Funding for encoding this finding aid was
provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
Biographical Note
Ella Duus was born on January 5, 1882 or 83
in Stavanger, Norway. Her father was a carpenter and telegraph employee and
died when Ella was only six months old. Ella had three older brothers and two
older sisters, but the younger of the two sisters died young, and Ella can
hardly remember her. Ella's brothers came to America first and made a home for
the family in WA, but Ella's oldest sister, Anne, decided to settle in
Minneapolis while visiting an aunt there. Ella emigrated around 1902 with her
mother when she was nineteen, and her mother died not long after the journey.
Once in America, Ella met her husband through her brothers. They were married
in 1904, and Ella eventually became an American citizen through him. Ella and
her husband were married for sixty-four years and never had any children. After
he passed away, Ella returned to Denmark to visit his family, but she never
returned to Norway.
Lineage
Full Name: Ella
Duus. Maiden Name: Ella Fjermsted. Brothers and Sisters: There were two sisters
and three brothers. Anne Fjermsted
Content Description
This interview was conducted with Ella Duus on June 8, 1978. She was living
at Josephine Sunset Home in Stanwood, WA at the time, and the interview
contains information on family background, emigration, and Norwegian heritage.
The interview was conducted in English.
Use of the Collection
Restrictions on Access :
The oral history collection
is open to all users.
Restrictions on Use :
There are no
restrictions on use.
Administrative Information
Custodial History :
The Oral History collection
project was started during an experimental course on Scandinavian Women in the
Pacific Northwest. Students in the course were encouraged to interview women
and learn about their experiences as immigrants to the United States. The
project was continued and expanded with support from the president's office and
by grants from the L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, from the Joel E.
Ferris Foundation and the Norwegian Emigration Fund of the Royal Norwegian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project was directed by Dr. Janet E.
Rasmussen. The collection was transferred to the Archives and Special
Collections Department.
Acquisition Information :
Related Materials :
To search and view Pacific
Lutheran University's digitized images, visit our
Digital Assets
Website
Processing Note :
The interview was conducted by
Janet Rasmussen using a cassette recorder. A research copy was also prepared
from the original. To further preserve the content of the interview, it is now
being transferred to compact disc. We deliberately did not transcribe the
entire interview because we want the researchers to listen to the interviewee's
own voice. The transcription index highlights important aspects of the
interview and the tape counter numbers noted on the Partial Interview
Transcription are meant as approximate finding guides and refer to the location
of a subject on the cassette/CD. The recording quality is good
The
collection was transcribed by Mary Sue Gee, Julie Peterson and Becky Husby.
Bibliography :
Rasmussen, Janet Elaine. New Land
New Lives: Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific NorthwestTacoma, WashingtonUniversity of Washington
Press1993
Additional Reference Guides :
Detailed Description of the Collection
The partial interview transcription highlights important aspects of the
interview. Numbers may be used as guides to important subjects. Two numbers
separated by a slash indicate that the first number is for cassette and the
second for CD.
Cassette
12, side 1
049/08: PERSONAL
LIFE
Name is Ella Duus; Duus is her
husband's name and he was Danish. Maiden name was Fjermsted (?) which became
Firmsted (?) in America. She was born in Stavanger on January 5, 1882 or 3.
[Ella was about 94 years old at the time of the interview.]
12, side 1
089:
Later on in her married life, she had high blood pressure
and couldn't live alone. She sold her home and moved up here [Josephine Sunset
Home in Stanwood, WA]. She was quite up in years before she moved to the first
home.
12, side 1
111:
She met her husband through her brothers; they were sailing
together. He came and went often to their house, and they got to talking. He
seemed to like her, and they were married in 1904 a couple of years after she'd
been here. His mother and father were still living [in Denmark], and they asked
for a picture of her. During the Depression, they got along pretty
good. It helped that they had quite a little property out by Seward Park. That
area was country then with beautiful houses.
12, side 1
180:
They didn't have any children. Both loved children, but they
didn't have any. They wanted to adopt children but everything worked against
them.
12, side 1
191:
She worked in the home and garden; had a lovely big yard with
fruit trees.
12, side 1
202/09: EMIGRATION
Her brothers came to America first and made a home so
the family could eventually all stay together. Some of her old school friends
here--one still lives in WA--said, "Why don't you get Ella over because...we'd
like to have her over here so we could be together?" Ella refused to come
without bringing her mother. Once here, her oldest brother got married and
moved away. Then Ella got married. And the youngest brother who was a iron
worker in Canada was involved in an accident and was killed.
12, side 1
245:
Ella came right to Seattle when she was about 19. It was
hard to get tickets for her and her mother whom she wouldn't leave alone in
Norway. Her mother died not long after emigration and is buried in the old
cemetery in Seattle; Ella's husband also.
12, side 1
284:
Came by boat and train through England; took a long time to
come over. Brothers bought the tickets in Seattle and sent them over. School
friends were happy she was coming. She and mother sold off house things. She
also had a sister in Minneapolis who was waiting to see them at the train
depot. But because of a fire, the train was re-routed. The sister,
Anne, came to America earlier to visit and accompany an aunt [mother's sister,
Ella] who was lonesome. Anne "fell in love with Minneapolis" and wrote back to
her mother: "Mother, I don't know if I ever want to see Stavanger. Minneapolis
is the most beautiful city. I think I'd like to stay here". She did, was
married and had six children.
12, side 1
308/10:
Anne was the first child in the family and Ella was the
last. There were three boys in between. The second child was a girl who passed
away whom Ella can hardly remember. Father died when Ella was six months old.
He was a carpenter and telegraph employee, and actually did a little of
everything. He had very nice handwriting and was hired on by the telegraph
office to write down the messages as they came in. After father died, mother
took care of the family.
12, side 1
428: SETTLING IN
Mother was over 50 when she came to America, and it
was difficult for her to learn English. It was hard for Ella too, but she was
determined. She got books with Norwegian on one side and English on the other.
She studied those words and got along. If she didn't know words, she looked
them up in a dictionary. Her English was fine and she later worked for 16 years
on the election board.
12, side 1
460:
Ella continued to speak Norwegian to her mother and brothers
until she married. Then she and her husband bought a place of their own only a
few blocks away. She kept visiting her mother and speaking Norwegian. She
didn't want to forget "å snakke norsk" or mix her languages together. If
anybody asks her if she's Norwegian, she says "I am. All of me. From the top to
the bottom". She feels the Norwegian language is a good language to learn.
12, side 1
503/11:
She had a good hand at writing like her dad and received
excellent grades on school papers in Norway. Ella went to school seven years in
Norway, and teachers always said she was good in school, exercise, history, and
geography.
12, side 1
519:
The hardest thing in her life was leaving Norway and her
friends. She remembers looking back from the America ship and seeing all her
friends waving. She couldn't stand it and "went back of the chimney and cried
my eyes out. It was the hardest thing for me to do". She thought she'd return
in two years, but she hasn't been back yet. Ella went to Denmark to
visit her husband's family after he died. They were lonely, and were very nice
to her during her visit. They wrote to her in English, but she responded to her
mother-in-law in a mixture of Norwegian-Danish. She wanted to visit Norway
afterwards, but there was no one to go to. She stayed three weeks in Denmark;
saw Copenhagen and other places.
12, side 1
574/12: NORWEGIAN
CUSTOMS
Ella was born and raised in the
city, and the house they lived in was called Fjermsted because that was their
name. The name of Fjermsted changed in America to Firmsted. Her nephew, oldest
brother's son, is Arnold Firmsted.
12, side 1
597:
She became an American citizen after marriage. Her husband
had already lost one job in San Francisco because of no papers. They moved back
to Seattle, ran a boarding house, went to school and learned about citizenship.
They both studied hard because he had an opportunity for another good job. He
got his papers and she became a citizen automatically through marriage. She was
sitting beside him when he had to answer the questions, and she was hoping he
wouldn't forget any answers. She was also "trying to see if that man [judge]
would just turn a little bit, so I could whisper [answers to her husband if he
forgot]. But, he managed, and she was very happy to get her papers.
12, side 1
645/01:
Ella doesn't remember if they belonged to any organizations.
They were married 64 years and "that's a long way to forget".
12, side 1
654:
Christmas was very different in America. In Norway they had
a four-foot juletre [Christmas tree] and decorated it with homemade paper
rings, nuts and apples. They were poor people and had very simple Christmas
traditions. She worked in a blomsterforretning [florist shop] in Norway. She
still does needlework. But she never made
12, side 1
711:
Ella belonged to a musical group in Norway named "Harmon".
She played a mandolin, and other girls played different instruments:
ukelele-guitar, violins, accordion, flute. They advertised their performances
and would go travel around the fjord in boats. People loved to hear their
music. She didn't have anything like that in America.
12, side 2
Side II :
12, side 2
028/02:
Ella also played the guitar and piano. She never took
lessons but was simply full of music. She would watch other players to discover
fingering. [Discussion about friend's daughter.]
12, side 2
099:
She has two friends at Sunset Home, one is Danish and the
other is American. They speak English together, as she did with her husband.
They wanted to learn English, so they spoke it. But her mother had a hard time.
Ella did the shopping in Norway before she went to school--fisk and kjøtt for
fiskboller and kjøttboller.
12, side 2
193:
End of tape.
Subjects
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