If She Wants a Door, She Gets a Door

My oldest daughter suggested that I start telling ‘family stories’ about eight months back: which struck me as a good idea.

This week’s, involving a door and — I think — showing where I get some of my attitudes and priorities, got me started looking for places in one of my ancestral homelands.

I’ll be talking about that; and, eventually, what happened when a husband’s idea of what’s good enough didn’t line up with his wife’s.

• Surnames and Ancestry, Mostly
• A Place in Ottertail County: Scenic, But Not Practical
• Names, Language, Accents, and Legacies
  • Changes — or — Seeking Lost Branting and Beridalen
  • “An Interesting Pattern”
• Priorities and a Door
• Family, Names, and Links

Surnames and Ancestry, Mostly

Most folks on my father’s side of the family had been in this country for generations when my mother’s grandfather and grandmother came over.

That may account, at least partly, for how easily I sorted out the Arba Zeri Campbell >Floss (née Campbell) Gill > Bernard I. Gill > me line of descent.

Besides being more recent immigrants, My mother’s people were from Norway: Norwegians, but not those blonde giants.

I’ve run into a few versions of how we handled surnames, but will talk about what I’ve gathered: without diving down assorted rabbit holes. The way it worked was apparently that daughters would be [given name] [parent’s name + datter]. The parent being the father. Don’t quote me on this: I’m just dipping into my memory.

I’m not sure, but I suspect that an “Ole Olsen Sr.” I found may be my great grandfather, Ole O. Hovde Sr. — if that’s the case, the one-year difference in birth date might stem from a typo.

One reason I suspect those are two names for one person is a few coincidences: the “Olsen Sr.” has a brother Lars, he came to the Goose River area at the same time as my great grandfather: and is related to someone I knew as Aunt Mattie.¹

My guess is that historians run into this sort of thing fairly often, when hunting facts in source documents.

At any rate, I’ve got a family story to share this week: involving, maybe, my great grandfather Ole O. Hovde Sr.

A Place in Ottertail County: Scenic, But Not Practical

Before that, though, a little clarification about what what I posted earlier this week:

“…Finally arriving at Ottertail County, Ole didn’t like the area and so decided to go on to the Goose River valley with some of the group. Mari and some of the other women stayed behind while Ole and the men went on. They hit the Goose River about a mile west of where Hillsboro [North Dakota] is now….”
(“Four Generations in America” (August 6, 2025)) [emphasis mine]

My guess, and it’s just a guess, is that Ole Sr. liked the land in Ottertail County just fine.

My folks and I found the place: not in Maplewood State Park, but the same sort of land you see in that photo. I don’t remember what year. It’s something of a Minnesota beauty-spot, with picturesque hills. And trees. And rocks. Lots of rocks.

Probably looks like the part of Norway he came from.

But it’s not good farmland.

So I figure Ole Sr. preferred land where growing crops wouldn’t be as challenging.

Now, another point or two about names.

Names, Language, Accents, and Legacies

I mentioned “Gjørvik, Nordre Land, Norway” in that 1972 paper. Just one problem: there is no “Gjørvik” in Norway, not that I could find.

“Gjørvik” may be how my part of the family pronounced Gjøvik, a town in Norway that’s east and a little south of where I figure my great-grandfather grew up.

The Nordre Land municipality is still there, but Oppland county isn’t: the folks in charge merged it and Hedmark in 2020, giving us Innlandet.

Next, about language and accent.

I grew up in the Upper Midwest, but speak with something close to what used to be called broadcast standard. I gather it’s General American English now.²

That might be partly because my folks and I lived a block or so away from a college campus. But I figure it’s also because both my parents were slightly deaf: and didn’t realize it until I was grown. Speaking clearly was a high priority for me. Still is.

Changes — or — Seeking Lost Branting and Beridalen

Another thing or three about names —

In “Four Generations in America” I said that my great-grandfather Ole O. Hovde Sr. was born in “1840 at Hovde, Branting in Beridalen, Gjørvik, Nordre Land, Norway”.

Clear enough, right? Well, maybe.

I found a whole mess of Hovde-something place names; including a Hovdevatnet lake, and a hill/mountain called just plain Hovde. But didn’t find a Branting, Beridalen, or Gjorvik. Gjorvik I’ve already talked about. But, again, I couldn’t find a place called Branting.

There’s a Swedish politico whose surname is Branting, which might have been a toponymic surname, like Hovde almost certainly is. “Toponymic surname” is academese for a family name that’s based on a place name. Maybe there was another place in Norway called Branting, and it’s been re-named.

I couldn’t find a Beridalen, either. But I did find Biri, a village that’s east of the area with “Hovde” place-names. Maybe Biri is how Beri’s written these days. And maybe that village was in Beridalen, and still is. Or would be, if the names hadn’t shifted a bit in the last couple centuries.

Speaking of which, there were and almost certainly still are a great many versions of the Norwegian language. But these days only Nynorsk and Bokmål are official: for written Norwegian, at any rate.³ Those are rabbit holes that I’ll ignore this week.

“An Interesting Pattern”

Something that struck me as I was looking for places, based on names my family remembered from the mid-19th century, was how many details can get lost in the shuffle — and how much I don’t remember.

That, and maybe some insight on why my folks encouraged me to speak clearly.

I was going to ramble on about that. But this excerpt from a chat my oldest daughter and I had Tuesday evening covers the important points:

[oldest daughter] “…I hadn’t heard that Ole Jr. was particularly interested in Grandma speaking ‘unaccented’ English. I’d heard that Great-Grandma Gunda had been teased at school for not knowing much English, so she very much wanted to make sure her daughter was fluent.”
…
[me] “Oh, yeah – – – both sides were highly motivated to have Dorothy ‘speak American’ 😉 ”
[oldest daughter] “To Grandma’s annoyance.
“It’s an interesting pattern. The immigrants and their children are all too eager to drop their native language and culture like it’s radioactive. The following generations profoundly wish they hadn’t.
“I wish I had a tape recorder going every time Grandpa Gill talked….”
(Discord chat (August 5, 2025))

Priorities and a Door

Finally, the ‘family story’ that I planned to share this week.

I’m not sure which couple this was: they were on my mother’s side of the family, and might have been Mari and Ole O. Sr. — but I can’t be sure. Not now.

Anyway, they’d both moved into a house — residence, at any rate — near the Goose River. The place was habitable, but lacked one of the modern amenities: a door.

He apparently had thought, probably with reason, that whatever makeshift arrangement he’d made to keep weather and critters on the outside was good enough: particularly since he hadn’t built a permanent house yet.

She had an alternative viewpoint. They were living there, this was their home, and she wanted a door. A door. Not whatever he figured was good enough for now.

So he went back to Ottertail County and got a door.

These days, that’s a drive: something like 105 miles, 170 kilometers: an hour and 45 minutes, give or take, in good weather.

Getting there and back 1871 or 1872 took longer.

The way I remember it, her husband walked to the nearest store — in Ottertail County — and back. Carrying the door.

I believe it, since wasting a valuable horse’s time — time that could have been better spent cultivating, or hauling, up in the Red River Valley — wouldn’t have made sense.

Besides, she wanted a door. So he went and got her a door.

Family, Names, and Links

Wrapping things up this week —

Families matter. Names are a cultural, and sometimes a political, thing.

I’ve talked about this before:

• “Four Generations in America” (August 6, 2025)
  • Four Generations in America: From a Gaard in Norway to a Farm in North Dakota
• “Arba Zeri Campbell and the Telephone” (July 26, 2025)
  • Being a Catholic Family: Just the Basics
• “A Vacation, Rain, Comic Books, and a Waterlogged Dad” (June 28, 2025)
  • Showing Respect, Being a Parent
• “Sledding With My Dad: Good Memories” (June 22, 2024)
  • Children, Dreams, and Choices
  • Success and Vocations
• “Family Names” (April 2, 2017)
  • Daruma and Me
  • ‘Because Henry VIII Said So?!’

¹ A few more names:

• Family Search
  • Lars Olsen 10 September 1836-9 August 1893
  • Mattie Hovde 4 May 1875-22 August 1963
  • Ole Olsen Sr. 23 October 1839-15 November 1924
    (born in Snertingdal, Gjøvik, Oppland, Norway)
    (this may be my great-grandfather Ole O. Hovde)

² Language and some places in Norway/Norge:

• Wikipedeia
  • General American English (used to be called broadcast standard, I gather)
  • Gjøvik
  • Gjøvik (town)
  • Innlandet (a county where Hedmark and Innlandet used to be)
  • Nordre Land

³ Languages and places in Norway:

• Wikipedeia
  • Biri, Norway (in Gjøvik Municipality, also in the Snertingdal Municipality that was part of Oppland) (complicated, isn’t it?)
  • Bokmål (an official Norwegian language)
  • Bygdemål (a lot of unofficial Norwegian languages/dialects)
  • Hedmark (a county that’s not there any more)
  • Hjalmar Branting (a Swedish politico)
  • Innlandet (a county that used to be Hedmark and Innlandet)
  • Nordre Land
  • Norwegian dialects
  • Nynorsk (another official Norwegian language)
  • Oppland (another county that’s not there any more)
  • Snertingdal Municipality (in Oppland)
  • Toponymic surname