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Technology expands the story of my Sami American family by John E. Xavier History in the largest sense is a search for new information and new interpretations, a search David Hacket Fischer described as “a-wandering in the dark forest of the past, gathering facts like nuts and berries.” In the history of the Sami Americans, the “dark forest” is particularly tangled because they often blended into larger communities. Yet, it is this very “blending into” that makes for excitement in reconstructing and bringing new light to the Sami American stories. Sami American history, over the past quarter century, has enjoyed increased recognition in family reunions, civic commemorations, college courses, films, Internet sites, and in media, including print: books, articles, stories, and Sami American publications. I will give examples of the marriage of modern technology with traditional sources in reconstructing and bringing new light to Sami American history – in the case of this article, the history of the family of Nils Paul (N.P.) and Amanda Xavier. Some of this new information on N.P. and Amanda’s family is due to technology, especially from web sites in Norway. However, much of the new information is due in large part to the gradual accumulation of documents and information in the old-fashioned ways of luck and skill, and especially from people who are not trained historians. As a wide-ranging figure in the Norwegian Lutheran Church (The Synod), N.P. has been written about in a number of articles and books by different authors: Tromsø schoolmate, Norwegian Bishop A. Bang, in his memoirs; Karl Xavier, his son, in a biography/eulogy for Nord Norge in 1918; Adolf Steen in the 1950s; N. Perkvist in the 1980's; and University of Tromsø historian, Prof. Einar Niemi in a 1995 Norwegian American Studies article, which was thorough and academic. As Niemi himself predicted, new information and ideas have now arisen, and not all from academic sources. N.P. and his wife Amanda Magdalena (1849-1935) have enjoyed a certain renown in Sami and Scandinavian American circles for their prominent role in The Synod of pioneer days, and for their colorful and interesting family history. Much of their story has been told in the articles mentioned above, so rather than engage in too much retelling, I will focus here on a couple of dominant aspects of their lives, which is to say first, The Synod, in which Xavier was a pastor from 1876-1918, and second, their wide-reaching connection to family, neighbors and friends; I will comment on new information, and list some websites. First, the Lutheran Church was a central aspect in the life of N.P. Even with French names from French godfathers, he was about as Sami as one can be. N.P. had traceable Tornensis ancestry to about 1600 and family bloodline connections to many other Sami family names, including Baer, Haetta, Nango, and Keskitalo. Many of his relatives were active in the Lutheran Church as pastors, teachers, and other leaders, in a Sami society where relationships were highly valued. The background of N.P.’s French names is interesting in itself. The names came to N.P. from godfather relationships with two prominent French scientists, Paul Gaimard and Xavier Marmier. The Frenchmen were in Scandinavia as part of a scientific and ethnologic expedition, often referred to as La Recherche or, officially, as La Commission Scientifique du Nord. That expedition trip was no lark, as it was a personal commission of the French “Citizen King,” Louis-Philippe (of Orleans) who had a deep attachment to Scandinavia, having lived there in exile for some years following the French Revolution. Gaimard and Marmier submitted to the King a series of vastly detailed reports, covering all aspects of geography, natural history and human activity of Sápmi. The reports were published in huge books about 24 by 36 by 3,” a complete set of which is available at the Andersen Library of the University of Minnesota. The pen and ink drawings illustrating the report are breathtaking. The rare books, which I have examined for about twenty hours of study, are in French, are not on line, and can be accessed only in person. After N.P.’s confirmation, he was encouraged to carry on his schooling and was brought into formal education through the Tromso seminar. He showed linguistic and intellectual potential; early on in his teaching career, he produced a translation of at least one teaching textbook, in bilingual Norse-Sami format. (In early March of this year, a copy of that book, Lokkam-Girje or Læsebog for Folkeskolen og Folkehjemmet published at Tromso, 1865, was for sale at this website for 2,500 Nkroner, about $370.) Showing early interest in the Church, in the 1860s and 1870s N.P. served as a teacher and as a sexton-like church official (klokker or kirketjener), first in his home town of Guovdageaidnu and later in Lyngen, where he met Amanda Norum, the daughter of pastor Karl Norum. N.P. and Amanda were married in 1868 and had three children while still in Norway (Karl, b. 1869, Johan, b. 1870, Anna, b. 1872); they were active in church and family matters. Prof. Niemi’s article points to Xavier’s commitment to church and family. Information from Internet resources has now made it possible to document the great depth of N.P. and Amanda’s early background in church and affairs. I posted a general query about N.P. and Amanda on the website norwayheritage.com, and there I received a response from an amateur working with Mormon records. She pointed me to the Norwegian site of Regisreringssentral for historiske data. From that source, I downloaded a pile of printouts which list N.P. and Amanda, together and separately, as participants in at least fifty baptisms and marriages, in less than five years, both in Guovdageaidnu and Lyngen. Most importantly, these printouts give information previously difficult to obtain, and demonstrate a constant renewal of ties to church, family and neighbors, as the names criss-cross in a somewhat bewildering fashion. However, a bit of time spent on the printouts clarified the close relations with several families in particular: the Henrik Oxaas family in Lyngen, the Norums, and various branches of the Tornensis tree. As a case in point, there is an exchange of sponsorship of baptisms. In 1870, tailor Nils Sivertssen and his wife, N.P.’s sister Elen (Tornensis), were sponsors for Johan Xavier. In turn, in 1871, N.P. and Amanda filled an identical role for the Sivertssen’s daughter, Alette. The Sivertssens emigrated soon thereafter to Chicago, where these close ties were renewed in 1873. At that time, N.P. and Amanda emigrated with their children to the USA, along with N.P.’s younger sister Anna. The Xaviers stayed with the Sivertssens briefly before embarking on other ventures based on N.P.’s choices for ministry. Those choices led N.P. and Amanda to a life which was largely tied to The Synod, in which N.P. became an ordained minister in 1876. (N.P. may well have been the first Sami to become trained in America as a Lutheran minister.) At that time, N.P. accepted a “call” to Minnesota, in Camp Township, Renville County, near Franklin. While not all Norwegians, and not all Sami, were traditional Lutherans, it was within The Synod (in Minnesota, Iowa, and Washington) that N.P.’s entire church career was carried out, from 1876 to just before he died in 1918. In that career, Xavier’s multilingual capacities were rather legendary, as he studied, preached and edited publications in several languages, including German, Norwegian and Finnish. He served in national and regional posts, on Synod church boards and in Synod-related editorial and publishing ventures. He was a friend, colleague, ally, and an in-law, of members of The Synod’s inner circle. That inner circle, known as the “Decorah Ring” to its detractors, included U.V. Koren, J. A. Otteson, H.A. Preus, Laur. Larsen and others. Yet, despite his inner-circle contacts and strong intellectual powers, N.P. lived also as a practical and hard-working family man, owning two large plots of Minnesota farmland (80 acres each) which he worked in addition to serving his far-flung parish there from 1876-91. N.P. and Amanda maintained many personal and mail contacts with Sami relatives and friends, had six more children here in America (five of them in Franklin), and, while in Iowa in the 1890s, took in a foster daughter, Hannah Jacobson. Hannah’s story had until just this week been lost in time, but in an example of amateurs helping amateurs, an email came to me from relatives of Hannah. They had seen the Xavier name on a church website roster and so sent the email, explaining how the orphaned Hannah came to be a member of the Xavier family, combining old-fashioned name recognition with electronic communication. Hannah and the nine Xavier biological children went on, like their forebears, to lead colorful and interesting lives, in a wide range of ventures: carpentry, church work, education, gold mining, lumbering, newspaper editing, poetry, ranching, and, almost incredibly, surviving a submarine torpedo attack and sinking of a troopship in World War I. The Sami American saga of the children of N.P. and Amanda is worthy of a later article. Once in Minnesota, N.P. and Amanda expanded their family networks, as N.P.’s sister, Anna, and several of Amanda’s siblings followed them to Franklin. N.P., often on foot, served multiple churches, notably Fort Ridgely and Dale Lutheran Church and the Palmyra congregation near Hector, from 1876-1891. Over time, the Renville County area had considerable Sami American presence (especially in the Lake Lillian Township and Franklin areas). There remains a wealth of old church and community documents in Renville County, but it often takes modern technology to tie them all together. This I found out, making use of both internet printouts and a 1958 history booklet of Fort Ridgely and Dale Lutheran Church to confirm that at least three Norum siblings of Amanda came to Franklin. Most of these family members were active in N.P.’s parish at Fort Ridgely and Dale, and a young Karl Xavier was elected Secretary of the congregation at age 18. Some of his minutes still exist. The Norums, Arne, Wilhelmine (“Mina”), and Anna married locally, including Anna Norum’s 1889 union with Norwgian American Hans Elstad, Franklin landowner, professor at Red Wing (MN) Seminary, and high non-clergy official in the Hauge Lutheran Synod. This “crossing over” by Anna Norum to another Lutheran synod led to relatively smooth local relations between the Hauge churches and those of Xavier’s group, The Synod. Such smooth relations were not always the case regionally or nationally. Anna J. Tornensis, N.P.’s sister, married a Franklin area farmer, O. P. Hoimyr, who also served as a teacher, church officer, and postmaster. Various descendants of these Norum, Xavier, Elstad and Hoimyr relatives still live in the Renville County area, as well as in the Twin Cities area. Other multiethnic links during N.P.’s Franklin pastorate included the Finnish and Germans, with baptism, marriages and funerals for them in the area. N.P. presided over what historian Jon Gjerde described in a Master’s thesis as an authentic, and therefore rare, multiethnic parish. N.P. preached frequently at a nearby Finnish Apostolic church. Among the Germans N.P. baptized in the 1880s was Katherine Bethke, an aunt of my mother, Edith (Bethke) Xavier. Sixty years later, that baptism brought instant credibility to N.P.’s grandson, Karl Astrup Xavier, in his courtship of Edith Bethke, at her family farm home a mile north of Fort Ridgely and Dale Church. Much more could be written about N.P. and Amanda’s lives in Minnesota and Iowa (1891-1904) and Washington (1904-1935), but space limits me to citing the two examples of the value of merging new technology and old documents: 1) Decorah Posten clippings as illustrations of the possibilities from use of both technology and old documents, and 2) the 2001 gift of the Johan Ulrik Xavier papers by Barbara (Xavier) Clark to Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in Parkland (Tacoma), Washington. In the first example, The Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA) was of service. NAHA has been very active in upgrading its on-line indexing, and I received help there from Jeff Sauve, who obtained several documents on my behalf, among which were two Decorah Posten newspaper clippings. Neither clipping was known to the current Xaviers here in Minneapolis. From 1899, the first clipping once more underscored Xavier’s close Sami family ties during his Iowa years (1891-1904), recounting his hospitality to Tornensis and Haetta relatives from Alaska, and mentioning their gold claims near Nome, as well as their Reindeer Project backgrounds. The second clipping was of N.P’s obituary, missing from Xavier family files containing other copies of his obituaries. This clipping revealed neglected information about the World War I army service of Gothard “Garth” Waldemar, N.P. and Amanda’s youngest son. The obituary mentioned the early 1918 German torpedo attack on Garth’s ship, the Tuscania, and his rescue, thus opening a new aspect of Xavier family history (with web sites and the New York Times archive index, I have nearly two inches of papers on Garth). The second example is that of the papers of Johan Ulrik Xavier (1870-1963), now in archives at PLU, where he had a career spanning forty years as a professor, librarian and a one-year term as acting President, to say nothing of considerable time building houses on his own time. The J.U. Xavier papers include many boxes, files, his M.A. thesis, and a journal he kept for most of his adult life. Many of these papers, of which I have examined only about a boxful, pertain to N.P. Xavier and Amanda’s West Coast years. N.P and J.U. carried on their practical man traditions, as they themselves built a home for N.P. and Amanda. An outline of the files is in my possession, and the Midwestern and West Coast Xaviers will be contributing more information and papers to PLU, where in the future, more of the J.U. Xavier papers will be scanned into computer records. In sum, there really is enough material for a solid seminar course, a book, or even a Master’s thesis on the Sami American story of the N.P and Amanda Xavier family. I am convinced that most Sami American families could get similar results for their own history, whether on a smaller or larger scale. So, there it is, a bit of insight into how a former French teacher has found challenge and excitement in Sami American history with articles, old family pictures, the Internet, and ongoing support and documents from friends and family. To do justice to N.P. and Amanda’s story, there is a lot more work to do, there are more stories to tell, there are more miles to drive, and, for compensation – all the pleasure of adding to the Sami American story.  John Xavier is a great-grandson of N.P. and Amanda; a graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead, MN and the U of Wisconsin-Madison; resides in Minneapolis, and is taking an increasing interest in immigrant history, especially that of Sami Americans. I want to offer profound thanks to Arden Johnson for his unflagging encouragement. Gratitude for document help goes to: Prof. Boyd Koehler of Augsburg College, Minneapolis; Mr. Jeff Sauve of the Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA) in Northfield, MN; Jane Bethel of St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN; Ms. Kerstin Ringdahl, of Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland, Washington; The Elmer L. Andersen Library of the University of Minnesota; Ms. Laura Boeringa of Minneapolis, Dr. David Olshin of St. Paul, and Mrs. Edith Xavier, my mother, here in Minneapolis. Finally, I salute Alf-Isak Keskitalo of Guovdageainnu, a Sami ‘uncle cousin,’ for his original suggestions about the value of the story of Nils Paul and Amanda Xavier. From #46,Spring 2007 Xavier part 1 Archive |
