One of Richard’s sons, my great grandfather Will, was born in WI, was a young teen when they went on to MN, helped his father and brothers break prairie on the incredibly rich soil of Mower County, and as a young man had his own farm. As it happens, Will didn’t like farming and, according to one of his daughters, Helen, whose letter to my father I have, wasn’t very good at it, either. Will seems to have been very religious (well, they all were, but Will very much so) and sort of passive, but his wife Callie – born in Alabama of Connecticut/RI parents who, for reasons that flummox me, had moved to Alabama as young marrieds, and then she as a little girl came from Alabama with her parents to Mower County after the CW – well, Callie was a force of nature, and thanks to her, she and Will sold their Mower County farm, moved to a college town where Will painted houses; all but the eldest of their 10 children – a girl who never married and always stayed with her parents – went to college, even the girls. Callie saw to that.
So, where was I going? Notice that Richard moved to WI and MN just after each had gained statehood, felled woods in Wauwatosa, and broke prairie where Indians had recently been removed as a serious threat to white settlers. In other words, he worked his ass off but also benefited (shrewdly) from “being there first.” His sons did, too. (His other sons – less Henry, who died in the CW – were more ambitious than Will. For instance, one went to Nevada as a young man, made a lot of money from silver mining and, returning to MN, bought a number of farms in Mower County and became very wealthy in a farm-owning way (he also worked his own). Another introduced – get this! – commercial hog farming to MN! That one also served in the MN legislature. He also lost both his daughters, his only children.)
Will and Callie retired to San Diego (that’s a story in itself, involving Callie’s “bachelor uncle” Mower Country farmer who left everything to Callie, so they could afford this move), followed by two other sons, one of whom became one of the first farmers in the Imperial Valley. My father’s aunt Helen wrote him about this – in his old age my father took an interest in family history. I love Helen’s letters – that New England wryness with the added lightheartedness of the Midwest. She delighted that this brother of hers in the Imperial Valley “grew asparagus for the eastern market!” (Exclamation mark: hers.)
So, back to the subject of Nordic MN and beyond. My NE Anglo ancestors in MN were, by my father’s generation, blithely marrying Nordic folks (and Jews and Muslims – more stories there). But in those earlier days, many of the Anglo New Englanders had gotten there first and owned the best land and were the dreaded bankers.