Back to Selbu

July 27, Sunday

Mid-morning, Torgeir and Heidi dropped us off at the car rental center downtown and Barb and I were off to revisit Selbu.  I have many questions and still so many details to discover.  Our first stop is to visit Bjorn and Anne again.  They greet us with coffee and lemsa and this time, just the four of us, sitting on their deck overlooking beautiful Lake Selbu, we discuss more common genealogy. 

More lemsa with Bjorn

Anne calls a local resource and soon we are in our cars traveling to that resource, the Granby Gard.  An old farm, converted to a museum, the Gard serves as a center of documentation for all those who have immigrated from Selbu to America.  The museums owners and curators, Inger and Age, (Garberg family lineage) greet us eagerly, and talk warmly of my family, of my hometown Lacrosse, and of my home church Selbu. 

Inger and Age, inside the museum.  Look how modern the inside of the "barn" is.

With Anne and Bjorn outside of the barn, the museum.

The walls of the old barn, preserved for heritage, have been preserved on the exterior, while the interior projects a modern and stylish look.  One end of the barn is glass, looking out onto the beautiful valley.  The museum has meeting rooms for up to 20 and it can serve as a pilgrimage center, offering space for sleep, reflection, and research.  The interior walls are filled with posters, pictures, maps and other documentation that describe the immigration from Selbu to areas in North America.  My families’ destinations in which they lived before moving to Lacrosse are all noted on the wall.  They include St. Paul, Marietta, and Kasson, MN, Ryder and Minot SD, and finally Lacrosse, WA.

I wanted to find the “Wigen” connection, my mother’s maiden name.  Her grandfather and his two brothers were some of the four cofounders of my home church.  It bears the name Selbu because of their roots in Selbu Norway.  Yet, on walking through the Selbu Kirche graveyard, I found no Wigen headstones or anything close such as Vigen or Wiggen.  On inquiring to Inger as to why this is so, she remarked that perhaps they lived in Norway under the name of Nervig or Norbye.  Families in Norway, in the early 1900’s and beyond, usually took the name of the area in which they lived.  Some, when immigrating to the US, then took back their family name which could be the case for my Wigen ancestors.  Inger than brought out a picture and noted that it was of the Wigens, but she asked if I knew their names.  There in the picture was my great-grandfather Peder Wigen, my great-grandmother Betsy (Beret), my grandfather Jurgen and his brother John, and their twin sisters, Rae and Ragna, Ragna being my Godmother, carried me in baptism in 1947.  The picture, I think, would be circa 1905?

My great grandparents, my grandfather and his siblings, circa 1905

Are these my great-great grandparents?

I could have stayed there for days, talking to Inger and Age, and studying their massive collection, but we needed to move on.  We said goodbye to Anne and Bjorn.  Such wonderful people again had crossed our paths and have been so willing to help us on our journey of discovery.  We will stay in touch and I hope we see each other again soon.

Barb and I drove around the valley and the lake for a couple of hours, driving by the Mobost residence, another distant cousin, who was building a large barn on his formidable farm. 

Toward the Aune farm from across Lake Selbu.

Barely field in the Selbu area

We ate pizza at a local restaurant and checked into the Selbusjoen around 6 p.m.    Barb and I sat on the deck, me drinking beer, she sipping a wine.  All at once I felt very complete and very tired.  Yes, there are new questions but there are answers to old ones.  One segment of the trip, the Aune/Wigen side is done.  I am so pleased, so fulfilled and all at once so tired.  We went to bed at 7:30 and slept soundly and comfortably for 10 hours.