Selmer and Hjalmer

Today is Syttende Mai,
Independence Day in Norway, actually Grunnlovsdag (Constitution Day) or Nasjonaldag (The National Day). The constitution, adopted on May 17, 1814, declared Norway to be an independent nation.

17. mai - Norges Nasjonaldag (The National Day)

On May 17th all good Norwegian-Americans should be celebrating their Norwegian heritage. Some will remember famous Norwegians such as Sonja Henie and Thor Heyerdahl; others will try to forget infamous Norwegians like Quisling and Breivik. I think this is a good day to give proper respect to Norwegian bachelor farmers. In the Lincoln County South Dakota farming country where I grew up there were at least three, Christian (Christ rhymes with mist) Eneboe and the Alness brothers. Selmer Alness lived a half mile South of our farm and Hjalmer (pronounced yell-mur) Alness about a mile West of Lands Church, something like six or seven miles from our place. Both 'came over from the old country' as young men and  were confirmed bachelors, except for Hjalmer's one short period of non-bachelorhood, more about that later. I don't know if any photos of Selmer and Hjalmer still exist, I was able to find these grave marker photos from the cemetery at Lands Church in Lincoln County South Dakota.

Sunday Mornings with Selmer

From something like three to five years of age my dad would take me with him to visit Selmer on Sunday mornings. I was probably left home with Dad because I was too young for Sunday School and too squirmy for an hour long church service.

Selmer lived alone in a larger Arts and Crafts style house that my aunt Loretta openly coveted. Inside the house was very plain, no curtains, no pictures on the wall, no rugs or linoleum on the floor (this was before wood floors became fashionable again). We would sit in the kitchen on wood chairs around a wood table, while Dad and Selmer talked in Norwegian. Before long Selmer would say in his gravely voice, "So, ya want a little nip then." Selmer would get a bottle of whiskey and three glasses from a cupboard. He would take an ice pick and chip off some ice from a block in the top compartment of the icebox, put some chips in each of the glasses, then whiskey in two glasses and in the other water from a dipper in a pail sitting next to the sink. The water was for me but I mainly sucked on the ice chips. Often I would also get a piece of hard butterscotch candy or stick of chewing gum. Selmer always had a couple days growth of whiskers. His teeth were a little discolored from years of using 'snoose'. I remember thinking that someday I would like to have multicolored teeth like that. Little did I know...

About the time church would be getting out, Dad and I would get in the old Chevy truck or on the Oliver tractor and go home. At six I was destined for Sunday School instead of Sundays with Selmer, but by that time Dad's drinking had gone off the deep end and he had been sent to the Murray Institute in Minneapolis for 'the Cure', the 50's version of rehab. By the mid-1950s Selmer was semi-retired, living on Social Security and income from his rented-out farmland.

The Red Haired Floozy from Sioux Falls

The news spread across the farm fields like wildfire. "She's from Sioux Falls" (said like it was a foreign country); "and that hair, it must be dyed". "Where did he find her?" "Probably at Ethel's All Girl Bar" (on North Main Avenue in Sioux Falls). Seemingly out of nowhere this red headed woman had appeared at Hjalmer's farm. "They got married at the Courthouse up there in Sioux Falls." "Two of them in that little house next to the road, it's no bigger than a chicken coop." There were stories of them calling all the way to Sioux Falls to order liquor delivered by taxi. Some people thought she had him drugged up on opium or something. Then after a month or two the farm sale announcements appeared. "So now she's spent all his money and she's going to sell his farm?"

On the day of the sale, so I heard from my friend Paul who lived across the road from Selmer, a lot of people showed up but no one would bid on anything. Someone bid fifty cents on his tractor, an Oliver 60 I think, and no one else would raise the bid. Finally the auctioneer called off the sale and everyone went home. A day or two later the sheriff, Bernard ( pronounced burr-nerd) Tuntland, came out and took Hjalmer to jail. I never heard what or if there were any charges, but everyone said it was "for his own good". I imagine Sheriff Bernard escorted the red headed woman back to Sioux Falls in his black 52 Oldsmobile with the ten foot whip antenna on the back fender. They said the divorce was filed while he was in jail. A couple years later Hjalmer "wasn't feeling well" and went to stay with Selmer. One night Selmer came hurrying across the road to call for an ambulance from their telephone. The call made, everyone hurried over to Selmer's house, but by that the time Hjalmer had died.

I heard that Selmer lived on his farm until his late eighties, then moved into 'the Home' in town where he died a few months later.
As for Christ Eneboe, that's a story for another time.

Some people believe that Norwegian bachelor farmers were closeted gays too shy and inhibited to act on their feelings. I think it wouldn't have mattered, people that painfully shy would not have been able to ask anyone for a date, a dance, or a movie; except for that one time when Hjalmer got enough liquor in him to talk to that red headed floozy at that bar in Sioux Falls.

So, It's Syttende Mai Then

If you are reading this out loud or pronouncing silently in your head, "So, It's Syttende Mai Then", should go like this: "so...(silent pause)...its soo-ten-duh my den...(another silent pause)..."
Many Norwegian-Americans will be flying the Norwegian flag today;

regrettably, the only Norske artifact I have to show is an eight by eight ceramic tile, the words translates to "Away is good, Home is best", meaning something like "To travel is good, but being home is best." Home may have been an old cottage near Stavanger or in the hills by Bergen, or it might be an old farmhouse in Lincoln County South Dakota.