Autobiography of Rasmus Sigdestad
This
autobiography of Rasmus Sigdestad was submitted by Curt
Sigdestad,
curtsig@gmail.com
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Early Days of Rasmus Sigdestad (written by him in 1955)
I was born in
Opstryn, Nordfjord, Norway on February 8, 1868, and came
to the United States in July of 1881, settling at
Montevideo, Minnesota. My
father and mother, and two sisters and two brothers came to
Montevideo. Another
sister went to Wells, Minnesota. Yellow Medicine County,
where we settled, was
quite new. The homes were one-room log houses, or sod houses
dug into a side
hill. My parents moved into a sod house a few weeks before
the harvest of 1881.
In the
winters I helped farmers do their chores for my board and room.
If there was some spare time I went to school. I had less
than six months
schooling in this country. My parents wanted all of us to
have Christian
training, and in 1882 I was confirmed in Bergen Church in
Yellow Medicine
County, Minnesota.
One of my
sisters married Iver Skaare. They decided to go west and look
for a free homestead. Another family by the name of Erik
Winson decided to go
too. They each had a team of oxen and a few cows. I went
along, chasing the cows
behind the covered wagons. We left in May of 1884 with
Webster, Dakota
Territory, as our destination.
It took us a
week to go from Montevideo to Webster. I remember we came
to Webster toward evening. We drove to a place which is now
called the
Bierschbach corner and camped there overnight. After we had
our supper, Erik
Winson and I walked uptown. There were a hundred or more
Negro soldiers in town.
There was a saloon and I guess they had been in there, for
most of them were
very drunk. The next morning all the soldiers marched to
Fort Sisseton.
We drove out
to Lynn Lake. Erik Winson had a brother who had proven up a
quarter of land. The brother had built a small house but had
gone back to
Minnesota. He told Erik that they could stay in the house as
long as they
wished. The two families stayed there while Iver and Erik
went looking for land
around Lynn Lake. It was pretty well claimed by others so
they hired John Tofley
to help locate land. The Tofleys had been here two or three
years and were
acquainted. After some searching they found several sections
in the southwest
corner of Lynn Township. Skaare and Winson each picked out a
quarter which they
planned to file for homestead, but when they came to the
land office they were
told that the land Winson had chosen was already claimed or
proved up. Winson
then went north and found land four miles farther north and
filed for a quarter
there.
My father,
Sakris, came here the fall of 1884 and filed on a quarter
next to my brother-in-law Iver Skaare. The spring of 1885 my
parents moved to
this quarter of land. I was too young to file on any land,
so I went back to
Minnesota and worked for my brother-in-law, Magnus Olson,
for $110 a year. With
the $110 I bought two three-year-old steers and one cow. I
drove them to Dakota.
I sold them steers to my father who broke them and used them
as oxen for many
years, and I sold the cow to a neighbor. Farm work was hard
to get so I went to
Andover, where the railroad was being built from Andover to
North Dakota. It was
spring and we had a lot of rain and cold weather. Workers
had to sleep in tents.
In early summer my brother John, two other boys, and myself
went west of Groton
to work for two big farmers who were brothers. They were
wheat farmers. They
used four binders with two men shocking behind each binder.
We got $1.25 a day
working from about seven a.m. to sundown. We thought we made
good money.
After harvest
I went back to Minnesota. The spring of 1888 I worked for
a farmer. For eight months work I was paid $140. With this
money I bought two
three-year-old mare colts which I drove to Lynn Township,
and sold to my brother
John. He filed on 80 acres that bordered my father's land.
In 1889 I
came of age and that fall I bought a relinquishment to a tree
claim from Rasmus Larson. About 15 acres were broken and I
seeded my first crop
the spring of 1890. I had a team of horses and I broke up as
much for field as I
could. This was the first land I owned. As time went on I
bought more land.
On July 1,
1899 I married Anna Marie Gudahl of Faribault County,
Minnesota. We bought an unfinished house and moved it to the
present farm stead.
The summer of 1900 we built an addition to the house and
later built the farm
buildings.
Our marriage
was blest with six children; three boys, Steward, Clarence,
and Rueben; and three girls, Selma, Esther, and Agnes. One
boy Rueben died in
infancy.
I am the only
one left of my family. My brothers John and Sakris, and
three sisters; Kristina, Mrs. Magnus Olson; Kari, Mrs. John
Grove; and Ingebor,
Mrs. Iver Skaare, are deceased and buried in Bergen Cemetery
in Lynn Township.
My wife Anna
passed away December 21, 1954. We had 55 years together.
Along with the hardships we had many happy times. God has
been very good to us.
He has blessed us in many ways.
Editor’s Note: Rasmus died in 1958 in Day County, South Dakota and is buried in Bergen
Lutheran Cemetery, Lynn Township.