Wordless Wednesday: Muriel Peterson Nordseth

Tombstone Tuesday: Muriel Nordseth

grave of
Muriel Theolyn (Peterson) Nordseth (1930 - 1973)
Mount Hope Cemetery
Watertown, Codington County, South Dakota

Happy Birthday, Grandma Muriel.

Advent Calendar: Christmas Cards

Did your family send cards? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards? Do you have any cards from your ancestors?

I LOVE photo cards at Christmas, especially now that I have a child to feature on them. ;-) I love finding just the right picture and just the right card, and I enjoy the ritual of writing out addresses and sticking on the return address labels.

The oldest Christmas card I have in my family collection is from ca. 1960 and features a picture of my mom and aunt with their Barbie dolls.
I keep all the Christmas cards I receive in a gold, star-shaped basket that I bought for this purpose. After Christmas, I toss most of the generic cards (or cut them up for my scrapbook), but I always keep the photo cards. They're saved in special pocket pages of my scrapbooks, and I like to look back at them.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

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.

Tombstone Tuesday: Jens Peter Nordseth

grave of
Jens Peter Nordseth (1849 - 1922)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota
photo: May 2007

Jens was my great-great-grandfather. He was born in Klæbu parish, near Trondheim, Sør-Trondelag, Norway, and emigrated to Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota. There he married a girl from Trondheim and raised a family of eight children. One was Eline Marie, featured in a previous Tombstone Tuesday.

Jens was one of my first genealogical focuses and will probably always be near and dear to me.

Wordless Wednesday: Grandpa in Japan

my grandpa, on the right
serving in Japan

Last week, he traveled to Washington, DC,
with Honor Flight South Dakota.

Tombstone Tuesday: Eline Marie Nordseth

grave of
Eline Marie Nordseth (1892 - 1897)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Lincoln County, South Dakota

Marie was the 4th of 8 children born to my great-great-grandparents, Jens and Gurine Nordseth of Canton, South Dakota. She was only 4 years old when she passed away.

Tombstone Tuesday: Marit Polle Nordseth

grave of
Marit Ingebrigtsdatter Polle Nordseth (1848-1924)
Klæbu, Sør-Trondelag, Norway
photo: 2003

Marit is the wife of my second great-grand uncle. Her husband, Jakob Jensen Nordseth, was the brother of my great-great-grandfather, Jens Peter Nordseth.