To Nebraska to find family roots

8/14/5-8/17/15 –To Nebraska and Iowa

8/14/15- First a little information:

Off to try and find my family roots.  My great, great, grandfather, Fred Olsen came to the United States in the 1860’s, and went west in a wagon with 4 friends to homestead their dreams. They settled in the open prairie land of Nebraska.  They called it Nysted, after their homeland of Nysted, Denmark.  Fred Olsen built his house and a grocery/mercantile store in 1871.

Now, this is what we did:  We stopped at the Stuhr Museun of the Prarie Pioneers in Grand Island, NE.  Beautiful building and a great collection of pioneer memorabilia, but no reference to my family.

Onto to Dannebrog, about 5 miles south of Nysted (which is almost a ghost town).  We stopped at the Visitor Center in Dannebrog and found that it was really a café, run by Tom who was also the town pizza man and baker, and singer in the local band.  He cooked us lunch, then sang to us a song that he wrote for his wife of 36 years.  It was beautiful, as was his voice.  Mom teared up while he sang, as it really hit home.  He then offered us the key to Columbia Hall, the local hall of history.  We wandered down there, opened the front door, and wandered through pictures and newspaper clippings of the town history, but no mention of Fred Olsen.  When we came back to the café with the key, Jim Mingus, a 93 year old local was there and offered to take us to Nysted.

Off to Nysted, following Jim down a dirt road that we never would have found ourselves.  He took us to the center town, and parked us in front of the Lutheran Church.  He pointed to the corner where Fred Olsen had his grocery store.  It was vacant.  Jim told us that his daughter owned the corner now, and had torn down the old grocery recently because it was ready to fall down, but he remembered the store.  About that time, a maintenance man mowing the lawn for the church came over to us and offered to open the church for us.  We went in and put our name and address in the church register, in case any other locals wanted to write to us.  I also wrote in the register that I was the great, great granddaughter of the founder of the town, Fred Olsen.  The man handed me a church flyer that I took and tucked away.  Jim then led us to the Nysted cemetery where we searched, but did not find, any Olsen there.  Here is a picture of Tom with Jim Mingus.  

Jim then led us back down to the Dannebrog cemetery.  Jim, and Tom and I all searched, but I only found one headstone with ‘Olsen’ on it – Carrie Olsen was born in 1870, but I had never heard that name, even from my grandmother.  The end of the search for today, so we left and went back to the campground.

After dinner, I went through my receipts and papers and found the flyer from the church.  On the front panel – there it was – Laerke Sorensen and his friends, Fred Olsen, and Jacob Winn came to Nysted and founded the town in 1871.  The perfect end of a perfect day!  I noticed the name of Marilyn Nelson (and her phone number) on the back panel, who was the church historian. I called her.  She was home and invited us to come back and park on her farm.  She would look up what she could find of Fred Olsen.

Next morning, we moved the RV to Marilyn’s farm.  She had been searching and found that Fred Olsen has purchased a plot in the Dannebrog cemetery and that he and his wife, Anne were buried there with Stine Olsen (I don’t know who Stine is).  She took us back to the Dannebrog cemetery, and after a bit, I found the gravestones of Fred Olsen (1843-1905) and Anne Olsen (1840-1924).  There was no mention of Stine Olsen (who died in 1925 at the age of 84 according to the registry) or a marker. That would make him 2 years older than Fred – I wonder who he was???  We spent the rest of the day at the farm and had a wonder visit with Marilyn and her husband, Jim, who was a true multi-generational farmer.  Here is their picture with Tom.  

It is hard to put in words the feeling that came over me as I stood on the same ground that my ancestor lived and worked on over 145 years ago.  Now I see why people get so wrapped up in geneology.

We said our goodbyes and left Marilyn and Jim’s home on Sunday morning, right after they left for church -- they attend the Nysted Lutheran Church.

8/16/15

Arrived in Des Moines at a KOA campground.  Time for laundry and cleaning up.  Ran the dogs and had pizza (it was very good) from the campground office.

8/17/15

Traveled to Forest City, Iowa where we will stay tonight and tour the Winnebago Industries Plant tomorrow morning.  This is a big facility, and plan to learn a lot about our ‘home on wheels’.