Thor Helgeson: Schoolmaster and Raconteur

Abstract

by EINAR HAUGEN 1 Thor Helgeson : Schoolmaster and Raconteur IN Wisconsin, 1923 Waldemar newspaper Ager, Reform editor announced of the Eau the Claire, comWisconsin , newspaper Reform , announced the coming appearance in his paper of a series of yarns about early settlers of Waupaca County, in the northeastern part of the state. The author, Ager wrote, was Thor Helgeson of loia, who had already published two collections of such accounts and was "an excellent storyteller." Ager, himself a novelist and a connoisseur of humor, described Helgeson as "the P. C. Asbj0rnsen of the Norwegians in America." This critical judgment - a little presumptuous, to be sure - put him in a class with the greatest narrative genius of Norwegian folklore , co-author of the classic collection of tales first published in 1842 by Asbj0rnsen and his collaborator, Jorgen Moe. A year and a half later Ager again announced a series of Helgeson's tales, amplifying his earlier praise: "These are not exactly events calculated to set the world on fire; but, as contributions to the understanding of life as it was lived by the pioneers, they are something virtually unique. For there exists only one single such old and wise schoolteacher in all of Norwegian America as Helgeson. And his incomparable memory has become a veritable treasure trove from which he can ladle out endlessly." In November, 1926, Ager again brought his readers a large collection of Helgeson's anecdotes. 8 Einar Haugen Apropos of the recent founding of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, Ager commented: "History is now being written. . . . [Scholars] have dusted through archives and libraries both here and in Norway to gather information about the early immigrants. But how these lived their daily lives, the language they employed, the thoughts they thought, the fun they had - to learn about these things, one has to seek out such sources as Thor Helgeson. He is an old man himself and has spent almost his entire life as a NorwegianAmerican schoolteacher, and he has heard more and remembers better than anyone else. . . . For future Norwegian -American authors Helgeson's notations will be a gold mine." In 1927 Helgeson was awarded a prize for his literary work by Det Norské Selskab i Amerika, a society in which Ager was very influential.1 Ager's repeated praise of Helgeson has not been matched by any corresponding recognition of his writing in the years since the 1920's. One good reason was that there were no "future Norwegian-American authors." After World War I the use of Norwegian in school and church declined sharply, and the authors who made their mark were those who had entered the field before 1914, such as Ager himself, O. A. Buslett, Simon Johnson, and O. E. Rplvaag. But even in the works published by the Norwegian-American Historical Association , in which virtually every Norwegian of any note has been given his meed of praise, Helgeson has been ignored; as far as I can discover, his name is not mentioned in any publication of the Association. He neither founded churches nor built empires; he was only a parochial schoolteacher in a frontier Wisconsin community. 1 Minutes of Det Norské Selskab for June 2, 1927, preserved in the archives of the Norwegian-American Historical Association at St. Olaf College, Northfield , Minnesota; files of Reform in the Luther College Library, Decorah, Iowa; Helgeson's scrapbook and unpublished manuscripts put in the author's hands by Floyd Helgeson, the late Arnold Helgeson, and other members of the family; information supplied by Malcolm Rosholt, a devoted student of the "Indianland " area; additional data from the Reverend Vern H. Hoi tan, who at one time served as pastor of North New Hope Church in Rosholt; and the co-opera4 THOR helgeson: schoolmaster and raconteur In the last decade of his long and fruitful life, however, Helgeson committed to paper a treasury of folklore in the best sense of the word, reflecting the fates and foibles of Norwegian immigrants more faithfully, and often more amusingly , than any other source I know. His production - the part that has been preserved - has suffered the misfortune of not being published or of "being buried in books that were circulated only...