Øystre Slidre with Jotunheim to the north
(leftside: showing the end of the fjord).

Øystre Slidre with Jotunheim to the north
(rightside: showing the road to Jotunheim).

APPENDIX

THE OLD COUNTRY

The ‘good old days’ in Norway for the poor people like Grandfather Ola Ellestad were usually days of working until weary and then wondering where the next good mouthful was going to come from. One main staple in their diet was salted herring fetched with great expenditure of time, sweat, and ‘fistfights’ from the Sogne Fjord far across the mountains to the northwest.

Sogne Fjord is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway.

Getting there, as Ola tells in his tale, was not without risk of getting a bloody nose (and falling off a cliff), and, sometimes there were no fish to buy when they did get there. Then, they came back empty-handed after two weeks. Fetching fish for free out of the nearest stream or fjord, or game from the forests, was reserved for the big landowners only—as it is, indeed, still today—you can look, but don’t touch!

MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER: Elie Knudsdatter Grovie (1802.06.13-1897.02.07). [She was age 10 when Napoleon lost at Waterloo!]

At age 29, Eli had a baby girl with a landowner [Endre Iversen "Ellingbø"] over in Vang Parish for whom she worked as a servant girl.

When she was a good deal older [1839.10.06], Elie married a man nine years younger—
MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER: Andris Olsen Graavie (1811.01.08-1884.06.08)

The child’s name was Marit Endresdatter Ellestad
who later had, in turn, a child with a certain Even Tollevsen Ellingbø also from at Vang.

The ‘true’ son of Elie and Andris was—
MY GRANDFATHER: Ole [Ola] Andersen Ellestad (1845.07.29-1929.08.16), who married—
MY GRANDMOTHER: Marit Svensdatter Robøle (1849.06.15-1917.03.06) from Heggenes. Click here for Heggenes, Øystre Slidre, family

That child’s name was Torstein Ewindsen. It was apparently ‘explained to people’ that he was the brother of Ola (Ole) Ellestad (both living at Åsen).
Not so! They couldn’t lie to the census taker in 1875, by whom it was clearly recorded!
Torstein was in fact Ola’s half-sister’s child,
in other words, his half-nephew.

Ole and Marit had four children in Norway before hunger drove them out. So, they scraped enough together for tickets on the SS Marathon in May of 1881, across the Great Pond. First to Oslo, then to Hull, England, across England, across the Atlantic, and then to Wisconsin.

Ole’s ‘brother’ [half-nephew] Torstein married a girl by the name of Marit Olsdatter Lykkja, and they both left for the U.S.A., as well, in June of 1890—
traveling to Decorah City, Winneshiek Co., Iowa. There, they had three children, whose children very likely moved to Chicago, but then the trail grows cold.

First Born in Norway

First Born: Sven Olsen Ellestad (1875.07.17-1956.04.25)

He and his two sisters, Marit and Marit, and little baby brother, Ole (see next table) traveled all the way from Valdres to Wisconsin.

Also Born in Norway

Marit Ellestad ‘Berg’ (1876.12.17–1925.07.09) [bap.77.02.11]

Marit Ellestad ‘Snortum’ (1878.04.05–1914.05) [bap.78.06.09]

Ole Ellestad (1880.03.14–1964.07.02)[bap.80.05.06]

Children Born in U.S.A.

Knute Ellestad (1883.12.02–1931.08.20)
Theodor Ellestad (1885.06.05–1943.07.11)

Ella Soffie Ellestad ‘Prochnow’ (1888.04.14–1957.11.22)
Olga Matilda ‘Smitbeck’ (1890.06.26–1966.04.19)

And—
MY FATHER (photos)

Albert George Ellestad (1892.06.24-1959.12.04) who had a son:
* [Edmund (1916.07.27-1984.08.20) m. Doris Morgan 1941.05.03] with his first wife [Ella Vetter, m. 1916.02.02, d. Oct., 1919]. She died from Tuberculosis.

He then later married—Esther Ida Zastrow (1901.05.31-1971.06.17):

Wedding Picture [1921.05.25]

They had seven children . . .

THE ALBERT G. ELLESTAD FAMILY
— 1944 —