I was born in Nome Alaska December 29th, 1904 on the Sand Spit.  We lived in a small cabin outside of Nome which was between the Bering Sea and the Snake River.  It is close to Diomede Island owned by the U.S. and the larger one by Russia.  The early Eskimos used to paddle their canoes or umiaks from Nome to the Big Diomede.  Our father's name was Anders Johannessen Balto and our mother's name was Marit Bitti.  We had a sister also named Anna who died in Norway at the age of four.  Her body was covered with boils.  There were no doctors available then. 

Ellen's parents, Marit Biti and Lars Anders Balto, and her sister Marit Balto, 1898

Our father worked in a gold mine in Alaska.  He was injured by a falling bucket in the mine December 2nd, 1904 and died the next day.  Because of permafrost the body could not be buried deep and when a tidal wave came years later the graves were washed out and his body was found.  There was a write up of a dance hall girl in a well known magazine about her body being washed up and recognized. 

Mother had to make her living washing clothes and cleaning.  My oldest sister Mary married Oscar Nilsen who was a straw boss for Jafet Lindeberg in the gold mine he owned.  Mary took care of Sophie and me while mother worked.  Their cabin was close to ours. 

Nome was a drab town.  I can't remember anything of beauty about it but the mountain flowers I saw when we went on a train to pick some blueberries on the tundra.  It was cold and windy in the winter and cool in the summer.  The sand in places was ruby red and I liked to play in it.  In winter the Snake River right at our door froze over and young people enjoyed the long winters skating and skiing.  Ski jumping was a popular sport and I enjoyed watching it.  The little
kids tried to learn on barrel staves. 

There were several Eskimo families living on the Sand Spit and their living was communal.  They thought nothing of taking things from others.  Someone gave my mother a large packing box to use for kindling and Sophie and I asked if we could play in it and morn said o.k..  We were perturbed when an Eskimo walked off with it.  They used to look in the windows.  We enjoyed the Eskimo dances and they still carry on the tradition. You couldn't say where was a tune to the music. 

My mother married Kasper Hauan February 9th, 1907.  He was also a gold miner.  I have the miner's watch he used in the mines.  He played with me a lot and told me years later that I was jealous of his attentions to mother and I would take after him with a fork.  He thought it was cute but I was ashamed when I grew up. 

One of my favorites was Mary's brother-in-law Carl Nilsen.  He remained a bachelor all of his life.  He played games with me and asked me to sing for him.  Mary and Oscar named their son Carl after him. 

There was a good kindergarten in Nome.  We did basket weaving, coloring and marched around by phonograph music.  The governor of Washington State visited Nome and was surprised at the high standard of the schools there.  The high school was fully accredited.

Our cabin was next door to the cold storage where the rood supplies for the entire area of Nome were kept.  I borrowed a book from our local bookmobile and was to find such a detailed description of Nome and the cold storage plans.  It cost so much to ship supplies to Nome yet  supplies were plentiful. Tom who managed the cold storage plant gave us many things since my mother was a widow with two dependent children.  It was the height of the gold rush and people felt "steaky."  Tom gave us a turkey for Thanksgiving and sister Mary prepared it and made the best dressing.  When we moved to the states in 1910, we called it moving "outside" and the states were slowly recovering from the Panic of 1907 but there was gold in Nome so everyone could sit down to three meals a day.  People cared about their widows and children.  Mother could work but kind neighbors gave us things to supplement what she made.  One Christmas I was given a doll house and a doll dressed in blue and a teddy bear.  We were given so much candy at Christmas Sophie became very ill.  I can remember my mother taking the pail of candy and tossing it into the Snake River.  Sophie had no middle name so she was Sophie Candy Balto because of her yen for candy. 

Ellen, second from left, and her sisters Sophie, far left, Marit, second from right, and Anna, far right. 1941.

When Sophie was ten years old mother left me in her care when she worked.  I am convinced the Lord had his angels watching over us.  One of Sophie's favorite sports was to stand on a coal oil can and let the waves wash around her.  One day she fell into the water and was soaked to the hide.  She hung her long johns behind the stove to dry and when mother came home from work and spotted them she gave Sophie a good paddling.  The storm shed was the place for paddling.  I remember one morning when Morn went to work she warned Sophie not to go for a boat ride.  Morn just got out of sight when Sophie rounded up Zara and Bunny Vallier and me and took us out in Uncle Balto's boat which he kept at the edge of the Snake River.  We were having a good time until we got into a current and went into a whirl.  Bunny and I being very small thought it was a lot of fun but not Sophie and Zara.  A man rushed out in a motor boat and saved us.  Sophie never took the boat out again. 

Christmas was a gala time for the kids in Nome.  There was no contact with the outside in the winter time.  The last boats left in October.  Mail was brought in by dog team which was very slow.  This is one reason the people made so much of the holidays.  The kids were thrilled when Santa Claus drove in with real live reindeer and we thought it was for real.  I found out years later how difficult it was to train the reindeer.  Our friend Rad Wilson told me about an article in the Saturday Evening Post about Nome, written by Klondy Nelson, "I was a daughter of the Gold Rush."  In it she told about Mike Nilluka being Santa Claus.  We knew him from Kingston.  I sang a solo at the program.  I was shy later. 

The people loved parades and band music.  The fourth of July was always a big day.  Flags were flying everywhere and there were floats.  The Lomen brothers who were everything in Nome and the photographers took pictures of all the parades.  My favorite band number was "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." 

Helen Lomen was my Sunday school teacher and I loved her.  Helen gave me some lovely clothes.  One of them was a blue jumper trimmed in velvet and there were silver stripes in the blue.  Helen later married Volstead, famous for the Volstead Act (prohibition).  Helen's brother wrote the book  Fifty Years in Alaska which is the best book I have read about the Nome area.  Uncle Balto was mentioned in the book. 

Gold was found on the beach of Nome in 1898 and it sparked one of the greatest gold rushes in history.  I remember seeing men pan for gold in the creeks. There was so much claim jumping, consequently many lawyers rushed for Nome.  Liquor flowed freely and there was much fighting in the cabins. 

Water was scarce and we had to buy our water by the pail from the waterman who delivered by horse and buggy.  I met Mr. Deyette in Shelton who had been a waterman in Nome. He was glad to quit and come to Shelton. 

One of the most outstanding experiences I had in Nome was viewing the Haley's Comet in 1910.  It will not appear again until 1987.  There was great expectation among all the people of Nome when it was to appear.  Some superstitious ones thought that if the tail of the comet touched the earth all would be blown up.  Mary told me all about that tale.  It was a marvelous sight, this star with the long tail.  It was a good clear evening and visibility was excellent.  We saw it over our cabin.  I was told that it was not seen as clearly in the states as it was up north.  The midnight sun could be seen at Sledge Island not far from Nome.  Sophie and Mary went to see it but I was a small fry and wasn't asked to go along.

I was thrilled when sister Mary told me the stork would soon bring her a baby.  I hoped it would be a girl and it was.  She was named Elfrida Charlotte and Mary showed me the basket she came in.  I thought it was quite a load for a stork. 

Mary served at a dinner in Nome for the famous explorer Roald Amundson while he was in Nome.  She met Fritdjof Nansen also.  Our uncle Samuel Balto was with him on his trip to Greenland.  I have the medal he received from the King of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.  He had two other medals but one was lost and the other stolen.  He fell into the temptation of drink while in Nome but years later he was converted in a skid row mission in Seattle near the old court house.  He was a changed man and he was also healed of the dreaded cedar
poisoning, after doctoring for it for years.  His health improved and he was clean from the inside out.  He was such a generous person and he gave us lovely Christmas and birthday gifts.  I had a long way to walk to school in Eglon and had to wear high topped laced shoes like the boys wore and I hated them.  One boy called me a club foot.  Uncle felt sorry for me and bought me a lovely pair of patent leather Mary Janes for dress.  Uncle loved to tease and we enjoyed it.  Sophie and I played house in the woods above our place in Eglon.  One day when we were getting fir boughs to put on the floor we heard a sound like a wild animal and Sophie tore out of the woods for home and me trailing after.  When we got to the house Uncle was sitting on the wood box
with a big grin on his face.  Sophie knew right away that he was the animal we heard.  He would come from Seattle laden with gifts for us and he would hide them and it was fun trying to find them.  He died in Golovin Bay, Alaska where he was fishing as a result of a blow to his body by his fish boat.  He had a native fishing with him.  We missed him so much and we couldn't see him buried.

Some of the Nome people I remember: The LeFarges who ran the cold storage who left for the outside before we did.  Mr. LaFarges was later employed by the Black Ball Company and his name was on the ferry tickets.  Mrs. LaFarge gave mother the lovliest pink tea set before she left Nome.  The Taggers family ran the cold storage after the LeFarges left.  Their son was the same age as Sophie.  I happened to meet Van at a birthday party years later.

Some of the Nome people who made a stake there went into business in Seattle.  We made a trip to the outside, as we called it, to the  State of Washington when I was three years old and stayed with Grandpa Kasper's mother and father at Apple Tree Point until we returned to Alaska.  We also went to Eglon where Kasper had some acreage where he later had a house built that he lived in when he returned from Nome.  To get onto the steamboat we had to go out on a barge and I was scared stiff.  We came out on the Umatilla which later sank. Sophie came down with measles the first day and they quarantined me even though I had the measles before we left Nome. We had to take a steamboat at Coleman Dock in Seattle to go to Eglon and there we would be met by a row boat.  No one came to meet us so we had to go to Hansville for the night.  A most hospitable man by the name of Anton Husbys put us up for the night.  Sophie
some years later worked for Chris Husbys, a brother of Anton.  After weddings and funerals people would gather in the Husbys home.

So many people have asked me how Eglon was named.  Some asked if it was an egg ranch.  I was told a few of the first settlers opened the Bible and it happened to fall on the page about the wicked King Eglon, but whether that is authentic or not I am not certain.  We had a lovely place with a good view of the water and later Grandpa Kasper made a stairway to the beach.  It was a wonderful place to swim and dig clams.  When the tide was real low we could get geoducks.  Years later Grandpa Kasper and Ike built a large smoke house on the beach and bought big salmon from the commercial fishermen to smoke.  Ike sold some to the meat market in Bremerton during the depression.  The place was sold to developers in the late 1960s and is called Sunrise Acres. 

Some of the early settlers in Eglon were Hanah Bevens and her family, Mrs. Dannat and her family, and Marie Halvorsen and her family.  They were sisters. Hanah Bevens taught Sunday school in her home and we sat around her large kitchen table.  The closest doctors were in Seattle or Edmonds and all traveling was by steamboat to Seattle or by motor boat to Edmonds.  Hanah was the community's nurse and she dressed the dead for burial.  The hearse then was horse and buggy and the service was held in the old school house.  The first one buried in Eglon
was Mrs. Person Wildmark about 1911 and the service was held
in the Wildmark home which was near the cemetery.  Anton Lund
who was one of the early settlers donated ground for the cemetery which was way up in the woods.  Mr. Lund had a sawmill and most of the settlers bought lumber from him.  He has several descendants in Eglon today.  The Eglon people are community minded and they keep up the cemetery, making it a project.  After working in the cemetery, they have lunch together.

My mother kept company with a sea captain Krantz before she married Kasper in Nome.  Captain Krantz gave me a lovely white fox fur, and many years later I asked mother what had happened to the fur.  She told me that when she refused to marry him he took the fur back.  Before that I asked her why she didn't marry him and she became angry.  I thought we would have had a more prosperous life with a sea captain than a stump rancher.  Captain Krantz was well known in shipping circles. 

When we arrived in Eglon in October 1910 on the last boat from Nome I was thrilled with the beauty of the Maple leaves that were yellow and golden.  The air was so crisp and it was not as cold as Alaska.  We stayed in a small cabin and tent for a while until a house could be built.  Grandpa Kasper had a small strawberry patch and Sophie and I ate strawberries until we broke out in hives because of the lack of iron in our bodies.  Kasper picked up a lot of lumber on the beach and built his barn and chicken houses out of lumber that came in the drift.  Ruby
Dannat and I enjoyed beach combing.  We found a lot of tennis and golf balls and other things.  Kasper even picked up a Stetson hat that looked like new.  A large shipload of oranges were thrown overboard because a few were spoiled and our teacher let us out of school to pick up oranges.  The beach was yellow with them and there was a write-up in a Northwest book about it.

At Christmas we had a large Christmas tree in the schoolhouse and our neighbor Captain Conradi was Santa Claus.  The gifts were tied to the tree, all that could be.  I remember Frieda's recitation so well, "Everywhere everywhere Christmas tonight." 

Oscar and Mary's daughter Marion was born in Nome, I believe in March 1912.  She died in December 1916 as a result of pneumonia after whooping cough.  Oscar was in Seattle looking for work and Mary had a difficult time locating him but somehow arrangements could be made for the burial.  Hanah Johnson took care of preparations and she was dressed in her favorite white dress.  I was heart broken as I loved her so much.  She would ask for Grandma's potatoes and white "gwavy" as she called it.  Her favorite song was Rock of Ages.  She would sing it,
"Wock of Ages deck for me."  I used to take her out on the porch and we would sing together.  She was so proud of Carl when he was born; she wanted to tell everybody about it.  I also taught her song I had learned in school. 

My second sister, also named Anna was born in Karasjok in September 1897 and came to the U.S. at the age of about seventeen.  She and Sophie went to Nome for a few years after she arrived.  When she returned she worked in a well known cafe in Seattle.  After quitting the job in the cafe she worked in the home of Chris F. Moe who owned the Whiz Fish Company.  I later took care of their two boys when Anna got married.  She met Ole Nelson from Seamer, Norway and married him.  They lived two blocks from where the Space Needle is now.  That area was a large vacant lot then.  Ole Nelson was an old friend of the other
Ole Nelson who married Sophie.  He called Sophie's husband "Curly" because he had such curly hair and we could distinguish between the two.  Both Oles were painters.  Anna and Ole adopted a girl aged three from the Washington Children's Home.  An uncle who lived in Kingston years later located Betty Anne.  He was a Mormon and he said it was his duty to see that she was alright.  After Anne and Ole's deaths, Betty Anne went to Los Angeles, then to Chicago.  None of the family has heard from her for years.  Anna's health was poor for many years.  She passed away of cancer May 31st 1942 and was buried in Acasia Cemetery.  Ole followed her in death two years later in October.  I do not have the exact dates.

Sophie came down with the dreaded Spanish influenza in 1918.  I remember telling her that I wished she would not go to Seattle as she would probably get the flu.  When I saw her off the steamboat looking so pale I thought this is it.  Mother took such good care of her keeping the fire going day and night in the old wood heater.  I was so worried.   She lay there so quiet.  It took her a long time to recover.  Two of her friends in Poulsbo died of the flu.  Anne Tornensis and Margaret died the same week.  One on Monday and the other the following Saturday.  Some members of their family are still living in Poulsbo.

I married Isaac Stenberg February 12th, 1927.  He was born in Boden, Sweden, August 19th (Jan 13th?), 1900.  He came from Sweden during WWI on a Norwegian ocean liner.  He said it was the liner that brought the flu to the U.S.  Several people died on the boat and their bodies were put in canvas bags and they were buried in the ocean.  No one in Eglon died of the flu.  Anna had a milder case of it.

Notes by Ellen's daughter, Elaine Hepner

Unfortunately, Morn did not write anything about her Sami background. She and her sister Sophie were teased and let know that they were "second class citizens" by the other Scandinavians in the community.  Actually only a few did this but I think she remembers it way out of proportion, so as a result, she and Sophie kept their background a well-guarded secret from their children.  It was only about 25 years ago that I found out from May and her sisters and brothers.  I was just reading again the story that Morn wrote.  I don't think she mentioned anything about Balto, the dog that was made famous from the dog race to Nome in 1925 to deliver the diphtheria medicine.  The lead dog, Balto, was named after Morn's uncle Samuel Balto.  There is a statue of the dog in Central Park in New York City.