Kristen Paulsen's Autobiography

[The version that has come down to us is not dated. The "writings" referred to in the first paragraph are presumably "The Life Work of a Plain Man," published in Danish in 1938 by Niels Nissen Bron and now in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Bron (1859-1945) was born in Brons, Nord Slesvig, Jutland, emigrated with his family in 1872, spent his life in Iowa and Washington State, and died in Solvang, Calif.]

Kristen and Maren Paulsen, circa 1920.

A letter from Kristen Paulsen, Frederic, Wisconsin 

A small biography 

After having read the writings of Niels Brons, I also fancy writing a little, not because it is something big or remarkable, but because I have a lot of time. 

I was born in Bjergby on the island of Mors. My father's name was Poul Sorensen. My mother was Mette Andersdatter. They had a farm which was a freehold farm to the manor Ullerup. I am the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. I went to public school as well as a private school.

 It was a time with a lot of lay preachers. Some of them were good. The age of reason was dying, and it was at that time Peder Larsen Dons travelled around holding meetings, and the time when the special kind of Danish high schools was "blooming." [google Danish folk high schools for background]. In our neighbor town Galtrup, Anders Kr. Poulsen Dahl built a high school, and not far south from there a free church was built. Their first minister was Rasmus Lund. It soon became a big church.

When I was 16 years old [1867], I went to a Grundtvigien high school in Copenhagen. [N.F.S. Grundtvig, 1783-1872, "one of the most influential figures in Danish history," was the spiritual father of the folk school movement.] The reason was that a congressman from Mors named Sjorring who happened to be a very good friend of Carl Grove made it possible for a person from Mors to attend his high school for the winter for half price. The person became me. I am not sure how much I learned, but I both saw and listened to Grundtvig.

I was 13 years old [1864] when the Germans and Austrians invaded South Jutland [the Second Schleswig War]. Two of my brothers-in-law participated in the war; one was wounded. When they attacked on Dybbol there was a ceasefire. In the time of peace negotiations they invaded all of Jutland. Perhaps they didn't go further north than Aalborg, but there were a lot [of Austro-German troops] on Mors. They forced the farmers to drive them around collecting food. When they arrived at a house or a farm they entered all the rooms, and at each farm they took one more carriage, so in a short time there was a very long line. After some time, when the pantries were empty, they went somewhere else. They also took a lot of other things like horses and so on.

When I was 20 years old [1871] I came to Galtrup high school for a couple of months until I had to go to the military in Viborg. This I found easy to learn because I had been a member of the local rifle club for some years. But military is discipline, absolute discipline. I have been a soldier four times, two times in camp near Hald and two times in Viborg. Two of the times was after I was married.

I was married when I was 24 years old [1875]. My wife's name was Maren [Kirstine Jensen]. We went to the moors near Ringkjobing [75 miles south of Mors] and bought a farm. Several people from Mors did the same because they could get more land for their money than they could on Mors.  But most of them didn't stay long. We had a small piece of land near the creek along Skjern, abour one mile from where we lived, where we picked up our hay with our small steers. But when there was falling heavy rain from the east, the low land along the Skjern creek was inundated and we got no hay. 

They were solid people living in the area. They took good care of themselves. There were almost no poor people in the parish. They were a little underdeveloped. Their children didn't go to high schools.

After nine years [1884] we went back to Mors, where we got a house with room for one cow. I got a prize for the best cultivating of my land, but I also had to find work elsewhere. I travelled to Hannes, where they were making an embankment because a small cove of the Limfjord had to be dry. I also went to the west coast,  where they were building groynes [breakwaters or bulwarks] for protection against the sea. It was a very hard life. Therefore we decided to go to America.

When we sold our property we got so much money that we could pay for our travel to America, which was very expensive because we were seven family members. [Kristen, age 39; Maren, 39; Paul, 10; Andrew, 9; Lars, 8; Mette Marie, 4; Anna, 6 months.] Maren and I went to Thisted to buy some of the things we needed for the journey. We hired a fisherman to sail us over Limfjord, and I don't think we ever since have been so close to drowning as then. 

It was early in May [1890] that we left Bjergby for Nykobing, from where we continued by steamship to Aalborg, and from there on another ship to Copenhagen. In Copenhagen we climbed the round tower [Rundetaarn, a 17th century tower in central Copenhagen], from where we looked around. We also met King Christian IX [1818-1906], who was riding in the street. We were going by the old emigration ship Tingvalla, which was headed first for Kristiania [Oslo] in Norway, where a lot of Norwegians came aboard. 

After that we sailed to the west, north around England. The weather was stormy as well as calm. When it was stormy, the ship was tilting so much that it was dangerous to walk on the deck. Then there were ropes over the deck, which people could use. One night, though, they were so unfortunate sailing into an iceberg. A lot of people fell out of their beds and of course there was some panic, but the ship didn't take in water. Although it had a hole in the front it was over the water line. For one day they didn't sail while they were repairing the damage, and then we moved on. 

After 21 days we reached New York. A man entered the ship to look at us before we went ashore. No one welcomed us. We were all on our own. I went into a hotel, where a lot of men were sitting around eating. My impression was that they were very fat, all of them, and they seemed to have fun looking at a newcomer. 

We were all checked if we were OK to enter the States. We were seven, the eldest boy was 10 and the youngest girl was half a year, but everything was alright. We had a ticket to South Dakota. We got on a very nice train to Chicago, where we had a small break. At that time it had been very hot, and a girl fainted from it. Then we kept on west, but now on a more simple train. We then reached Lake Preston [in southeast South Dakota] and our journey had ended. 

Niels Henriksen, whom we knew from home, was promised an empty house, where we moved in. There was no furniture and we didn't have money to buy any, so I found some simple wood, from which I made tables, chairs and beds. It was a Norwegian who owned the house, and I got to work for him. In the harvest time I worked for somebody else and earned a gold 20 dollar [coin]. Some miles north in a town called Erwin there were a lot of Danes, and they had a Danish priest. There Henriksen and we went on Sundays. There was a service in a small school house.

A couple of men helped us rent a farm of 320 acres. There was a small living house and a barn. We bought his tools, four oxes and a cow, which we couldn't pay for, but he got security in what he sold us. It was estimated to a price of 400 dollars. I sowed 100 acres worth wheat by hand. We didn't have a sowing machine, and the boys drew the harrow [a heavy frame set with teeth or tines that is dragged over plowed earth to break up clods of soil]. The next year we got a sowing machine and two more oxes.

Near Erwin, where we lived, just a little further east, there were also living a lot of Danes, among them our priest, who had two parishes. There our oldest children were confirmed. Ole Stevens was in the area for some time and educated some of the children. Besides this he also had a farm which he rented to Frans Damgaard. The three years we were there were rather good, but the wheat prices were low, and a renter only got half of it. The third year we were there we had a prairie fire. A couple of boys set the grass on fire. Our barn and two pigs, our stack of straw and all our hay burned. We were not insured. [One wonders if those boys were his sons.]

We knew a man who had his family in Nebraska who would like very much for us to visit. We had got horses then, and we decided to drive south to "kasket" [cap] corn. [Unsure what this means -- tassle? Pick?] We didn't know the way, but we found a small bridge near Yankton, where we drove across the Missouri River, but when we arrived most of them had their corn "kasket." We got a small job on a big farm, and when we were finished there we visited the family. 

When it was time to go home it was winter with a lot of snow and so cold that we drove across the ice on the river. It took a long time to get home and it wasn't easy to get supplies and our other needs for our horses and ourselves because we didn't have more money. One day about noon we drove into a farm and asked for some food. They started making it right away but when they knew that we had no money we didn't get any food. The farmer told us that he worked for what he had and so could we. 

So we drove again and came to Lake Preston. It was the last week in November [1893 or 1894?]. After three years we moved into a neighbor farm which was bigger with better houses. The first year was so dry that there was hardly any crop, so after another three years we moved to another farm only half the size. Here came a big hailstorm that beat almost everything down. After that we moved some miles northeast and rented a 200-acre farm, where we got a good crop. 

We didn't like Dakota very much, so we decided to leave for Wisconsin [In 1898? Daughter Dagmar had been born in 1893 and son Jens in 1895.] We would drive with horses and carriage. We had five horses and we got two prairie schooners made so we could bring some of our furniture and things. It was in the springtime. The roads were very bad and it took about two weeks, but we finally reached Milltown. From Soren Jensen, whom we knew from home, we bought 80 acres of land in Wst Denmark, mostly wood. Now we have been here for 40 years, and in that time there hasn't been any hailstorm or failure of crops.

Kristen Paulsen, Route 2, Frederic, Wisconsin