DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Jon Norstog, A Prolific Writer
March 2: Once, the most prolific writer in the Norwegian language lived in North Dakota. He was Jon Norstog, born in Telemark, Norway, in 1877. He disliked farm work, and would rather hunt, dream and write. At a church academy Jon deepened his faith and learned the common idiomatic language of Norway, while also mastering the official Standard Language, which was more Danish than Norwegian. Jon Norstog preferred to write in the idiomatic language, a practice that smothered his career in Norway.
In 1902, Norstog emigrated to Iowa where he learned how to use a printing press. Jon wrote and printed a short-lived magazine. In 1904, Norstog went to Minneapolis to work for a Norwegian language newspaper. Jon wrote his journalism in the Standard Language, but wrote poems in his idiomatic language.
In 1905, Norstog went to Grand Forks to help edit Normanden, the largest Norwegian language newspaper in North Dakota. In 1907 he went to Minot to edit Nordvesten.
For 24 years Jon wrote much of Nordvesten: editorials, items of local interest, national and Norway news. He described his travels around America, and contributed articles to all other Norwegian language periodicals in North America and Norway.
In 1910, Jon moved to Watford City where he homesteaded a claim, building a shack with a small printing press. Jon spent many summer days writing his idiomatic poems and printing his books of poetry. He sent copies to editors and Lutheran pastors in America and in Norway. His book-length poems were based upon Bible persons. Shorter poems pondered the Christian Faith.
In Wisconsin Jon met Inga Bredesen. She taught high school in Minneapolis. Inga admired Jon’s poetry, and married him in 1919. Together they moved into his house in Watford City. Inga served as Mackenzie County Superintendent of Schools. She and Jon raised two sons.
During the 1930s, Norstog gave political speeches. He campaigned for John Moses, who was running for Governor. Norstog orated in the Norwegian Standard Language and in German. Governor Moses would later appoint Norstog as game warden for McKenzie County. Jon arrested more poachers than any other official in North Dakota.
When John Moses ran for the U.S. Senate, Norstog campaigned even harder, but his health failed. Jon died on November 22, 1942. The obituaries in English and in Norwegian praised Jon Norstog as a poet and a journalist.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Erik Luther Williamson
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Norwegian-American North Dakota Ladies Aid Societies
March 3: Beginning in the 1870s, many Norwegian immigrants established Lutheran congregations in North Dakota. Only the men voted and managed those congregations. The women were organized by the pastors into the women’s society – in Norwegian called the Kvindeforening. By the 1930s it was renamed the Ladies’ Aid Society. In some places the women organized their societies before the men did. Then the women urged the men to start the congregations.
The purpose of the women’s society was first foreign missions, then local missions, Bible study, prayer sessions and church education. For the Bisbee public school the local society raised almost three hundred dollars. In the early 1900s both the Grafton and the Northwood societies promoted and raised funds for their town Deaconness Hospitals. During World War I some societies worked closely with the Red Cross.
In the early years, the pastor’s wife led the Kvindeforening. By 1915 lay women served as presidents. On one farm, a husband firmly admonished his wife not to get involved in the new women’s society, but his wife drove off in the buggy. Hours later she returned as president, which she remained for many years.
By 1910 national Norwegian Lutheran church bodies organized national societies under the title, Women’s Mission Federation, the WMF. In 1917, from Crosby, Frida Bue Homnes sat on a national board of a WMF. Later she served as North Dakota District president. After her death in 1951, Concordia College of Moorhead named a room after Frida Bue Homnes.
Often the parish women raised more money than church offerings. During the 1890s depression the Kvindeforening kept many congregations in the black. During the 1930s Great Depression, many societies paid the pastors’ salaries. The women sponsored bake sales, bazaars, and ice cream socials. They also sold aprons, mittens, quilts and tablecloths. Besides church suppers, picnics, and church school festivals, these women offered dinners for public schools, public auctions, county fairs and Fourth of July celebrations.
These societies were also active in summer parochial schools and Sunday School. An anniversary publication of North Prairie Church in Velva shows a photograph of three women and captions them as president, vice president and secretary of the Ladies Aid Society. On another page the same photograph captions them as the Sunday School Board of Education: superintendent, teacher and teacher.
By 1940 many city congregations had given their women the vote. By 1955 the last rural congregation had given its women the vote. Today the Lutheran women’s societies remain steadfast in foreign missions, Bible study, church education, quilt-making, and tasty food.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Erik Luther Williamson
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Hypnotist McEwen
March 4: A traveling hypnotist came to Grand Forks in March of 1897 and mesmerized his audiences night after night in seven performances. The hypnotist, known as the “Great McEwen” or as “Professor McEwen,” had a wonderful stage show in which he entertained large audiences with startling feats of mind control and suggestion, all done with care and good humor towards the subjects who volunteered.
Professor McEwen’s performance was publicized in the Grand Forks Herald on this date, explaining how the hypnotist had been performing as a “mesmerist” across the nation for the past five years, and that he had recently been in Fargo for a week of performances, where he earned praise for his “amusement making powers.”
And McEwen lived up to the hype.
He induced two young men into a trance and had them imitate heavyweights in a boxing match with one foot fastened to the floor.
The hypnotist then put a strong young fellow into a deep trance, commanding him to become stiff and then placed him in a position where five men sat upon him like a park-bench. After awakening, the man said he felt fine.
Professor McEwen also hypnotized a dozen men and had them assume a rigid position. He then stacked them like cordwood, crisscross, in a human woodpile.
Another night, the hypnotist induced a willing subject to pantomime that he was fishing. The audience howled as the angler pretended to bait his hook, cast, and catch imaginary fish.
The Great McEwen gave the hypnotic suggestion to a “score” of young men and boys to play a baseball game on the stage, pitching, catching, and fielding an imaginary baseball. One participant attempted to steal a base and got so enthused that he slid clear over the edge of the stage – head-first into an audience that went “nearly wild,” because the “fun was so funny.”
McEwen also put a volunteer into a deep sleep one night, and put him on display in a store window all the next day. He awakened him the following evening.
We do not know if Professor McEwen used the classic hypnotic inducement of “you are getting sleepy, sleepy.” But we do know, from old newspaper stories, that it was a “week of wonder,” when Mesmerist McEwen mystified, surprised and entranced his audiences in Grand Forks with his skill and showmanship.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Minot UFOs Return
March 5: An unbelievable UFO sighting occurred on this date over the Minot Air Force base in 1967. Unbeknownst to many North Dakotans, the state has proved fertile ground for UFO sightings for several decades. In fact, the state even has a connection to the first UFO sighting in history, when the term “UFO” was first coined.
That 1947 event began over Washington state, when pilot Kenneth Arnold “…spotted nine unidentified objects flying near Mount Rainier.” Arnold’s report led reporters to term the entities, ‘unidentified flying objects,’ or UFOs. Arnold grew up in Minot, attending grade and high school there during the 1920s and ’30s. After the initial description and media coverage, UFO sightings became much more common. In response, the Air Force created a catalog of UFO sightings in an attempt to chronicle and explain the phenomenon. Referred to as “Project Blue Book,” the catalog documents dozens of UFO reports from North Dakota, most taking place near the Minot and Grand Forks Air Force Bases.
The UFO sighting on March 5, 1967, took place only three days after two sightings were reported near Mohall and Velva. Then on March 5, Minot Air Force Base security teams were alerted when Air Defense Command radar detected an “…unidentified target descending over the Minuteman missile silos of the 91st Strategic Missile Wing…”
When security police responded to the call, they saw a large metallic disk hovering over the missile silos. The disk was ringed with bright flashing lights. Before F-106 interceptors at the base were scrambled, the UFO left the silos, moving first over the launch control facility, and then climbing straight up into the air before taking off at an “incredible speed.”
Between the years of 1967 and 1968, a number of UFO incidents occurred at or near the nuclear missile sites in North Dakota. One eyewitness, Lt. David Schuur, claimed in interviews that a brightly lit UFO hovering near missile sites in 1967 was responsible for initiating a launch sequence at the Echo Launch Control Center. Once the glowing object left the vicinity, Schurr was able to activate the launch inhibit switch. Robert Hastings, the professional UFO reporter who interviewed Schuur, called the interview “one of the most disturbing” of his career.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Forced Norwegian
March 6: The State Legislature passed a law on this date in 1891 that would require the teaching of Scandinavian languages at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Although less than 8% of the student population was of Norwegian descent, the state’s Norwegian minority began clamoring for the bill as early as 1884, calling for the hiring of a Norwegian professor “of their own race,” as they put it. After seven years of campaigning, they found victory in the hiring of a Norwegian professor, the Reverend George Rygh.
Although the 1880 Census recorded fewer than 9,000 Norwegians in North Dakota, the next decade witnessed an enormous influx. By 1900, their numbers had swelled over eight-fold to nearly 74,000, and soon nearly one of every three persons in the state was of Norwegian ancestry. As their numbers grew, so did their influence. The 1880s alone saw the emergence of thirteen Norwegian-language newspapers. Local politicians or political parties controlled many of these papers, hoping to reach their new and growing constituency through their own language. Most of the immigrants, however, learned English very quickly, and the majority were soon fluent bilinguals.
Despite their quick adoption of English and American customs, the Norwegians in the state hoped to preserve their own heritage as well. Passing down Norwegian cuisine and customs to their children, they also hoped to pass on the Norwegian language. To this end, they began lobbying for the bill to introduce Norwegian instruction at UND. Although opposed by the university’s regency, the bill eventually passed, but the Reverend Rygh found little actual interest in the language, and was forced to fill his schedule teaching English and Greek. In one semester in 1893, he had only a single student enrolled in his Norwegian class. He resigned in 1895. However, with the increasing number of Norwegians arriving here, interest grew, and a chair of Scandinavian languages was established in 1900.
Norwegian continues to be taught at the university today.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from the North Dakota Humanities Council. See all the Dakota Datebooks at prairiepublic.org, subscribe to the “Dakota Datebook” podcast, or buy the Dakota Datebook book at shopprairiepublic.org.
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