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Recollections Of Two Immigrant Sisters, James D. Iversen

The Bridge

My father's family were among those thousands of Danes who made their decision to emigrate to America in the last decade of the nineteenth century. On March 28, 1893, Peter Iversen and wife Kirstine and children Christine, 12 years, Karen, 10, Katherine, 8, Marie, 6, Mikkel, 5 and Laura, not quite 3 years old, sailed from Copenhagen on the "Thingvalla." The came first to Sioux CIty, Iowa, where Kirstine's brother Graves Mikkelsen had settled earlier. Times were not prosperous in 1893 in Sioux City, however so the family soon moved to a homestead site in Buffalo County, South Dakota, about …

Danish Immigrant Archival Listing, Arnold Bodtker, Thorvald Hansen

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The Danish Immigrant Archival Listing (DIAL) is a reference book, and guide, which will enable scholars, researchers and others to know something of the existence and whereabouts of source material related to the Danish immigrant in America. This 300 page hard-cover book is a comprehensive listing of books, periodicals, manuscripts, pamphlets, letters, documents, scrapbooks, pictures, and similar items.

Devastation In Tyler, Jens B. Johansen, Thorvald Hansen, Translator

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During the evening of August 21, 1918, the community of Tyler, Minnesota, was struck by a severe tornado. Many people were killed, many more injured, and the damage to property was tremendous. The letter, written in Danish, which follows is a first-hand account of what that thriving community looked like after the storm. In some places this account is gruesome, in other places it is subtly humorous, and in all places it is a graphic presentation of the havoc that can be wreaked in a few moments.

Peter Larson -- Danish Immigrant Entrepreneur, Henry Jorgensen

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Eighty years ago, on July 13, 1907, Helena residents picked up their newspaper, the Helena Independent and read these front-page headlines:

"PETER LARSON DIES AT HIS HOME IN HELENA."

"A CALAMITY TO THE WHOLE NORTHWEST."

"The Man Who at the Age of Twenty Was Still a Danish Peasant is Remembered by Thousands for His Benefactions" . . ."Contractor and Master Business Man."

Karl Jensen's Diary

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Karl Jensen wrote the following diary in Danish during his journey to America in 1903. He was born in Lynga in Jutland in 1873, and from 1903 until his death in 1948 he was a chicken-farmer in Enumclaw, Washington. In the diary he take considerable pride in the fact that during the entire voyage he did not suffer from seasickness. The reason for this is that as a young man he served as a seamannon merchant ships in the Mediterranean and Pacific. On one voyage his ship entered Puget Sound. This fact and the presence of a substantial Danish colony …