NumedalNumedal A long valley in southern Norway, running north-west from Kongsberg, where Flesberg, Rollag and Veggli lie. All the words is a long valley in southern Norway, west of Oslo. It comes down out of the mountains southeast of the Hardangervidda, Europe's largest high plateau, toward the town of Kongsberg. The ice made it. Glaciers a kilometer thick ground the plateau flat and dug the valley out below it, a narrow trough with steep sides and a floor just wide enough to farm. The river they left, the Numedalslågen, runs about two hundred miles to the sea at Larvik, one of the longest in Norway. The soil is thin. It was never going to feed a city. It could feed a family that knew what it was doing.
Reindeer hunters came first, crossing the plateau by trails that are still walked. A branch of one of them, the Nordmannsslepa, came down into the village of Veggli at Kjemhus, a farm this family would own one day, and the droversdrover (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. All the words bringing cattle over the mountains met buyers there every autumn. Farmers followed by the Iron Age and buried their dead in mounds above the fields. About fifty sit on the ridge above Kjemhus.
The valley kept four of its medieval stave churchesstave 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. All the words, at Flesberg, Rollag, Nore and Uvdal, built of resin-heavy pine that refuses to rot. The church at Nore still holds up its roof on a single central mast. The churches kept the books, too: who was born, who married, who died, who owned what. Most of what's on these pages started there.
Then the plague came. After 1349 farms all over Norway stood empty for generations. One was Lehøvd, in Flesberg, deserted for two hundred years, until Hølje SevatsonHølje Sevatson Bought a third of the deserted farm Lehøvd, in Flesberg, in 1580, and brought it back. One of the earliest of Clara Kjemhus's ancestors on record. Hølje’s page → bought a third of it in 1580 for three dalerdaler 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. All the words. His people held it until 1978. Every farm on this page is a version of that story: somebody's name, on a piece of ground, kept.
Numedahl
In the 1800s the valley emptied again, this time into America. Kjemhus, the family's farm in Veggli, sent nearly all its children. SteinarSteinar Halvorsen 1802–1864. A fiddler, born at Gladheim in Veggli, who bought the farm Kjemhus in 1835. Clara Kjemhus's great-grandfather. Steinar’s page → and KariKari Tollefsdatter 1803–1887. Steinar's wife, from the farm Kjøntveit in Nore. Kari’s page →, who had bought it in 1835, saw their son KnutKnut Stenersen Kjemhus 1838–1924. Steinar and Kari's son, the first of the family to go to America. He died at Lake Park, Minnesota. Knut’s page → leave first, at fifteen. Their daughter HelgeHelge Steinarsdotter 1833–1884. Steinar and Kari's daughter. She, her husband, Peder Tostensen Lien, and their five children reached Minnesota in 1880 and took up land near Rollag the next spring. Helge’s page → followed in 1880, and their son HalvorHalvor Steinarsen Kjemhus Born 1835. Steinar and Kari's son, who farmed Kjemhus until he lost it in 1886, and took his family to Minnesota. Halvor’s page → took his wife and children in 1887, after he lost the farm. Halvor's son TollefTollef Halvorsen Kjemhus 1871–1963. Halvor's son, who farmed at Numedahl, North Dakota. Clara's father. Tollef’s page → ended up in Cavalier County, North Dakota, among Norwegians who had got there before him and called the place NumedahlNumedahl 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. All the words. They didn't stop at the name. Their church, founded in 1896, was incorporated as the Nore Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation, after the parish in Numedal where Kari was born.
Tollef farmed in Fremont Township, and in 1919 the young woman teaching the Numedahl school boarded with his family. She was Mabel AmothMabel Amoth Born 1900 near Wales, North Dakota. Tom Amoth's daughter, a schoolteacher, and Chris Amoth's first cousin. Mabel’s page →, and on May 2 she went home for her brother and sister's confirmation and took Tollef's daughter ClaraClara Regine Kjemhus 1907–1997. Tollef's daughter, who married Chris Amoth. Carl Amoth's grandmother. Clara’s page → along. That's how Clara met Mabel's cousin Chris AmothChristian (Chris) Amoth 1903–1975. Clara's husband, and Pete's father. Chris’s page →. They married ten years later, at the Kjemhus place. Their son PeteMaureen (Pete) Amoth 1933–2014. Clara and Chris's son, and Carl's father. He tells his own story on the Stories page. Pete’s page →, the father of Carl Amoth, who keeps this site, spent his boyhood summers on the Numedahl farm, hearing the old valley's Norwegian at his grandfather's table.
The farms
Water © OpenStreetMap contributors · farms placed from Kartverket
Nore
- Hvammen Forthcoming 3 people, 1717–1907
- Hvåle Forthcoming 2 people, 1732
- Kjøntveit 10 people, 1731–1887
- Kravik Forthcoming 1 person, 1846–1933
Veggli
- Gladheim 5 people, 1705–1878
- Helle Forthcoming 5 people, 1829–1951
- Kittilsland Forthcoming 4 people, 1693–1867
- Kjemhus 9 people, 1802–1997
- Kvisle 2 people, 1756–1858
- Landrud 1 person, 1802–1864
- Lillehøiset Forthcoming 3 people, 1855–1936
- Møgstu Forthcoming 5 people, 1863–1935
- Tveiten Forthcoming 4 people, 1686–1875
- Valle 1 person, 1751–1815
Rollag
- Rostad 1 person, 1646–1728
- Søre Haugen 4 people, 1612–1785