HALVER HALVERSON FOR DAVE

Halvor and Ingeborg (Brattland) Halvorson


My grandparents, Halvor Hellem, and Ingeborg Brattland, were born in Norway and Ingeborg immigrated to the United States when she was 13 years of age. She lived in Waseca, Min­nesota where she met and married Halvor Hellem, the name later changed to Halvorson. Grandfather was called to service during the Civil War, but he arrived at camp three days after the war ended. He told of walking across the Gettysburg Battlefield.


There were Indian uprisings in southern Minnesota and several times the) came to the home when grandmother was alone. Naturally she was frightened. Language was a barrier, but through sign language she understood they wanted food, and they were satisfied when she showed them she was baking bread.


Grandfather died at age 85. and grandmother lived to be 92.
My dad, John Halvorson came from Waseca, Minnesota with his parents and eight brothers and sisters to New Solum Township in 1882.


He filed on three forties of land in Section 30 in New Solum Township. Then he went to Norman County where he and his oldest brother had rented land. While there he married Gina Rustad of Hendrum, Minnesota.
In 1886, he and his wife came back to live on the homestead where four of the eleven children were born.

In 1893 he worked in an elevator in Perley, Minnesota where the family stayed until the fall of 1896 when they moved to the home of Anders Rustad, my mothers parents, for the winter.


Dad came back in the fall of 1896 to New Solum and bought the northwest quarter of Section 31 which was tax foreclosed land for 511 dollars and moved his family in 1897 into a log house 11x19 feet where they lived the first winter. In the spring, he added an 8 x 11 addition.


The following winter he hauled logs from the tamarac woods near Thief Lake to a saw mill nearby, having them sawed into lumber for a barn.
The Soo Line built the railroad from Thief River Falls to Kenmare. North Dakota in 1905 and as the railroad went through the middle of his land, he was paid 60 dollars per acre for the right-of-way and 200 dollars damage to his building site.


In the fall of 1905, the present house was built where the youngest son. Glenn resides.


He worked at the Spoulding elevator in Viking for many years. He was one of the men instrumental in starting the creamery. Prior to this time, the cream was shipped by rail or hauled by team to Thief River Falls.
He served as town clerk for many years, also of school board and was a member of the board of Marshall County Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Newfolden.


He died June 6, 1942 at the age of 82 years. His wife died March 28, 1948 at the age of 79. They were laid to rest in Beth­lehem Cemetery of New Solum.

Submitted by Ida Gustafson