This talk was given by Kordula Erickson Holmvik at the family picnic held at Mason Park in Fertile, Minnesota, the first Sunday in July, 1974. Bertha Erlandson and Helen Livingston were there.

Forty year old Christopher Engelstad and his 35 year old wife, Sofia Gomness, later changed to Fure, emigrated to the United States in 1881. They left his ailing mother, and brothers and sisters on both sides of the family because there was a depression in Norway and times were very hard. Engelstad, originally an average “Gaard” (farm) had been divided among four sons, of whom Christopher Engelstad was one. Judging from a letter Christopher wrote to his sister, Nikoline, written in 1880 and found in the bottom drawer of an old cupboard in 1968 at Engelstad, he felt he had to emigrate in order to support his growing family. “I must,” he wrote, “I can see no other way.”