History

The subject got me thinking yesterday when we were at my mom and dad's house for spaghetti.  My grandpa was sitting on the couch and Sawyer was laying against him in an L-shape with his feet in grandpa's face, and his underwear bum on him.  I told him to get his butt out of grandpa's face, and grandpa started laughing.  He said back when he was about 8 and in Norway, little naked Olaf (who was about Sawyer's age or a little younger) and grandpa were wrestling and he ended up falling and his butt went right on grandpa's face- his nose fit perfectly in the crack.  I thought it was the funniest story!

It made him talk about our history.  I don't really know a lot about my family history, just bits.  I knew my grandma had some sort of British ancestry, and that my grandpa is Norwegian.  We tend to focus on the Norway part because we are Sons of Norway members, and my brother and I spent a total of 4 weeks each at Norwegian camp in our life.
Yes, I own one of these:

It's called a bunad and although that isn't mine, mine looks just like it.  He said that our last name used to be spelled E-N instead of O-N but it got changed because everyone kept spelling it wrong (though I grew up with everyone spelling it wrong still).  He said his grandparents were on vacation in (I think it was) Wisconsin  so he got to pick whether he was a Norwegian or US citizen since he was born on US soil.  He also said that the Janes side of the family (grandma's family) were here in the US since the beginning.  One of my great-great-etc. grandmothers was actually scalped by indians while pregnant...and survived.  Had she died, we would not be here!  I connect to that side of the family quite a bit because my great-grandparents were around for awhile, it was really only a few years ago that my great grandmother died, and we even went to a Janes family reunion in CO back when I was in junior high and met all sorts of family (though that side isn't very big).  He said there is a book for one side of the family somewhere, and another is in the process of being created, so I am very excited to learn more.

I don't know much about my mom's side since my great-grandparents weren't alive while I was and they came from Canada so most of that family still lives there.  I know my grandma's parents didn't even speak English so my mom didn't get to talk to them growing up (they're Ukrainian), and I know my grandpa likes to make things up, but he wasn't even sure who his dad was.  He was different from his siblings and his mom treated him differently, and this Indian (like Native) guy who was a family friend always treated him special and brought him gifts so he is pretty sure that is his biological father so I think I might be Native.  My mom has some weird blood type that isn't normally in white people so that would make sense lol.  Either way, the lineage doesn't go too far.

Now I can't talk about history without mentioning Andy's awesome story.  You'll have to ask him about it, but in a nutshell:  Andy's great-great-somewhere up there I want to say his grandpa's grandpa? was a Paiute Indian living in a village in Utah.  The mormons came in, put all the Indians in the village in the basement of a building, and when they opened the door to kill them all, 2 boys and a girl (Andy's great-etc. grandpa who was 4 years old, his sister, and another boy) bolted out.  They shot at them but missed and they hid in a cave for a few days while all the other Indians were murdered.  The mormons found them eventually  and took them to town to sell them as slaves (but killed grandpa's sister on the way because she was useless) and a Monson (or maybe "Munsen" at the time) bought Andy's great-etc. grandpa for a pair of mocassins and 2 bushels of hay!  It was called the Circleville massacre.

Hopefully I can get some awesome stories soon with the making of those books, and maybe I have a story as awesome as Andy's.