Aunt Ann's Memories

Of the Doxtad sisters who were my aunts, my Aunt Anne Doxtad was the most prolific writer.

The Doxtad girls left to right: Isabella, Ellen, Luella, Anne

My great aunt Anne Olson wrote of life on the farm in Nebraska, of her heritage, of her experiences and feelings and musings. She begins with a summary of the Doxtad (Dugstad - Dewy place) family heritage. There is still a Dugstad estate on the lakeside north of Voss.

ROOTS

Archaeological research into past history and culture seems to have constituted a desire
to know more about our own family roots. The beginning of mine in America was in 1840 ³
when my grandfather Lars Olsen Dugstad came from Voss, Norway to the Lake
Koshkonong area in southern Wisconsin. He wrote articles concerning the new land to
the Norwegian Press and these eventually came into possession of the family in
America; the first was dated Mai, 22nd1842.
He married Ingeborg Thompsen whose brother Torge was to will his land to the
University of Wisconsin, a sizable fortune. Grandfather was to father seven children but
was to lose his life when my father was eleven in a runaway (horse) accident. My father Ole
Lars, who always used the initials O.L., would always remember his father taking him to
hear Abraham Lincoln speak in Watertown, Wisconsin.
These Koshkonong settlers read good books, were well grounded in biblical history,
liked their lute fisk and flatbrod; they used homespun for every day, woven linens for
Sunday, and elaborate costumes reminiscent of Norwegian folkways for gay occasions.

Married woman's costume (bunad) from Voss

Bibles, catechisms and Hymnals were treasured possessions. Different faiths were
established. Chairs were usually used instead of pews, tables for altars and baptismal
fonts were shaped from oak logs.
My grandmother was one of the founders of the oldest Scandinavian Methodist Church
in the world, in 1851, in Cambridge; this beautiful old limestone structure still stands
and draws visitors from around the world. Jennie Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, sang
here at a benefit performance through which the church was enriched by $200.00. Ole
Bull, the violinist, was a visitor.
My grandparents, two aunts and an uncle are buried in the cemetery surrounding this
church.
The doctor who served the Cambridge area spent many years serving the rich and poor
alike, was a John Dumas; he was born in Norway where he was educated in the
University of Norway, studied medicine and did research work in Copenhagen and
Vienna and served as a doctor for the Dutch East Indies Company for a time. In 1850 a
Cholera broke out in the Koshkonong area and the usual treatment proved of no avail,
so he went to the Pastor and urged him to call a Christian Mass Meeting. A cold wind
began to blow and the Cholera was gone. Dumas was a poet besides being a skilled
physician. He was a personal friend of Ole Bull. The story of Dr. Dumas is usurped from
The Cambridge News, July 1969. I heard many stories about this remarkable man from
my father. He was a very religious man and believed in the power of prayer and many
miracles were attributed to him.
Grandma reared her family in strict fashion, several attended Albion Academy and with
help from her family a beautiful home was established. It still stands amid the heritage
homes of southern Wisconsin.
In 1881 April 5, my father married a girl who had come from Norway in 1876 and was
much impressed with flag and bunting Philadelphia as they celebrated the one
hundredth year of our Nation’s freedom. She was fourteen years of age and would stay
with an aunt, Lena Rusted, until after she was confirmed after which she would work as
a hired girl. At one time she was employed by a Curtis family of the Curtis Chair Firm.
Grandma Curtis and Belle, a girl about her age, taught her many graces, and she was
to keep their pictures in her album.
This girl, Oline Frederica Pedersen, formerly of Skreia, near Lillehammer, became my mother, though I was to be preceded by one sister and five brothers. Two more girls after me. Father felt his health would benefit by leaving Wisconsin’s damp weather so in May 1888 they headed west and rented land in Iowa near Palo Alto; here their first son Lewis was born. Lightning and storms were prevalent and with several cows behind their covered wagon they headed west and, reaching Sioux City, they camped behind a hotel, and for that privilege furnished the hotel with milk from their cows. Crossing the Missouri River on a lately-constructed bridge, they came to South Sioux City, Nebraska, then called Covington. Mother had been feeling ill and they thought Emerson would have a Doctor. Not all places did. On reaching Emerson they found lodging at the Lippold hotel on Main street. A Dr. McKuen found mother had an abscessed left breast. A kindly hotel
employee, Kate Crowe, helped mother. They were interested in the encampment of
Indians on the east slope of the town, the town was contingent to the Winnebago Indian
Reservation. Later the town was to find its way into the Ripley 'Believe it or Not' Column since three
Counties met in the center of the town, Dakota, Dixon and Thurston.
While mother was convalescing, father bought 160 acres five miles east of town, built a
neat home in Emerson and broke land for the settlers. While they lived in the little
house mother made a lifelong friend, a Mrs. Goodwin, a wife of the Furniture Dealer,
whose life became a blessing to her. A second son was born named Henry Albert.
Years later a Confederate soldier lived in this small house and at Fourth of July
Parades he marched with the men in blue and wore his suit of gray.
My father built a temporary house on his land it was snuggled into a small hill. The front
had two windows and an entry. Here they moved and Jan. 26, 1884, a son Herman
Flecher was born. A well had been dug, a barn was built and fences were constructed.
Biede was a close neighbor. Black Diphtheria Epidemic came and few homes escaped
the scourge, and the two boys Henry and Lewis became ill and on October 23, Lewis
was laid to rest in the Joppe Cemetery a mile to the south; on November 15 Henry
died. Mrs. Goodwin had loaned her boy’s suits for a picture in September. Now she
sent the suits for their burials. The loss made them decide to go back to Wisconsin,
there they farmed Grandma Duxstad’s farm. A son was born named Lewis Ingval, on
February 15, 1886.

Ole and Olina Doxtad

The graves in the land were much on their minds and they decided to go back. So
mother, accompanied by my Uncle Charles, went by passenger train and father by
freight train with the horses and cattle. Unc1e Charles, a brother of
father’s, had never married, and made his home with us until his death. When they
arrived at their farmstead they found it had been looted; fence posts gone and even the ad
boards from the well platform. They decided to build a home on the site where they had
always planned to have it. Eventually it became a show place in that area, the place
where all but two of the family were born. After father had retired, a Mr. Liewer, who
was also a pioneer, stopped father and insisted he take $2 for something he had picked
up on the farm years ago and wished to ease his mind. No one else ever came forward.
The farm which had increased to 320 acres is no longer in the family; the memory of it
clings. I remember the huge circles—three of them on three ‘ south-facing slopes and,
of course finally obliterated by the breaking plow. Some said they had been made by
buffalo in blizzards as the old, placing their young within it, kept walking themselves to
keep from freezing. Or could they have been protecting the young from wolves? An
Indian ax head was found and one time a meteorite.
Father was well read; he always had one Daily, the Sioux City Tribune, sometimes an
Omaha paper and, of course, The Nebraska Farmer. The Comfort was enjoyed by the
feminine side of the house.
Their first girl was born in 1890 and named Isabel Amanda. Another son was born in
1893 and named Henry Albert. Three more daughters were born Anne Elizabeth,
Mildred Luella and Ellen Harriet.
I like to feel the heritage my parents and grandparents left has enriched our land. One,
on The Editorial Staff of a City daily, another a History professor who tries to keep one
from forgetting—lets say Plato—and several Artists, a number with Technical skills.
Good people.