The family of seven emigrated from Norway in 1854.
They left from Rollag in Eastern Norway. Margit was 54 years old, Niels was 40, and their children were between 5 and 18 years old.
It was already autumn when they arrived in the small valley south of Spring Grove in Minnesota. They had bought a 240-acre property for 75 dollars.
It was too late in the year to build a home for the family.
Margit Andersdatter and Nils Nilsen Kjome were well into adulthood when they emigrated to the USA with their five children.(Photo: findagrave.com)
200 years since the first emigrants left
In 2025 it will be 200 years since the first Norwegian emigrants travelled to the USA. Science Norway's reporting trip has been made possible through support from the Fritt Ord Foundation. Science Norway has full editorial freedom.
Someone owned the land before them
Annonse
When the great wave of Norwegian immigrants came to the US, it was easy to acquire land in the Midwest.
More than 500 Indigenous nations and tribes lived in North America before the Europeans arrived. Their claim to the land stood in the way of further colonial expansion.
In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. It made it legal to drive Indigenous people from their lands. The American authorities took ownership of the land and sold it on to real estate speculators or directly to new immigrants.
"Even though Norwegian settlers were rarely directly involved in forcing Indigenous peoples off the land, it's a fact in American history that they settled on land that once belonged to other people," says Kevin Kenny, professor of history at New York University.
Kevin Kenny researches immigration at New York University.(Photo: Anders Moen Kaste)
Free land for immigrants
The second law was the Homestead Act.
"The chance to claim large areas of land was a major attraction to Norwegians and other immigrants," says Kenny.
Through this law, immigrants could receive 160 acres of land for free. The condition was that they had to live there and cultivate the land for five years.
"In Ireland, families
were surviving on a quarter acre of land by cultivating potatoes," Kenny explains.
Two winters without a house
The autumn of 1854 was fairly mild, according to old weather reports. There was occasional rain and thunder. Eventually, frost and snow arrived.
On the Kjome family’s new property stood a small rock formation with an overhang that provided shelter. This became their home for the first two winters.
"They made do with what they had to shield themselves from wind and snow," says Nels Solum, a descendant of Niels and Margit.
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Nels Solum is the seventh generation after Niels and Margit Solum. He runs the farm today. The farmhouse in the background is the second house the family built.(Photo: Nina Kristiansen)
"Winters here in Iowa are bitterly cold. It must have been horribly cold for them," says Greg Wennes, a sixth-generation descendant.
The two of them guided Science Norway around the farm.
A stream was their only water source in the early years. The forest provided timber, and the soil was fertile. The foundation of the first house still remains.
The Kjome family was not unique in their hardship. Other settlers also lived in simple conditions, sometimes in stone-lined caves like this one in Wisconsin.(Photo: Birgitta Meade)
Dugout in Minnesota. Some immigrants built one of these as their first home.(Photo: Detroit Publishing Company Collection / Library of Congress, 1900- 1910)
Most emigrated from Norway and Ireland
900,000 Norwegians emigrated to the USA between 1825 and 1930.
"Norway and Ireland had the highest
emigration rate," says Kenny.
Most simply showed up. Today they would be considered undocumented immigrants.
"Lots of Americans
would say, I'm an immigrant, my ancestors came through Ellis Island. Well,
that's only true if they came after 1892," says Kenny.
Some Norwegians stayed only a few years to earn money. 25 per cent returned to their homeland.
Norwegian farmers in Minnesota in the late 1800s taking a break from threshing.(Photo: Giants of the Earth Heritage Center)
Most were farmers
While a few Norwegian immigrants found work in the cities, the vast majority were farmers who settled in the Midwest, in states such as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota.
There they found free or cheap land. And the soil was fertile.
If the Norwegian immigrants had been farmers, they might have had some money from selling land, but a lot of them were tenant farmers, according to Caitlin Sackrison, historian at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.
"They did not have much. They could barely afford the journey," says Sackrison.
Caitlin Sackrison is a historian and assistant professor of Norwegian at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.(Photo: Anders Moen Kaste)
The Norwegians were poorer than, for example, the German immigrants, of whom there were also many in the Midwest. The Germans came from more urban centers, they had skills that were useful in a city context, and they brought more money with them, according to Sackrison.
The Norwegians moved from a farming community in Norway to another in the USA. And they settled very closely together. They recreated the Norwegian village, according to historian Terje Mikael Joranger.
This was also true for Margit and Niels Kjome. Their property lay in the middle of a 'Norwegian' area.
Everyone was related
The Kjome family did well. They built a larger home. Margit became a midwife. Niels was known for his skill with animals and served as a veterinarian in the area.
Margit died in 1878, and in 1881 Niels married Bergit Halvorsdatter, who also came from a Norwegian immigrant family. The marriage was short-lived, as Niels died a year later.
Margit and Niels' children and grandchildren settled in the area. They married other Norwegian descendants. Some of them acquired farms of their own.
"My grandfather bought 120 acres a mile south of here, and then my dad bought a farm south of that," says Greg Wennes.
Everyone knew everyone.
"You couldn't say anything nasty about anyone, because you were related to everyone around here," says Wennes.
Greg Wennes is a sixth-generation descendant of Niels and Margit Kjome.(Photo: Anders Moen Kaste)
A safe upbringing in the Norwegian area
Greg Wennes had a happy and safe childhood on the farm and in the local community.
"People were so kind. I think it was because the first generation had to help each other just to survive. That caring continued," says Wennes.
Norwegian immigrants integrated into American society at different speeds.
"Some didn't want to learn English. They wanted to preserve their Norwegian culture and language. Others did the opposite, and fully integrated within a generation or two," says Caitlin Sackrison.
On the rock where the Kjome family once lived, their descendants have placed a memorial plaque. Niels became Nels in the USA, and Margit became Maret.(Photo: Nina Kristiansen)
Greg Wennes' grandparents, who were the grandchildren of Niels and Margit, spoke Norwegian all the time.
"My parents didn't learn English until they started school. The relatives would
come to visit on Sundays after dinner and they'd sit around and all talk in
Norwegian," says Wennes.
He cannot speak Norwegian himself, but understands some.
"In my soul"
Today, the farm is run by Nels Solum, and it has remained in the family's hands since the years under the rock.
By today's standards, the farm is considered small. Most of the neighbours have sold or rented out their land to large agricultural companies.
It's not easy, but Solum wants to keep the farm going. He currently has nine cows but hopes to expand.
"I have taken over from the old immigrants who lived under the rock. I can feel that in my soul," says Solum.
