Our American Ancestry

Lars Hanson Habberstad and Gorine Olson

Thirty-two years ago, I started to dream about Lars. His hair and beard were reddish and his farming clothing was from 1800’s. In my first dream, I was shocked to see him in the midst of deaf people at a party. I ran to him and said to him “Lars, where is the cemetery?” He looked at me with his piercing eyes and laughed and vanished into the thin air.

It all began when I started to look for Lars and Gorine’s burial site in 1978 and based on the information I received from my grandmother, Eleanor Klepper, Lars immigrated to America from Norway in 1868 and the rest of his family by 1871. They were our first American ancestors on my mother’s side. I wrote a letter asking for an information on my great, great, great grandparents’ burial location to many counties in Wisconsin. After a year and half of sending letters, I finally received a letter with the information. It was at Riverside Cemetery in Stoughton in the eastern part of Wisconsin. My children and I went to Wisconsin to visit Bob and Miriam in Platteville with a stopover at the cemetery about 80 miles off from the interstate to Platteville in the summer of 1980. My sister-in-law, Cecilia, also was with us. The additional miles to the cemetery was worth it. This cemetery was a big one; rows after rows of headstones, we hunted for their names.  Finally, we found them and I got goose bumps when I thought of Lars being six feet down from me.

Lars Hanson Habberstad was born in Ulensager, Norway, February 2, 1823. He was a carpenter and at the age of 24 years he married Gorine Olson also of Ulensager, who was 22 years old.

The first 19 years of their marriage life was spent in Norway and during that time eight children were born; three sons and five daughters, namely, Andrea, Olova, Theodore, Karen, Gorine, Lena, Ole and Hans.

In 1868, Lars immigrated to America and came to Wisconsin where he was employed on a large farm near Cooksville. Six months later he sent for his eldest son, who also worked on the farm. In 1871, Gorine and the youngest five children join them. The family lived near Cooksville for five years and then bought a farm of 100 acres west of Brooklyn in Wisconsin. Lars died there in 1893, and after two years on the farm, Gorine then lived with her daughter, Karen for twenty years until her death in 1914 at the age of 90.

Andrea, my great, great, great, grandmother, is at far right under the letter X.

My daughter, Amelia, has her middle name named after her great grandmother who also had Andrea as her middle name. Few years later, I realized that Andrea was one of the children immigrated with Gorine to America from Norway in 1871 and Kristine, the daughter of Andrea, used Andrea as a middle name for my grandmother, Eleanor. I hope next generation will continue to use Andrea to continue the family tradition. Also for your information, I have this family lineage all the way to 1300’s.