I Carried It With Me


– to carry two countries within oneself, with memories, church song, and love

Bertha from Balestrand left for America—against her will—at the age of eighteen. The entire family traveled, urged on by her stepmother Britta: her father, her stepmother, two younger siblings, and two uncles who had already emigrated and were visiting Balestrand.

“Now she sat in America, an old woman, looking out at another garden, in another country, with different birds. But the fjord was there before her—not in reality, but as a clear and burning image. And in her mind the story began again, as it so often did when she sat like this: the day her uncles came home, with polished boots, speaking of something great that awaited on the other side of the world.” (p. 76 in Remember the Ladies!)

Bertha lost her mother when she was still very young and grew up with her grandmother Tolvang and her father, Johannes, who was a woodcarver. He had studied in Germany, built a distinctive house with a woodworking workshop, spacious rooms, and running water, and made sure that Bertha received private lessons from the pastor’s wife, Mrs. Sverdrup, before she began school—and that she later learned English in Nordfjordeid.

I Amerika møter Bertha kjærleiken, i kyrkjekoret. Ho og mannen hennar får dottera Jane. Dei lever eit stille liv, først i Seattle og seinare i Memphis, Tennessee – ein stad mange av oss nok kjenner att og nikkar til, takka vere Chuck Berry og Elvis.

Bertha Sylliaasen er ei av dei kvinnene som slo seg ned og fann seg heime i Amerika. Ei kvinne som syng, og som kjem attende til Balestrand og ser utover fjorden saman med barnebarnet sitt. Og barnet spør: ”Bestemor, har du sakna det her?” […]. Bestemor Bertha svarer: ”Eg har bore det med meg.” (s. 89).

^{In the days leading up to Christmas, we meet one of the book’s ten Norwegian women each day. They represent a large and diverse group of female voices that are only now, at the 200th anniversary of Norwegian emigration to America, beginning to be heard.}

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