While cleaning the apartment after Hjørdis Inger and Bernt encountered a few pictures that we are not quite sure who is the motives. I have enclosed a scanned copy of one of these. We think that the persons are your mother and her sister and brother and your maternal grand parents. Is this correct?
I have another picture that we think is the same family and I can also send this if you would like.
We are looking forward to vacation time now. This is the last week on work for both Inger, Bernt and myself. My wife (Grethe) and I are going for a visit to Denmark to see our oldest daughter. She has been studying there, but are now moving on to Ireland to start working for Microsoft. Inger, Bernt and Berit Irene might join us there in a week or so.
Sincerely,
Finn
This is a family portrait of Peter Christopher Buck and his wife Laura Jenssen Buck (my maternal grandparents), Aunt Karen (Starch), Hjørdis Elfreda (my mother), and Odd Ingeman (my Uncle Ed).
Original File: buch1.bmp
Original File: buch2.bmp
Tusen tak for the second picture. This one is of the house we lived in at 310 North 63rd Avenue West, Duluth, Minnesota, in the year 1925, or thereabouts (from the appearance of a new house, early shrubbery, and unfinished garage-storage barn behind the house, and the lack of a front porch which I remember being told was added to our house some time after my grandfather, Peter Christopher Buck (in the Homberg hat) built it in early 1920's.
The girl near Grandfather appears to be Aunt Karen Buck. I cannot identify the woman near the front door for certain, but believe it might have been a neighbor, Tilly Goneau. Looking out of the rear bedroom window in a room next to that room in the far rear in which she was to die in 1939 or 1940 is Grandmother Laura Jenssen Buck.
I imagine the young girl's face we see from the second floor front bedroom (in which my father Henry Jamar Olsen died in 1939) is that of my mother Hjørdis Elfreda Buck.
The photo is amazingly clear and particularly precious because it shows the house in which our family made its precarious beginning in this new land, and depicts a fresh, new construction full of promise and hope. It is a very charming and dear photograph. I am sharing a copy with Ric and his sons herewith.
I cannot thank you enough, Finn, for your thoughtfulness and skill in transmitting these photos to us.
Fondly,
Phil
Here's a classic pic of Karen, Ric, and Phil.
courtesy of Finn
The Genealogy of Phillip B. Olsen!! (http://home.online.no/~fikarlse/pbo/)20. juli 1997
How it all began
Phil went to Trondheim in 1994 enroute to the Olympics, where he was met at the Tronheim Airport by cousin Bernt Steinar Fjellvik and his wife and daughter, Inge Helene and Berit. Inge is Finn Karlsen's sister (which makes Finn Phil's "Cousin-in-law").
Finn and another of Phil's many cousins, a second cousin or "tremenning" in Norsk, Fritz Nordberg, both are employed as computer experts, and they put together an impressive book entitled, "The Norwegian Connection--The Roots and Relatives in Norway of Phillip Buck Olsen," and presented it to me at a gala gathering in the Fjellvik home, just before I went on to Lillehammer for the Winter Olympics. They also gave me electronic versions of genealogy . . .
We've stayed in touch and the Web has just opened the communications wonderfully.
From: Finn Karlsen fikarlse@online.no
Thu, 1 Jul 1999
Dear Phillip
Your trip to Norway is closing in and I might have some news for you.
First of all I am not sure your father was born in Kabelvåg. In the Census for 1900 the family with your grandparents and your father and his siblings are living in Tromsoe. It says there that your father was born in Tromsoe to (that kind of information is not always correct in the census), but I can't find his birth in the ministerial records neither in Vaagan (thats the 'kommune' where Kabelvaag is located) or in Tromsø. I find his older brother - Peder Ingolf baptized in Vaagan church.
And I have not been very succeful in finding anything more about the family. In a book about Vaagan in older days, is mentioned a taylor named Olsen, but nothing more.
But I hope I have come up with something that is many times more valuable. I have located a 'tremenning' - cousin of yours living in Sortland. He is an optician there and he is a little bit younger than you (turning 60 next year). He is a grandchild of a sister of your grandmother (Johanna) Karoline Krane.
I have talked with him on the phone tonight (his name is Gunnar Tvedt) and I asked him if there could be anyone in the family that could spend a few hours with you and Gail on sunday August 6th. He said he had to think a little about it and check out if he would be available on that particular day.
I am to contact him again next week and I will let you know at once what the result would be. I think he sounded very interested in meeting you and you not being fluent in Norwegian would not be any problem for him.
I hope you enjou this and that the whole setup will turn out to become a very interesting day for you both in the Kabelvåg area.
Bring my regards to Gail and I will be in touch.
Sincerely
Finn
PS
We are going on vacation to Denmark this weekend, but I will be reading mail and doing my telephoning from there.
From: "Phillip B. Olsen"
Dear Erika,
Our mother and father came to the U.S. early this century, approximately 1909-12, long before the advent of either WWI or WWII. Both the Olsens and the Bucks left Norway due to a lengthy and very harsh economic depression which affected most of Europe. Times were terribly difficult for small businesses and workers. The exodus to North America from Scandinavia began as early as 1825, with waves of emmigration, including several surges of Norwegian emmigrants, as well as Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Polish, Irish, Dutch, German and Italian, to mention just a few. The New World, which included Canada, was the place to go, and the adventurous young men usually led the way, followed later by their families and friends. So it was with the Olsens and Bucks. The WWII German occupation of Norway affected our cousins and Mother's family in Norway but not our immediate family, all of whom lived in America. The story you referred to involved a high-ranking German officer who billeted in the Buck house on the island of Sandland, far north Trondheim. It is a small fishing village with few houses. I(t) still houses some of our family, several times removed from direct relationship (second and third cousins, I suspect.) Sometime after the Nazi occupation, our relatives buried the family silver and prepared for the worst. When a highly educated German office(r), clearly a gentleman, cultured and talented, forceably occupied our family's home as his quarters, he impressed everyone with his civility and courtesy. He played the piano beautifully, and Mother said the presence of the family piano may have attracted the German to demand quarters in the family's house. In fact, there were very few homes on the barren island. I have seen a photograph in your mother's or Ric's possession, taken from the air, showing the present family home. It is bleak, indeed. One readily can understand how generations of Norsemen emmigrated to relatively less harsh climates, such as, Duluth, Fargo, Bozeman, and Manitoba. The story goes on to describe how the German officer, who appeared to exemplify everything in the Germanic culture which Norwegian had admired for generations, played Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to everyone's delight. Then, one day the Nazis were forced to evacuate their troops from Norway. The Allies were attacking on the beaches of Normandy and southern Italy. So, ordered to destroy everything that might be of value to approaching Allied troops, the German officer, after a lovely recital on the Buck piano, announced that the family must vacate because he was ordered to burn their home. And he did. The silver was retrieved. Your Mom, Ric, and I each have a little of it. And that is all the time we have for recent history of the Family, my dear neice. Relatives and Friends of BUCK
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:24 PM
To: erika.hannes@galegroup.com
Subject: Re: Visiting
"Phillip B. Olsen" wrote:
Phillip Buck Olsen Eldest Son of Henry Jamar Olsen & Hjørdis Elfrida Buck
Richard Arnold Olsen Second Son of Henry Jamar Olsen & Hjørdis Elfrida Buck
Erik Charles Buck Olsen Eldest Son of Richard A. Olsen & Janet Elizabeth Telford
Jacob Loren Buck Olsen Youngest Son of Richard Arnold Olsen & Janet Elizabeth Telford
Karen Meredith Olsen (born Sept. 29, 1935), daughter (youngest child) of Henry Jamar Olsen & Hjørdis Elfrida Buck. Married to Charles Borrell at karenborrell@msn.com
Jordi Heidarian First daughter of Karen Meredith Olsen
Philip Olsen Hannes at phannes@anaheimoc.org Second child (first son) of Karen Meredith Olsen
Erika Olsen Hannes Third child (second daughter) of Karen Meredith Olsen
Sanda Paulsen Cousin to Phil [daughter of the cousin of Hjørdis Elfreda Buck Olsen (Henley)]
Finn Karlsen Phil's "Cousin-in-law," brother of Phil's cousin Bernt Steinar Fjellvik's wife Inge Helene
Heidi Wessel-Aas at wesselas@online.no. Phillip Buck Olsen's mother, Hjørdis Buck Olsen, and Sanda Paulsen's mother, Gudrun Jensen Paulsen, were first cousins. Sanda Paulsen's maternal grandfather, and Heidi Wessel-Aas' paternal grandfather were sister and brother of Anna Norberg (?).
Marsha Paulsen Peters
Cousin to Phil, sister to Sandra. Grand-niece to Laura Jensen Buck. Laura's brother Olaf and his wife Aagot Strandli Jurgensdatter from nearby Levanger area, were parents to Gudrun Bergliot Jensen, who, with Everett Paulsen are parents of four, including your cousins Sandra, Marsha, Cindi and Duane. I am currently researching the Strandli and Jensen lines of our genealogy. Moving to London soon for a while, I plan to visit our ancestral land near Trondheim, Norway, as Sandra has done. I'd love to be in contact with fellow family historians, esp. of the Norsk land!
Paged launched sometime in 1997.
Updated 11 November 2004 by Erik Charles Buck Olsen.