Genealogy Jottings

I have been researching in Norway’s digital archives recently. The Lutheran parish books of Norway contain nearly everyone’s life records. When Norwegian families came to America, they remained faithful Lutherans. I wondered about the church in its early days in Sheridan Co., Montana, where my Bentsen family settled. I found that the first pastor to the congregations there, S. J. Fretheim, had written a memoir of his experiences. Amazingly, the St. Olaf College Library lent it to me via inter-library loan. A slim, fragile volume, A Little Reminder of Pioneer Days of the Lutheran Church in the Plentywood Parish Montana 1910-1919 is chock-full of photos of the early churches and farms. Now I have a much better picture in my mind of my family’s life and hardships during the early days after they immigrated.

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