binder

A harvesting machine, pulled by horses and later by tractors, that cut standing grain and tied it into bundles with twine. The bundles were stood up in shocks to dry in the field until the threshing. It was the usual way to harvest grain in the early 1900s, until the combine, which cuts and threshes in one pass, replaced it.

burn

Scots for a stream or brook.

but and ben

A two-room Scots cottage: the but was the outer room, for cooking and work; the ben the inner room, for living and sleeping.

bygdebok (plural bygdebøker)

A Norwegian local history, usually a few volumes per district, going farm by farm through who lived there and when. Compiled from church registers, censuses, probate, tax and court records. The Kjemhus line comes from the ones for Flesberg and Rollag.

chautauqua (plural chautauquas)

A summer gathering of lectures, sermons and entertainment, with families often camping on the grounds. The name comes from the first one, on Chautauqua Lake, New York, in 1874. Walhalla’s ran for several weeks each summer at Mager Grove, in a bend of the Pembina River.

Christiania

Norway's capital, spelled Kristiania from the late 1800s and renamed Oslo in 1925. Emigrants from eastern Norway sailed from its harbor, and the city's police kept a register of them as they left.

correspondent (plural correspondents)

A local resident who sent the week’s news from one rural community to the county paper: visitors, illnesses, trips to town. Usually unpaid beyond a free subscription, and most often a woman.

daler

The silver money Norway counted in before the krone of 1875: the riksdaler, and from 1816 the speciedaler. In the 1830s a farm in Veggli sold for a few hundred speciedaler.

drover (plural drovers)

Someone who walked herds of cattle, horses or sheep, often for weeks, to sell them at market. Drovers from western Norway crossed the mountains by the old trails to the markets in the eastern valleys.

farm name

In rural Norway a family often took the name of the farm it lived on, and changed it when it moved. Emigrants often kept one as their American surname: Aamodt became Amoth.

homestead claim

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, a settler could claim 160 acres of public land for a small filing fee. After five years of living on and improving it, he could "prove up" and receive the title. Pete wrote that his grandparents homesteaded in North Dakota in July 1896.

Hull

A port on England's east coast, on the Humber estuary in Yorkshire. Norwegian emigrants crossed the North Sea to it and went on by train to Liverpool for the Atlantic.

kirk

Scots for church.

Ladies Aid

A congregation’s women’s society (in Norwegian Lutheran churches, the kvindeforening). Its sales, suppers and bazaars raised money for the church, its building and its missions.

lensmann

A Norwegian rural official, usually one of the district's farmers, who served as sheriff. He assisted the bailiff and the court, witnessed probate, and made arrests.

Numedahl

A Norwegian farming community in Cavalier County, North Dakota, named by its settlers after Numedal, the valley in Norway. Tollef Kjemhus farmed there, and his grandson Pete spent boyhood summers on his farm.

Numedal

A long valley in southern Norway, running north-west from Kongsberg, where Flesberg, Rollag and Veggli lie.

patronymic

A second name made from the father's first name: -sen for a son, -datter for a daughter. Tollef Halvorsen was Tollef, son of Halvor; Karen Torkildsdatter was Karen, daughter of Torkild. It changed every generation, which is why Norwegian lines are traced by farm as much as by name.

second cabin

Second class on an ocean liner, between first cabin and steerage: a stateroom shared or to oneself, and meals in a dining saloon.

stakkel

"Poor thing": Danish, and so the Dano-Norwegian written in Carl's day. Norwegian now says stakkar. Carl's word for little Guy, sick again.

stave church (plural stave churches)

A medieval wooden church built on a frame of upright corner posts, the staves. Fewer than thirty still stand in Norway; four of them are in Numedal.

steerage

The cheapest passage on an ocean ship, in shared quarters below decks. Most emigrants crossed this way. By the early 1900s the lines also called it third class.

tree claim

A claim to 160 acres of public land under the Timber Culture Act of 1873, earned by planting and keeping trees on part of it: 40 acres at first, 10 after 1878. New claims ended in 1891, which is why in 1896 Carl was contesting an existing one: challenging it, so the land could be taken up again.

wynd

Scots for a narrow lane or alley between buildings.