This is Jesse G. More presenting a history of the Dalberg family starting with my Grandparents Pete and Ingaborg Dalberg. Both of my grandparents were born in Apple Bowl Sweden in the province of Dollernaw. Dollernaw is the province that is close to the Norwegian boarder that is in timber country. Pete was born in 1858 he died in 1943 at the age of 85. My Grandmother, Ingaborg was born in 1856 and died in 1944 at the age of 88. Pete actually was born a twin but the girl baby was under developed and born dead. His Mother had a total of 11 babies but only 6 possibly 7 survived. Some were born dead. Some may have lived only to infancy.
Pete had 5 sisters. Pete and his 5 sisters all came to America. According to one tape I have, that my mother gave me. She said that the oldest child stayed in Sweden. I am not sure. Yet on another tape my Mother said that he had 5 sisters and no brothers that were living. There may have been one who stayed in Sweden, the oldest. Now I do not remember all the first names of his sisters. Terry Johnson Rierson came to America first. She actually was sent for by her husband who lived in Wisconsin working in a mill. They were married in Wisconsin. After he died and she had come to Idaho she then married Rierson.
Anna Dalberg, Emma Swanson then two sisters who were married to Andersons. One was married the wife of John August Anderson, and one was married to John N. Anderson. John N. Anderson was the father of Sam, victor and Florence. One of their names was Breda. Which of the Anderson’s I don’t know but one was actually named Breda. Now with the exception of Mrs. Johnson or Reierson my Grandfather helped to bring all of them to America. He also brought his own parents to America and helped them get land according to my mother. He actually traded some land that he had in another place or the one up on the hill above Bear Creek which was the ld Taylor place.
That is were they lived after they came to America until they died. My Great Grandmother was also named Anna and she lived until 1912 and died at the age of 83. My Great Grandfather L. M. Dalberg or Lars or Lewis Dalberg, and my father was named after him. He died in 1911 at the age of 84. Inagaborg had 5 or 6 sisters and brothers but only one other sister came to America all the rest of her family stayed in Sweden. The only one that came was Christina one of her younger sisters and I believe Ingaborg was probably the oldest child in the family.
Christina Thompson was my Grandmother and she was Ingaborgs sister. One brother of Ingaborgs married the widow of Ed Danielsons father. Ed Danielsons father was a professional skater. He fell through the ice and was drowned. They actually saw him swimming under the ice. He couldn’t find the hole and he drowned when Ed was only about a year old. His mother married my Grandmothers brother and, they had I believe 4 children. When our Grandparents were married Grandpa was 23 and Grandma was 25. She was not quite 2 years older than my Grandfather. At one time when I was staying with my Grandmother at Bear Creek she told me a story about when they were engaged.
It seems in Sweden, at that time, when a couple became engaged the man had to leave and be gone for 6 months. They couldn’t even see each other for 6 month’s. So when Pete and Ingaborg became engaged Pete had to leave that particular village. So he went to another village about 40 miles away. Also they could not communicate for 6 months. When the 6 months was up she expected him to come back. He didn’t arrive until three days later. She told me, at the time, She said, I thought he doesn’t want me any more, but when he finally arrived they were married. Pete worked in the woods and around saw mills in Sweden.
He could do lmost anything around a saw mill. Also when he was in Sweden, and before he was married he served in the Swedish army for a year, he was 21 at the time. While he was in the army there was an officer whom he admired. Now later on I don’t know when this happened but one time this officer carried our Grandmother, Ingaborg, over a mile from a cabin where they were snow bound and without fuel for heat. He carried her for over a mile on his back and she even had some frostbite feet. They feel that this saved her life. The officers name was Dalberg without an H. When my Grandfather came to America he took that name.
He wanted to get away from the Swedish the Scandinavian custom of taking the fathers first name and adding a son to it. Now his name would have been Larson because his father’s name was Lars or Lewis. But he decided that when he entered this country that he would take the Swedish name of the officer Dalberg and that is how we have our name today. My father was born on November 15, 1928. My fathers name was Lewis and did not have a middle name (Lewis Dalberg). His brother Pete was born just about 15 months later. Now Pete was only 22 months old when our Grandfather left for America.
The reason he left Sweden at that particular time was because here were hard times in Sweden. In Sweden you could not own land only the Nobel’s or the King owned land. All the land was in the name of the King or the Nobels. My Grandfather heard you could get free land in America. More than anything else the wanted land of his own. His sister and her husband were living in Wisconsin and he was working in a mill. Now my Grandfather borrowed money from them to come to America. Now he went to Wisconsin and he worked in a mill for a while until he earned enough money to send for my Grandmother and my father and his brother.
My grandmother almost did not come because she did not want to leave her father. Her mother had died earlier. She didn’t want to leave her father and her other brothers and sisters because she knew that she may never return to Sweden. She delayed almost another year after she received her ticket as she didn’t want to come alone. Finally she agreed to come if somebody would come with her. So her sister Christina, my Grandfather’s sister Emma who later became a Swanson agreed to come with her. Now according to my mother, Anna Dalberg may have also come on that ship with them.
But if she would have come with them, at that time, she also would have had a child with her. My Dad in his tape didn’t mention nything about another child being with them on that ship coming over so it may not have been Anna it may have been one of his other sisters. But it seems that Anna Dalberg had a child and when Dalberg wanted to leave Sweden the minister wouldn’t let him leave Sweden until he married her and then later he didn’t want to bring her over. So she may have come on the same ship as my Grandmother. My Dad said that he and Pete really had a great time on the ship.
They would run into the toilets and pull the chain pull and hear the water swish through. My Grandmother was always cautioning them because she was afraid that they would ash overboard. Now the two younger women Christina who later became Christina Thompson and Emma had a great time. There would be music and dancing on the ship, and there were quite few young single men, on board so the two young women danced and had a great time. Now when I heard this a few years ago I was really surprised because Christina Thompson, when she was older, when I knew her, if there was any music or dancing going on oh she thought that was a sin.
So I thought it was rather funny that this would happen. Now the ship landed in Baltimore and it got hung up on a sand bar. It eems that the captain of the ship didn’t want to pay someone to steer the ship and of course Chesapeake Bay is very unpredictable. The ship got hung up on a sandbar and was stuck for 24 hours. They had to get tug boats to push it off when the tides were higher. My Grandmother thought surely that they would sink there right then and there. But they got off the ship all right and they took the train to Minnesota. Pete Dalberg by this time was in Minnesota, and he was managing a farm in Minnesota.
So they took the train to Minnesota and they stayed there about another year. As I said before one of things my Grandfather wanted more than nything else was to own land. It seems that land was opening up in Northern Idaho and by the time he was in this country maybe 2 or 3 years he could file on a homestead. Now when he entered this country he had declared his intention to become a citizen. Two years later he had to sign some more papers. When the time was for him to go he and Doldrin left Minnesota and went to Idaho and they filed on homesteads at that time close to one another and they helped each other build log cabins.
So my Grandfather then sent for his family. By this time another child was born, Anna. Anna was the first one born in America. She was born in Minnesota and she was only about 4 months old when they came to Idaho. So they left Minnesota by train for Idaho. It was Grandma, Dad, Pete, Anna and also Emma Swanson and possibly Anna Daldrin and children. They arrived in Moscow and went to Bear Creek by wagon and they all lived in that one room log cabin which was close to the stream that ran by and also big trees up to the cabin. Very little of the land at that time had been cleared.
I don’t know how long they lived in that cabin but I don’t think it was too long until a house was built. This first house that was built was a little closer to he creek than the house that we knew. Then later the house that we knew was built which was a big 2 story house. Of course it never had any electricity while we were there. My Grandparents lived on that land until they died. My grandfather first arrived at what we know as Bear Creek in 1888. Or late 1888 at some time. The family would have arrived there in late 1889. Emma was the first one born at Bear Creek and she was born in 1889.
A little over a year later Bill was born in 1891. Hilma was born in 1892. After Hilma there was another daughter born Ester. I don’t know when she was born but she died hen she was a year and a half old of scarlet fever. She is buried in that cemetery up by Bear Creek. Hjolmer the youngest was born in 1897 December 30, 1897. Pete was about 14 when he died of typhoid fever. Pete was very determined young man and wanted to be considered an adult and felt he could work like any man. He would work even when he wasn’t feeling well. This time he worked until he couldn’t get out of bed.
My Dad and Pete had taken a load of lumber to Uniontown about 35 or 40 miles away with a horse and wagon. On the way back on a very warm summer day. They stopped at a spring near what is now Joel to get a rink of water. Evidently the water was contaminated. My Dad did have a mild case of typhoid fever first but got over it and Pete came down with it. When they finally got a doctor for him it was too late. Now he worked until he couldn’t even get out of bed. Now when he was seemingly better our Grandmother thought she was being good to him fed him some solid food that he shouldn’t have had.
He got worse and soon after died. Our Grandparents then had a total of 8 children. Two of them didn’t reach adulthood. Here is somewhat of a rundown of their children. My Dad Lewis P. Dalberg was the oldest in the family. He married Ida C. Thompson in 1907. Loel was born in 1908 and passed away in 1980. Loel was born at Bear Creek and Loel was 71 years of age when he died. Virgil was born in 1911 and he now lives in Oroville California. After Virgil we had a sister Loraine and was born about 1913 in Deary. She died in a tragic accident in Deary and died at about the age of 11 months.
When she tried to get off a bed and caught her head in a bottom railing, smothered and also broke her neck. This was a very tragic accident and my Mother had a very difficult time emotionally getting over it. Fortunately our sister Marshland was born about a ear later in 1915 in Deary and now lives in Libby Montana. Rowland was born in January of 1918 and died in 1985. During world war II Rowland was a fighter pilot. He had 59 missions when he was shot down in, Auckind Germany, and was a prisoner of war in Germany for 7 months. He was pretty badly shot up which probably contributed to his early demise.
I Donald was born on Christmas day in Deary. That particular day as always we had reunions at my grandparents. My Mother during that day told my Dad, you better take me home. So I was born about 9:30 or 10:00 that night on Christmas day. My mother, to build my ego a ittle bit told me that was the best Christmas present she ever had. Well I almost didn’t make it past a year and a half old. When I was a year and a half old my mother took me to a neighbor lady’s house. The two ladies were talking in the kitchen and I went into the living room and crawled up on the living room table.
There was a saucer of fly poison there and I tasted it. It tasted good so I drank it all. Just as I was setting the saucer down my mother came in checking on me and she immediately knew what I did. She rushed me home and started throwing water on my face and everything else to try to keep me awake. Tried everything else to get me to heave it up and I wouldn’t. She sent Marshland to get the doctor it was about a half hour before Dr. Faust arrived and he worked with me for a long time he pumped my stomach and finally he told my mother he said, I better give him some pretty strong medicine to counter act the poison.
He said, this medicine is so strong it will probably effect the joints in my feet and probably stunt my growth some. He didn’t dare not give me the medicine. So I was given the medicine and he stayed with me for about 3 hours. Finally after 3 hours I was on the floor again playing and he said, now e will be all right. But it actually did affect my growth some and did effect the joints in my feet. But anyway I survived fortunately for me. Alberta was born in 1923 in Troy and now lives in Aliment Colorado. My Mother, who recently celebrated her 96 birthday lives with her there. One other full term baby was born dead in 1924.
They named that baby Merle and it is buried up in that cemetery up in Bear Creek. My Dad when he was 20 years old went up in the hills above Clarkia above Grandmother and Grandfather mountain and he squatted on what later became a homestead. But he couldn’t file on it then because it wasn’t even set up for omesteading. But later on he did file on that homestead. He and a man by the name of Coolberg. They filed on a homestead there. Well when Loel was about 2 1/2 or 3 months old my Dad actually took my Mother on that homestead. When they were in Clarkia, waiting to go, they stayed at an inn overnight.
A man looked and mad mention to another man he said, that baby doll isn’t going to stay up there very long. Well when she stayed all summer and stayed until it was almost to late to come out because of bad weather. They came back through Clarkia, why he said, I didn’t think that baby doll would ever make it. Well that shows a little bit the determination of my Mother. Later on my Dad had a lawsuit ( you can hear in the other tape) but they were able to save his homestead. Later he sold his whitepine timber to the Dollar Lumber Company and they logged it off and my Dad was thinking later of logging the cedar poles.
Now he had from 3-5 million feet of virgin whitepine timber on his homestead. Today that would really be worth a fortune. But he only got about $7500 for the white pine timber on his land. He and Coolberg actually sold together. Dad because of a big bluff only had about 120 acres hereas Coolberg had 160 acres even though there was really more whitepine timber on my Dads homestead Coolberg got more of the money. That was kind the way my dad was. Sometimes he was a little bit too much that way other people were able to take advantage of it. He wanted to be so fair that sometimes he wasn’t fair to himself.
After they sold the homestead and after the whitepine timber had been logged off my Dad was going to log off the cedar poles. He said there was as many cedar poles on that land as there was whitepine timber. But before he could do that a big fire went through and just destroyed everything. It appears that they had built a nice log plume from the top of the hill down into Marble Creek or Homestead Creek about quarter of a mile long. And somehow the fire started in that log plume. Somebody put to much and got fire too close to it and burned everything out.
So the homestead was worthless and my Dad had to let it go back for taxes. But anyway after the homestead my Dad had a store in Deary he also worked in a store in Bovil for awhile and then later on he moved to Troy and had a store in Troy until 1928. In 1928 we moved to Nez perce we lived there for a year and a half, then we oved to Garfield and lived there for year and a half and came back to Troy. Now the Nez Perce adventure cost my Dad probably around 15 or 20 thousand dollars. He had a forged contract that they gave him and he couldn’t get out of it without a law suit.
He couldn’t afford a lawsuit at that particular time. So from that point on he had to work very hard. My Dad only had about a 5th grade education but he was self educated. He would read everything and he could converse on just about any subject. He also could not only read and write Swedish but also English as well. He worked very hard in elequition to rid himself of a Swedish accent. I learned when I was in the army in the south pacific just what a learned man he was he would write me letters and everyone of them had some information there and I was utterly surprised and amazed at the knowledge he had.
My Mother also was a very determined person she was totally and wholly dedicated to her family and she would sacrifice almost anything for us, believe me. Now in her later years she is enjoying somebody else waiting on her and helping her which she certainly deserves. When we moved back to Troy in 1931 my Dad worked in the butcher shop for Ted Thompson and Simon Hagen. Later when Simon left Dad was out of work and ven worked for the WPA for a while and all of us lived on $30 dollars month for about 6 months.
My Dad and Loel would even go out and cut wood and sell the wood for maybe even a $1. 0 to $1. 25 a cord and could only cut about one cord a day. Later on my Dad worked at the Troy Mercantile in the butcher shop. When the war broke out and they started building Faragut my Dad went up to Faragut and worked up there first of all filing saws and then worked in the kitchen cutting meats in the kitchen. Later he came back and worked in Moscow. My folks had moved to Moscow by that time. Dad worked for Randelman till he was about 75 years of age. Of course he only worked part time but he still worked. Every Christmas he would make 200- 300 pounds of potatoskard.
Everybody around loved Dads potatoescard. He made it with the best material. So he really knew the formula for making that potatoescard. Dad died in 1964 at the age of 81 and as I said my Mother is still living and just recently celebrated her 96th birthday. Now the rest of the families I don’t know as much about and some of you will have to fill in some of these things about your own Mother and Father on your own. Anna I believe was the next one who was married and she married Frank Hayes and lived in Bovil. Merle was born in 1911 and is now deceased.
Erma was born about 1914 or 1915 and lives in Spokane Washington. Anna divorced Frank Hayes and moved to Spokane when Merle was in high school. Merle actually lived with us for a year when we were in Nez Perce Idaho. Later Anna married Joe Colverson and had a daughter, Donna Colverson born about 1930 Donna is now deceased. One time when Anna was actually staying at Bear Creek Donna was about 8 years of age. She was going to make some candy on the kitchen stove. The fire was out. She was going to start it with some kerosene. She went out on the porch and got gasoline by accident didn’t know it.
She threw it on the fire and it fused right out at her and caught her dress on fire, and she screamed. Anna was up stairs and how she got down stairs and out of the bedroom before Donna could get out the front door I don’t know. Anna got her down wrapped a blanket around her and got the fire out. Donna was very badly burned. Merle happened to be there at the time. So they took her to Moscow to the hospital. She almost died in the hospital in Moscow. They really didn’t know how to take care of her there and they finally transferred her to Spokane to a burn center.
She was in that burn center for I believe 9 months or almost a ear. They had to give her some pretty strong medicine or she would of died. That caused her later on to develop somewhat of a dependency on some of those pain killers. Donna was married 3 times and she died of cancer in her late 40’s. Anna was married for the third time and lived outside of Troy. She married a man quite younger than her Brant Gunderson. I believe she was happiest with him but she died when she was 78 and it wasn’t long afterwards Brant died because he seemed to lose interest in life after she died.
Emma married Simon Hagon in 1910 they had 2 children. Eveylon was born in 1911 and Luette was born in 1919. Eveylon lives in Clarkston Washington and Luett lives in Lewiston Idaho. There is a little story about Emma when she was small. It seems that Emma use to walk in her sleep and Grandma was always worried that Emma would get out side an the coyotes would get her. The coyotes would howl every night. Well one night she heard the coyotes howling very close. She thought she even heard a wolf howling. She went into check the bed and there were three of the kids that were sleeping crossways.
She couldn’t see Emma. She woke up my Grandfather and I think my Dad and they went out looking for Emma and they couldn’t find her. They went out calling Emma and Grandmother thought that surely the coyote or the wolves had gotten Emma. Then somebody went to check the bed and there Emma had kind a fallen down in the middle of the bed and the other two kids were practically on top of her and Grandma didn’t see her. Boy Grandma was relieved. Well Emma was a very fun loving person and she would joke with her nieces and nephews. She use to joke with me.
Sometimes my Mother would get a little angry with her cause she would say, you better look out cause the boogie man will get you. Sometimes Emma would tell me that and when I would go home I ould look under the bed for the boogie man. But she use to love to go out in the woods and go Huckelberrying. She past a way in 1980 at the age of 89. Her husband Simon had a heart condition and past away in 1936. He was only in his 40’s when he past away. Well from 1936-1980 somebody would always tell Emma, Emma you need to find another man. Well she never even looked twice at another man because Simon was her love and that was it.
Bill was in his late 20’s when he married a widow Ida Hawkinson Olson. She had two sons Harald who was 12 who now lives in Spokane Washington and Leonard who was 6 and now lives in Utah when they were married. But Bill thought of them as his children. just like anybody else. Bill just recently past away while living with a step grandchild, Sandra Miller, out of Spokane. His wife Ida past away a few years ago. Bill was a carpenter and built several houses in Moscow and Lewiston. Sometimes they would build a house from scratch. They would build a foundation and maybe one room and live in that room until the rest of the house was finished.
I remember one time visiting Ida said, I wish that just once I could live in a house, a completed house, just once in my lifetime. Well they did later on, but both of them were what you call pack rats. If one was good enough they had to have two of everything. So they had all sorts of gadgets and all sort of things around the house all the time. But Ida just loved to have people come and sometimes when you’d come she would say, I wish I knew you were coming I would of baked a cake, and then she would put out a spread you wouldn’t believe. But she past away in 1980 at the age of 87.
Now Bill was 95 when she past away just this year. This is 1986 by the way. Bill was also a landscape painter. Many of you have pictures in your homes I don’t have one. Also he use to go around and collect rocks and various other things. I know one time we visited him he had a whole shed filled with different kinds of rocks, garnets and various tools and things. My wife Fran would of loved to have some, but he wouldn’t offer. He was a great kidder. I remember that when we lived in a house in Troy when I was about 6 or 7 years old he lived with us and helped to remodel our house.
He would kid with me at night and he would go do his paintings and various other things. They tell a story when Loel was a little kid they had gone out and caught some fish and one was a pretty good size and one was small well when they went to eat (they had been cooked). Well Bill took the big one and Loel said, you big pig you took the big fish. He said, which one would you of taken if you got to chose first and he said, I would of taken the small one. Loel said, well that is the one you got isn’t it? That was the way Bill was he was always thinking.
Even I visited him last fall and he was always thinking. He was thinking about prices and various other things. In 1928 he actually invented a ball point pen. It was rather large. It was a cylindrical type of thing. In 1967 when we visited them that ball point still worked, but he never developed it. He had a mind that was thinking but allot of times he didn’t arry out what he wanted to do. Hilma married Ed Danielson whose mother had married Grandma Dalberg’s brother in Sweden after Ed’s father had been drown in a skating accident when Ed was an infant.
So Ed’s half brother and sisters were cousins to Hilma and my Dad and your Dad and so forth. Ed was 20 when he came to America and came to Bear Creek. He worked with my Dad in the woods and various other things. My Dad even played a trick on him one time and got him to put snuff up his nose and it almost gagged him. Hilma and Ed were married in about in 1913 or 1914 and Vivian was born about in 1915. Later Vivian developed rheumatic fever and eveloped a serious heart condition and died of dropsy about in 1935. Right after Ed and Hilma were married they lived in Elk River.
Ed was working in a mill there as a mill right. The first month they were married Hilma ran up a grocery bill of $90. 00 and Ed was only making $135. 00 a month. Well when he got the bill he told her I think you better go back home and ask your mother to teach you to cook. Well Hilma all of her life was rather generous and sometimes rather inclined to be a little extravagant. Ed was making $200 a month when other people were making $100 a month so they had the money to spend. But after Ed worked for the Nyberg construction company for many years as a trouble shooter, he retired and came back to bear Bear Creek.
Well he worked at mills and various other things around there. Ed was at times a heavy drinker and later on (at first Hilma was not) after Vivian died she kind a lost her will and she sometimes drank rather heavily. She was the only one of Grandma and Grandpa ‘s children that developed a drinking habit. Because they had seen what it had done to their father. I’ll tell you more about that later on. But Hilma past away at the age of 65 from throat cancer. and as I said she really never got ver their daughter Vivians early death. Ed was 84 when he past away. Hjolmer married Petre Slind in early 1917.
Lavern was born in 1917 in Deary. Marjorie was born in 1919 in Deary, in fact Marjorie was born just a week before I was born in December of 1919. Glen was born in 1923 in Deary. Glen died of a hear attack in 1984. Glen was very badly wounded in Europe in Normandy in 1944 he was the only one in his squad who came back alive. He had a bullet go through his chest and lodge in his lung and it went between two arteries. The doctor said later that even he couldn’t have placed that bullet. It was just miracle that it hadn’t severed one of those arteries and he bled to death.
He was in the hospital for quite awhile and was discharged and came home. He worked for the post office until he retired. Alan or Jr. was born in 1933 in Deary. By the way Laverne and Jr. and Marjorie you will have to fill in allot of the event that I don’t know about and allot about your life history in your own. Now Hjolmer was a very good baseball player and played on the Deary town team even into his late 40’s now if he had the schooling and some additional training he could have played professional baseball. Some say he was good enough to make the majors.
I think I watched him play once when Deary played Helmer at a 4th of July celebration and he hit the home run that won the game for Deary. Now when Hjolmer was about 10 or 11 my Mother and Father were married and lived at Bear Creek for awhile. There is one story that Hjolmer had a broad brimmed hat that Grandma made him wear and she didn’t like it so he put the hat over a hot can and burned the brim off. Grandma then took and cut off the rest of the brim and made him wear it. You can imagine how funny he looked. Also one year when he was suppose to go to school.