Can you imagine as a young girl running for your life and hiding in cellars hoping the soldiers wouldn’t find you? That’s what happened to a woman in this area, who only agreed to tell her story if she could remain nameless because even today she fears she could be arrested and taken back to Russia to face the crime of escaping from there. She’s now 81 years old and has been living in America for 63 years. She was born in 1937 and lived with her mom in Ukraine and Poland and

German singer who performed in New Ulm decides to move to the area a few years later Angela Jahr liked the area so much when she performed at Heritagefest in New Ulm, she and her husband moved to the area from Germany. Photo by Carlienne Frisch Fifteen years ago, when Angela Jahr came with a band from Germany to perform at festivals, such as Heritagefest in New Ulm, she wasn’t thinking of moving to southern Minnesota. Three years later, she and her husband, Klaus, immigrated

Connecting the dots on a family’s immigration story This is a story of connections that span an ocean. In Norway there’s Simon Bjørklund and in America there’s his third cousin, Sara Torvik, an Underwood native now living in Maryland. Last year, Simon came to Minnesota to see where members of his family immigrated in the late 1870s. Sara called on her cousins and their wives – Chet and Marlys Habberstad and Richard and Elle Habberstad all from Underwood – to assist. They migh