Listen to the voices of Norwegian emigrant women during the Christmas holidays and again in 2026 — and don’t forget March 8!

Here in December 2025, we have met ten Norwegian women who represent many of the 750,000 Norwegians who emigrated—and whose lives were shaped by dramatic journeys, adventurous events, great dreams, freedom, poverty, harsh working conditions, heavy losses, and painful memories. The voices, memories, experiences, and everyday lives of these ten women form the substance of the book "Remember the Ladies!"

Listen during the Christmas holidays to the podcast Vågespel and to the powerful storytelling voices of Reidun Horvei and Ragnhild M. Gudbrandsen here: https://vaagespel.no/podkast/.

The ten women in the book—and the podcast—travel across the Atlantic to a new life and a new language in America, except for Charlotte Sofie Vik, who, as a child, was left alone with two small siblings, abandoned by emigrating parents, and who burns the two letters that arrived from America, unopened.

Most of the women in "Remember the Ladies!" remain in America for the rest of their lives:

• Anna Tobiasen from Uskedalen became a grocery store owner in Longview for 29 years together with her American husband, held positions in the Lutheran church, and maintained contact with both her family in Norway and Norwegian traditions.
• Bertha Sylliaasen from Balestrand—who had emigrated against her will together with her family—was well educated and worked as a domestic servant in affluent households, and later traveled back to Norway by airplane to visit her home village together with her grandchild.
• Nellie Blomelie from Aga in Fitjar arrived in America as Pernille Henrikke, joining her mother and six siblings. She married the Norwegian Olav, became a pastor’s wife and the mother of four daughters, and later—as a widow—traveled back to Norway to visit.
• Gjertine Karia Hjortedal from Huftarøy traveled alone to America as a fully trained nurse. She married the Norwegian Øystein, who owned land and wanted chickens, and they moved far out into the countryside. They got eight chicks, which she saved from being swallowed by a snake, and Gjertine gave birth to her child alone at home with a neighboring woman while Øystein was away trying to find a doctor.
• Lena Silver Lyngdal from Snartemo in Hægebostad took in “patients” and, with great compassion, ran a “hospital” in her own home. She was left alone with three children after her Norwegian-Swedish husband disappeared from her life.
• Sigurda Aamot from Samnanger traveled to America alone with her young son, married the Norwegian Olav and had two more children, became a caretaker and folk dance teacher, and later became active in the Daughters of Norway.
• Sigrid Ohrt from Eidsnes traveled with her mother and siblings in 1901, at the age of ten, to join her father who had gone ahead. She married a man of German descent and later returned to Norway for a visit in 1971, after having run a hotel in Bremerton and lived and worked in Tacoma, Seattle, and Bellingham.

Others returned to Norway after spending many or few years of their lives in America:

• Severine Seljestad emigrated and worked as a lady’s companion, then returned home—after nine years—to work at her sister’s café in Odda, and later moved back to her childhood home in Seljestad.
• Elise Myklebust from Valldalen caught the travel bug after visits from two emigrated sisters and left in 1914, returning home in 1917—just one year after marrying her Norwegian husband, Olaf. In America she had worked as a domestic servant and cook, and back in Norway she and her husband took over her in-laws’ farm in the Sunnmøre region, where Elise baked American apple pie on weekends.

Other Norwegian women in "Remember the Ladies!" also set out on journeys of discovery to America, helping to pave the way. One of them was Agnes Mathilde Wergeland, who became a professor of history and languages at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1903 (Hugs kvinnene, p. 21). She was already familiar with Wyoming, in the heart of America—the first state to grant women the right to vote. She was also the first Norwegian woman to earn a doctorate, in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1890, and traveled to America that same year. (The Wergeland name comes from her father, who was a cousin of Henrik Wergeland and Camilla Collett; see the Norwegian Biographical Dictionary.) Another was a well-known and widely traveled female author who left for America in 1913 with a travel grant in her pocket—to unveil a statue of Ivar Aasen in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. She wrote articles back home for Morgenbladet, according to the Norwegian Encyclopedia, about Hulda Garborg. Her visit to America is described by Birgit Jaastad in "Remember the Ladies!" (pp. 23–24).

Here in December, I have written the ten short texts about Norwegian women’s journeys, experiences, and lives connected to the great emigration to America, while also traveling myself on short, slow study journeys to Germany and Denmark—by boat, train, and bus—and meeting many Norwegians and Danes with emigrated family members. And on a train in Northern Jutland, I met an American woman, Nancy, who had visited her grandfather’s farm in Løkken, Northern Jutland.

Across the Nordic countries, we are connected by a long and rich history of emigration and by many shared experiences, encounters, and memories that emigration—and return migration—have brought us, many of which we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Dive in, read, and listen to "Remember the Ladies!". And mark March 8, 2026, in your calendar already! And keep the word “premiere” tucked behind your ear!

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