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Nordic American Voices Nordic Heritage Museum Interview of Dorothy Noste Johnson and Walter Johnson, Sr. March 15, 2014 Fir-Conway Lutheran Church Conway, Washington Interviewers: Brandon Benson; Susan Harris

Brandon Benson: [0:09] Today we’re at the Fir-Conway Lutheran Church. My name is Brandon

Benson. I’m working with Susan Harris. Today we’re interviewing Dorothy Noste Johnson and

Walter Johnson. This is for the Nordic American Voices project, sponsored by the Nordic Heritage

Museum in Seattle. So first, Dorothy, tell us a little bit about your grandparents, what you remember,

on your father’s side.

Dorothy Noste Johnson: [0:37] I never knew any of my grandparents. And my grandma Mara

Noste lived in Øksendal- from Noste, Norway, to Øksendal. And that’s where she passed away. I’ve

been there two times. She’s buried in the churchyard over there in Øksendal. And I never knew my

dad’s dad, because he died a long time ago.

Brandon: [1:04] So, your grandparents- what did they do for their work in Norway? What kind of…

Dorothy: [1:11] Well, my grandmother, she worked for Husby’s. And in fact, she worked out in the

fields. What did she do? Milked cows, and made butter.

Walter Johnson: [1:26] We do know this about her grandma Mara. During the summertime, it was

her duty to go up into the [inaudible 1:37] and take care of the herds and what the herds produced.

And she had big cauldrons in this one long barn, where she boiled the milk down to what eventually

would keep over the wintertime. And then they would transport it down to the farm, and used in the

wintertime. Her father was with her up there in the summertime. His job was to find little patches of

grass to take to the barns for the cattle.


Dorothy: [2:14] Down by the shed, he worked.

Walter: [2:17] Yeah.

Dorothy: [2:17] Yeah.

Walter: [2:14] Much of the time, though, he was in the house with the Husbys. He was not a Husby.

He was not related to them, but they took such a liking to him and his mother, that they provided a

permanent place for them to stay in their own home. Much of the time, when his mother was up in

the [inaudible 2:40], he was by himself with the Husbys. They were family.

Dorothy: [2:43] Mm hmm. And that’s where we go when we go to Norway, to the Husby’s.

[Laughter]

Brandon: [2:47] That’s great.


Brandon: [2:49] So, your father…

Walter: [2:51] Go ahead.

Brandon: [2:52] Your father was born in Norway?

Dorothy: [2:54] Mm hmm.

Brandon: [2:55] And did he move to the United States?

Dorothy: [2:58] Uh huh. He was born in 1892, and when he was nineteen… I think he was nineteen

at the time, he was on a boat, and he got off at Portland. He stayed with his aunt, who was also born

in Noste, Norway. And then he came up to Seattle and stayed with another aunt up on Commodore


Way. And she was also born in Norway. [Laughter] Noste. And so he kept in touch with his family.

[3:35] And he left home when he was young. You know, he left Norway. But he went back in 1930

and then 1950. And then after they retired from the post office in Conway, my mom and dad both

went together, I think about three times.

Walter: [3:51] I will tell you another… I will tell you why he came to Conway. His mother had a

brother who was also named Ole Noste, and he lived over at Fish Town over by Anacortes, living

on the sea, fishing.

Dorothy: [4:10] La Conner.

Walter: [4:11] La Conner.

Dorothy: [4:12] Yeah, he lived at La Conner.

Walter: [4:13] And he came up here to visit him, and that’s when he met the young gal from across

the street, here.

Brandon: [4:25] And what year was that?

Dorothy: [4:27] He came in 1911. And he came up in this area… I know he was here in 1914,

because he met my mother when Jim Shalsett was baptized here. And they lived out the roads, and

of course the Borseths were over there. And that’s when my dad went my mother.

Brandon: [4:47] Great.

Dorothy: [4:47] And they were married in 1918? 1919.

Walter: [4:53] 1921, I thought.

Dorothy: [4:54] No. Uh uh. 1919.


Walter: [5:00] He did not get along very well with his future father-in-law, Ole Borseth.

Dorothy: [5:06] [Laughter]

Walter: [5:07] So they went… Clara Noste, Clara Borseth was a couple years younger than Ole.

Dorothy: [5:19] Nine.

Walter: [5:20] Yeah. And at that time, nine was a lot of age difference. They decided to get married.

They more or less eloped to Seattle, to Clara’s older sister’s house in Ballard, and were married there.

It wasn’t until they got there, sometime during the ceremony, here was an envelope from her father

with a sum of money in it for them.

Dorothy: [5:54] A hundred dollars. Yeah. But he didn’t… Grandpa didn’t ask my mom if he was

invited. She said no. But I don’t really want all that on there.

Walter: [6:02] Why not?

Dorothy: [6:03] Because.

Walter: [6:05] It’s history.

Dorothy: [6:06] [Laughter] Oh, Mama would be mad.

Walter: [6:08] What did Ole do? By that time he had tried to establish his paint business over in

Conway. He took that one hundred dollars and spent it all on paintbrushes and turpentine, and

paint, and different things, you know. And came back, and they lived… their first house was just a

quarter mile south of here on a little pond of water there. The mouth of the slough. And he started a

bigger paint business, and he painted so good, that it kept his family [inaudible 6:50] for the rest of

his life.


Dorothy: [6:54] He was also postmaster in Conway from 1932 until he retired in 1961, I think it

was. And that’s when they started to travel to Norway. But my mom, she ran the post office and the

paint store, and he was out with his men, working. Yeah.

Brandon: [7:11] Great. So you grew up in this area?

Dorothy: [7:15] Uh huh. Yeah.

Brandon: [7:15] Do you recall what it was like growing up here, and what your school life was like?

Dorothy: [7:21] Yeah. School?

Brandon: [7:23] Mm hmm.

Dorothy: [7:23] Yeah. Conway School. We didn’t go to Fir. But we consolidated, and Fir came to

Conway. But it was a good school. I enjoyed it, and I played sports. And then… What do I say

about Conway? Conway was a nice little town. When I was growing up, the road you came on

wasn’t there- the old way, just south of there. Then you could…

[7:52] I liked to go there, like if I had my hair done early in the morning, I could sit… Stop my car at

the railroad tracks, and there’s no cars parked anywhere, and you could look straight down the river,

the dike. And I could see houses, you know. My house was the third house from the big store there

on the north side. And I lived there until I got married, and my parents lived there until they passed

away.


Dorothy: [8:19] Yeah. But Conway was a nice place, and Fir was, too. Spent a lot of time over here.

Yeah. Had friends and relatives. My Aunt Mabel had a new house built there in front of the old one,

and came over there, and spent a lot of Easters and Christmas, and same with the big house in back

here. We’d go over to my aunt Bertha’s. It was fun. Yeah.


Brandon: [8:45] So your father was busy with his painting business.

Dorothy: [8:48] Uh huh.

Brandon: [8:49] What else was he involved with? Other organizations?

Dorothy: [8:53] Well, it was the Sons of Norway, and the American Legion over in Conway, and the

Mount Vernon Eagles. And then it was the church.

Brandon: [9:02] So for the Sons of Norway, was he helpful in getting that started?

Dorothy: [9:07] Yeah. He was, uh huh. He was their first president. Uh huh. They got a picture of

him over there. And he was president again after that- quite a few years after that. Yeah. That was

his life.

Brandon: [9:19] Yeah. He was active with the community.


Walter: [9:22] Ole Noste could get things done.


Walter: [9:26] He was a veteran of the First World War. And he went and enlisted at the outset of

the war. He wasn’t even a citizen, so he couldn’t be drafted. But because he did that, he was granted

citizenship after the war was over. Just as soon as he got out of the service, he learned that the

American Legion was then being founded. So he took it upon himself to build a building for it, so

they could have it there. That’s the building over in Conway that the tavern is located in now. Ole

did that. He was a doer.

[10:18] He had no more than gotten done with that, that the information got around that they also

needed a Sons of Norway lodge. So he built them a building. He was able to put things together. He


was able to put the money together and hire the carpenters to do it. They started with nothing, but

he got them done. And both buildings are standing today and being used today.

[10:47] He did the same with this building right here. This room here. In about 1955, he took it

upon himself to build this building as a Sunday school unit along with the church. And that’s how it

came about. They remodeled somewhat, along with the outside looks different now, but he was a

doer. When he undertook something, he saw it through to the finish. Yeah. He was a good man.

Brandon: [11:18] That’s good. So growing up with a Norwegian father, did you celebrate any of the

Norwegian holidays? Did you have any of the food that’s commonly eaten in Norway?

Dorothy: [11:33] Yeah. Well, let’s see now. I’ve really got to think on that. Celebrate the holidays…

What was it he…

Walter: [11:41] Seventeenth of May.

Dorothy: [11:43] Yeah. Seventeenth of May. That was kind of a big time for him. But I wish I had

been more interested. You know. I had an older sister. She was seven years older than I. And I have

a brother over at Friday Harbor. He’s five years younger. And he used to tell us some stories about

different things, you know. But I wish I’d paid more attention. I wish Oliver was here, too, you

know, but he’s over at Friday Harbor. He lives over there.

Brandon: [12:17] What about like at Christmastime? Were there any special foods that you enjoyed?

Dorothy: [12:23] Lutefisk. And I love that. We had smoked fish. I love that to this day. We had

pickled herring. Well, we didn’t have sill ball, but we had a turkey on Christmas Day. We went to

different places. Like, I have three aunts over here, and their families, and then we were over at

Conway. So the sisters kind of took turns at Christmas.


Dorothy: [12:52] A lot of good memories.


Brandon: [12:53] Did you learn to prepare these…

Dorothy: [12:54] Huh?

Brandon: [12:55] Did you learn to prepare these meals yourself?

Walter: [12:57] Yes.

Dorothy: [12:58] Yeah. Mm hmm.

Walter: [12:59] He saw a duty to show me, especially, how to make some of those things.

Dorothy: [13:05] Rulle.

Walter: [13:06] And I let it go for so long now that I’ve forgotten.

Dorothy: [13:11] Yeah. Pickled herring, and rulle.

Walter: [13:15] Two of the items he made, you may not be familiar with the names. [Inaudible

13:21]. One was [inaudible 13:23].

Dorothy: [13:24] Yeah, that’s good. Real good. It’s dried. Yeah.

Walter: [13:27] And that’s the leg of lamb that soaked in brine until it’s all saturated with the brine,

and very salty and tasty. And then you just stand the whole leg up and carve what you need, what

you want.

Dorothy: [13:41] Yeah, but he dried it out first. He hung it in the basement, and it dried out.



Dorothy: [13:46] It was very good. Tasty.

Walter: [13:47] And another one was the name he taught me. I heard it as meaning something else,

but rullepolse.

Dorothy: [13:56] Yeah, rullepolse. [Laughter]

Walter: [13:56] Which we learned was [inaudible 13:59].

Dorothy: [13:59] And fattigman. [Laughter]

Walter: [14:01] Sack bag.

Dorothy: [14:02] Sack bag.

Walter: [14:03] And it was lamb shanks with the bones cut out, rolled up with different spices

inside, and then cooked, and then taken out and dried. That was good. Hey, there was nothing left at

the end of the night when those things were served.

Dorothy: [14:22] How long do we have?

Brandon: [14:24] An hour, or more.

Dorothy: [14:24] Oh. I didn’t want to keep you.

Brandon: [14:27] No, it’s fine. Do you have anything to ask?

Susan Harris: [14:30] I’m just enjoying listening.

Brandon: [14:32] Okay. Great. So, let’s see. So you have a sister and a brother?

Dorothy: [14:42] My sister passed away. She’s buried down… She’s not at Milltown. She’s Mount


Vernon. And then I have… She was seven years older than I. And then I have a brother that lives

over at Friday Harbor.

Brandon: [14:57] Okay.

Dorothy: [14:59] Yeah. He’s five years younger than I am.

Brandon: [15:00] Mm hmm. So you grew up in this area and went to school here. What did you do

after high school?

Dorothy: [15:05] After high school…

Walter: [15:06] Got married.

Dorothy: [15:07] Yeah. Got married. Yeah. Uh huh.

Walter: [15:10] She graduated in 1946, and we were married in 1946. [Laughter]

Dorothy: [15:15] Yeah. August 31st.

Brandon: [15:17] That’s great. So do you hold family reunions?

Dorothy: [15:22] Pardon?

Brandon: [15:23] Do you hold any family reunions?

Walter: [15:25] Not anymore.

Dorothy: [15:26] We did. There was an Øksendal reunion that we had up at the… I started it- well,

Nels Hageberg, and my mom and dad and I did, years and years ago. They’re all gone now, but I

helped with it. And then I continued it on, and we had it up at the park in Mount Vernon, and then

over at Sons of Norway Hall. And then people were passing away, and the younger people aren’t


that interested. You know, in the summertime, they have other plans, and traveling. So, kind of

discontinued. But I’ve had people tell me that they wish that I would start one. So I may do that

over at the Sons of Norway.

Brandon: [16:06] So you invite family from this area, and also from Norway?

Dorothy: [16:09] Uh huh. It’s open for everybody.

Walter: [16:11] All you had to do to go to that was either be a Norwegian or shake a hand of a

Norwegian, or know a Norwegian. And under those rules, lots of people came.


Dorothy: [16:25] Yeah. A lot of people from Fir and Conway. Yeah.

Walter: [16:30] Yeah. Sometimes even from Michigan.

Dorothy: [16:34] Yeah. Michigan.


Dorothy: [16:36] Yeah. Relatives. Uh huh.

Walter: [16:38] And southern Washington. Yeah.


Brandon: [16:41] That’s great. So you grew up in this area. How has it changed over the years?

Dorothy: [16:49] Change?



Dorothy: [16:50] Well, the homes in Conway aren’t that nice anymore. You know. They were always

so nice, and the yards were so nice. Not a weed in the lawn, and all that. They were so neat. It’s

different now. They have that back street, which you came across. Well, I lived on the front street,

and anyway, that road wasn’t there. [Inaudible 17:13] the creamery was down there at the end where

you go over the tracks. So we used to play baseball there. The little road was a dirt road that just

went down there in front of those houses. Now it’s all changed, of course. It’s a lot different.

Walter: [17:32] The creamery was quite an operation for many years. It closed finally about 1960.

But it collected milk from the surrounding areas here, and turned it into… Well, they shipped milk

for other companies to bottle, but they also made a lot of cottage cheese and a lot of ice cream mix.

Dorothy: [17:54] [Inaudible 17:54], too.

Walter: [17:55] Ice cream.

Dorothy: [17:55] Dad liked the [inaudible 17:57]. [Laughter]

Walter: [17:58] The owners… there were two owners of that creamery. It was called Finstad and

Udgard. Two Norwegian names.

Dorothy: [18:10] They were involved in the Sons of Norway.

Walter: [18:11] They were probably… I don’t know, but they were probably from the Øksendal

Valley, too. I can’t say that for sure, but this is where they congregated.


Walter: [18:21] And they had homes, and nearly every home was owned by a businessman. And

therefore, for some reason, it appeared, anyway, that they take better care of their premises than

what others might. They were beautiful places. Beautiful flowering trees, beautiful flowers and

gardens all the time; well-kept lawns.



Walter: [18:54] And now it’s not so much…

Dorothy: [18:57] Conway isn’t as nice as it used to be.


Dorothy: [19:00] Our daughter Heidi, she is postmistress there right now, because they don’t have a

postmaster. So that’s where she’s stationed. She used to be at La Conner, but they moved her over

to Conway. And she lives in Conway, too, so it’s convenient.

Walter: [19:14] I’ll tell you something else about Ole Noste. I’ll continue the story of him seeing a

need and trying to fill it. In 1950, he thought we needed a house, so he saw to it that one was built

for us, and then took us down to the bank to sign the papers for it And you know what? We hardly

were making enough money to meet the payments of forty-three dollars a month.

Dorothy: [Laughter] [19:46] Cheap, though.

Walter: [19:52] And he did the same thing for the other two kids.

Dorothy: [19:54] Yeah. Margaret and Oliver.

Walter: [19:56] There was another venture that he was in. I know he built… No. I can’t think of

that. But he never showed it at all, but he must have felt good about filling another person’s need,

and you can’t beat that, can you?

Dorothy: [20:25] No. And Harvey Walden… Should I tell them what Harvey Walden told me one

day, not too long ago? He said, “Dorothy, your dad did a lot for this church and for the Conway

school.” Now, I never knew that. My mother did, but never told us kids anything. Margaret and

Oliver and I… We didn’t know anything of that, what he did. They never talked in front of us about


what he did in the community.

Walter: [20:51] No. Never.

Dorothy: [20:52] No.

Walter: [20:53] In fact, about 1941, they had a meeting at the Sons of Norway… No, with the club,

over at a restaurant that used to be in Conway here. Dorothy went, her brother went, her sister

went, her mother went. The place was crowded with people. And a fellow from Everett came there

to present something to the meeting. In the process, he pointed to Ole Noste, and said, “Ole drug

me off a battlefield.”

Dorothy: [21:33] Well…

Walter: [21:34] The Battle of [inaudible 21:34]. I don’t care what [inaudible 21:36]. I’m saying it.

Dorothy: [21:37] It wasn’t where he said it was.

Walter: [21:40] I don’t know how it was.

Dorothy: [21:41] It was a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting in Mount Vernon.

Walter: [21:43] That doesn’t make any difference, Dorothy.

Dorothy: [21:45] Well, I like it right.

Walter: [21:46] The nub of the story is he drug this man off the battlefield, and the man was

screaming as he did it, in the night, with Germans all around. And Ole told him to shut up.

Dorothy: [22:06] He didn’t say that.

Walter: [22:07] Or we will both be killed. She had never heard that story before.


Dorothy: [22:14] I have.

Walter: [22:15] Not before that meeting at the Skagit Trails. And your mother never heard it.

Nobody in this town had ever heard it until that fellow from Everett came and told it. That’s the

kind of man Ole was. He did things not for the glory of it, but because he was helping somebody.

Dorothy: [22:43] I should tell my version of it. Should I? Well, when I was in high school, our

paper, The Mount Vernon Herald, had an article in it, and it said John Slavenburg came up to the

Veterans of Foreign Wars to install Ole Noste, postmaster at Conway as… what I want to call it, I

don’t know. Installed… I have the paper at home. Then then he told about during the war… John

Slavenburg was postmaster in Everett at the same time, and they had been in the war together and

knew each other.

[23:23] John Slavenberg had been shot, and my dad drug him, and John Slavenberg was screaming,

and he told him to stop. He said, “I’ll have to drop you if you don’t stop screaming, because the

Germans are going to shoot both of us.” And that’s the story that I heard from him. And then the

article in the newspaper, I have that at home, that they put in the paper after that meeting- Veterans

of Foreign Wars meeting. He belonged to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, too, in Mount Vernon.

Brandon: [23:57] Mm hmm. So he was quite active in a lot of thing.

Dorothy: [24:00] Yeah, he was. Yeah. And caring.

Brandon: [24:03] And the schools. What did he do for the schools?

Dorothy: [24:05] For the school?


Dorothy: [24:06] Well, he painted up there, and I guess he didn’t charge them anything for his men

painting or the paints. Harvey said he just did all that, and same with the church. He said that him


and another fellow put the new roof on the church building, and paid the people to put it on. They

paid for the material. So he did things, but they never told us kids that. Other people have told me

what he’s done. So…

Brandon: [24:36] Some of these organizations like Sons of Norway- is this an organization that you

belong to?

Dorothy: [24:42] Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m there.



Brandon: [24:49] That’s good. So, let’s see. What places in this community stand out most in your

mind, and why?

Dorothy: [25:05] And want it?

Brandon: [25:06] And why.

Dorothy: [25:08] And why?


Dorothy: [25:09] What places?

Brandon: [25:09] Right.

Dorothy: [25:11] Well, you mean, the town, like Fir or Conway or whatever?



Dorothy: [25:16] Well, Conway does, because I grew up there, and have good memories of the kids.

And the games we played, and Ole Ole Olson free. [Laughter]

Walter: [25:30] Tell them about the guy that gave you the shag, over…

Dorothy: [25:33] Oh…

Walter: [25:35] [Inaudible 25:35]

Dorothy: [25:35] I had to go over to [inaudible 25:39] to get the milk. That’s when you went and

had a deal to get the milk in. Anyway, I didn’t like to go, because… And other kids didn’t like to go,

either, because Pete Bjergen, he wanted to give you a shag. You know, he had whiskers and shag. I

didn’t like that. So I didn’t really like to go over and get the milk. I protested about that. I didn’t like

it.

Walter: [25:57] But tell about riding in the cottage cheese truck to Bellingham.

Dorothy: [26:04] Oh. Well, Clara Rindal’s dad, Pete Rindal, they lived on the back street. The one

you came in on was the back street. They lived on the back street. The houses were moved- and they

lived behind us- because the road came in. So they moved way over. Anyway, we’d go with her dad

up to Bellingham, because he delivered the cottage cheese up there. And that was a big thing for us

to do that. Her name was Clara Rindal. And we’d go shopping at Woolworth’s up there. [Laughter]

You know, it was kind of funny, because we got so excited about going to Bellingham to

Woolworth’s. [Laughter]

Walter: [26:44] Tell them about your experiences going to the water tank, and your mother getting

angry with you for that.

Dorothy: [26:50] The water tank?

Walter: [26:51] Yeah. By the river. Playing down on the water tank.


Dorothy: [26:56] Well, we’d go… We weren’t supposed to go… Okay. Two places we weren’t to go

was the river and the railroad tracks. Where did we go? The river and the railroad tracks. [Laughter]

So anyway, my brother almost drowned in the river- him and two other boys. They got into a

rowboat and they didn’t have anything to row with.

[27:18] And they got out of the slough part by Conway out into the river, and Oliver said he’ll never

forget it; he was so scared, because he knew they were going to drown. They couldn’t get anything

to get into shore. Well, anyway, they got close to that area where that island is over here, I think, and

[inaudible 27:40] Longee, he grabbed one of the branches, and it pulled them in. so Oliver said he’ll

never forget that.

Walter: [27:49] Nobody drowned.


Walter: [27:50] That’s good.

Susan: [27:51] Yes, I have a question. Can you tell us about any of the experiences you had when

you were working in the post office?

Dorothy: [28:00] I never worked in the post office.

Susan: [28:01] It’s your daughter who is there now?

Dorothy: [28:03] Oh, Heidi. Uh huh.

Susan: [28:04] Yeah. So I thought some of you also had had experiences in the post office.

Dorothy: [28:09] My sister did, the one that passed away.

Susan: [28:11] Okay. Are there any experiences she had that you could share with us that she told

you about?


Dorothy: [28:17] My mom?

Susan: [28:18] In the post office.

Brandon: [28:19] Your mother, I know, worked there.

Susan: [28:21] And your mother. Yeah.

Dorothy: [28:22] My mother?

Susan: [28:22] Yes.

Dorothy: [28:22] Yeah. She took care of the books and the paint store and the post office right

together in the Sun Building. If you go through town, it’s on the south side. She took care of… She

just really ran the whole show. [Laughter] She was a busy lady. Uh huh. She was a strong Norwegian

lady. Her parents were both Norwegian.

Walter: [28:47] By 1932, Ole had established his painting business pretty well. The Sons built a new

building housing room for three different businesses there on the main street. And he rented one of

those. But then something surprising happened. Ole was a Democrat surrounded by Republicans.

Dorothy: [29:22] His father-in-law, too.

Walter: [29:23] Every other person in the town and the vicinity was a Republican. Farmers,

traditionally, are. Small businessmen having a hard time making it. But Ole was a Democrat,

probably from his roots in Norway when he had to work so hard and got so little.


Walter: [29:44] He was appointed out of that mass of people to be the postmaster, just as soon as

Franklin Roosevelt became president. He kept that job until 1962- thirty years. He did a good job


for the government, too, I might add. But the post office was in the same building, split down the

middle just by an aisle way from the paint store… separated the paint store and the post office. So

he was able to get some rent for the government on that, too. But the surprising thing is, here he

was, just an immigrant, maybe of fifteen years, and he bounced ahead of everybody else to become

postmaster. Why? The administration wanted a Democrat in there at the post office. He was the

only Democrat in the area. The only one. He got the job.

Brandon: [31:02] That’s great. So…

Dorothy: [31:06] And he was a quiet man. He didn’t tell about anything he did, so I’m surprised that

I’ve heard people say the things he did in the community.

Walter: [31:16] They have good memories of him.

Dorothy: [31:17] I don’t know, and Oliver doesn’t, either.

Brandon: [31:22] Mm hmm. Sounds like you’ve heard a lot of stories from others that you didn’t

hear from your father.

Dorothy: [31:26] Yeah. Uh huh. Never heard them. No. And not my mother.

Brandon: [31:33] Any other interesting ones you can recall?

Dorothy: [31:36] No, no. I remember going to postmaster picnics [inaudible 31:41] beach when I

was a kid. He was postmaster. Just different things like that. And church picnics, and Sons of

Norway.

Brandon: [31:54] Yeah.

Susan: [31:54] Flooding…

Walter: [31:55] Did you know they have… This area of the Sons of Norway has a get-together up at


the border every year?

Brandon: [32:02] I didn’t know that.

Walter: [32:03] Yeah. Up at the Peace Arch State Park. And they meet there with some of the clubs

from Canada. It’s well-attended. Norwegians seem to want to stick together.

Dorothy: [32:17] Mm hmm. They do. Yeah.


Dorothy: [32:21] She was going to ask something.

Susan: [32:22] I know that flooding has been a constant…

Dorothy: [32:25] Oh, yeah.

Susan: [32:26] …In this area. Has it affected your family?


Susan: [32:30] How has it affected you?

Dorothy: [32:30] Well, over here, too, when I was a kid, we came to my Aunt Mabel’s house, in

back of the new one. That was the flood. Then when we were over in Conway during that big

flood… I just saw a picture of that the other day. And that was in… Patty was a baby. 1951, I think.

The big flood. And I saw the dike break. I was standing in my parents’ living room and just looking

out the window, and all of a sudden, the dike broke down in the south, and the water just gushed in.

It was sad. It was a terrible mess to clean up all the sand. Awful.

Susan: [33:19] Did it take a long time to recover from that?


Dorothy: [33:21] Yeah, it kind of did. Because the sand was still coming in when the wind blew,

months later. In the bedrooms upstairs at my parents’ home, there would be sand, just all over.



Walter: [33:35] It about… not more than a half a mile, maybe only a quarter mile, the break was

from Conway, down the dike. Just as soon as… It tore out a large section of the dike, and kept

expanding for several days until it was a couple hundred feet long. All that mud from it just through

the water flowed [inaudible 34:02] anymore and dropped down. In the street in front of our house,

there was two feet of silt and sand there. Just as soon as the dike… Just as soon as the river

dropped, so there was no more water coming through, the county came and scooped it all up in

their trucks and hauled it away. We don’t know where, but they took it someplace. There was always

a need for something you don’t want. You have to find it.

[34:31] Well, anyway… You didn’t tell them about the time your mother, in 1932, and your dad went

to a card party and the river was high up at Iverson’s. And while they were there, the dike broke

across the street from Iverson’s and twisted the house around. [Laughter]

Dorothy: [34:52] That was a long time ago. I don’t know if I was born yet. Maybe I was. I just heard

stories of it, you know.

Walter: [35:01] From your mother.

Dorothy: [35:02] Huh?

Walter: [35:03] From your mother.

Dorothy: [35:03] Yeah. Mm hmm. Other people, too.

Susan: [35:06] Are there traditional Norwegian celebrations that you have?


Dorothy: [35:12] Well, at the Sons of Norway Hall?

Susan: [35:15] Anywhere. Food, or holidays, or crafts, or music.

Dorothy: [35:21] Yeah, we do over at the Sons of Norway Hall. We invite the Stanwood Sons of

Norway- have dinners- codfish dinners. Different things like that. I’ve got to really think on that,

because I kind of forget. I just go, and that’s it. [Laughter] Just like another meeting, you know.

Walter: [35:41] Well, a good Norwegian always wears his Norwegian sweater to the lodge meetings.

But not me. Mine was a gift from her mother when she was back in Norway in 1962. And they are

fragile. They wear, and it’s threadbare in several places, so I haven’t worn it for several years. So I

don’t wear mine. It’s there in a closet someplace where it will see no more wear. I know it’s there.

Dorothy: [36:18] I think I gave mine to Heidi.

Susan: [36:20] What kind of changes have you seen here since you’ve been here?

Dorothy: [36:24] Since I’ve been living…

Susan: [36:26] Since you’ve been living here.

Dorothy: [36:29] Well, the bridge, for the one thing. We had a different bridge, and when you came

across the bridge, you could turn down and go under the bridge and go down the dike. And that’s at

Fir. Traffic. People. And then the antique stores in Conway. We never had them. And the road, of

course. That’s a big thing, where it is now, on the back street.

Susan: [37:03] How do you feel about that?

Dorothy: [37:05] The road?

Susan: [37:06] Any of those things.


Dorothy: [37:08] Any of the changes? Well, they need to have the change on the road because

there’s so much traffic now- people coming from Seattle, La Conner. You know. Things like that. I

guess I like all the changes that’s happened, but I just wish that the guy who lives close to the

railroad tracks in June Hanifer’s house, and all the wooden mess all around it… Did you see that

house as you come across the tracks?

Susan: [37:37] I don’t think so.

Dorothy: [37:38] You didn’t? Well, anyway, as you leave, it’s on the right hand side as you cross the

tracks. All this wood all over. Beautiful home when I was growing up. June and I were good friends.

Very nice home. It’s wrecked. It’s ruined.

Brandon: [37:55] So, do you travel back to Norway?

Dorothy: [37:58] Uh huh. Two times.

Brandon: [37:59] Okay. When were those trips?

Dorothy: [38:03] Let’s see. The first time I went was… Gurley and I went. What year was that, that

we went?

Walter: [38:11] Maybe about 1987. Maybe.

Dorothy: [38:14] It was 1987. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Brandon: [38:18] And you were able to find relatives?

Dorothy: [38:20] Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. Right away. Yeah.

Brandon: [38:23] Did you travel a lot through Norway, or did you…


Dorothy: [38:26] No. I wasn’t interested. Whenever I go, I want to go to Øksendal and be with

relatives. That’s the plan.

Brandon: [38:34] Do you have a lot of relatives there? Many?

Dorothy: [38:35] Yeah. Quite a few. Uh huh. And friends.

Brandon: [38:37] And you see them all?



Dorothy: [38:40] And then I kind of keep in touch on Facebook with some of them from Øksendal.

You know. I like that. And then I went again with… Walt and I went… 1994, was it?


Dorothy: [38:58] We had a very good time, and saw people, and stayed with the Husby’s. Yeah.

Brandon: [39:07] Yeah. That’s good. Between your trips there, did you notice much change in

Norway?

Dorothy: [39:13] No, I didn’t. no. Øksendal was the same. The store was the same. The post office,

everything was the same. Yeah. Of course, older people are gone that I knew when my cousin and I

went. They have since… They had passed away when him and I went.

Brandon: [39:33] And…

Walter: [39:36] Talk about change… Tunnels make big changes. And there’s not a tunnel from

Øksendal over to Sunndalsøra through the mountain there. And we have not been there since it

came into being, which was maybe fifteen years ago. If we do go there, I want to see what changes


took place. I have a photographic memory of every building in that village. I’m sure the numbers

have quadrupled at least since that tunnel has been there.

[40:14] And one of the fellows- a younger Husby- told us that… I told him that there’d be big

changes. People coming in here. “No, no, no. Walter, people will not sell their farms here. They will

not.” Well, he didn’t know how much money those people coming in would offer. I’m sure a bunch

of farms have been sold. [Laughter[



Walter: [40:40] And Sunndalsøra is a growing area. Øksendal had remained something of the same

for centuries and centuries and centuries, because you had to either take a trail out of it, or a steep,

windy roadway. I’m sure that there’s changes. I haven’t been there, but I’m looking forward to

confirming what I said.

Brandon: [41:07] Do you have a trip planned?

Walter: [41:08] Hmm?

Brandon: [41:09] Do you have a trip planned to Norway?

Walter: [41:10] No. Not now.

Dorothy: [41:11] We want to. We’re both… He’s eighty-seven now, and I’m eighty-six. I will be

eighty-seven in October.

Walter: [41:18] We’re working on it, but it’s not for sure yet.

Dorothy: [41:19] I’d like to go before I get too old. [Laughter]


Brandon: [41:23] And what about your relatives in Norway? Do they come to visit you?

Dorothy: [41:27] No, they don’t come over.


Dorothy: [41:31] No. Well, the ones that did…

Walter: [41:33] The [inaudible 41:33] have been here.

Dorothy: [41:34] Yeah, but the ones that did come over and visit the home over in Conway here,

they’re all gone.


Dorothy: [41:43] Uh huh. But I’ve been in their homes. And Gurley and I were over there, my

cousin, [inaudible 41:49]. Yeah. Good memories.

Walter: [41:51] We have to face it. We in the Skagit Valley have a big secret. We live in a wonderful

place. Those people over there and around the rest of the country hear that it rains here every day.

One of the good things about the rain is, you don’t have to shovel it.

Dorothy: [42:13] Yeah. They have to shovel snow. It’s been snowing there in Øksendal. I see it on

Facebook, see.

Walter: [42:23] Her grandpa, Mr. Borseth came here… I think he first got here about 1882. And he

sojourned up in Michigan for several years before he finally took the plunge and got on the train and

came out here. He logged up there, and he made enough money when he came out here, he bought

a little piece of land and sold it, and bought some more land, and sold it, and then bought a bunch

of land, and sold all of it. You know, at a profit. So he did well. He was not a farmer. Although he

lived in this big house there that looks like a farmhouse, he was not a farmer.


Dorothy: [43:04] Borseth Street is Sedro-Woolley is named after him, because he sold his timber

claim to Mr. Woolley. Mr. Woolley named Sedro-Woolley, and then he named Borseth Street after

my Grandpa Borseth. In Norway, it’s Børseth. Do you know why? Because B- Ø … The “o” has a

slash through it, and it’s the “er.” Børseth, not Borseth. I found that out from a Norwegian on

Camano Island. He got so upset with me, because when I said the name, he would correct me, that

it was Børseth. And I would say, “Borseth.” You know, that was [inaudible 43:45].


Dorothy: [43:46] Anyway, [laughter], so finally I started to say it his way. [Laughter]

Walter: [43:51] Well, Jammy, he died, and his wife was from Norway, too. She was back there when

we went back. She was born over there.


Walter: [44:00] And she returned there after Jammy died.


Walter: [44:03] And she lived down in Oslo. So we went down there and flew into Oslo in about

the middle of the afternoon, and there she was, waiting for us.


Walter: [44:13] And she went and got this boyfriend she had. Boyfriend… he was a grandpa,

already, I think. Maybe old enough to be her grandpa.

Dorothy: [44:21] [Laughter] Yeah. His name was Walter, too.

Walter: [44:22] Anyway, he was very good to us. And they took us all over Oslo. We’re not familiar

with Olso.



Walter: [44:29] We can’t remember the nice places. But it was…We got to see the king’s palace, and

the parliament building, and the bridge that has ornate depictions of pornography on it. Have you

ever hear of that one?

Brandon: [44:44] No.

Walter: [44:45] Yeah. It raised the eyebrows of every Norwegian, I guess, except the guys who built

it [inaudible 44:50]. Naked, nude people.

Dorothy: [44:52] Oh, yeah. There’s a park there, and there was a little boy going potty with nothing

on. You know. Just… I couldn’t believe it. Gurley took a picture of it. I said, “Gurley, I don’t want a

picture like that.” [Laughter]

Walter: [45:10] We saw that ski lift up there on top of the hill.

Dorothy: [45:16] Yeah, we went up there.

Walter: [45:16] Saw… they took us down to the harbor where we saw Kon-Tiki. Yeah. Kon-Tiki,

yeah. You’ve seen it, too?

Brandon: [45:30] I have seen it.

Dorothy: [45:31] Have you? Have you been to Øksendal?


Dorothy: [45:34] Close to it at all?



Dorothy: [45:35] Where do you go when you go to Norway?

Brandon: [45:37] Oslo.

Dorothy: [45:38] Oslo? Uh huh. Yeah. You know how we do? We get off the plane at Oslo, okay?

Then we get on the train, and we go through Lillehammer, and we go to Oppdal, and at Oppdal we

get off, and then somebody picks us up and takes us down to Øksendal. We go through some sort

of a… That’s all I can tell people when they say, “Where’s it at?” Yeah. [Laughter]

Brandon: [46:03] So, you don’t get many visitors from Norway.

Walter: [46:08] No.

Dorothy: [46:09] No, uh uh. Nobody comes over. Yeah. They stay home. Yeah. It would be nice to

see them again. I’d like to go back and see them.

Brandon: [46:18] Have your children been to Norway?

Dorothy: [46:20] Pardon?

Brandon: [46:21] Have your children been to Norway?

Dorothy: [46:23] No, uh uh. But they want to go. Yeah. They’d like to go.

Walter: [46:27] They’re all working.

Dorothy: [46:28] Yeah. They all work. Heidi is over at the post office. Yeah.

Walter: [46:32] Heidi is our youngest one.

Dorothy: [46:33] Huh? She can’t get any time off, either, because they don’t have anybody in there


to take her place. Yeah. So, yeah. But she’d love to go. Uh huh.

Walter: [46:47] Dorothy and I… We had a strange beginning, too. Back in 1939, the local Red Cross

Society sponsored swimming, lifesaving lessons up at Lake Sammish. And I signed up for it. When

the bus got to Mount Vernon, I got on it. But the bus started down here in Milltown, just a couple

miles south of Conway and picked her up.

Dorothy: [47:15] At Conway, it picked me up.

Walter: [47:16] Yeah. It picked her up at Conway. And the fellow I was with, he objected to her,

because she was wearing a great big [inaudible 47:26] hat that he couldn’t see around. That was my

introduction to Dorothy.

Dorothy: [47:34] But Edgar was born the same day I was in Mount Vernon. At the same hospital.

And his dad was the one that called my mother’s doctor when I was going to be born. [Laughter] It

was funny. Edgar. He didn’t like my big hat.

Walter: [47:49] So Dorothy and I learned how to dogpaddle together.

Dorothy: [47:53] [Laughter]

Brandon: [47:55] That’s great. Do you have anything else?

Susan: [47:58] Are there any other stories or reminiscents you’d like to share with us?

Dorothy: [48:03] I think he’s said a lot. [Laughter] He’s done. I can’t think of anything.

Walter: [48:09] Her father returned the first time to Norway after he left, in 1932, I believe it was-

the same year he became postmaster. Probably before that. He couldn’t have gone after he was the

postmaster, I don’t think. But anyway, while he was there, he went down to visit some of the old

battlefields down in France. And he was in the Battle of the [inaudible 48:36], I think.



Walter: [48:39] And he went down there, and he went out into this desolated place where the battle

was fought. Some stick out of the ground. He pulled it up, [inaudible 48:53] rifle. Been there for a

dozen years. Helmets, all kinds of garbage laying there. He picked up some of it, brought it home,

and cleaned it. It was a German rifle and a German helmet. Brought them home. About the time

that he retired from the post office, in about 1960, he fixed up a little room upstairs and had all

these mementos of that war there. I think there was other things, too.

Dorothy: [49:33] Yeah, it was.

Walter: [49:34] Yeah. But he had several guns that he picked up when he was down there. Helmets,

other pieces of things that would withstand the elements somewhat. They couldn’t be used anymore,

that could be sure. But they were his. And what they told him… I don’t know. He may have looked

at them and said, “Oh, I beat them bastards.” I don’t know. He could have said that. But he wasn’t

that kind of a guy. It was just mementos of days gone by.

Dorothy: [50:10] That was his room.

Walter: [50:11] Huh?

Dorothy: [50:12] That was his room.

Walter: [50:13] And then when they went back there in 1962… Her mother and father went back to

Øksendal. They did go down to France, didn’t they? Down to the same battlefield?

Dorothy: [50:29] He went one time, but I don’t know if my mom went.

Walter: [50:33] Maybe not.

Dorothy: [50:34] No. It might have been 1950 when he was there, he went down there.


Walter: [50:39] Yeah. He was there in 1950. Yeah, he was.

Dorothy: [50:42] Mm hmm. Yeah.

Brandon: [50:44] Well, that’s great.

Dorothy: [50:45] So, anything you want to cut out, cut out.

Susan: [50:48] No. I want to thank you very much for your time. We’ve enjoyed listening to your

stories.


Susan: [50:55] Thank you.

Dorothy: [50:56] Yeah. You’re very welcome. And you know, I was thinking, though, that I have

some things at home, if you want copies, and stuff. Just to mail to you, so you can read some of the

stuff that we have.

Brandon: [51:09] That would be good.

Dorothy: [51:11] And one would be my dad, that article out of the Mount Vernon Herald, when John

Slavenberg came up to install my dad.

Brandon: [51:18] Okay.

Dorothy: [51:19] As commander of the Sons of Norway.

Susan: [51:22] Okay.

Dorothy: [51:23] Or not Sons of Norway. Veterans of Foreign Wars.



END OF RECORDING.

Transcription by Alison Goetz.

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