The Explorer's Spirit -- Leif Erikson Statue Gives Rise To Book About Immigrants' Sagas

They left their homes in Scandinavia more than a century ago, in search of wealth, political independence and a better life for their children.

After a monthlong voyage across treacherous waters, they arrived in America.

But there were no "streets paved in gold," as some immigrants had been led to believe. Decent farmland was too expensive. Those who worked for railroad and mining companies were usually underpaid and mistreated.

Such experiences of local Scandinavian families are described in "Family Sagas, Stories of Scandinavian Immigrants," a book that was recently published by Kristine Leander of Ballard.

The inspiring, detailed stories were collected while Leander, 51, raised money to build a replica of Seattle's oxidized but stern-looking Leif Erikson statue, which overlooks Puget Sound's Shilshole Bay; the new 10-foot-tall statue was given to Trondheim, Norway, last July, in honor of its thousand-year anniversary of founding in 997, and Erikson's voyage to North America in the year 1000.

There are numerous sagas of Erikson, a folk hero in Scandinavian culture. The curious Viking's heroic tales are particularly important among Norwegian Americans.

There isn't a consistent story of which Nordic country he originated from, or where his journeys took him, and his name has many spellings, including Leiv Eiriksson and Leif Ericsson.

Leander, who supervises some of Microsoft's online community forums, lived in Trondheim about 10 years ago while attending a medical school. She fell deeply in love with the city.

In April 1994, one of her friends, who was visiting from there, suggested Seattle give Trondheim a replica of its statue. She didn't hesitate to answer: "I just looked at him and said OK.

"This was my way to repay the city and the people there for the hospitality they had shown," Leander said.

The first step was to learn more about Seattle's statue, which had been a gift from the Leif Erikson League for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Leander learned it had taken months for volunteers to complete the model before it was sent to a foundry in Berkeley, Calif.

Because funding was short, a California sculptor combed the beaches for bronze that had washed up from ships to complete the pouring; instead of a wooden shipping crate, the statue was transported to Seattle on a truckload of sawdust and cast-off tires.

Inspired by the story behind Seattle's memorial, Leander hustled to work on the new "Leif."

She approached Trondheim officials to see if they would accept the gift, but they didn't respond. They thought she was joking, Leander later learned.

Even after they began to believe her, there were still some misunderstandings.

"They couldn't get it out of their heads that this wasn't a government project," she says. "The entrepreneurship of America isn't found there."

She also told everyone she knew about it. In June 1995, she met with a small group of believers and formed the Leif Erikson Society.

To raise money for the statue, the seven-member committee decided to solicit donations in honor of immigrants, placing their names on plaques at the base of the statue.

"Early in the planning, we decided not to restrict the project to immigrants just from Trondheim, or just from Norway, or even just from Scandinavia," said Leander, who volunteered from 20 to 30 hours a week on the project for more than two years. "Using the slogan, `They came in his (Erikson's) wake,' our intention was to honor the spirit of men, women and families everywhere who immigrate to unknown lands, their sails filled with hope and courage."

Throughout the campaign, families' stories continued to roll in.

At first, Leander wasn't sure what to do with the dozens of letters, stories and historic photographs that were submitted by donors. One family mailed a scrapbook - another mailed a check for a book the committee hadn't yet thought of publishing.

But Leander was captivated by the stories - partly because of her passion for Scandinavian culture, and partly because they sounded incredibly familiar. Her paternal and maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the late 1800s.

"I used to tear up," she said. "I thought if I was so moved by these stories of the sacrifices and the risks they took to leave home and come here, others will be, too."

So after "Leif" was sent to Norway, aboard a Scandinavian Airlines reduced-fare flight, Leander began working on the book.

Families that didn't get a chance to donate to the statue, donated to the book, Leander said. The cost of printing 2,500 copies was subsidized by a grant from the Scandinavian Language Institute in Seattle, and by donations from members of the Leif Erikson Society.

"We've got second mortgages to pay for this," Leander says.

But that's OK, she says, because the committee members have the risk-taking spirit of Scandinavian pioneers.

In 1912, Leander's paternal grandparents moved from Kansas to the Mount Vernon area in a railroad boxcar; their cows and three horses occupied one end, and the family stayed in the other.

On her mother's side of the family, her great-grandfather was one of 300 "bought out" of the Swedish military by an American railroad company. The railroad company took the Swedes to Minnesota and Wisconsin and housed them in the merest of tents, forcing them to work three years to pay for their passage over.

Afterward, he worked as a timekeeper on the railroads for more than 25 years.

"There were no unions at that time, so the custom was (that) a man was to be entitled to a pension when he was 65, but a year or two before they would fire them," wrote Leander's great-aunt, Hilda Walin Little. "That is what they did to Father."

The Leif Erikson Society doesn't expect to make a profit on the books, it just hopes to break even, Leander said.

But this probably isn't the project's last hurrah, either.

Leander said it looks like there's enough interest to fund a second wall of names in Trondheim, or a new statue in Greenland. It's also been suggested that the Leif Erikson Society turn the book into a video, open a publishing house for more Scandinavian books or to translate "Family Sagas" into Norwegian.

"I'm not quite sure what will happen next," she says, her eyes twinkling. "But something will."

---------------- Book information ----------------

"Family Sagas, Stories of Scandinavian Immigrants," can be ordered through the Leif Erikson Foundation, 2245 N.W. 57th St., Seattle, WA 98107. Regular editions are $39.95; limited, numbered editions are $49.95. For more information call 206-783-8462.

------------------------------------------------ `Family Sagas' excerpts tell of work, pain, love ------------------------------------------------

"I asked Pop once why he never returned to Norway for a visit. In his heavy Norwegian accent, he replied, `(Then) I could never leave Norway again. My children are here, and I could never leave my children.'

"He died in 1990 at the age of 98. When I learned of the Leif Erikson statue and the opportunity to place a name there, I knew this was the way to send him home."

- Este Graff of Seattle

"There is so much we don't know about my grandmother Rosa, including how to spell her name. It has been written both Roza Blaznovic and Rosa Blousivich. She was born in an area of Austria now called Croatia on Sept. 15, 1885. She spoke Serbo-Croatian and four other languages, but only English with her children. She would not let her children speak anything but English, as she was so anxious for them to be `real Americans.'

". . When there was no longer a man's paycheck to support this young family, it was very grim. My mother remembered having only black bread and chicory-root coffee for meals. Soon, these four children went to live at a Catholic children's home and Rosa went to live with her sister in Akron. One night, a man started throwing peanuts at Rosa while she worked in her sister's saloon. She turned over a whole bowl of peanuts on his head. That is how she met her second husband, Nick Bartholovich."

- Rosemary Antel of Seattle

"Dad worked hard to get enough money together to bring his three brothers and three sisters to America. As new family members arrived, they helped get more money to send for others. The steamship tickets were $50 each. Soon everyone was together in Tacoma.

". . . My mother was an exceptionally hard-working farm wife. To help supplement the farm income, she raised turkeys and chickens to sell eggs, sometimes bringing only 4 cents a dozen. During the Depression, she baked cakes for the hospital to help with medical expenses. For many years, they raised raspberries and blackcaps, which she picked and sold."

- Chris Brevick Jr. of Richland

"Our mother, Sofie Esvik, was born in Rissa (Norway), the daughter of Lauritis and Beret Anna Esvik. At the age of 19, she immigrated alone to Canada. She had written to an uncle in Minneapolis, hoping he might sponsor her, but never received a response. Yet she was determined "not to stay on the farm and pick rocks," so she convinced her father to let her go to Canada.

"Mother worked her way across Canada in many different jobs, as house-help, as a cook on the prairie wheat farms and at a boys' school, where she was required to wear horn-rimmed glasses and pull her hair into a bun to look older."

- Sonja Beck of Bellevue

In 1902, Amund Oscar Gulbrandsen Eidsmoe wrote the following account of his move to America from Sor-Aurdal (Norway):

"I left the community with my wife and two children, leaving my parents, relatives and friends, never to see them again. There were tears and sadness in abundance. It was fortunate we had no knowledge of the danger and adversity we were to meet, or we would not have started the trip. Already on the second day, we were met by a bad omen: The ship that was to carry us had already departed. Nine weeks passed before another ship came. This made deep cuts into our provisions and we had to make purchases again.

". . . On the ship we were always in danger of falling from the heaving and plunging. In our rooms, we were thrown from one wall to another for eight weeks and four days, until we arrived in Quebec."

- Translated by Sever Eidsmo; submitted by Craig Eidsmoe of Seattle

Beda Karolina Erickson wrote this in 1905:

"I was 18 years old, my brother Viktor was 20. We were eight of us in our party of Ostersun, Sweden. After several hours on the train we came to Trondheim, Norway. There we decided to have ourselves photographed. In the evening we came on board an old ship to sail across the North Sea.

Then a huge storm arose and we girls became seasick. We expected that the boat would go to pieces. It took us three days to get to Hull. We had a food sack with us, with cheese, butter, dried bread and sausage. Some ship's rats got into the food sack. Everything had to be thrown to sea, to the fish."

- Submitted by Viktor's grand son, David Schindele of Seattle

Engvar Fornes was born in Tronheim, Norway, on May 5, 1894.

When Engvar was 16, his parents were introduced to a man from the United States who promised them land if they would come and work for him. Engvar's family immigrated in 1910, but they never got any land. On May 2 of the following year, when he was 17, Engvar left Norway to join his family in Cando, N.D.

Young Engvar knew only one English word when he arrived in America: "eggs." On the train to Cando, Engvar was served a piece of berry pie. Not knowing what it was, he tossed it out the window.

He said later that during the Depression, he "thought many times about that piece of pie."

- Submitted by his daughters, Marian Fornes Pederson of Seattle and Bernice Fornes Keefer of Redlands, Calif.

`My mother, Bergith (Mortensen) Hansen, was 12 years old when she emigrated from Stavanger with her three sisters. Her mother and father died within six months of each other, and the four girls were put up for adoption.

"To keep the sisters together, they were sent to an aunt in Minnesota who had three children of her own. Those early days were tough for my mother and her sisters. She told the story of how frightened she was coming through Ellis Island and how she slept with her shoes tied around her neck so they would not be stolen. When they left New York City for Minnesota, none of the girls spoke a word of English, so they wore signs around their necks reading, `Minneapolis, Minn.' "

- Howard Hansen of Moraga, Calif.