Bringing a family tree to life

Alex woman has done extensive family research

BY JULIE PARENT

Gloria Zeimetz of Alexandria holds one of her extraordinary scrapbooks which includes dates and places, letters, photos and more. Photo by Julie Parent.

Some of the words used to describe Gloria Zeimetz of Alexandria include wife, retiree, and family historian. She has spent countless hours documenting her family history in 13 beautiful scrapbooks. Her roots can be traced back as far as her great-grandfather, Olof E. Norling, who emigrated from Sweden to America in the late 1800s.

Olof was born in Gnarp Parish, Halsingland, Sweden on Nov. 26, 1849. According to Gloria, Olof got on a ship to travel from Sweden to America for the first time when he was 21 years old. After disembarking the ship, probably somewhere on America’s East Coast, Olof traveled to Lansing, Iowa. In 1872, he moved to Clay County in South Dakota. Olof married Cathrine in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1879. They took a horse and buggy to the Black Hills for their honeymoon. On March 25, 1883, Olof acquired a patent for the land in rural Beresford, South Dakota that became his family’s homestead. Most likely, he received this patent because of the federal Homestead Act of 1862, which Google’s English dictionary provided by Oxford Languages defines as, “An area of public land in the West (usually 160 acres) granted to any US citizen willing to settle on and farm the land for at least five years.”

Gloria Zeimetz’s great-grandparents, Olof and Cathrine Norling, going on their Black Hills honeymoon in 1879. Contributed photo.

While traveling on a ship in May 1904, Olof wrote a letter (Gloria has preserved) to let his relatives know he was still alive. Although some of the ink has faded, the letter is in excellent condition. Olaf wrote the letter seven days into his journey. In the letter which Gloria had translated by a relative, he described the service as good. However, the beds were poor. He slept on a board without a mattress. He laid his head on straw, and he had a blanket. There were 24 people in one cabin. People from many other countries were on the ship. To stay in America, people were required to be healthy when they arrived so they could earn a living. Olof wrote that there was an old lady with a limp on the ship who was told to throw herself overboard, because that was the best she could do. He described one of the men on the ship as a pirate. For entertainment, the passengers sang and danced to accordion music. Olof did not like the food, the coffee, or the tea on the ship, and he was grateful he did not suffer from any seasickness.

Olof and Cathrine had four children. They named their daughter Hulda and their sons Arvid, Victor, and Oscar. Hulda moved to Montana and got married. Arvid farmed near Olof’s homestead. Victor, a United States Army private, was killed in action in World War I in September 1918. His body was buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, in Romagne, France. Oscar was born on the homestead on April 13, 1885. He remained living there for his entire life.

The land five miles west of Beresford, South Dakota, that Olof Norling homesteaded on March 25, 1883. Contributed photo.

Alma, the daughter of Karl and Ingeborg Johanson, was born May 7, 1888, in Hovermo, Jämtland County, Sweden. Alma was not planning to emigrate to America. Her sister was supposed to go, but she couldn’t travel. Alma took her place when she was 28 years old. Her older brothers, Sven and Karl, had emigrated to America years earlier. She lived with one of her brothers across the street from Oscar. Alma and Oscar met when she went to get the mail. Oscar and Alma were married on Sept. 22, 1914, in Sioux City, Iowa. Before coming to America, Alma had a daughter out of wedlock named Anna. Anna lived in Sweden with her grandmother until 1925 when she emigrated to America at the age of 17. Alma also gave birth to Violet on the homestead on April 5, 1916.

Violet married Arno Heidebrecht on Nov. 20, 1937, in Havre, Montana. He was 22 years old, and she was 21 years old. Arno had gone to college in Havre and was a businessman. They spent the early years of their marriage living in California and Oregon. Violet’s father Oscar died of a heart attack on Nov. 24, 1941. Because of his death, Arno and Violet decided to move to the homestead to farm in 1942. Arno had never farmed before, but he learned and did the best he could for 27 years. Gloria said he grew corn, beans, and oats, and raised cows, pigs, and chickens. When he was done farming, he managed motels until he retired.

Hulda, Catherine, Olof, Arvid, Victor, and Oscar Norling. Contributed photo.

Gloria was one of Arno and Violet’s nine children. Although the original home has been burned down, she has fond memories of living, working, and playing on the homestead with her siblings. Gloria’s two most vivid memories are when they got Rusco windows in 1950 and that her brother drove her to school in her mother’s Ford Model T car. Gloria liked spending time with her grandmother who walked everywhere in heels. She said her grandmother was, “One of the best grandma’s you could ever have.”

The land Olof acquired 142 years ago has been passed down from generation to generation. Currently, Gloria’s brother Larry owns the land, and his grandson farms it. Olof, Cathrine, Alma, Oscar, and many of their deceased family members are buried in the Hovde Cemetery approximately seven miles from Beresford.

Gloria loves looking at the old black and white photographs of her ancestors and thinking about everything they went through before having modern conveniences, such as electricity, forced air heating, and indoor plumbing. To Gloria, a woman of faith, the memories kept in her scrapbooks detailing her family tree are proof that, “God puts everything in place.”