| The Story Of Helfred Matson & Mary Garson Forward |
 |
 |
| I began writing this story on September 23, 2001. The research began years before. This story would have been impossible to write without the help of my family and other descendants of my ancestors. I thank my father, Roy H. Matson, for taking the time and interest to research our family, and his sister, and my Aunt Mariann Berg for her wonderful memory of events and sense of humor about all this. Cousin Mike Berg receives the credit for getting me off the dime on this project and Cousin Gary Matson for egging me on. My brother Erik receives a special thankyou for completing our father’s “A History of Strum and the Town of Unity” book and publishing it in 1989. I am also indebted to special people in the Totenlaget Association and Norway-List who are far better researchers than I am: Leroy Madson, Pete and Karen Christianson, Larry Opsahl, Karen Mathison, Paul Risvold, Janni Belgum, Geir Thorud, Ona Harp, Otto Jorgensen, Betty Rockswold, Daraleen, and Nancy Gilbert (a former resident of Strum) who introduced me to NorwayList. My Frodahl family research and an expanded understanding of my home town, Strum, would have been futile without the help of Alice and Clifford Williams, Peggy Williams Mageland, Marlys Hanson Berg, Bev Porter Moltzau, and Paula Rogers Huff. And thank you Family History Center in Oakdale for your patience and wonderful microfilms of Norwegian Parish (Church) records. As poor as I am at norwegian language translation, I am getting better by the day. Finally, I have written this story in present tense. Many of these ancestors are no longer living, but alive or dead, they are still my ancestor. Their lives ended with death but there marriage to a spouse lives on. I will use, for example, Helfred’s mother is (vs. was) Hellene Hansen Bjerkebakken. Both are deceased but the relationship remains forever. It is appropriate to acknowledge that unless a relationship actually ended somewhere in history. |