52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 7): Love

Old-Fashioned Love and Apple Pie

Ole Johnson weds Malla Larson, Feb. 28, 1886.

When I realized I would be writing about love for "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks," the first thing that entered my mind was the type of relationship experienced by more than one long-married couple in my mother's immigrant farming family.  We're talking about love that runs like an invisible thread connecting everything and every moment together.  According to the stories told me by my relatives, my great grandparents, Ole and Malla Johnson, had more than just a marriage.  They had a foundation of bedrock... of trust and understanding.

I recently had the good (and timely) fortune to hear a sermon on the subject of real love:  In "Love Like This," our pastor asked his congregation to consider what real love looks like.  What are some of the characteristics of real love?  Spoiler Alert:  it is not candy, hearts, or turtle-doves... and it is certainly not lust.  Any type of real love, romantic or otherwise, is messy, irregular, and requires determined commitment to keep it running like clockwork.  Here are six qualities of real love as they were experienced by my maternal great grandparents, Ole and Malla Johnson.

"Real love is hard work"

 

Malla Larson was 19 years old when she married Ole Johnson, a young and capable Norwegian immigrant farmer who had inherited his father's homestead near Granite Falls, Minnesota.  Aside from the continual physical labor she engaged in to keep her household running, Malla also acquired the work of learning about her new husband.  Raised on a farm herself, she understood most of what was expected of her in the sense of putting food on the table, tending to chores, and being a helpmate.  But, she also knew that learning to love involves anticipating someone's elses unspoken needs and accommodating them without always being asked or thanked.

Ole, too, had to learn to understand the particular challenges faced by his new wife.  An amusing example concerns apple pie.  Ole particularly loved warm apple pie.  Apples were a rarity on the Johnson farm.  The fruit could not be grown properly in northern Minnesota due to extreme temperature changes.  Over the winter holidays, Ole would buy a few of boxes of apples, and Malla or one of their girls willingly made pies from them.  They were not able to keep the pies warm until Ole came in from the fields for dinner, however, because the big cast iron cookstove was needed for a host of other things.  Ole never complained about the pies being cold.  He knew that Malla could only do what she could do.  Instead, he put warm apple pie at the top of his agenda whenever he had the opportunity to eat at a hotel restaurant in a neighboring town.  Part of the real work of building a loving relationship means exercising patience and understanding, in spite of one's own wants... even when it comes to pie.

"Real love will sometimes make you unhappy"

 

When the actions of someone you love do not live up to your expectations, then it is up to you to change your expectations for the sake of your commitment.  There were probably times when Malla privately questioned actions Ole took to increase the famly's prospects.  She may have been taken aback when he wanted to move away from a community she had grown comfortable with... not once, but twice.  The first time was when Ole sold his father's homestead property and moved the family to Fosston in Polk County so that he could have a chance at dairy farming.  The second time was when he chose to leave Fosston for a different farm near Leonard in Clearwater County.  It is not known if Malla was fully on board with these decisions.  In the end, she was supportive of Ole's dream.  In return, he provided for her specific needs to the best of his ability.

"Real love will cost you"

 

Love also involves fear, anger, and even pain and loss.  Loving someone is risky; it will cost you time, energy, and worry.  It will claim pieces of yourself as you learn to share openly and be responsible for another person's well being.  Love will cost you effort, and above all, patience.  Ole and Malla Johnson were a team.  The actions of one affected the other, and vice versa.  If one celebrated, so did the other.  If one suffered, the other could certainly not go on unaffected.  Real love tucks coins into the bank on sunny days in anticipation of stormy days that will surely come.  For Ole and Malla, the satisfaction they felt after a day's honest work was often reward enough for their journey together, with Ole reading his paper in front of the fire, Malla knitting a new pair of socks, and both surrounded by their children making popcorn for an after-dinner treat.

"Real love is tough, rugged and strong"

 

Ole and Malla's relationship flourished only because both cared enough to make it a priority.  For early farming folk, it was exactly this type of teamwork that could determine a family's success or failure in the world.  They were both physically strong indiviuals, also emotionally mature and capable of putting the needs of others before any thoughts for themselves as individuals.  Their love was made stronger by the daily demands of providing for the needs of their children.

"Real love is courageous"

 

Whatever was to come, Ole and Malla were in it together.  They were fortunate in that they did not lose a single child to disease or accident.  The reality was that most families before the modern era did suffer irretrievable loss.  It was not uncommon for an epidemic to claim several members of the same family.  Ole and Malla continously faced this possibility while raising their ten children to adulthood.

"Real love means dying to self"

 

There were seemingly insignificant but poignant ways the bond between Ole and Malla was observed by family members.  For example, Ole never referred to his wife by name.  Malla was always "she" or "her," but never "Malla."  This may seem odd, but think of how odd it would have been for Ole to continually refer to himself as "Ole" to others.  He felt it unnecessary to call Malla by her name, since he knew exactly who she was.  She was an intrinsic a part of him, just as if God had come along and removed one of his ribs in order to create her.  Their real love meant that they were an inseparable part of each other's heart, mind, and soul.

A final proof of the strong connection between Ole and Malla Johnson is the unexpected manner in which both of their lives came to an end.  At age 87, Ole took ill while he was out chopping wood--a chore he actually enjoyed.  He was hospitalized and diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer and heart disease.  He was not expected to live long, and over the next few weeks, relatives came from near and far to pay their respects.  Malla welcomed all visitors into her home, and while working extra hard to ensure their comfort during the cold spring weather, she contracted pneumonia.  She may have also suffered a stroke.  Malla was taken to the same hospital where her husband had lain ill for an extended period, but she passed away within a few hours of being admitted.  One of their daughters, Thea, had the task of telling her father the sad news.  Ole was hard of hearing, so Thea got close to her father's ear and said, very simply:  "Ma died today."  Within sixteen hours, Ole also succumbed.  Years later, one of their grandsons shared that it was as if Ole had been waiting for Malla to come along.

Ole and Malla Johnson were buried together in a joint service in East Zion Cemetery, a small community Lutheran cemetery in Dudley Township, Clearwater County, just across the road from the farm they spent years building up.  Together in life, they experienced real love in all of its varied and challenging forms.  Together in death, they serve as a reminder of love's continuing possibilities, and above all, its enduring commitment.



Sources:

Craig Laughlin, Pastor.  "Love Like This," Sermon, Generations Community Church, Marysville, Washington, January 29, 2019.

Little Girl Lost No More!

The Missing Childhood Likeness of Malla (Vigesaa) Larson

My concerted efforts as photo detective continue in the hope of teasing out the identities of more family members from unidentified stashes of the past.  The many photographic treasures that once belonged to my great grandparents, Ole Martin and Malla (Larson) Johnson and other family members, included several Victorian-era cabinet card albums and stacks of loose carte-de-visite images, as well as other assorted prints.  At first, the task of identification seemed daunting.  Some likenesses were easily recognizable, and fewer still were actually labeled on the back.  But, more often than not, a labeled photograph displayed the name of the recipient of the photograph, and not the subject--a common trap to be wary of during the photograph identification process.

I reasoned that somewhere among all of the family mementos, there had to be an image of my great grandmother, Malla (Vigesaa) Larson (1868-1948), as a young girl.  After all, she was the owner of much of the collection I have been trying to identify, and it seems unlikely that her parents would not have had an image or two taken of their youngest child at some point.  But, until recently, the earliest known photographs of Malla were taken around the time of her wedding in 1886, when she was 19 years old.  After cropping and enlarging the faces of many people among her old photograph collection, encouraged by a measure of success, I finally turned my attention to the little dark-haired girl on the carte-de-visite image shown below.  As soon as I zoomed in on the little face, I had that old familiar feeling:  "I know her!"

An unexpected find:  a photo of my great grandmother, Malla (Vigesaa) Larson, at age 5 or 6 (ca. 1874).  The original image is unlabeled except for the photographer's stamp on the verso.  A decorative frame has been added to the image for this post, which is not part of the original carte-de-visite.

What had not been apparent from the small card-like photograph became quite clear while observing the girl's face, zoomed in great detail.  I was immediately convinced that I had found the childhood photograph of my great grandmother, at last.  Everything matched:  the perfectly oval face; the large, clear blue eyes (left eye a little larger than the right); the deep brown, finely textured hair; a slight cleft in the chin (a Larson family trait); the shape of the eyebrows, nose, and ears, and more.  Even the dark, satiny dress with ruffles that she wore in the image was reminiscent of Malla's dark wedding dress with cascading ruffles down the front.  The two dresses look as if they could have been designed by the same seamstress--probably Malla's mother, Kjersten (Stroemstad) Larson.

Verso of the above photograph

I then investigated the photographers listed on the verso of the image.  Malla's family relocated from Coon Valley, Wisconsin to Chippewa County, Minnesota when Malla was a very young child, in about 1870, or shortly thereafter.  The location displayed on the photographers' stamp was a perfect match, since one of the nearest towns to the Larson farm in Chippewa County was Granite Falls.  But, when consulting the Directory of Minnesota Photographers on the Minnesota State Historical Society's website, I discovered a problem.  Olson and Steward (listed in the "Galleries and Studios" section), operated as a team in Granite Falls only between 1884-1886.  Malla was born in 1868, and the photograph of the little girl in question could not have been taken as late as 1884, when Malla would have been at least 16 years old.

Olson and Steward

Locations:
     Address: Granite Falls, Minnesota
       Dates of operation: 1884-1886
Decades Worked in Minnesota: 1880s


But, hold on!  A photo detective does not give up that easily!

Further investigation into the individual members of the Olson and Steward team led me to believe that the carte-de-visite image of the little girl was still, indeed, my great grandmother, Malla, but that the image was a copy of an earlier image.

H. L. Olson was a Norwegian-born photographer who kept his own photography studio in Granite Falls, Minnesota from 1881-1883.  In fact, the images taken of Malla during her teen years (top row in the collage below, #3 and #4), were both taken by H. L. Olson.  His business partner from 1884-1886, C. A. Steward, kept his own studio in Granite Falls during 1886-1887, and often advertized that any image could be copied cheaply.  It is my opinion that Malla's parents arranged to get a copy (or copies) of her childhood photo in time for her marriage in February 1886.  If this were the case, then the carte-de-visite image of Malla at about age 6 was taken in about 1874 by an unknown photographer, and the original image was later copied and reproduced by Olson and Steward between the years of 1884-1886.  

Even with this logical assumption, I could not rest on my laurels and say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the photo was of Malla.  I had yet to consider that Malla's eldest daughter, Cora Johnson (Moen), was very similar in appearance to her mother.  I scrutinized a known photo of Cora as a toddler and compared it to photos of her as an adult, and compared them both to the probable image of young Malla in the dark dress.  Though many facial features were the same between the two little girls, I noticed a difference in the upper lip, in particular.  Cora had the same large blue eyes as her mother, but her upper lip was more curved, much like her father's side of the family.  Cora also had no cleft in her chin, unlike Malla.  In addition, Cora was a towhead at age 2-1/2, and it is unlikely that her hair would have changed from light blonde to dark brown in just 3 or 4 years.  Adding to the evidence was Cora's birth year.  She was born to Malla Larson Johnson in 1891, several years after Olson and Steward produced the carte-de-visite image of the little girl with the short dark hair.

Cora Johnson (Malla's eldest daughter), age 2-1/2.

Close-up of Malla Larson as a little girl, ca. 1874.

Cora Johnson Moen, at about age 40.

I was only completely satisfied that I had made the correct determinations after creating cropped close-ups of positively identified images of Malla from her adulthood, and then pairing them with cropped close-ups of "newly discovered' images taken during her early years.  The results are evident in the collage below, which shows Malla's development from about age 5 or 6 through her early forties, as the mother of ten healthy children.

Little Malla has been accounted for.  I hope that my many Johnson and Larson cousins will be as thrilled as I am!

(Click on photographs to enlarge).  This photo collage is of Malla (Larson) Johnson from childhood to middle age.  The bottom row of cropped facial shots are from positively-identified images of Malla that have been passed down through family members.  The top row consists of photos that I have recently identified as Malla from unmarked photographs collected through various family sources.  TOP ROW (left to right):  1) Malla Larson at age 5 or 6, Granite Falls, MN; 2) From a tin type photograph in a Johnson family album, ca. 1882; 3 & 4) Carte-de-visite photos taken at about the same age in Granite Falls, MN--note that she is wearing the same dress in both photos, but with different hairstyles, ca. 1881-83.  BOTTOM ROW (left to right):  5) Cropped image from Malla's marriage certificate with Ole M. Johnson in 1886; 6) Cropped image from wedding photograph with Ole M. Johnson in 1886; 7) Cropped image from Johnson family portrait, ca. 1907, Fosston, MN; 8) Cropped image from Johnson family portrait, ca. 1910, Fosston, MN. 

Peek-A-Boo, Malla, We Found You

Malla Larson, at about age 16,
 ca. 1884 (this is the earliest
known photo of my great
 grandmother). 

Every family historian knows how maddening it can be when a source cannot be found to prove data that is well known by the family.  Some people call that a "brick wall," but you could also call it just plain frustrating.  Several family historians approached the problem of finding a birth or baptism date for my maternal great grandmother at different times, with no "proof" found other than what was written in the family Bible.

Malla (Vigesaa) (Larson) Johnson always told her family that she was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin on April 20, 1868.  One thing I soon realized about my Norwegians ancestors is that they assumed major landmarks would stick in people's heads better than too much detail.  So, rather than specifically identifying where she had been born, Malla simply referred to nearby LaCrosse.  The trouble is, no birth or baptism record was forthcoming using the standard searches.

It was apparent that we had to go right to early church records, if any existed. Through collaboration with a cousin-in-law who is writing a Larson family history, it was determined that Malla must have grown up in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, a stopping-off place for many early Norwegian immigrants.   We had found proof of other family members living there, but nothing about Malla relating to Coon Valley.  She was still a child when the Erik and Kjersten Larson family relocated to Chippewa County, Minnesota and began homesteading.  We also knew that the family would not have attended any church other than Lutheran, which narrowed down the possible records.

It turns out that records for the Upper Coon Valley Lutheran Church in Wisconsin are only available in one place:  the LaCrosse Public Library.  I knew that if we were going to find anything on Malla's birth data, it would probably be on microfilm from that library.  Unhappily, I could not access the microfilm via interlibrary loan, so I began calculating how many years it might take before I could personally visit LaCrosse.  Too many, it seemed.

If we are patient enough, sometimes good things have a way of just happening (continual networking doesn't hurt, either).  I was just now contacted by a cousin-in-law, Nancy Larson, who has been working on a family history of our branch of the Larsons.  She made a new internet contact about whom she said, "It turns out she lives in Wisconsin. Turns out she works at a genealogy library, specializing in Norwegian research."  My cousin's new contact, after accessing the church records of interest on microfilm owned by the ELCA Archives (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), came up with the following information:

#19 - Molla (Malla) b. 20 April, 1868, bap. 22 May, daughter of Erick Larsen and Christine Olsdatter, witnesses Sven Pederson, Engebret Sinbakken, Anne Jensdatter, Johanne Bredesdatter

Source:  ELCA Film #29 Upper Coon Valley 1868 Baptisms 1868

Ah!  Our search for Malla Vigesaa Larson's proof of birth has ended, with special thanks to a sympathetic professional and fellow researcher somewhere in Wisconsin.  I guess my trip to LaCrosse can wait a little bit longer...

If you are having a difficult time finding data for any Lutheran-American ancestors, try the research information and services available at the ECLA Archives, as specified on their webpage regarding Genealogy and Microfilm.  When doing family history research, ECLA Archives staff recommend first checking census records, naturalization papers, city directories, or related sources, before considering congregational records, especially if you are not certain your relatives were Lutheran.

In Search of Great Grandma's Girlhood, Part II

For months I've been meaning to get back to scanning a box of loose photographs given to me by a cousin who lives in New York, who had previously borrowed them from relatives in Minnesota and Idaho.  These photographs--already quite well-traveled--were part of an extensive collection that once belonged to my great grandparents, Ole Martin and Malla (Larson) Johnson, of Leonard, Minnesota.  Due to a severe Pacific Northwest snow storm, I had a few precious days off work.  I decided to roll up my sleeves and warm up the scanner (hopefully, my husband is not now feeling as neglected as the scanner was until this past week). 

Recently, in one of the old Johnson cabinet card albums, I discovered a previously undetected tin type photograph of Malla (Larson), looking several years younger than she was at the time of her wedding in 1886 (see my previous blog post:  "In Search of Great Grandma's Girlhood.")  I was overjoyed to find this photo, because it is now the youngest image the family has of Malla.  I say that it was "previously undetected," because my ancestors, like yours, did not often take the time to write down the identities of people in their photographs.  Everyone knew who they were at the time, so what was the urgency?

Perhaps unmarked ancestral photographs were left untouched in order to present a challenge for relations to come... for people like me, who take pride in being the family historian, and who also possess capable facial recognition skills along with a love of the chase.  And, a chase it is!  Many of you know that familiar adrenalin surge when recognizing someone in a newly acquired vintage photograph, or feeling the slow spread of certainty after an initial reaction of "I know this person!"  You have just "bagged" another ancestor and not returned home from the hunt empty-handed.



Anne Marie ("Mary") Sloan (right), 1884/85

 

Though I was not actively looking for it, I acquired a piece of another great grandma's girlhood among the tin type photographs I scanned yesterday.  In this especially lovely pose from the mid-1880s, I knew I had seen the girl standing on the right before, though the hat made it more difficult to see all of her features. The girl sitting next to her was unfamiliar--a cousin, or friend, perhaps?  Suddenly, it hit me that the girl on the right looked like my mother's maternal grandmother, Anne Marie ("Mary") Slaaen (or Sloan--the Americanized version of the family name).  Her face in the photo above has a bit more "baby fat" than what I remembered in her wedding photograph, so I zoomed in on the two in order to compare.  One in the same!



Mary (Sloan) Berge, Feb. 1886

In 1886, at the time of her wedding to Ole Benhart Berge in Leenthrop Township, Chippewa County, Minnesota, Mary Sloan was 17 years old.  In the earlier photograph, she appears to be 15 or 16.  Now, Mary was not related to either Ole or Malla (Larson) Johnson, the original owners of the photographs.  What then, was my other maternal great grandmother doing in Ole and Malla Johnson's photo collection?

I then remembered the situation as my mother had previously described to me.  In early Chippewa County, as in any sparsely populated pioneer community, it is true that everybody knew everybody.  When friends gave likenesses to friends, it was a kind gesture that was usually reciprocated.  But, Mary Sloan had an even more important reason to give her photograph to young Ole Johnson, because the two of them courted for awhile.  Mary Sloan, at about age 16, dated Ole Martin Johnson, a local homesteader and landowner, who was eight years her senior.  At the same time, Malla Larson, also age 16, dated Ole Benhart Berge, who was four years her senior.  Somewhere along the line, Ole Johnson must have decided that Malla Larson would make a better partner for his chosen way of life, whereas Mary Sloan fell in love with Ole Benhart Berge, a future mail carrier and railroad worker.  Both couples, linked to better suit their mutual strengths, were married in February 1886:  the Berges on February 6, and the Johnsons on the 28th.  So, Ole Johnson got his helpmate in lovely Malla, and Ole Berge got his sweet Mary; the stars were aligned correctly, at last, and the Johnson/Larson and Berge/Sloan legacies were begun.



Ole and Malla Johnson, Feb. 1886

  
 Ole and Malla Johnson facts:

--Ole Martin Johnson, August 6, 1860-April 20, 1948; born at Lassemoen farm, near Grong, Nord-Trondelag, Norway; immigrated with parents and sister in 1866; died from heart disease.
--Malla (Vigesaa) Larson, April 20, 1868-April 19, 1948; born near LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA; died one day short of her 80th birthday from pneumonia and stroke.
--Ten children, all of whom lived to old age.
--Lived in Granite Falls Township, Chippewa County, Minnesota; Fosston, Polk County, Minnesota; Leonard, Clearwater County, Minnesota.
--Married 62 years.
--Died within hours of each other; both buried under a double headstone at East Zion Cemetery near Leonard, Minnesota, across the road from their last residence.
 

Ole and Mary Berge, Feb. 1886

   
Ole and Mary Berge facts:

--Ole Benhart Berge, October 30, 1864-January 24, 1949; born at Storberget farm near Lillehammer, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway; immigrated with mother and sister in 1869 (father immigrated the year before); died  from stroke.
--Anne Marie (Mary) Sloan/Slaaen, June 20, 1868-June 7, 1947; born in a covered wagon near Swan Lake, Nicollett County, Minnesota; died from leukemia.
--Twelve children; two died in infancy.
--Lived near Leonard, Clearwater County, Minnesota; Maynard, Chippewa County, Minnesota.
--Married 61 years.
--Both buried at Maynard Lutheran Cemetery, Maynard, Chippewa County, Minnesota.

Special note:  Ernest Johnson, son of Ole and Malla Johnson, married Esther Berge, daughter of Ole and Mary Berge, on March 22, 1917 in Chippewa County, Minnesota.  Ernest and Esther Johnson were my maternal grandparents.

In Search of Great Grandma's Girlhood




Tin type photograph, ca. 1884/1885. Malla Vikesaa Larson (left), with possibly her sister,
Karin (Vikesaa) (Larson) Pedersen.  Probably taken in Chippewa CO., Minnesota.

 
Toward the end of last year, I anxiously awaited the arrival of a genealogical treasure from Minnesota.  Having to wait for something containing such down-to-earth evidence as "newly discovered" vintage photographs can cause a genealogist/family historian to nearly jump out of her own skin in anticipation.  The album was brought by car from Minnesota to Idaho in July, and in October, it was transported from Idaho to the Seattle area by the sister of a cousin's wife.  When the box containing the precious cargo was finally in my hands in November, I could hardly bear to open it.  I have since scanned all of the photos inside and placed a link to the Picasa web album on the side bar of this blog (Ole Martin and Malla Johnson Photo Album B).

Years ago on a trip visiting cousins in Minnesota, I borrowed a faded crimson velvet-backed cabinet card photograph album that once belonged to my maternal great-grandparents, Ole Martin and Malla (Larson) Johnson, of Leonard, Minnesota.  Some of my cousins seemed to remember that there had been a second album--one with a greenish-yellow cover.  Until last year, its whereabouts were unknown.  It was assumed that the album had been destroyed during a basement flood years earlier, or was simply lost.  But, the album with the greenish-yellow backing finally surfaced in the possession of another Minnesota cousin, who had held it since her own mother's belongings were distributed among family members some years ago.

My mother remembers seeing the two photograph albums as a child, but since she was not allowed to pull them from the cabinet where they were kept to look at them as she pleased, she was not intimately familiar with the photographs they held.  As a young adult, she left her grandparents' farm and never laid eyes on the two photograph albums again until I was able to place them in her hands recently.  Over 65 years had passed.  What a feeling it was to be able to do that!

The second cabinet card album that I awaited last year was the last known place to search for an early photograph of Malla (Vikesaa)(Larson) Johnson--my mother's paternal grandmother.  The earliest known image we had of Malla was her wedding photograph, taken in 1886, when she was nineteen years old.  In addition, none of the family had ever been able to obtain her birth records.  We were certain of her birth date:  April 20, 1868, but the location was always generically mentioned as "somewhere near LaCrosse, Wisconsin."  I have deduced that her birthplace was likely in Coon Valley, where her parents lived briefly among other Norwegian immigrants before relocating to homestead in Chippewa County, Minnesota.  I longed to find further proof of her early life, or a photograph of a date earlier than her wedding.

Sitting loose in the second cabinet card album was an old tintype photograph, badly scratched, but still fairly clear.  When I picked it up and held it to the light, I immediately recognized the girl in the plaid dress as my great grandmother, Malla (Larson) Johnson--the woman who raised my own mother.  Though she is no longer a child in the photo, perhaps a youth of 14-16 years of age, I felt a sense of accomplishment at identifying one more piece of Malla's earlier life for posterity.

Malla Larson as a youth, ca. 1884/85 (cropped
 and zoomed from photo above)

Malla Larson Johnson in her wedding photograph, February 1886
 (cropped and zoomed).  Chippewa County, Minnesota

The found-again tin type photograph also potentially gives our family the likeness of one of Malla's illusive older sisters, both of whom were much older than she.  Karin (Vikesaa)(Larson) Pedersen was the one sister no one could find a likeness of.  If it is indeed Karin (Larson) Pedersen to the right of Malla in the photograph, she would have been a married woman in her mid-thirties at the time, with three out of four children already birthed, and only seven or eight years left to live.  Karin was born on 7 October 1847 in Bjerkreim, Rogaland, Norway. She married Erick Stallen Pedersen, a Minnesota native of Swedish descent, on 26 September 1876, in Chippewa County, Minnesota.  The couple eventually settled in Northland, Polk County, where Karin died on 9 January 1892.

In the earliest photograph of my great grandmother, Malla, I see a Norwegian-American farm girl who is probably newly confirmed as an adult in the eyes of the Lutheran pioneer church.  The calm girl in the plaid dress soon after became the no-nonsense farm wife--shy and retiring when it came to strangers, but forthright and confident within her own realm.  Malla (Larson) Johnson would give birth to ten children, all of whom survived into old age, and she experienced prairie homesteading, coping with blizzards, rampant disease, and locust plagues on top of day-to-day hardships. She was known not only for her hospitality, but for her ferocity at protecting and caring for the family's chickens, as well as for the large lefse she could bake atop the cast iron stove, and her never-idle hands, which continually knitted socks as she rested beside the fireplace each evening.  She hummed only one tune--Norway's National Anthem, and instructed her granddaughters to make their sewing stitches as nice on the back as on the front, and also to be sure to clean in all the corners, because "God will see it if you don't."  When Malla died on April 20, 1946, on her 80th birthday, she had lived about as full a life as one could expect.  I am grateful that she raised my mother, who has helped me to know my great grandmother vicariously by supplying me with endless tales of growing up on Grandma Malla's farm.

Malla Johnson's Bible

After Ole Martin Johnson married Malla Larson in 1886, my great grandmother began to diligently record the birth of her children inside the family Bible.

Ole and Malla Johnson with Carl, Ruben, and Frank, their three youngest children, in about 1907, Fosston, Polk County, MN.

Using a numbering system that began with no.1 for her husband and no.2 for herself, over the course of 19 years and the birth of 10 children, Malla wrote:
"1. Husband: Ole M. Johnson, born August 6, 1860; 2. Wife: Malla Johnson, born April 20, 1868; 3. First son: Bennett Johnson, born August 18th, 1887; 4. Another son: Earnest Johnson, born January 23th, 1888; 5. First daughter: Korah Johnson, born July 15th, 1891; 6. Another daughter, Thea Johnson, born April 28th, 1893."









On the second page, Malla did not use a number for her son, Odin, and then repeated the use of no.6 with her actual 6th child, Mabel.

"Odin Johnson, born October 11, 1885; 6. Mabel Johnson, born February 10, 1898; 7. Orel Johnson (born January 15, 1900; 8. Rubin Johnson, born September 19, 1901; 9. Carl Johnson, born February 26, 1904; 10. Frank Johnson, born November 2, 1906."


I delight in noticing that while Malla's handwriting was neat and precise in the beginning, over the years (in direct correlation with the number of children she had), it becomes increasingly less neat and skewed!