Johannes Gundersen, Levanger
Harald Sundlo (born 9 June 1927) notes:
"I first came into contact with Johannes through Fauskerud at the Opplandsarkivet at Maihaugen. Johannes was at the time researching the history of emigration from Gudbrandsdalen to Trøndelag, and I was interested to find out whether he had any information about Anders Larsen Holm. Johannes turned out to be a gold mine of information and helped me enormously with my genealogical research. We became good friends in time, and have visited each other respectively at Odins veg 3 in Levanger and at Erlands veg 13 in Asker.
Johannes had a difficult childhood; he was placed out with strangers as a small child and had few opportunities to read — which was his great passion. But he made his way in the world nonetheless: he became a foreman at a mechanical workshop, studied at the same time, and was eventually a teacher (headmaster?) at the vocational school at Gran in Hedemarken.
Johannes says little about his childhood; it is painful for him to revisit. The tragedy is also that his mother was placed out as a small child. They were hard times in Trøndelag."
In a letter to Harald Sundlo of 2 February 1995, Johannes Gundersen enclosed the following transcription:
In Memory of Mother
My mother Bertha Kristine was born on the 2nd of February, 1877. She had three siblings:
- Karoline Amalie, born 16 July 1872
- Johan Adolf, born 19 April 1875
- Bergitte Antonie, born 2 February 1877 (she was Mother's twin sister)
Their father, John Kristiansen Holm, was a blacksmith in Stjørdal, where all the children were born. He died in 1878, aged only 39.
These children had no upbringing together. They were "placed out," as the phrase goes. Karoline Amalie — I do not know where; Johan Adolf and Bergitte Antonie grew up with their aunt Bereth Kristiansdatter Almli, their grandfather's sister. Mother grew up at Dullum, a farm in Åsen.
What follows will, as far as possible, concern Mother, her life and her fate.
As will be apparent from the foregoing, these children were early without a father — but not only that; they were also in effect without a mother, since their mother, Elen Kristiansdatter Reistadwald (as she was called before her marriage to grandfather), had gone to Sweden immediately after being widowed, and married again there.
I have no knowledge of where Mother spent her youth, but I assume she was on the farm in Åsen. What I do know is that she was engaged to an Oskar Westrum. This led to her having a son whom she named Jon, who took his father's surname. He was born on the 26th of September, 1898. By that point Oskar had gone to America, and she had no further contact with him. Her contact with Jon lasted the whole of her life, and the affection she showed him was, I know, reciprocated by him.
Around the turn of the century she married Bernt Ditlef Gundersen. That she came into contact with a kind and responsible man was, for her, a stroke of luck. When I speak of the spirit they had, I am drawing attention to the inheritance they have given us children.
There was an age difference of thirteen years between them, to her disadvantage, and Father had a job that took a severe toll on his health, so he died just before Christmas in 1918. This must have been a hard blow for Mother. She was left with sole responsibility for four children: Ingebjørg, 16; Malene, 9; myself Johannes, 5; and Øivind, 2.
Ingebjørg married the following year, and that helped a little. Malene and I were "placed out" in the spring of 1920 — another painful decision to make alone. She said on her deathbed that it had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. None of us had ever spoken of this to one another before — understandably.
Lack of free time — for she was housekeeper to a business owner in Levanger — meant that we did not see her as much as we wished, and finances set a further limit; but we were always in her thoughts, of which we had many proofs.
I do not think Øivind was with Mother the whole time after Father died.
In 1925 she managed to secure a position for Malene in domestic service with a merchant in Levanger, until Malene married Julius Johansen in Levanger on the 12th of November, 1930. She also arranged an apprenticeship for me at Nyenget's, where she herself worked. That was in the spring of 1930.
The circle was closed. She had got us "placed-out" children back. What a satisfaction for her — and for us a turning point. We had not been forgotten.
When I use the word "forgotten," it is because she herself had hoped that we would not forget her. It falls to those of us who were so fortunate as to have her as a mother to preserve her memory.
We remember a mother of self-sacrifice and care in a difficult life situation.
I would not wish to omit mention of her relations with her children-in-law. Ingebjørg married at a very young age; the young couple had considerable help from Mother at the start of their marriage. The same was true for Malene and Julius.
As for her relations with her daughters-in-law: there was both light and shadow. Her trust in the eldest, Eva, could not have been better — one may say without exaggeration that she held her in high regard. With the other it grew less well over time.
Of the last part of her life, this is to be said: she left her position at Nyenget's on the 28th of January, 1936. She turned sixty on the 2nd of February. Øivind and I moved together with her into a house that Nyenget built for her; she thus had her own home. Øivind took it over later. He married in the summer of 1947. Three years later, Mother had to move to the old people's home. About this I would rather not write more. I will only say that she was not allowed to spend her last days where she should have been.
Adversity was a thread running through her entire life.
She died on Sunday morning the 9th of August, 1953. We were with her — Ingebjørg, Malene, Øivind, and I. Jon, her eldest son, unfortunately received no warning in time.
Let me finally mention the hour from 6 to 7 on the Friday evening of the 7th of August. In that hour she was completely lucid. We were able to speak of much that did her good, and for me that hour will remain in my memory as the greatest in my life shared with her.
Levanger, 6 November 1990.
Jhs. Gundersen
Placed Out as a 7-Year-Old
By Johannes Gundersen — published in the journal of Sparbu Historical Society
One is held to be right in honouring requests that one is asked to fulfil. It is with mixed feelings that I begin to write about my years as a child. I have on occasion overcome my misgivings, having understood that there are people in Sparbu Historical Society who stand behind the request — motivated by the view that there may be some value in gaining an insight into the upbringing of a ward-of-court child, and what that entails.
May I first say something about my reservations. I hope to be believed in what I tell. It has been necessary to trust in that. Everything written here is only the truth. Fortunately these realities are, one hopes, not what they were in those days. One might say that there is both plus and minus in having had to work from the moment one got up at seven in the morning — the working day beginning also for the nine-year-old and lasting the whole day. What was the length of the day? Believe me or not — I am now approaching the limit of what I can expect a reader of this to accept as true; if they are sceptical, I understand them perfectly well.
The last thing I did in the day was to give my best friend, the little brown gelding, his last feed before night. It was then nine o'clock — 21:00 as we say today. On the plus side: he showed his pleasure with a whinny of welcome. No one could greet me with a similar contentment, that I remember.
Now it is perhaps time to make known who is writing this. It is Johannes Gundersen, born in Sparbu on the 19th of April, 1913, at Haugaleira, which was at one time a smallholding purchased by my parents. They were Bertha Kristine, née Holm, and Bernt Ditlev Gundersen. She had her roots in Fåberg in Gudbrandsdalen, he in Elverum in Østerdalen. Three years after I was born we had become a family of six persons, when another boy arrived — Øivind.
What came to determine a good deal of our fate as a family was that Father fell ill and died just before Christmas 1918. We were then living at Åsheim meeting house, where Mother was in charge of cleaning. Father's becoming unable to work was presumably the reason Haugaleira was sold and Mother had to take over the task of supporting us.
Mother could not manage what she was faced with, and it lasted no longer than the spring of 1920. Ingebjørg, who was 17 in 1919, married that year. Malene, who was 11, and I, aged 7, were "placed out" in the spring of 1920. When I use the words "placed out," they are perhaps only words in the language — but for those whom they affect, they have a wider span.
My place of residence became the smallholding Løkka. I believe my ending up there was a matter of chance. Gustav Gundersen the cobbler, who at that time owned Løkka, came by Åsheim one day and saw me sitting on the steps and asked whether I would like to come home with him. Mother must have heard this, and a Sunday shortly after, the stay that was to last ten years began.
Before this, Mother and I had been at Gustad with the childless farming couple Kristian Lorås and his wife Karen. They presumably wanted a boy who might take over the farm. That I did not become a farmer is, one suspects, no great loss to society.
And so I was a ward-of-court child. The reasons why one became such could be very varied. Today the phrase has a different meaning and different content. The reason it fell to me is, I hope, clear enough. Let me briefly say that the municipality paid 12 kroner per month for my keep at Løkka, until I was 12 years old.
I saw nothing of the board of guardians. This was presumably how things were supposed to be. Was it because they understood the situation as they were told — that I was doing well? Was it because, as was also said, I was a good boy? A comment on this excellent character trait I shall refrain from, for I believe I have learned to think for myself.
I have no reluctance to relate that on many nights I lay and prayed to God. Loneliness and having no one to confide in is not the best thing for a child when it seems to need comfort and help. A mother's lap and a father's hand have, in this period of life, a greater value than is usually thought.
I had the good fortune to enjoy my schooling. The subjects that suited me best were Norwegian and history — both of which have been of use and pleasure to me in later life. It is to be regretted that I did not get further schooling earlier, but that must be forgotten. May it be permitted to suggest that the meagre environment was a hindrance?
I would like to write a little more about school. I started at Møre folk school on the 15th of September, 1920. My first teacher was Målfrid Homnes. I further mention Jorid Skarland and — not to be forgotten — the schoolmaster himself, Edvard Wekre. A man who commanded respect.
With gratitude I remember Provost Knut Eik-Nes.
One of what I consider the great experiences of school was when the provost was on a visit, while I was in the fifth class, and I was asked to tell of the birth of Jesus. A great moment for a timid boy. Perhaps this was the reason the idea came of becoming a priest.
May I ask permission to say a little about the concept of isolation. It properly belongs to what I am now writing about. It is not good to be excluded from company with one's contemporaries, nor from one's own family. Having to ask permission to visit Ingebjørg, who lived at Leira, on a few Sundays eventually became a burden that in the end I simply ceased to ask for.
Henrik Ibsen, who has taught me much, lets Dr Stockmann say: "He is strongest in the world who stands alone." This and much else I have thought a great deal about.
Being alone also led, I believe, to thinking along lines that were unusual. What should one make of the fact that at the age of twelve I already wondered what it would be like when I was old? Was that meaningless, or does it say something about my situation?
The patient reader may feel they have had enough, but forgive me this: nothing is like being safely at home with mother and father. It is, I hope, not strange that I say this — but precisely because I was not so fortunate, I venture these words.
The 3rd of March, 1930, was the day of departure from Løkka, and Mother got her eldest son back. It was not a mother's lap, for the boy had grown large — but it was a mother's good arms that received him, and it was needed; for despite the age — nearly 17 — it was good to be met with warmth.
And finally: the most important lesson was perhaps that one must rely upon oneself.