Bison and Native Americans before them.   

It is fall on the plains.  Great fields of wheat are being harvested by million dollar combines, sometimes three to a field.  Next comes the harvesting of corn and beans.  For now, it is corn as far as the eye can see.  Everything is large-scale now.  There are nearly 10,000 milk cows at Riverview farm.  A tractor can cost upwards of $800,000 and computers within it control the planting or spraying of the fields.

And so it is that Hancock played Border West, not Wheaton, because Border West is comprised of students from the communities of Wheaton, Herman, Norcross, Clinton, Graceville, and Beardsley. Friday, it took those six towns to field a 9-man football team.  Hancock won by two points.

 

A MAN, HIS REGIMENT, AND HIS FLAG

 I am attempting to get more involved in the Norwegian-American community around Lake Minnewaska.  I have made some inroads by attending functions such as "Lefse Dagen" in Starbuck on the 3rd Saturday in May. 

As for Glenwood, I have just submitted an article to the Pope County Tribune.

The editor informs me it will make the paper the week before Memorial Day.

It is a tribute to early pioneer Erik Barsness.  He came to the Lake Minnewaska area early, after serving as a flag bearer in the Civil War.

Most of you do not receive the Pope County Tribune so I have posted the article here.

15th Wisconsin Flag at the Vesterheim Museum at Decorah, Iowa

 

A Man, his Regiment, and his Flag

 

Erik Barsness, and his “Norwegian Regiment”

 

A Memorial Day Tribute

 

“They were old men now, and as these Civil War veterans were brought up to the speaker's platform terrific rounds of applause rose through the hall. As they unfurled the old regimental flag, the cheers and applause of 20,000 sounded like a hurricane over the gathering. The old warriors seemed very much moved by the ovation, although they had well earned it. These veterans were the last of "The Norwegian Regiment", the 15th Wisconsin Regiment, which was shattered 50 years earlier on the fields of Tennessee and Georgia.”[1]

 

They held their last major reunion May 17, 1914, celebrating Norwegian Independence Day. The location was the exhibition hall at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Twenty-seven of the veterans of Det Femtende Wisconsin Frivillige (the 15th Wisconsin Regiment) registered. Erik Barsness of Glenwood is not listed as an attendee, but he was very active in Veterans organizations such as Post 38 of The Grand Army of the Republic.  Erik Dalager visited him in March of 1916 and recorded “Barsness is very ill now and possibly will not live long.  He complains about the pain from the bullet he carries for the Cause.”[2]

 

The old regimental flag was never lost in battle, and the 15th served in 26 battles all together. As they listened to the speakers, including the Honorable James Peterson, their thoughts had to turn back to places like Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, Pickett’s Mill, and New Hope Church.”

 

Norsemen, Let us Band Together

Erik Barsness, early pioneer at Pope County, came over from Norway in 1861 and later that year signed up with Company D of the 15^th.  He was a flag bearer for this famed regiment.  He was likely influenced to enlist by Hans Christian Heg who commanded the 15^th.  Heg travelled through the Midwest recruiting youth from Norway.   Colonel Heg asked for a thousand men, Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes. "The government of our adopted country is in danger." he wrote. "That which we learned to love as freemen in our old Fatherland - our freedom - our government - our independence - is threatened with destruction". His appeal generally closed with these words, "Come then, young Norsemen, and take part in defending our country's cause, and thus fulfill a pressing duty which everyone who is able to do so owes to the land in which he lives. Let us band together and deliver untarnished to posterity the old honorable name of Norsemen".[3]

Heg visited certain Norwegian settlements in four states. In October of 1861 he visited Decorah, Iowa and it was from here that two young immigrants from Tinn, Telemark, Norway joined the 15th. They were Per Torgiersen Såheimsmogen (Peter Thompson) and his nephew, Kittil Tovsen Bömogen (Charles Thompson).  They were from this author’s family.

Erik Barsness was seriously wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he received a rifle ball in his right lung.  The agony he suffered was indescribable, being forced to lie on the cold, wet ground during the next two days and nights.  He nearly died.  It was an honor to be a flag bearer during the Civil War, but it was extremely dangerous.  

What better source can you find to describe the bravery of the 15^th Wisconsin Regiment, and their flag bearers, than from their enemy opponents at Pickett’s Mill, near Atlanta, Georgia? 

The 15^th charged up a ravine and was raked by artillery fire and gun shots.  After reviewing accounts of the battle, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson wrote of this brave regiment that attacked his forces. "The leading regiment in the storm columns came so close to the barricades as 20 feet, while the flag bearer broke rank and planted the regiment's flag in the ground 10 feet from the entrenchment and was shot. First one man, then two more crept forward to rescue the flag and were shot one after the other until the 4th man succeeded in carrying it away".[4]

 

 

For Gud og Vort Land

 

Today, the flag of the 15^th Wisconsin with the Norwegian words on it, ‘For Gud og Vort Land”  (for God and for Country) can be viewed at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, Iowa.   The flag is well traveled.  There was a Jubilee Exposition in 1914 in Christiania (Oslo) Norway.  Mabel Wraalstad was there supervising the Wisconsin exhibit.  She was the daughter of John Wraalstad, hero of the Norwegian Regiment attack on Rocky Face Ridge in Georgia. 

 

Approach it with Pride and Deference

 

Waldemar Ager arranged the section from the State of Wisconsin at the Jubilee Exposition in Christiania, Norway in 1914.  The most outstanding thing in the collection was said to be the old flag of the 15th.  It was so badly damaged, that before hanging it had to be tacked to a piece of gauze.  “It is half in rags and marked with rifle bullets and cannon shells”.  But it had taken part in 26 battles and onsets.  There was always a large crowd around the section, with a showcase, that pertained to the 15th Wisconsin Regiment.  Norwegian newspapers brought out long columns of descriptions about the showcase and its contents.  The newspaper, Morganbladet, stated “It contains relics and mementos of that gallant 15th Wisconsin Regiment which received itself so much acclaim in the numerous and bloody battles in which they took part during the great American Civil War”.   “Here at home we have not had a war for a hundred years.  But it was no more than 50 years ago that a Norwegian regiment fought along in a long and hard war.  And they fought with honor.  That little glass case in Wisconsin’s room, with the flags, under which our country’s sons fought and gave their blood, let us approach it in deference, and let its contents fill us with pride - and with faith.  Fifty years ago Norsemen gave their lives for an ideal."

 

 

About the Author:

 

Gene Estensen was born in Morris, Minnesota and raised in Hancock.  He is retired and spends his summers at Lake Minnewaska. Gene is a descendant of Minnesota Territorial Pioneers from Telemark, Norway who were caught up in the Civil and Indian Wars.  Gene’s family members Peter Thompson and Charles Thompson died for their new country with Company K of the 15th Wisconsin, the Norwegian Regiment.

Gene is a student of Norwegian emigration history and has published several articles on the Norwegian Regiment. 

---

[1] Colonel Heg and His Boys, by Waldemar Ager, p. 208

[2] Colonel Heg and His Boys, by Waldemar Ager, p. 174

[3] Colonel Heg and His Boys, by Waldemar Ager, p. xiii

[4] Colonel Heg and His Boys, by Waldemar Ager, p. 170

In Search of Whales off Maui

 After a long journey from Alaska, the Humpback Whales are in Hawaii.  They are having their young ones, called calves.  Whales are easily spotted from land when they "blow".

We decided to take a closer look.  We signed up for a whale watching excursion aboard the Quicksilver.

The Quicksilver is based out of a small marina (above).  About 20 passengers made the trip.  The search for whales was on.

We got close to lots of whales.  The problem is this.  The whales jump out of the water, everyone screams, you point your camera, you hurriedly click the camera, and hope for the best.  Unfortunately, the whale is back in the water by the time you take your picture.  Like this:

Here are my best attempts.

The pictures were not so great, but the trip was.  The Captain's narrative about whales was amazing.  Then, there was the setting.  It is beautiful out there on the water.

We returned to the marina, very pleased with the trip.

The Sentry, a Golf Tournament

The best golfers in the world are here at Kapalua this week.  They are playing for a $3.5 million first place prize.  Some $20 million will be paid out.

We hailed the Kapalua shuttle bus to give us a lift up to the tournament.  We went early so we could walk the course.  Lucky for us, there were no other hikers on the course, the back nine holes.  We took in the beauty as we walked backwards, from hole 18, to 17, etc.  Number 18 is one of the most famous holes in golf.  Note that I am pointing at the length, a long, long 677 yards.  It is sharply downhill so most players are on or near the green in 2 shots.  Amazing.

An early-morning walk reminded us of the beauty of the course and the homes along the course.

We set up chairs on the very edge of the 10th green and watched the players come by.  We watched the entire field before moving to hole 18 to see many of them come in again.  Turns out this is one of the best places to set up camp.  The views are terrific.  Between players groups, we watched whales breaching in the distance.  We watched our favorite players come through.

Here is our seating arrangement, just off the green.  Here is Justin Rose in our group after he hit a shot a bit right.

Again, the views are outstanding up here on the hillside overlooking the sea.

We moved down to the bleachers at hole 18 to watch the action on the long hole.

Sit back and enjoy the final two days of the tournament, Saturday and Sunday, on TV as the world's best golfers compete on a super long golf course.  

There is a bird here on Maui with a sound like no other.  The sound of the Zebra Dove is so pleasant to hear when you step outside.  Take a listen:

Zebra Dove

Above the Clouds

Welcome back to Hawaii.  It is beautiful here.

It was time for a daytrip and our Mustang convertible was the right car for us to take a drive above the clouds.  We drove up Mt. Haleakala, a massive volcano which forms 75% of the island of Hawaii.  The road up was winding, and scenic.  It was weird driving through the clouds, then breaking out into the sunshine.  We were up over 10,000 feet.

Above the clouds.

Looking back.

So, the big deal here is to drive up to the summit for sunrise.  Indeed, we did that in 2015 with our entire family.  Please join me for a trip back in time.  It was cold on Mt. Haleakala as the sun came up over the clouds.

Next up is the golf tournament, and whale watching at sunset.  But first, please enjoy this short musical from Hawaii.