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Jan. 22, 2008
On this day in 1917...
I've a little story for you all. Marie's already heard it, though. :-)
On January 23rd, 1917, Conrad Berteus Ingeborg Pettersen came to the United States from Norway through Ellis Island. He changed his name to Konrad Berteus Ingeborg Peterson and moved to Wild Rose, North Dakota.
As my Great Aunt tells the story, he heard God tell him to sell everything he had on the farm and move to Washington. On October 15th, 1928 he had an auction to get rid of the farm and everything on it. I don't know what his wife, Cora, thought of this plan. I mean, she had a multitude of kids to look after while they moved! I'm not sure how many they had at the time, but in all there were 13 children (Probably not in order: Kon, Alys, Klarion, Orlando, Pat, Lois, Kathleen, Marvin, Eunice, Janis, Gail, and... two more. :-/)
They settled down in Gig Harbor and Konrad became a fisherman. The kids grew up and had kids of their own (my dad being one of them).
Anyway, the story of my great-grandfather doesn't end there! He lived in Washington until he was an elderly man. One day, God said to him that he only had a week left to live. Grandfather got everything in order that week. He wrote instructions for Grandmother on all the heaters and other machines in the house so that when he was gone she could take care of them and fix them if they broke. One week to the day later, he was down in the barn and had a heart attack. No one found him until he was happily with the Lord of his life.
Grandmother Cora also had that kind of faith in God. I was just a little baby when she passed on, but my dad and great aunts tell me that she was a wonderful person. Dad told me that when he was about 20 (I think), he installed a kitchen sink for her that mixed the hot water and the cold water together like most of our sinks nowadays do. He said that she was so happy to have something like that (after raising 13 kids with the old kind of sink that had two spouts, one hot, one cold) that tears were running down her cheeks. I wish we had more of that generation around to tell us that we ain't got it rough.
 And that's how I came to be named Jennifer Cora. |
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Jan. 22, 2008 - That's beautiful
And that picture is worth a thousand words.