Back to their roots

Carol Canfield’s five children gave her and her husband a special gift for their 50th wedding anniversary in 1999.

The gift was money to travel anywhere they pleased. But he was ill with cancer and wasn‘t up to traveling and died in 2002. Canfield, of Marysville, Wash., was left to consider where she should go.

She first went on a bluegrass cruise, a Heritage of America tour in the eastern part of the U.S., Mexico and to England, in part to search for where her husband’s ancestors came from. Canfield then decided to add western North Dakota to her travels.

Canfield made the decision, along with some prompting from her daughters, Melissa Jones and Carolyn Cole, and cousin Roseanne Bliss, to visit where her parents once farmed in Spring Brook. Bliss is originally from Grafton.

This past Wednesday, Canfield, Jones and Cole arrived in Williston by train, and Bliss met them from Minneapolis. The group took a rental car the next day and drove about 18 miles outside of Williston to find the land.

They stepped out of the car once they found it and gazed over the land, bracing the strong, chilly wind that sunny Thursday morning. Canfield, 82, had chosen to see her parents’ former land as a place to visit before she died.

“I just feel like I’ve achieved my goal. It makes me sad to think of how they had to leave it,” Canfield said.

Jones had the same somber feelings.

“I think of how desolate it must have been then,” Jones said.

Canfield’s North Dakota roots

Canfield’s parents, Jean and Helga Swanson, met at a coffee shop in Minneapolis. Jean was from Sweden and he came to the United States with his parents when he was 16. Helga lived in Minnesota.

Jean Swanson moved to North Dakota because he apparently found farm land that was relatively inexpensive, Canfield said. Helga Swanson traveled to Williston, where the couple were married in 1926. They bought a 200-acre farm in rural Spring Brook in 1933 and farmed mostly wheat. The family also had cows, chickens, pigs and the occasional turkeys.

“I remember being chased by a turkey,” Canfield said laughing.

She and her sister, Arlene, were students at the East Fork School. During the harsh winters, their mother would heat bricks and wrap them in blankets so the girls could warm their feet on the horse-drawn sled ride to school.

Helga Swanson sewed often and would receive silk dresses from her cousin, who worked at Munsingwear Inc. in Minneapolis.

“Mother would make two little silk dresses out of them (the larger dresses),” Canfield said.

The persistent drought of the 1930s eventually forced the family to leave the farm.

“We would wait and wait for the rain,” Canfield said, as she and her sister would run outside and play excitedly when it did rain.

She also remembers the infestation of grasshoppers and how they ruined crops.

In 1937, the Swanson farm was foreclosed. The drought destroyed the crops and the family couldn’t make a living, said Canfield. In August 1937 when Canfield was 10 years old and her youngest sister Vonnie was 2 months old, the family moved to Washington state, where the parents heard it was greener due to the abundance of rain. This is where they stayed to farm.

Back to their roots

Canfield, her daughters and cousin really wanted to see more of the land where the Swansons had farmed so many decades ago. But a sign declared “no trespassing.” It had a name, Irgens.

The family then visited Epping, and between using a Blackberry to find the right Irgens (it turned out to be Tom) and meeting people at the Buffalo Inn Cafe, they contacted Irgens.

Irgens was more than happy to take the family to the center of the property. He pinpointed where the house had been and he filled them in on more of the history of the property. He also gave them a brick and leather strap from it.

“He was so receptive and anxious to take us out and show us,” Canfield said.

The family spent nearly two hours with Irgens, she said. Canfield felt satisfied to see more of the land.

“It was just wonderful. It makes me sad and happy at the same time,” she said, sad to think of her parents having to pick up and move from the land, but happy because they’d had a good life.

Seeing more of North Dakota

Before Canfield and her daughters return to Washington state, they planned to visit Bismarck, Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. They will then drive to Billings, Mont., and fly back home.

This past Thursday, Cole said she preferred Washington state to North Dakota because of the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

However, “it’s important for me to be here. I want to see why they moved here,” Cole said of her grandparents.