Friday, May 10, 2013

"Vaarstemning" / "Spring Dreams" - A Poem of Karl Xavier from 1898: Publishing with The Giants

"Vaarstemning" / "Spring Dreams" - Karl Xavier's 1898 Poem: Publishing with The Giants

John Edward Xavier

In memoriam: "The Other Grandmother,"
Henrietta Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier, (1864-1904)

      In 1982 Magdalene X. Visovatti completed translation and editing work on Norwegian Poems, her privately published bilingual book of manuscript poems authored by her father, Rev. Karl Xavier (1969-1924). In Norwegian Poems, Visovatti (1897-1988) had assembled one of the largest single-author collections of poetry in the written Dano-Norwegian literary language so beloved by the Norwegian immigrants in North America. In her "Foreword," Visovatti stated that the majority of the poems had appeared in print in various periodicals, but did not mention publication of any poems in anthology form.
     Norwegian Poems was for the most part organized chronologically and included thirty poems along with a less conventional prose poem, titled "Rimbrev" / "Rhythm Letter" (or "Rhyme Letter"). As to the manuscripts themselves, family lore credits them as only a portion of an unrealized book project. That alleged book project was to be a large-scale work: a collection of  Norwegian-American poetry, edited by the able Rev. Thomas Nilsson. Nillson, a close church and publishing associate of the extended Xavier family, left no documentation of his project of which I am aware, and at any rate the project was lost to the ages by his early death in 1916.
     Magdalene X. Visovatti brought Norwegian Poems to fruition, nearly sixty years after the death of Karl Xavier, in cooperation with members of her extended family. Notable among them was a half-sister, Valborg Henrietta (Xavier) Houghtelin, who, in 1924, took a major initiative. As a teenage girl, grief-stricken at the death of her father, Valborg set aside, hid, and preserved his manuscript poems for decades, until 1980.
     Aside from Valborg's gift of preserved manuscripts, Visovatti was closely supported in her project by two Midwestern brothers and their wives: Karl Astrup and Edith (Bethke) Xavier; and Valdemar U. and Elna (Johnson) Xavier. Other extended family members in the Pacific Coast states offered various forms of support as well, including financial contributions, for the publishing run of about sixty copies. Visovatti herself was fully qualified for the translation task, as she had studied Norwegian under Prof. Ole E. Rolvaag at St. Olaf College. Furthermore, Visovatti had not only published her own poetry in Norwegian, but also had engaged in serious prose translation from the Norwegian to English.
     As Visovatti chose to organize Norwegian Poems for the most part along chronological lines, so the book begins with "Vaarstemning" / "Spring Dreams." While Visovatti indicates that particular poem was composed in 1898, it remains unknown where it might have been published between 1898 and 1903. Nonetheless, in 1903, "Spring Dreams" and two other of Karl Xavier's poems were selected by Dr. Ludvig Lima for his monumental and still-respected anthology, Norsk-amerikanske digte i udvalg / Collected  Norwegian American Poetry. [1] 
     Dr. Ludvig Lima's 355-page collection of poetry featured forty-five Norwegian American poets, widely believed to be the cream among authors of written verse in the Dano-Norwegian language. Among them were (alphabetically) such luminaries as Waldemar Ager, John Benson, Peer Stromme, Knut Martin Olson (M.O.) Teigen, and Johannes Wist. Karl Xavier was at the young age of 34 honored with publication of three poems, and was thus included among the high circles of Norwegian-language poets. He was apparently the only poet of Sami background whose work appeared in this collection.
     It truly was among the high circles that Xavier was published, as Dr. Lima's anthology has stood the test of time The book has remained sufficiently important among scholars of Scandinavian studies to receive repeated attention, even in modern times. Among other scholars, Prof. Odd Lovoll has seen Norsk-amerikanske digte i udvalg as one of the landmark collections of Norwegian American verse. Lovoll, in so stating, vindicated both Lima's authors and the opinion of Prof. O.E. Rolvaag: in the 1920s, more than twenty years after the publication of Dr. Lima's work, Rolvaag would pay homage to many of those forty-five poets, characterizing them as "golden voices."
     Among Prof. Rolvaag's "golden voices" of  Norwegian American literature was Karl Xavier. Other authorities, have recognized the poets featured by Dr. Lima, in a variety of serious publications, among them Orm Overland and scholars undertaking thesis work for advanced degrees.[2]
     The context for Karl Xavier's poetry, as published in Dr. Lima's edition, was that of a young and creative pastor embarking on both career and family life with his love-match wife, Henrietta, in the full glory of the Decorah, Iowa area, one of the heartlands of Norwegian American Lutheranism. Karl Xavier and Henrietta Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier not only had their love-match marriage, but also lived in close proximity to both sides of their family and to friends, as well.
     This was during Xavier's first pastorate (1895-1903), north of Lawler (Saude), Iowa, at the Crane Creek and Little Turkey parishes in Chickasaw County, Iowa, from 1893-1903, in close proximity to Decorah.  The Lawler (Saude) location in afforded regular contacts with all of the grandparents of their children, as Lawler was hard by Henrietta's home and family in Decorah , and Karl's home and family in Ridgeway, both in Winneshiek County.
     Decorah was the location of Luther College, the first Norwegian Lutheran college.That city also served as the headquarters for intellectual and publishing activity of the Norwegian Lutheran Synod ("The Synod"). It was at Luther College that Henrietta's father, Prof. Laur. Larsen, held forth as the founding President, assisted by his hard-working second wife, Ingeborg (Astrup) Larsen. Within a few miles of Decorah were Karl's own parents, Rev. Nils Paul (N.P.) and Amanda Xavier, and their family at nearby Ridgeway, Iowa; and Luther College, his alma mater (Class of 1892). N.P. and Amanda during this time were resided in a two-church parish in Ridgeway, participating as colleagues of the "Decorah Ring," the group of prominent leaders who directed the Norwegian Lutheran Synod. [3]  
     Yet, by the time of the 1903 Lima poetry edition the shadow of ill health was present in the Xavier household. While Karl Xavier had composed, "Vaarstemning" / "Spring Dreams," in 1898, in a mere five-year period, the poem was published during a less-than-pleasant period for the Xavier family.
     "Little Hennie" was since childhood rather on the frail side, and suffered increasingly from ill health. Like all of the children of Karen Randine (Neuberg) Larsen, Prof. Laur. Larsen's first wife, Henrietta was destined to live just short of forty years. Responsibilities as both a pastor's wife and a mother of three small children weighed heavily on Henrietta.   By 1903, the year of publication of the Lima edition, Karl and Henrietta already had their family: daughter, (Karen) Magdalene (b. 1897), along with sons Paul Nylander (b. 1899), and Peter Laurentius Neuberg (b. 1901). It became increasingly clear, in the months following the birth of Peter, that Karl would be well-advised to seek another professional appointment which would relieve Henrietta of the demands of parish life.
     This he did by accepting an appointment in the summer of 1903 as a professor at the Lutheran Normal School  ("LNS" or "The Normal") in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. LNS was a Norwegian Lutheran training college for school teachers, and had sought Karl for his linguistic, literary, and teaching skills, not only for his theological background. Henrietta died a little more than a year later, in 1904.  [4]
        As to the poem at hand, we find in "Spring Dreams" a short work, written in 1897, in a time of nearly ideal family and professional time. The actual wording borders on what we might today characterize as a minimalism of sorts. "Spring Dreams" is essentially a brief and highly concentrated human appreciation of the beauties of springtime. It is a poem of focused thoughts, a poem put to a pair of tasks: of taking inventory of nature's bounty, and of accumulating reasons for an ultimate expression of appreciation to the Creator of all.
     Prominent among the images is the ever-present activity of nature itself, as an unceasing, assertive, and yet benevolent force. The theme of humanistic appreciation of nature appears throughout the poetry of Karl Xavier, revealing him as a man of both worldly awareness and deep spirituality.   


Vaarstemning / Spring Dreams (1898)
by / av Karl Xavier
Translated by / oversatt av Magdalene X. Visovatti 

Hurrying
Shiftingly
Spring breezes push
Us smilingly
Lovingly
Wrap us in warmth.

Glitteringly
Daylight
Draws near us fast
Kissing the
Wavering
Night-darkness out.

Smilingly
Gladden us
Flowers in the fields
Thrillingly
Sing for us
Songbirds their lays.

Suffering eases at
Spring's Command.
Hearts
Stir gently
With thanks to our God.
--------------
[1a]  Karl Xavier, Norwegian Poems, Magdalene X. Visovatti, Ed. and Trans. (Albert Lea, Minnesota: Valdemar.U. Xavier, 1982), pp. 7-7a. For a more detailed account of Visovatti's massive translation effort, see article in this blog,"Wading into Deep Waters of Translation and Narration in Xavier Family History: Magdalene X. Visovatti (and Others) At Work, Part One."
[1b]  Ludvig Lima, M.D, Ed. Norsk-Amerikanske digte i udvalg / Collected Norwegian American Poetry (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Undommens Ven Pub. Co., 1903), pp.339-340. Editor's note: An alternative translation to the title of "Vaarstemning" could be "Springtime Mood." I also suggest alternatives for verse three, line two: "Gladdened are we" and for verse three, line four through six: "Thrillingly songbirds / Sing for us / Their glories." Karl Xavier's other two poems were: "Poesien" / "Poesy" and "Fjortende oktober" / "Fourteenth of October" ("En mindedag i den Norske Synodes historie" / "A Memorable Day in Norwegian Synond History").
     The 1903 Lima collection was published in the fashion of a serious project, not only by the inclusion of respected poets. The seriousness was also evident in the quality of the book itself, beginning with a well-designed leather cover, setting this book off  from what had already begun to dominate publishing: a trend to cheaper paper-bound editions.
      Several copies of the original Lima edition still exist in North America, notably at libraries of educational institutions, including: Luther College of Decorah, Iowa; St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachussetts. Full text of the Lima work can be downloaded by requesting a pdf format from this source, found on Google Books: books.google.com/books/about/Norsk_amerikanske_digte_i_udvalg_i_udvalg.html    
[1c] Olav Morgan Norlie, Ed. Norsk Lutherske Mindekirke i Amerika 1843-1916/ Norwegian Lutheran Congregations in America, Forste Bind/Vol. 1  (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing, 1918), Iowa references for parishes associated with Revs. Laur. Larsen, N.P. Xavier, and Karl Xavier. This massive work also includes Canadian congregations.

[2a]  Odd Lovoll, The Promise of America: A History of the Norwegian American People (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press and Norwegian American Historical Association, Revised edition, 1999), pp. 219-220 on poetry. On literature and culture in general, see Chapter 7, "Cultural Growth," pp. 205-230. As to Wm Ager, Lovoll saw him as gifted, “perhaps the most original Norwegian-American novelist besides O. E. Rølvaag. His agitation for temperance, however, at times stood in the way of his creative powers and he became didactic and moralizing.” [Note that Ager in 1917 went against the prevailing public opinion by publishing the novel Paa veien til smeltepotten /On the Way to the Melting Pot by way of protest against twin issues: the all-consuming war hysteria of  the Great War (World War I), and the companion demands of that war hysteria for all-out ("one hundred per cent") Americanism. Lovoll, p.106.
[2b]  Ole E. Rolvaag, Concerning Our Heritage / Omkring Faedrearven, Solveign Zempel, Trans. (Northfield, Minnesota: Norwegian American Historical Association, 1998), pp. 150-151. Prof. Rolvaag and Karl Xavier collaborated on several projects. See also article in this blog, "Rev. Karl Xavier's 1920 Condolence Poem, 'To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag,'  ['Til Professor og fru Rolvaag']" for information on connections between the Rolvaag and Xavier families.
[2c]  Aagot D. Hoidahl, "Norwegian-American Fiction 1880-1928," Studies and records, Vol. 5, pp. 61-83. In an essay that covers literacy, newspapers, fiction and poetry, Hoidahl mentions Peer Stromme's poetic work in footnote 6, remarking:: "Some of Strommes best lyrics...." saw print in Dr. Lima's anthology. 
[2d] W. Scott Nelson, "The Viking Invasion: An Historiography of Norwegian-American Literature and Its Role in Norwegian Immigration and the Founding of Vesterheim Within America," unpublished M.A. Thesis, Humboldt State University (Arcata, California, 2005). This recent compilation of historical studies includes references to such poetic leaders as Waldemar Ager and Johannes Wist.
[2e]  Steven Keillor, "Rural Norwegian-American Reading Societies in The Late 19th Century," Norwegian American Studies (Northfield, Minnesota), Vol. 33 (1992, 139-165. Keillor also mentions Stromme and others, in the context of an audience of highly literate and motivated readers within the Norwegian American immigrant culture. Keillor's article captures that culture, giving some long overdue credit to social organizations arising from the high literacy rates among Norwegian Americans. I find it useful to refer to that tendency toward social and literary organization as a sort of "reading infrastructure."
[2f]  Kristen A. Risley, "VIkings of the Midwest: Place, Culture, and Ethnicity in Norwegian-American Literature, 1870-1940," unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 2003. Risley's In-depth study, included the renowned Jul i vesterheim / Christmas in the Western Home, a century-plus old Christmas Annual still publishing under the title Chistrmas. Risley makes brief mention of one poem of Magdalene Xavier Visovatti, "Stormens Vaeter" / "Father of Gale storms," in Jul i Vesterheim, 1922 edition.
[2g] Kristen A. Risley, "Christmas in Our Western Home: The Cultural Work of a Norwegian-American Christmas Annual," American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography, Vol 13 (2003), pp. 50-83. Risley concentrated on the Jul i vesterheim Christmas Annual.
[2h] Orm Overland, The Western Home: A Literary History of Norwegian America, in Authors Series 8 (Northfield, Minnesota: Norwegian American Historical Association), 1996. Overland included, in addition to his essays on the literary and cultural aspects, a comprehensive inventory of publications. Many of those publications were the work of authors featured in Dr. Lima's Norsk Amerikanske digte.

[3a] Karl Xavier, "April" (1905), pp. 12-15a; see also "Til min hustru, geburtsdagsvers" / "To My Wife, Birthday Verse," (1919) pp. 73-73a, both from Norwegian Poems. Imagery of the world of nature dominates in this short poem, in concert with faith in both the future and God. This poem appears in this blog, under the title "Karl Xavier's Poetry of Hope for a New Year, 1919."

[3b] Karl Xavier to Bina (Kamrud) Xavier, June, 1907. Original letter, previously unpublished, in possession of the author. Karl Xavier, attending an education conference, wrote to his wife, describing the deep pleasure derived from early morning walks in Freeborn County, Minnesota, near Albert Lea. In the letter, he mentioned the meadowlark, a bird he favored and which he mentions in his poetry.

[4a]  Karen Larsen, Laur. Larsen: Pioneer College President (Northfield, MN: Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA), 1936), pp. 277, 284, 335. This work, one of the early icons of NAHA, remains useful for many topics.
 
[4b]  Karen Larsen, "Karen Neuberg Larsen and Her Family," Unpublished typescript (Northfield, MN:  1957), pp. 1-20. Prof. Karen Larsen, a long-term member of the history faculty at St. Olaf, devotes considerable space to the life of Henriette Larsen.


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Friday, April 5, 2013

The Xavier Family Reunion of 1956 in Tacoma, Washington: Fritz and Anna (Xavier) Larson Set High Standards


Editor's note: Published as in-progress document, because articles from family or friends will come in over time! We anticipate several contributions, as I have posted on facebook asking for same. JX (April 4, 2013)

The Xavier Family Reunion of 1956: In Tacoma, Washington,
Fritz and Anna (Xavier) Larson Set High Standards 

John E. Xavier, Editor

Preface

     In March of 2013, this Xavier Family blog was finally brought to formal public notice (limping, incomplete, and in need of much work, for which my apologies!). Among the reasons for the roll-out was anticipation of a lot of family history coming forth in a Reunions Year, 2013. It made sense to use modern means to record it all, while going along, so a number of Xavier family members and friends could contribute. Several interesting aspects of family history always emerge as articles and stories are compiled,and those aspects furnish fresh material, including marriages, travel, children, grandchildren, and more.
     Xavier Family Reunions are counted as great sources of family history material, both from bygone years and from the new challenges of our own times. We can always add to articles or polish things up, as we have time or further information. 
     This blog solicits contributions from any and all Xavier family members about any Reunion. None of it has to be fancy, but if you request, I offer any kind of editing or polishing you see fit to inquire about. This article concentrates on 1956, but there is also another article inclusive of any and all Reunions, so email or facebook away! Thanks!

Introduction

     2013 marks yet another summer for a Xavier Family Reunion, a tradition since 1946 among the direct descendants of Rev. Karl Xavier (1869-1924) and his two families. Karl Xavier's first family was with Henrietta Randine Elizabeth (Larsen) (1864-1904)--of the Larsens with an 'e.' The second was with Bina Christine (Kamrud) (1880-1931) Other extended family members have attended Reunions from the Nordic areas, including Sweden, Norway, and Sami areas (Sapmi). Notable among those were Alf Isak Keskitalo and Anna Rustina Haetta from the Kautokeino area of Sapmi. Some families have also included foster children, exchange students, fiance(e)s, in-laws, and more. [1]
     Along those lines, my information has it that in 2013, Lois (Schiotz) Eid and husband Paul will attend. Lois is a descendant (grand-daughter) of Karl Xavier's sister, Marith (Xavier) Aasen (1874-1976). Marith and her husband, Rev. Anders O. Aasen were instrumental in keeping Karl's widow, Bina, and her seven children together following his early death in 1924. In all truthfulness, the Aasens kept Bina's family together as they persuaded Bina to move to 1414 Monroe Steet NE, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis should be chosen according to the Aasens, rather than to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a small city of about 15,000, as Rev. Aasen characterized it (correctly for the times) as a "cow town." (Karl and Henrietta's children, Magdalene, Paul, and Peter were by 1924 well-launched in education or employment.)
     In Minneapolis, Bina's family found a large urban area with ample opportunity for jobs, education, Norwegian fellowship, transportation, and church-related activity in Aasen's congregation, Immanuel Lutheran. The Aasen family thus became the most influential force in maintaining the sense of community in the Xavier family. For many years, the family of Anders and Marith also furnished a goodly supply of cousins of close to the same ages as the Xavier children.
     Later, in the 1930s, Rev. L.T. Larson, brother of Fritz Larson, became the pastor at Immanuel Lutheran, and became as important as Rev. Aasen in the Xavier family history. There were repeated examples of family community events or rites of passage, as Rev. Larson officiated as pastor at  Xavier confirmations, weddings, and more, including the wedding of Fritz and Anna. L.T. Larson also had the challenging task of officiating over the one World War II-related family funeral, that of Lt. Bjarne K. Xavier (1910-1944) who died in France while serving in the famed Third Army of General George Patton.
     These family events and rites of passage were a major part of the lives of the neighborhood and the Xavier extended family. Given the scattered geographic locations of extended Xavier family members in the year 2013, it is probably impossible for us at this time to understand the closely-knit communities in which the children of Karl and Bina Xavier grew up.
     In another example of joint family efforts, the 1930s, Fritz Larson and Karl Astrup Xavier worked their way to the Seattle-Tacoma area, as summer crew members for track repair and general laborers on one of two trans-continental railroads. (I solicit advice as to which one, the Northern Pacific or Great Northern.) Rather than return, Fritz found work in the Seattle area, and soon sent for Anna and her young children. In short order, all were on their way west, belongings sent along by railroad boxcar. The Larsons with an "o" settled into the Seattle-Tacoma area, and never moved back to the Midwest. Yet, in additon to hosting the landmark 1956 Reunion, Fritz and Anna made frequent visits to Minnesota.
     After World War II, the Xavier Reunion traditions were founded in both 1946 and 1951. in 1946, Elna (Johnson) Xavier, whose family had grown to love the the-orphaned Xavier siblings, offered the Johnson family farm in Watertown, Minnesota for a Reunion. For the next 25 years, this was the only Reunion where all nine surviving children of Karl, Henrietta and Bina were all assembled--until the Reunion in Mt. Lassen Park, California in 1971.
     In 1951, Magdalene ("Mag") and Toffil ("Toff") hosted the second Reunion at their home on Lake Pewaukee, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee. I recall my mother, Edith (Bethke) recounting several times that Mag severely remonstrated with her for leaving me and brother Paul with grandparents at the Bethke grandparents' farm in Minnesota.
     Then, in 1956, hosted by Fritz and Anna (Xavier) Larson, came the first of the "Three Key Reunions" that firmly established the tradition for what has now begun to approach seventy years. The 1956 Reunion, as has been true of each and every one since, developed a special and unique rhythm that was detectable even by the younger cousins. The 1956 Reunion should be a source of on-going pride by all members of the host family--the "Larsons with an o" in recognition of  the family landmark the 1956 Reunion has become.
     This article will now offer some initial comments, and more will be added later by several contributors; this article should soon become a multi-party memoir.
   
--------------
Notes to Preface, Acknowledgements, and Introduction

[1]  See Johan U. Xavier, "List of Descendants of Nils Paul and Amanda Xavier,"  (Tacoma, WA: J.U. Xavier, 1960). We will soon add an appendix with other family tree-like references for family descendants, in some detail.
     Karl Xavier's first wife was Henrietta Randine Elizabeth (Larsen) (1864-1904), mother of Magdalene, Paul and Peter. Karl Xavier's second wife was Bina Christine (Kamrud), mother of Valborg, Anna, Bjarne, Karl Astrup, Valdemar, Mabel, and Borghild.

 End of Notes to Preface, Acknowledgements, and Introduction
---------------
Part One

Fritz and Anna (Xavier) Larson: Hosts of the 1956 Xavier Family Reunion

    The 1956 Xavier Family Reunion was held at the Tacoma, Washington home of Fritz and Anna. The house was a rambling Victorian one, with a huge yard, a large carriage house, and a nearby vacant lot available for softball. The 1956 Reunion was the first, and therefore the standard of the "Three Key Reunions (1956, 1961 and 1966) that firmly set the framework, tone and traditions for the Xavier Family Reunions. Now a sixty- seven-year-old tradition, the Xavier Reunions are held every three years.
    The 1956 Tacoma Reunion was held with the usual 50 or so attendees, including goodly numbers of cousins reaching high school age or more and, of course, including cousins of much ages as well. A standing family topic of discussion was that Fritz and Anna had purchased the spacious property specifically with the reunion in mind. The home of Fritz and Anna was a very good location indeed for a Reunion.
     The 1956 Reunion was the introduction for many Midwestern family members to the stunning beauty of ocean, mountains and Pacific Northwest in general. One side trip included an outing to the Mt. Ranier area, with the eye-opening experience of mountainside snowball fights in August. It is with great restraint of my normal story-telling instincts that I spare the readers of my personal and losing struggle with altitude sickness.
     Another outing included an ocean-side visit. Karl Xavier III and I believe we have found an intact jar of Pacific Ocean water and sand from that outing. If we can re-find it from packing up my mom's estate, we will show it at this summer's Reunion, and may even be willing to offer views of the jar, for money. Or not for money.
     At a men'g golf outing, 86 yearl-old Uncle Johan Ulrik Xavier, brother of ancestor Karl Xavier, accompanied his nephews. All returned agog over Valdemar's hole-in-one, which passed into family lore. This lore was documented as an authentic and real achievement, from historic records by Mary Xavier LaBelle at a recent Reunion, thanks to Pacific Lutheran University Archivist, Kristin Ringdahl. MS. Ringdahl offered Mary a photocopy of Johan's diary entry which made note of that historic family moment, proving from impeccable sources outside of the golfers themselves that it had indeed all happened as told and retold.
     On the softball front, I recall vividly that cousin Alan Larson was almost unstoppable, with double after double to prove his prowess with a bat. At a recent reunion, Estes Park in 2007, I think, I reminded Alan of this and he recalled it similarly, surprised that anyone would recall. Well, now it is written for the ages.
     Further to the point of older vs. young cousin activities, I recall Jon Larson heading off to work, unable to give much time to the Reunion due to the demands of his job. Older cousins including Larson sisters Sharon and Kris, along with Barbara (Xavier) Farrell, took advantage of the open spaces for sunbathing.
     All of the Reunion activites involved an enormous effort for cooking and kitchen clean-up.The Tacoma Reunion included a lot of "pitching in" for the post-meal cleanups which also featured a lot of singing. However, it had become clear that the women still bore an unfair amount of the kitchen-related time and hassle factors, so this became the last Reunion of cooking in-house. Henceforth, Reunions had on-site eating facilities.
     Time weighs heavily on me of this April eve, and demoralized by snow on the 5th of April as well as by the press of time, I end this narrative with hopes of soon adding more.

Part Two: Remarks or Remembrances of Those Who Attended the 1956 Reunion

Many of these entries will be copied from facebook or email to begin with, and will be polished up or alphabetized over time.

     Here are some contributions! For which thanks.


  • Martha Mueller I remember the Birthday Party with cake and Aunt Mag bought us all gifts. I got aqua blue pedal pushers. We hiked in the Mt.Ranier foothills. Mabel was brave to tackle it, but was pretty frightened. We kids didn't know we should be frightened.
  • Joel V Xavier I was there, almost four. I don't remember a thing.




Thursday, March 28, 2013

Rev. Karl Xavier's 1920 Condolence Poem, "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag," ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"]

"To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag,"  ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"]:
 Rev. Karl Xavier's 1920 Condolence Poem:

By John E. Xavier
Esssay Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved
Translation, Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved

Preface

     In 1920, Rev. Karl Xavier composed his condolence poem "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag,"  ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"] on the occasion of great family loss for the Rolvaag family. That family loss was the death by drowning of Paul Gunnar Rolvaag, young son of Professor Ole. E. Rolvaag and Jennie (Berdahl) Rolvaag. Paul's drowning was the result of a fall into a cistern--a tragic accident, giving rise to the words of this poem, Rev. Karl Xavier's heartfelt message to the Rolvaag family.
     An original manuscript of the poem is archived among the Rolvaag papers, at the Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA) in Northfield, Minnesota. If the poem was ever published prior to the 1980s, no evidence surfaced in any research I have conducted to date. A Xavier family manuscript copy of the poem came to light in 1980, written in the careful hand of Karl Xavier. That manuscript was translated from Dano-Norwegian (formal Norwegian) to American English in the early 1980s by Magdalene X. Visovatti. This work was part of her massive translation project which came to fruition in 1982 as Norwegian Poems.
     Visovatti was the eldest daughter of Rev. Xavier and his first wife, Henriette Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier, and was a student of Prof. Rolvaag during her years at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. The Xavier family manuscript had been preserved for nearly sixty years by Valborg Henrietta (Xavier) Houghtelin, eldest daughter of Xavier and his second wife, Bina (Kamrud) Xavier.
     The poem was privately published by the Xavier family in 1982 as part of the bilingual collection, Norwegian Poems. The bulk of Rev. Xavier's poetry in Norwegian Poems had already been published in various periodicals. In contrast, the subject poem of this article, "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag" / ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"] thus finally made its delayed debut in a public arena only in 1982. [1]
     This essay is broken down to four main parts: dealing in the first case with background and the poem itself; and in the second, with supplemental information, including a brief epilogue. Those two parts are followed by reference notes, and then, finally, comes, a substantial appendix.
     Minor technical remarks are in order about the actual text of Magdalene X. Visovatti's work and this article in general. The following two items of information should be helpful. First, in line 5, I have inserted the traditional spelling of "brought," over-riding Visovatti's use of the progressive spelling "brot." Second, in line 9, "children's friend" was among Norwegian-American Lutherans a common spoken and written reference to Jesus Christ.
     In the written and spoken word of the Norwegian Americans, the Dano-Norwegian language, Jesus Christ was often referred to as "undommens ven" [young person's friend] or, in the case of this poem, as "barnenes ven" [children's friend]. Finally, references to the "Dano-Norwegian and "Norwegian" languages here are to be taken as synonymous.
     The poem "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag" / ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"] has sufficient literary value to stand of itself with minimal explanation. However, to pay due homage to the literary and historical roles of the family of Prof. O.E. Rolvaag, some supplemental material both in the body of this essay and as well in the Bibliography and Appendix.

Acknowledgements
 
     I offer thanks to Evelyn Ashford, Editor of Arran, Saami North American newsletter; Arden Johnson, Editor emeritus of Arran and Saami-American elder; Prof. Charles Grubb, Minneapolis, MN; Dr. Boyd Koehler, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN; Dr. David Olshin of St. Paul, MN; and Jeff Sauve of the Norwegian American Historical Association, Northfield, MN. Their professional assistance and patience made this essay possible.


Part One: Introduction and the Poem:
 "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag" ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"
(1920)

     The Rolvaag family had already by 1920 achieved prominence in Norwegian circles, some years before the enormous fame attached to Ole E. Rolvaag's immigrant narrative, Giants in The Earth. Prof. Rolvaag's prominence was due to his many accomplishments in teaching, writing, publishing, and ethnic leadership from his base at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. There, Prof. Rolvaag's entire family was also involved in local and church activities. Then, in 1920, disaster struck the Rolvaag family, when ten-year-old son, Paul, drowned.
     Prior to 1920. Prof. Rolvaag and Rev. Xavier had known each other for about fifteen years, through various connections. Like her father, Magdalene Xavier (later Visovatti) also had a direct connection to Prof. Rolvaag, as a student and colleague, graduating from St. Olaf in 1920.
     Prof. Rolvaag and Rev Xavier shared a common background of many years work and study on the northern prairies and plains of the United States: Rolvaag as a farm worker, student and professor in South Dakota and Minnesota, Xavier as professor and pastor in Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska.   Xavier was a Lutheran minister in the old Norwegian Lutheran Synod ("The Synod"), an ethnic immigrant church body founded in 1853. He also served in its successor, the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church (NELC), from 1917 until his death in 1924.
     Among the more notable of the Rolvaag -Xavier connections were numerous shared efforts in providing articles and poetry for the quarterly periodical Nord-Norge, the publishing outlet of the Nordlandslaget, the Norwegian ethnic society for emigrants from the Arctic reaches of Norway, known as Nordland.
     Xavier's eldest daughter, Magdalene Xavier (later Visovatti) was at the time of Paul Rolvaag's drowning enrolled at St. Olaf College and was among Prof. Rolvaag's brightest students. It is also worth noting that the Rolvaag's grief at the death of the five-year-old Paul Rolvaag was doubtlessly compounded by the dismaying fact that he died a mere five years on the heel of the loss in 1915 of another son, six-year-old, Olaf Arnjlot.
     Karl Xavier's condolence poem to Ole and Jennie Rolvaag  exemplifies his love of children, both his own and those of his circle of extended family and friends. The poem is heartfelt in its expression of sympathy, and draws the deep wells of his background which combined education, literary bent, and spirituality. In his pastoral calling, Xavier often encountered the brutal reality of early childhood death, as child life expectancy a century ago was far from what it is in our times.
     The poem should therefore be seen in the context of the many years of acquaintanceship of Prof. Rolvaag and Rev. Xavier, to say nothing of their professional cooperation, most particularly in the periodical Nord-Norge. Nord-Norge, the publication of the Nordlandslaget (Northern Norwegian Ethnic Group) still publishes today, and was already well known in 1920. Nord-Norge attracted a number of active contributors ot time, money, and talent. Among those were Prof. Rolbaag, Rev. Xavier, and others, including Julius Baumann.
     These men of letters shared time and effort for Nord-Norge is evident in the pages which give ample testimony to their common Arctic geographic origins. For Prof. Rolvaag, those origins included the profound experience of the sea-faring life of the Lofoton area, with its island-based fishing industry in which he had worked.
     Before emigrating from Norway, Rolvaag worked for about six years at the risk-filled life of fishing boats there, where he would have been acquainted with the coastal Saami. As for the Saami-born Rev. Xavier, his own ancestral Arctic zone included Finmark and Troms areas of today's Sapmi (formerly known as Lappland). There, Xavier's extended family was quite well known in Sapmi under the name of Tornensis, and was largely devoted to teaching, church work, and reindeer herding, active in the areas of Guovdageaidno, Lyngen and others.
     In the 1980s, Rev. Xavier's eldest daughter, Magdalene X. Visovatti (nee Karen Magdalena Xavier) translated the condolence poem from an original Dano-Norwegian manuscript found in family papers preserved by her half-sister, Valborg (Xavier) Houghtelin. Visovatti, known as "Mag," "Maggie," or "Mugda" in family circles, would accomplish the translation by drawing on her knowledge gained as a student of Norwegian language and culture under Prof. Rolvaag. Visovatti maintained correspondence with Prof. Rolvaag for some years after graduating from St. Olaf College, where she earned a BA degree in 1920. 
     Visovatti soon entered the teaching field, ultimately earning an MS at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; she continued in teaching for over forty years. Visovatti had considerable background in Norwegian studies, personal experience in publishing and translating, which she brought to bear on the project leading to Norwegian Poems. Those technical factors, in concert with her endless enthusiasm for life itself, made her the ideal person to carry out the translation of this poem, as well as of the other manuscripts preserved by Valborg Houghtelin. 
    In the largest and most generous sense of the term "matriarchal," Visovatti was for about a seventy-year span a respected matriarchal force in her extended Xavier family, and an early promoter of the Saami (as well as  Norwegian) origins of the extended Xavier family. In the translation of her father's poems we see the full force and lifelong extension of her creative skills.
     This translated poem is a significant part of the literary legacy of the extended Xavier family; the poem is  still speaking to the duality of anguish and spiritual hope for those who have suffered the death of a child. We turn now to the poem itself, in the English translation. [2]


"To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag" ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"]

By Rev. Karl Xavier / av Pr. Karl Xavier
Translation by Magdalene X. Visovatti / oversatt av Magdalene X. Visovatti

A short time ago a loving little lad,
With a twinkle in his eye and a wave of his hand,
Played happily there in your home. - But suddenly the play is ended,
And the twinkle in his eye extinguished.

It [brought] sorrow when he sank in death - It cut you to the heart
To see the little one so changed;
The pale cheek that once glowed rosily fresh,
Oh how your hearts must have ached!

Yet you remembered what the children's friend
So beautifully once had said:
"Let the little ones come unto me" -
They belong here at home in heaven,
Citizens of God's kingdom.

As a tiny angel with feathery winds
And raiment shimmering white
And with a sparkling crown of gold
On those baby locks you adored -
He has joined in the joys of heaven.

Ah see! from the firmament's light blue field
Are reaching out baby hands,
So chubby soft, so delightfully sweet.
They would, how gladly, reach you here
And turn your sorrow to joy.

Yes, see the delicate infant hands
That wave down from on high?
With strong loving bands
They wish to draw you from your grief
And light again the joy in your eyes.

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Part Two: Remarks on The Poem and Its Context

     Rev. Karl Xavier forwarded his poem to Prof. and Mrs. Rolvaag, in an original hand-written manuscript in the Dano-Norwegian language. As mentioned in the Preface, that manuscript is now in the archives of the Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA) located on the campus of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota.
     The version published here is from another source, a hand-written manuscript by Rev. Xavier, identical in wording to the NAHA text, and is drawn from Rev. Karl Xavier, Norwegian Poems, Magdalene X. Visovatti, Translator. In the near future, when a typeface transcription is made of the original Dano-Norwegian poem manuscript, the typeface will be added, or the manuscript will be enhanced and scanned into this article.
     To reiterate a bit on the Preface, in line 9 of the poem, "children's friend" was among Norwegian-American Lutherans a common spoken and written reference to Jesus. Jesus was often referred to in Dano-Norwegian language works as "undommens ven" [young person's friend] or, in the case of this poem, as "barnenes ven" [children's friend]. These commonly used references to Jesus and the words in Rev. Karl Xavier's text take on special meaning in the context of the times, given the child-friendly framework of all of the Norwegian American Lutheran churches. [3]
    Even for a Synod Pastor, however, there was awareness of  the earthly side of life, outside the scope of a spiritual or theological hereafter. There was in the early 1900s a general awareness of the often short span of human life, and a special awareness of the fragility of  life for children. Rev. Xavier had known of this since his own childhood, where life as a pastor's son had given him many occasions to witness funerals for young children.
     Then, with the loss of the Rolvaag family freshly in mind, Rev. Xavier put his fine pen to paper in a world that had only months before witnessed the grim sweep of the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919. During that epidemic, when death roamed free in America, Rev. Xavier in his pastoral role had conducted at least one funeral for a young victim of the Influenza.[4]  
     Furthermore, the nature of nature of rural communities led to closely shared experiencing of loss in the tightly- knit early 1900s. Those times gave the world of Norwegian-Americans and Americans in general  constant reminders of the most raw realities. Due to the community closeness of towns, villages, countryside, and even urban neighborhoods (often built around ethnic or church affiliations), many people were often in what we would recognize today as an on-going grief cycle due to the loss of children. As a case in point, the death of his son, Paul Gunnar, "Rolvaag later said... 'I think it changed my entire view of life.'" [5]
     Simply put, even if one's own family had healthy and living children, it was almost certain that other extended family, friends, and neighbors would have ill, injured, or deceased children to mourn. Indeed, appalling rates of severe illness (morbidity) and life expectancy (mortality) among children were the iron rule of the times, even at the relatively modern date of 1920.
     The frequency of childhood death was high due to illness, epidemic, or other causes of death, including such cases as simple secondary infections from accidents. In fact, the death rate was such that a ten-year-old child was subject to a risk of death almost identical to that of the classical high-risk nineteen or twenty-year-old young adult., or today's 56-year-old male! [6]
     In the face of such harsh realities, church and community groups in a grieving process were often brought together by singing as well as the written and spoken words of philosophy and religion. As is the case today, caregivers often turned to meditation, journaling, or writing of prose and poetry to express their own deep and strongly-held beliefs and feelings. 
     In that vein of beliefs and feeling, this and other poems of Rev. Karl Xavier deal with youthful death, including childbirth-related mortality. In the case of the Rolvaags, we do not have any direct documentation of further exchange by letter between Prof. Rolvaag and Rev. Xavier about the death of Paul Rolvaag, whether in historical archives or in Xavier family records. Any letters Xavier might have kept were probably lost or destroyed in the wake of his own death in 1924. [7]
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Epilogue: Ole E. Rolvaag's Place in Norwegian-American History and Literature
     Finally, as to the stature of Rolvaag in Norwegian-American history and literature, I offer the following remarks. For some years now, any discussion of Rolvaag's historic place has come to remind me of a question I have read, at different times, about Irving Berlin's place in American popular music. I recall the answer as being, "He is American popular music." 
     To sum up Prof. O. E. Rolvaag's place in Norwegian-American history and Norwegian-American literature, I offer a well-measured response, not very original, but nonetheless worthy of the question: Rolvaag is, and he largely defines, Norwegian-American immigrant history and literature.

finis
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Reference Notes

[1a]  Rev. Karl XavierNorwegian PoemsMagdalene X. Visovatti, Trans. and Ed.  (Albert Lea, MN: Valdemar Ulrik Xavier, 1982), pp. 2, 43-44b. 
[1b] Archives, P584 Box 1, Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA), St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. See www.naha.stolaf.edu/archivesdata/leif/results.cfm. Various Xavier manuscripts, of the poem in question, other poems and of correspondence among Rolvaag, Rev. Karl Xavier, and Magdalena Xavier, are found in the NAHA Archives. Thanks to NAHA archivist Jeff Sauve for his assistance with these papers.
     Following her graduation in 1920, Magdalene X. Visovatti continued her connection with Prof. Rolvaag as an editorial  colleague, and a sometime correspondent. Magdalene X. Visovatti also published poetry in Nord-Norge and Jul i vesterheimen, among other periodicals, under her self-modified birth name, as Magdalene Xavier. Her poetry from those two periodicals will be published at a later date in this blog, in both the origianal Dano-Norwegian and English translation. 
[1c] Olaf M. Norlie, et al., Who's Who Among Pastors in the Norwegian Lutheran Churches of North America (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1928), various pp. 
[1d] Olaf M. Norlie, School Calendar: Teachers and Educators in Norwegian Lutheran Schools and Colleges(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1924), pp. 601, 793-794.
[1e] Olaf M. Norlie, "St. Johannes lutherske menighet," [Rice County, Northfield, Minnesota], Norsk Lutherske Menigheter i Amerika. Forste Bind [Vol. I](Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1918), p.474. Prof. Rolvaag served on the church council as secretary.
[1f] Karen Larsen, Laur. Larsen: Pioneer College President (Northfield, MN: Norwegian American Historical Association, 1936), pp. 277, 284, 335.
[1g] Karen Larsen, "Karen Neuberg Larsen and Her Family," Unpublished typescript (Northfield, MN, 1957, 20 pp.. In this little-known essay, historian Larsen, half sister of Henriette Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier offers several important insights into the family of Karl and Henriette Xavier.
[1h] Einar Hauge, Ole Edvart Rolvaag in Twayne's United States Authors Series,TUSAS 455, Leif Sjoberg, Ed. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), "Chronology," no page.
     See the Appendix for more background on Prof. Ole E. Rolvaag (1876-1934); Rev. Karl Xavier (1869-1924); and Xavier's two marriages, first to Henriette Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier (1865-1904) and then to his second wife, Bina Christine (Kamrud) Xavier (1880-1931). Also in the appendix is information on the translator and editor of Norwegian Poems, Magdalene X. Visovatti, nee Karen Magdalena Xavier (1897-1988), the eldest daughter of Karl Xavier and Henrietta.
[1i]  Rev. Karl XavierNorwegian Poems, pp 1; also, Suzanne Heiss, "Norwegian Poems Come to Life In English," Lake Country Living (No City, WI., September 23, 1982), no. page. In this news story about Magdalene X. Visovatti and her translation work, reporter Heiss recounts Visovatti's painstaking efforts. The fruit of those efforts, so necessary to give a worthy rendition of Karl Xavier's work, would appear in late 1982 as Norwegian Poems.  
     As is discussed in other articles in this family blog and elsewhere, "To Professor and Mrs. Rolvaag" ["Til Professor og fru Rolvaag"], the poem in question, was but one part of a vastly effort of translation and editing by Magdalene X. Visovatti. The project spanned more than two years. Visovatti relates some of the story in her introduction, as supplemented by the 1982 Heiss article. Visovatti was not only a former student of Prof. Rolvaag, but was by her own rights a published poet and translator, well at home in the Dano-Norwegian so beloved of the early 1900s. Visovatti spent from 1980 to 1982 translating and editing thirty-five of her father's manuscripts, a bonanza for family and literary history.

[2a] Einar Hauge, Ole Edvart Rolvaag in Twayne's United States Authors Series, TUSAS 455, Leif Sjoberg, Ed. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), "Chronology," no page.
[2b]  See Odd Sverre LovellA Folk Epic: The Bygdelag in America (Northfield, MN: NAHA in concert with Twayne, 1975), several pages.
     Prof. Ole E. Rolvaag (1876-1931) was one of the driving forces behind the Nord-Norge quarterly, as he was in so many Norwegian-American projects. Nord-Norge was in the early 1900s, and it remains today, the major publication of an important Norwegian American ethnic identity group, Nordlandslaget [Nordland's Association]. Bibliography about Prof. Rolvaag's extensive role in the Norwegian-American communities appears in some depth in depth in the Appendix, Part One.
[2c Nord-Norge was in more recent times, until 2011, edited by Christian Klebo Skjervold II, an American of Nordlands background, a long-time friend of the Saami-North American communities. Chris Skjervold often cooperated with Saami-American leaders Mel Olsen and Arden Johnson in publishing Nord-Norge projects involving the Arctic regions of Norway. Among those projects were articles treating Rolvaag's home islands of Lofoton, as well as Rev. Xavier's home area of Lyngseidet. Olsen was also co-editor with Johnson for about twelve years of the Saami North American  newsletter Arran, in publishing projects involving Saami and Saami North American communities.
     Skjervold's posthumous book Alt for Norway (Minneapolis, MN: Birchpoint Press, 2013), is an in-depth review of World War II Norwegian resistance to the Nazi occupation (1940-1945). The book makes several references to the northern reaches of Norway, including the Sami areas.
[2c]  Rev. Karl Xavier "Nils Paul Xavier: En Skisse," ["Nils Paul Xavier: A Life Sketch"],  Nord-Norge  No. 12, Winter issue (December,1918), pp.14-17; 18.This skisse, or obituary essay, was accompanied on p. 18 by Rev. Xavier's unsigned poem, "Nils Paul Xavier In Memoriam."
     Prof. Rolvaag and Rev. Karl Xavier were colleagues on a number of  projects, notably Nord-Norge, where Xavier published letters, articles, and poetry. Most important of Karl Xavier's individual works, from the perspectives of history and literature, was the noteworthy obituary essay on his father, Nils Paul Xavier.
[2d]  John [Edward] Xavier, "Karl Xavier (1869-1924)," Arran No. 54 & 55 (2009-2010), pp. 5-8. This article is essentially biographical, stressing Rev. Xavier's roles as pastor, church leader, family man, and author. Rev. Xavier's worked as a prominent pastor in the Norwegian Lutheran Synod ("The Synod") from 1895-1924. His prolific career spanned nearly thirty years, and included a wide-ranging body of written work--including translation from Swedish and German into Norwegian.
     He published two major theological treatises, translated several works, authoring numerous essays and poems in several periodicals. Some of his earliest works arose from his twenties, appearing in print at the turn-of-the-century date of 1903, in a significant Norwegian-American anthology. See the Appendix for more detail.
     Author's Note:  Thanks to Arden Johnson, Editor emeritus of Arran (A Publication of the Sami Siida of North America ), and to Evelyn Ashford, current Editor, for their past encouragement, editorial assistance and current permission to use material previiously appearing in Arran.]
[2e] Ole E. RolvaagConcerning Our Heritage [Omkring Faedrearven], Solveig Zempel, Trans. and Ed. (Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1998), p. 151. Despite Karl Xavier's theological training and pastoral reputation, and extensive body of work, he seems to have been regarded by his contemporaries as much as a poet or essayist as a theological writer. Indeed,  Prof. Rolvaag referred to Rev. Xavier in his detailed review of Norwegian-American culture, as one of the "golden voices" of that culture. 
[2f] Archives, P584 Box 1, Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA).
     Following her graduation in 1920, Magdalene X. Visovatti continued her connection with Prof. Rolvaag as an editorial  colleague, and a sometime correspondent. Magdalene X. Visovatti also published poetry in Nord-Norge and Jul i vesterheimen, among other periodicals, under her self-modified birth name, as Magdalene Xavier. Her poetry will be published at a later date in this blog, in both Dano-Norwegian and English translation.

[3]  An example of that child-friendly framework is found the long-standing publication of a Norwegian Lutheran children's magazine Undommens Ven. That periodical was headquartered in Minneapolis and published by N.N. Ronning, who knew Prof. Rolvaag and was Karl Xavier's friend. (Ungdommens Ven was yet another publication in which some of Xavier's poetry appeared.) See, N.N. Ronning,  Fifty Years in America (Minneapolis, MN: Friend Publishing, 1938), pp. 151-156, 203-208. Ronning was acquainted with Prof. Rolvaag, and various members of the extended  Xavier family, including Prof. Laur Larsen (Karl Xavier's first father-in-law), Prof. H. H. Elstad of the Red Wing Seminary, and more. See also, a brief paragraph in the Appendix to this article.

[4a] John E. Xavier Ed., "Honoring Oliver Berg, United States Navy, Deceased, 1918: A Funeral Sermon Manuscript by Rev. Karl Xavier," forthcoming in this blog. In the fall of 1918, Oliver Berg died of the influenza. A Newman Grove, Nebraska, U.S. Navy serviceman, or "Jackie," Berg, succumbed to influenza at the Great Lakes training station near Chicago. Oliver Berg was a member of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, of Newman Grove (Bradish) then served by Rev. Karl Xavier, and his family had multiple connections to the nearby community, as well as to the Xavier family
[4b] John M. Barry,  The Great Influenza (New York: Viking/Penguin Group, 2004), p. 1. The influenza had reached international proportions, killing millions; more died worldwide from the epidemic than from World War I. Even high-ranking medical leaders in 1917-1918 despaired at the ferocity of the Influenza epidemic.
[4c] Pastor and poet Karl Xavier would have encountered childhood death from his own earliest days. The parsonage at the Fort Ridgely and Dale Church where he lived (1878-91) and grew up was next door to the church cemetery. That cemetery was thick with the gravestones on children.  According to Julie Grender and Abner Grender, in The History of the Fort Ridgely Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation (1958), the knowledge of one year alone, 1870, would have given Karl and his siblings much food for thought. (Furthermore, in 1887, Karl Xavier was at age 18 elected Secretary of the Fort Ridgely and Dale Church, where his duties would have included recording all deaths in the records of the parish. Grender & Grender, p. 13.)  "Grim" realities would have been the norm in the world of Karl Xavier, and as a pastor's son he would have been a close observer and witness of many funerals for children. The Grender's account lays out the stark realities of life and death in 1870:
The records of the ages of the deceased of the...year, 1870, silently tell a grim story of the hardships of those pioneer years and the high infant mortality. Their ages were: 47, 11/2, 31, 5, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 40, 3 weeks, 3 years, 1 year. (p.5)
[5a]  Ole E. Rolvaag, quoted in Gerald Thorson, Ed. Ole Rolvaag: Artist and Cultural Leader (Northfield, MN: St. Olaf College Press, 1975), p. 72.
[5b] http://www.mnhs.org/people/governors/gov/gov_33.htm , site visited May 10, 2012.
[5c]Also, see http://www,nytimes.com1990/12/21obituaries , site visited November 6, 2013.
     Karl Rolvaag was elected Lieutenant Governor in Minnesota on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket in 1960. At that time that office and the Governorship were voted on separately. Hence he served as Lieutenant Governor under Republican Governor Elmer L. Andersen, from 1961-1963, and went on to defeat Andersen for Governor in the famous 91-vote five-month recount victory of the 1962 election. See Appendix for further information on Karl Rolvaag.
[5d] Lois Pieper, "From the President of Vestlandet," Vestlandet, Vol. 30 (1986), pp. 1-2.
     Prof. and Mrs. Rolvaag had two children who survived into adulthood and had long lives: (Ella) Valborg (Rolvaag) Tweet, and Karl F. Rolvaag. Valborg Tweet was highly educated; her studies included a BA from St. Olaf College, two separate enrollments at the University of Oslo, and an MA in Scandinavian studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A scholar in her own right, she taught at UW-Madison, Luther College, and the University of Minnesota, and had a lifelong role in preserving, translating and publishing her father's works. 
     The Rolvaag's second child surviving into adulthood, Karl F. Rolvaag, became a well-known public figure. He made a long career in Minnesota politics in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, culminating in elective office as Lt. Governor (1955-1963), Governor (1963-1967), and railroad and Warehouse Commissioner, (1970-1975). He held appointive service as Ambassador to Iceland, where he served under both Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. See the Appendix for more information on Karl Rolvaag.
 
[6a] Frank Albert FetterEconomics in Two Volumes: Volume II Modern Economic Problems, (New York: The Century Co., 1916), Chapter 13, "Scientific Life Insurance," Section 2, "The Mortality Table." 
[6b]  http://www.aldoi.gov/pdf/consumers/mortalitytable2001.pdf , site visited 03/20/12. See appendix for further information on the topic of improved life expectancy for children since the 1920s.
  
[7a] Rev. Karl Xavier, "The Dying Mother," [1914] , pp. 18-20b; and "Froides Aasen In Memorium 1920", ibid.,  77-78b. 
[7b] Johan Ulrik Xavier, List of Nils Paul and Amanda Xavier's Descendents (Parkland, WA: J.U. Xavier, 1960), pp. 1, 9-10. 
     The name of the woman in "The Dying Mother" remains unknown at this time. She died soon after giving birth to a son, who apparently survived . She was most surely a member of the Immanuel-Our Saviors Parish near Bradish (Newman Grove) in northeastern Nebraska, served by Rev. Xavier in the decade 1910-1919 in Boone and Madison Counties. Several fires have decimated records of the Immanuel Parish, but we will correspond further in the future with that parish and other sources in an attempt to discover the name of this most unfortunate young woman. 
     Childbirth presented a number of medical challenges even in the early 1900s, as this was before the introduction of penicillin and sulfa drugs to combat infections. By way of example, I recall references to childbirth in that era expressed as variations on entering "the valley of the shadow of death."  Another important medical reality of  the early 1900s was that childbirth-related blood transfusions did not come into civilian medical practice until the post-World War I era, and was particularly rare in the rural areas, well into the late 1930s.
     Froides Aasen was a little niece, who died at age ten in 1920 of heart complications related to having been struck by whooping cough. Her mother was Marith (Xavier) Aasen, also known as Marit, a sister of Rev. Xavier. Marit was married to Rev. Anders Aasen in 1899, and together they served several parishes, living past the age of 100, into the 1970s.
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 Appendix

  Supplemental Historical and Bibliographical Information

Section A. Historical Information on the Prof. Rolvaag and Jennie (Berdahl) Rolvaag

     Here is some basic information on the details of the O.E. Rolvaag's family life. See Paulson's article, listed in Section B. below, for an excellent overview. We offer here two selections from Einar Haugen's 1983 work, Ole Edvart Rolvaag.
     Haugen in the first selection, makes note of the significance for Ole Rolvaag of a pair of 1905 decisions: 
One was to become engaged to Jennie Berdahl, whose background and interests were similar to his own and whose well-balanced common sense could offset his own temperamental ups and downs. The other was to plan for a career of teaching rather than preaching (though he never quite gave up the latter role), and specifically to become a professor of Norwegian language and literature. The college made him a loan for graduate study at the University of Oslo for 1905-06. On his return, he was appointed instructor at the college, which became his forum for the next quarter of a century. (pp.8-9)
     Again, I draw on Haugen for yet another insight about influence on him by his wife, Jennie. In a substantial sequence of pages commenting on Giants in the Earth, Haugen declares that Rolvaag had in his South Dakota in-laws a ready source of ideas, dialogue and landscape.
     In the Berdahl home, Rolvaag could literally tap a living source of pioneer history and thereby extend his perspective a generation back beyond the years he had himself lived, studied, and taught in the state....
     Rolvaag acknowledged his sources in an article in the Editor, stating that "some of the incidents--many of them, in fact--have actually happened; they are taken from stories told me."...Once he had started his writing, he felt the need to deepen his writing and went out to see some of the old-timers. [Haugen quotes Rolvaag from O.E. Rolvaag, "The Genesis of Giants in the Earth,"  Editor  78 (August 6, 1927), pp. 81-85], p. 83 in Ole Edvart Rolvaag)
 
Section B. Selected Annotated Bibliography on Ole E. Rolvaag

Note: The Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA) publishes from time to time collections in the journal, Norwegian American Studies, which was in early volumes titled Studies and Records.

     Ronald BarronA Guide to Minnesota WritersRevised and Expanded (Edina, MN: Burgess International Group, 1993), pp. 135-136. This valuable work includes bibliography and critical sources.
     Kenneth Bjork, "The Unknown Rolvaag: Secretary in the Norwegian-American Historical Association," Studies and Records, XI (1940), pp. 114-149. Comprehensive narrative of early years of the largest Norwegian historical group, and Rolvaags many contributins to NAHA.
     Theodore C. BlegenNorwegian Migration to America: The American Transition, Vol. 2. (Northfield, MN: NAHA, 1940), pp. 594-596. Blegen writes of Rolvaag's monumental Giants in the Earth: "Its truth was not merely that of a realistic portrayal of scenes and events, but ... that of a wise understanding of the psychological realities underlying the immigrant frontier experience." (p. 595)
     Lincoln Colcord, "Introduction,"  Giants in the Earth (New York: Harper's, 1927), pp. xi-xxii. Colcord discusses various aspects of the translation process as well as implications of the narrative. 
     Henry Steel Commager, "Human Cost of the West," Senior Scholastic, LVIII (February 1951), 10-11. One of the iconic historians of the U.S.A., Commager devoted much of his work to interpetation of economic trends and history of ideas. This brief mention of Rolvaag is compact and powerful in its understanding of the challenges of the American frontier.
     Einar Haugen, Ole Edvart Rolvaag, in Twayne's United States Authors Series, TUSAS 455, Leif Sjoberg, Ed. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983).
     __________, "O.E. Rolvaag: Norwegian-American," Studies and Records, VII (1933), pp. 53-73. Note: Studies and Records was the early name of the journal of the Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA), now known as Norwegian-American Studies.  Haugen's article and others in this volume of  Studies and Records were dedicated to the memory and honor of the then recently-deceased Rolvaag, recognizing both personal and literary accomplishments.
     ___________, "O.E. Rolvaag: The Man in His Work," in Ole Rolvaag: Artist and Cultural Leader,     Gerald Thorson, Ed. (Northfield, MN: St. Olaf College Press, 1975), pp.15-24. This publication of proceedings of a 1974 conference contains a number of worthy essays by modern scholars. Prof. Haugen, formerly of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was by 1974 associated with Harvard University. Haugen served as the lead specialist in the 1974 conference. He drew on both personal acquaintance with Rolvaag and his own lifetime of scholarship related to the Norwegian American experience. This valuable compendium has a three-page bibliographical section.
     Raychel A. Haugrud (aka Raychel Haugrud Reiff), "Rolvaag's Search for Soria Moria," Norwegian American Studies, XXVI (1974), pp. 103-117. Prof. Haugrud efficiently summarizes and interprets major themes across the spectrum of Rolvaag's work, along the lines of her doctoral thesis on Rolvaag.
     Theodore Jorgenson, "The Main Factors in Rolvaag's Authorship," Studies and Records, X (1938), pp. 135-151. Literary and personal aspects of Rolvaag's writings.
     Hanna Astrup Larsen, "Ole Edvart Rolvaag," American-Scandinavian Review XX (January 1932), pp. 7-9. Hanna Larsen was for over twenty years editor of the Review, and a sister of Rolvaag's faculty colleague, Karen Larsen. Both Hanna and Karen were half-sisters to Rev. Xavier's first wife, Henrietta. 
     Odd Sverre Lovell, A Folk Epic: The Bygdelag in America (Northfield, MN: NAHA in concert with Twayne, 1975), several pages. Lovell's views on the bygdelag organizations of the various regional Norwegian immigrant groups. This is a most valuable source on Norwegian Americans and their ethnic affinity groups, drawn from Lovell's PhD thesis.
     _______________, "The Bygdelag Movement," Norwegian American Studies, V. 25 (1972), pp. 3-26. See previous reference for Lovell.
   Olaf M. Norlie, et al., Who's Who Among Pastors in the Norwegian Lutheran Churches of North America (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1928), various pp. 
   Olaf M. Norlie, School Calendar: Teachers and Educators in Norwegian Lutheran Schools and Colleges(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1924), pp. 601, 793-794.
     Orm OverlandThe Western Home: A Literary History of Norwegian America (Northfield, MN: NAHA 1996). Overland's massive and detailed review gives considerable space to Rolvaag.
     Kristoffer F. Paulson, "Berdahl Family History and Rolvaag's Imigrant Trilogy," Norwegian-American Studies 27 (1977), pp. 55-76. This useful article in NAS can be viewed online at the site of the Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA). Site: www.naha.stolaf.edu/
     Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, III. (New York: 1930). Parrington gives an at-length evaluation of Giants in the Earth.
     Lois Pieper, "From the President of Vestlandet," Vestlandet, Vol. 30 (1986), pp 1-2. This is a newsletter rather typical of the bygdalag communications. Pieper's brief article introduces the readership to Valborg (Rolvaag) Tweet's upcoming appearance at a Vestland gathering.
     Paul ReigstadRolvaag: His Life and Art (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1972. This is a respected work with six pages of bibliographical material. 
     N.N. RonningFifty Years in America (Minneapolis, MN: Friend Publishing, 1938), pp. 203-208. N.N. Ronning recounts personal meetings with Rolvaag in addition to appraising his work.  Ronning (1870-1962) was yet another contemporary of the Rolvaag era and like Rolvaag, a friend of Karl Xavier. Ronning saw Rolvaag as one of the great voices of immigrant literature. Ronning, owner and editor of Friend Publishing, mellowed on his original objections to the rough-hewn characters of Giants in the Earth. Ronning interpreted Rolvaag's place as being at the very forefront of Norwegian-American history and culture.
     Nora Solum, "The Sources of the Rolvaag Biography," Studies and Records, XI (1940), pp. 150-159. Thorough essay on sources and materials for compiling biography of Rolvaag.
     Ella Valborg Tweet, "Recollections of My Father, O.E. Rolvaag," Minnesota English Journal, VIII, No. 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 4-16. Personal and literary insights.


Section C. Material on Author Rev. Karl Xavier and Translator Magdalene X. Visovatti


Rev. Karl Xavier (1869-1924), posthumous author of Norwegian Poems:

     Rev. Karl Xavier had two marriages, with the good fortune that both were love matches. The first marriage was to Henriette Elisabeth Randine (Larsen) Xavier (1865-1904), who died young, having been in frail health for some time The second marriage was to Bina Christine (Kamrud) Xavier (1880-1931).
     Henrietta, who died just under age 40, was a daughter of Luther College founding President, Prof. Laur Larsen and his first wife, Karen Randine (Neuberg) Larsen.  While Norlie's works offer substantial details, including education, publications, parishes served, and more, nonetheless, Henrietta ("Hennie") Xavier does not  figure in the Norlie works. Henrietta Xavier does receive mention in the the work of her younger half-sister, historian Karen Larsen, as listed below. She was remembered by Karen Larsen as a talented, world-travelled, and yet frail-of-health woman. Henrietta ("Hennie") and Karl had three children, Magdalene, Paul, and Peter.
     Bina, Xavier's second wife, was a daughter of Ivar and Marit (Hippe) Kamrud, of Pope County, Minnesota, near Starbuck and Glenwood. Bina was highly educated with teacher training from Mayville (ND) Normal School and Lutheran Normal School in Sioux Falls,, South dakotaand a leader in the field of choral music, where she and Rev. Xavier collaborated for years in the Omaha Choral Union. Her biographical information is included in Norlie's School Calendar. Together, this active and talented couple had seven children: Valborg, Anna, Bjarne, Karl Astrup, Valdemar, Mabel, and Borghild.
   Karl Xavier began publishing poetry early in life. So it was not only in middle age that Rev. Xavier was receiving notice for his activity in the poetry field. Some of Rev. Xavier's earliest work--translated and edited by Visovatti for Norwegian Poems--appeared in 1903 as part of a prominent anthology. See Dr. Ludvig Lima, Editor, Norsk-amerikanske digte i udvalg [Collected Norwegian-American Poetry(Minneapolis, MN: Ungdommens Ven Publishing Co., 1903), pp.335-340, 347.  Inclusion in this anthology was selective, counting as it did among the contributors such luminaries as Wm. Ager, and Johannes Wist.
 
Magdalene X. Visovatti, nee Karen Magdalena Xavier (1897-1988), translator and editor of Norwegian Poems:

     Magdalene X. Visovatti (also known as "Mag," "Maguie," or "Mugda") was the eldest daughter of Karl Xavier and Henriette. In 1927 she and Toffil Visovatti were married and raised three sons, Laurence, Raymond, and Dirk. She went by Magdalene X. Visovatti  following her marriage, having even by elementary grades school-age abandoned her birth name of Karen.
     Visovatti was for over forty years an educator with several degrees and certificates: studies at the Lutheran Normal School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; a BA from St. Olaf College, with teaching credentials; and, an MS (with thesis) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She had studied Norwegian under Prof. Rolvaag at St. Olaf, and in her early post-college years she published poetry in Norwegian. In the 1970s she translated from Norwegian to English a major article by Steen, on her grandfather, Rev. Nils Paul Xavier. She was active in many roles as a parochial school teacher and music educator in the Norwegian Lutheran communities, but her biography nonetheless does not appear in Norlie's comprehensive work, School Calendar.  
     Visovatti was a lively, creative, and wittily outspoken woman, gifted with intelligence and a great awareness of her extended family. As a literary free-spirit, editor, and translator, she was enamored for decades of the efficiency-driven language reform movement, known as the progressive spelling movement. The progressive spelling movement enjoyed a certain cachet, by such usage as "thru" for "through" and so on. That now-expired attempt at language reform has not endured to any great extent in  American usage, although it seems to be taking on a new form with electronic texting. In this blog progressive spelling is replaced wherever it appears by traditional spelling.
     Visovatti was for about nearly seventy years a positive matriarchal force in her extended Xavier family, and an early promoter of knowledge of the Saami origins of the extended Xavier family. In translating Norwegian Poems and thus facilitating the collection of Karl Xavier's poetry, Visovatti probably assembled the single largest collection of Saami American verse, as written in Norwegian.
     The manuscripts for Norwegian Poems had been lovingly and secretly preserved preserved for nearly sixty years by Visovatti's half-sister, Valborg Henrietta (Xavier) Houghtelin (1907-1992). Valborg had feared for the loss of her father's poems, due to the chaotic conditions that ensued when Rev. Xavier died suddenly in 1924. Valborg's action in saving her father's manuscripts was the key factor that ultimately culminated in Visovatti's translation project, Norwegian Poems.
     Valborg's concerns and preservation efforts were vindicated in the 1980s by the cooperation of several extended family members, notably two brothers and their wives: Rev. Karl Astrup and Edith (Bethke) Xavier; and Valdemar Ulrik and Elna (Johnson) Xavier. These two couples coordinated a major two-year effort to privately publish Mag's translations of Rev. Xavier's poems. Rev. Xavier's manuscripts are now in the possession of his grandson, the Rev. Dr. Joel V. Xavier.


Section D.  Information on Selected Persons or Topics from This Article

     Life Expectancy for Children in the Early 1900s

     Frank Albert Fetter, in his Economics in Two Volumes wrote, as could be anticipated for an economist, in an unadorned and matter-of-fact style about life expectancy for children. After all, he was publishing for the larger scope of economics and economists, not to compile history or the human interest stories of the harsh realities and sorrows obtaining for families who lost children to death at an early age. Here is a reasonable summary of Fetter's work in the area of child life expectancy (child mortality).
     Fetter's remarks are drawn from Sheppard Homans, The American Experience Table of Mortality  (1868). His remarks and tables point to an annual mortality (death) rate per 1,000 of 7.49 for a ten-year-old and a very similar mortality rate of 7.81 for a twenty-year-old. According to the Homans study, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a ten-year-old had a life expectancy of barely 61 whereas the twenty-year-old had a life expectancy of 62, no worse off than a child ten years the younger! 
     The American Experience Table of Mortality, almost exclusively based on male statistics, was considered the valid benchmark for U.S. life insurance industry use for more than a half-century. Well past the 1920s, insurance and actuarial firms relied on the work of Sheppard Homans.
     By way of comparison, with the bleak numbers just referred to, vast advances in child mortality have been made to our times. According to the Commissioners 2001 Standard Ordinary Mortality Table, [known as the 2001 C.S.O. Table] a ten-year-old male in the year 2001 has a mortality rate of .24 per 1,000 and a life expectancy of 75.9 years and a twenty-year-old male has a mortality rate of 1.00 with a life expectancy of 76.26 years. A truly shocking statistic, putting the 1920s life expectancy into perspective, is that one must be a 56-year-old male in 2001 to have the same mortality rate as a ten-year-old of the 1920s, and such a 56-year-old today still has a life expectancy of just under 80 years. 
     Earlier remarks have covered the specific experience gained by Karl Xavier in his youthful days in the world of the parsonage at the Fort Ridgely and Dale Church where he lived (1878-91) and grew up. Further experiences would arise later from family events, of which I choose only a couple of examples.
     Beyond the case of little Froides Aasen, the daughter of Rev. Anders O. and Marith (Xavier) Aasen,  childhood heart conditions were more common than one might think, even as late as the World War II era. Another such case nearly twenty years later was that of the Franklin, Minnesota family of Anton J. ("Tony") Brown Jr. and Lena (Roeber) Brown in the very late 1930s. Their newborn daughter, Ruth, suffered severe cardiac problems. Ruth Brown was a cousin of Edith Bonita (Bethke) Xavier, wife of Rev. Karl Astrup Xavier; Ruth lived only a year.
     Such was the brutal medical reality on the cusp of World War II, even as the top cardiologists in Minneapolis informed Tony and Lena that their Ruth had been born a generation too early. The cardiologists predicted they could help such babies a generation hence, and indeed that has proven to be the case. But during the lifetimes of Froides Aasen, and Ruth Brown, pediatric heart surgery in children had not yet attained the advanced state for which Minnesota has been renowned for well over thirty years.

     Froides Aasen (1910-1920)

     Froides was a niece of Rev. Karl Xavier through his sister Marith (Xavier) Aasen and her husband Anders O. Aasen. Froides had suffered heart damage from whooping cough and died at age ten in 1920, the same year that Prof. and Mrs. Rolvaag lost their son Paul, who was murdered. On the literary side of Rev. Xavier's poetry, much of the imagery of the Froides poem evokes that of the poem written in honor of Paul Rolvaag. An educated guess is that today Froides would have lived long, for whooping cough would have been wiped out as a disease.
 
     N.N. Ronning (1870-1962)

     To expand on an earlier mention, it is worthy of note that Ronning, in whose periodicals Prof. Rolvaag's work found favor, published several of Rev. Xavier's poems. Ronning, a publishing and public speaking whirlwind in the Norwegian-American Lutheran communities, was acquainted with Prof. Rolvaag and several members of the extended Xavier family. Ronning was widely known as respected, and was of the more intellectual side of the Hauge Synod, which was for the most part known for its austere and  pietistic approach to Lutheran spirituality.
     Among Ronning's acquaintances were Karl's daughter, Magdalene, both of Karl's wives, Henriette (Larsen) and Bina (Kamrud); Prof. Laur. Larsen, Rev. Xavier's first father-in-law; and various members of the Elstad family, prominent in the Hauge [Lutheran Church] Synod. The Hagen Elstad extended familes were also a major presence near Franklin, in Renville County, Minnesota. The Hagen Elstads were situated about two miles down Renville County rural roads from the Ft. Ridgely and Dale Church where N.P. and Amanda Xavier served from 1876-1891, and about the same distance from the home of Herman and Louisa Bethke, grandparents of Edith Bonita Bethke, future wife of Karl Astrup Xavier. 
     The old Hauge Synod was yet another of the half-dozen major Norwegian Lutheran church groups. Anna (Norum) Elstad, a sister of N.P. Xavier's wife, Amanda Magdalena (Norum) Xavier, and therefore an aunt of Karl Xavier, was married to Prof. H. H. Elstad. He was a Hauge Synod layman but also a respected professor at the Red Wing (Minnesota) Seminary of the Hauge Synond. (Ronning, 151-156).


     Karl F. Rolvaag (1914-1990)

     Karl Rolvaag was the sole son of Prof. Rolvaag and Jennie Rolvaag to survive to adulthood. He had a long public service career, beginning soon after World War II, during which he served in a tank outfit as an officer (Lieutenant). He left military service after the war, spent time in Norway studying the political system there, and entered elective politics in Minnesota. He rose rapidly in the newly-formed fusion party known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party.
     The DFL had been forged largely due to the efforts of Hubert H. Humphrey and his backers, including Eugene McCarthy, Orville Freeman, and many more. Karl Rolvaag's political career culminated in high elective office, including Lieutenant Governor (1955-63) and Governor (1963-67). He earned the office of Governor only in the wake of the historic Minnesota five-month vote recount, when he prevailed by 91 votes over incumbent Gov. Elmer L. Andersen.
     Due to his personal knowledge of Norse history and culture, as well as his prominence in DFL politics, Karl was appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson as United States Ambassador to Iceland. He continued in that role under the early years of the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, serving until 1973. Following that time as Ambassador to Iceland, Karl was elected in Minnesota as board member of the state Public Utilities Commission, or PUC, serving from 1973-1975. The PUC was at that time a major regulatory  body for such utilities as gas, electric, water, or other infrastructure corporations.


Bibliography for Appendix Sections C and D:


     Frank Albert FetterEconomics in Two Volumes: Volume II Modern Economic Problems, (New York: The Century Co., 1916), Chapter 13, "Scientific Life Insurance," Section 2, "The Mortality Table." 
    Julie Grender and Abner Grender, in The History of the Fort Ridgely Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation (1958). 
     Suzanne Heiss, "Norwegian Poems Come to Life In English," Lake Country Living (No City, WI., September 23, 1982), no. page. Local weekly newspaper interview and news story about Magdalene X. Visovatti and her translation work for Norwegian Poems.
     Karen LarsenLaur. Larsen: Pioneer College President (Northfield, MN: Norwegian American Historical Association, 1936), pp. 277, 284, 335.
     Dr. Ludvig Lima, Editor, Norsk-amerikanske digte i udvalg [Collected Norwegian-American Poetry(Minneapolis, MN: Ungdommens Ven Publishing Co., 1903), pp.335-340, 347.  This work is found in the NAHA archives in Northfield.
     N.N. Ronning, Fifty Years in America (Minneapolis, MN: Friend Publishing, 1938), pp. 151-156, 203-208.
     Edith Bonita (Bethke) XavierPersonal discussions with John E. Xavier about her deceased baby cousin Ruth Brown's congenital heart condition. Notes in possession of the author. Ruth is buried next to her parents, Anton J. and Lena (Roeber) Brown, in the Franklin Cemetery, just over two miles west of Franklin, Minnesota (Renville County).
     Rev. Karl XavierNorwegian Poems (Albert Lea, MN: V.U.A.H. Xavier, 1982), pp 1, 43a-43b.
     Johan U. Xavier, List of Descendants of Nils Paul and Amanda Xavier (Tacoma, WA: 1960), pp. 1, 6-8.
     John [Edward] Xavier, "Karl Xavier (1869-1924)," Arran No. 54 & 55 (2009-2010), pp. 5-8.

     Digital references:

     http://www.aldoi.gov/pdf/consumers/mortalitytable2001.pdf  Site visited 03/2/12.
     www.naha.stolaf.edu/archivesdata/leif/results.cfm.Site visited 03/30/13.
     http://www.mnhs.org/people/governors/gov/gov_33.htm Site visited 05/10/12.