Tombstone Tuesday: Gurine Nordtvedt Nordseth

grave of
Gurine Randine (Nordtvedt) Nordseth (1867 - 1945)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota
photo: May 2007

Gurine was my great-great-grandmother and the wife of Jens Peter Nordseth. She was also the great-granddaughter of my "black sheep" ancestor, Søren Johnsen Nordtvedt, though the family seems to have been well established as successful carpenters and ship builders by the time she was born in 1867.

Gurine was born in Trondheim, Norway, as the third child of Søren Gerhard and Elen Marie (Solberg) Nordtvedt. When my mother and I traveled to Norway in 2003, I even got to see the house where Gurine was probably born. Her childhood has always seemed sad to me--her mother died when she was around 5 months old, and all family stories indicate that her stepmother was not very fond of her stepchildren. When the family immigrated to the US, 13-year-old Gurine began working as a servant on a farm. She eventually became the teenage bride of a handsome older man and raised a family of 8 children.

She is one of the long-gone ancestors I can most easily imagine as a "real" person, perhaps because my grandfather remembers her. He lived with her for a while, so he could go to high school in town. Years ago I also met a distant cousin, who told me more of the Nordtvedts' story, along with bits and pieces, like the fact that Gurine had red hair.

I wish she had kept a diary. I would have liked to know Gurine.