Patronymics and Potatoes
The affectionate "Ole and Lena" storytelling tradition that helped Norwegian emigrants in America laugh gently at themselves is applied here to demonstrate how the names of long-forgotten ancestors on a family tree can come to life to their modern descendants.
Ole peered at the family tree and said, “Lena, here ve got Ole Eriksen and Marte Marie Arnesdatter. Dat is two names already. How much more den names do ve need before dey become people?”
Lena wiped her hands on her apron, which in a respectable Ole and Lena story is always clean even after rescuing bread, children, and one confused chicken. “Ole,” she said, “a name is only da doorbell. You still got to open da door—unless it is vinter, den open quick and shut quicker.”
So we ring da bell. My second great-grandfather Ole Eriksen was born 26 April 1830 at Agnalt, Sarpsborg, Tune, Smaalenenes Amt, Norway; married Marte Marie Arnesdatter on 2 July 1852 in Tune, Østfold; migrated to America with Marte and their five children in 1872; settled in Brainerd, Crow Wing County, Minnesota; and died there on 1 March 1906. Marte Marie, born 4 June 1827 in Svindal, Våler, Smaalenenes Amt, lived until 25 September 1916 in Brainerd. My second great-grandparents had traveled a long way from patronymics to potatoes.
“Uff da,” Ole said. “Dat is far enough to pack lunch, mittens, and maybe a spare vowel or twee for da clerk.”
They carried more than lunch: language, faith, memory, habits, and the Norwegian gift of making do. In Norway their names followed the family rhythm—"Erik’s son", "Arne’s daughter". In America those names had to stand in courthouse lines, sit on census pages, and answer to clerks who looked at Østfold and Smaalenenes as if someone had spilled alphabet soup on the form.
Lena considered this. “Maybe dat is why genealogy is so hart. Everybody changed da spelling, but nobody changed da potatoes. Potatoes got more sense dan people; dey stays where you puts dem.”
Ole was also handy with leather and music. A skilled shoemaker and leatherworker, he could mend a boot, fashion something useful from a scrap, and still make and play his own violin. When shoemaking needed a little extra sole-support, he played for dances and entertainments.
At one Saturday dance, I imagine Ole tucked the fiddle under his chin while boots thumped, skirts swung, and one fellow’s fancy turn nearly tipped him into the stove heatin’ da rum. “Dat man dances like a calf on pond ice,” Ole might have whispered. Lena, tapping her foot, would answer, “Maybe so, but he keeps time better den yore hammer.”
Not everyone in the Swedish-Lutheran Church approved of dance music, which put Ole in a spot tighter than a new Sunday shoe. He asked the minister, who told him to keep playing. Lena might have nodded: “If da pastor says fiddle, den fiddle—but maybe not during da sermon.”
There is a poem in that, if one listens kindly:
A name on a page is a seed in the snow,
Quiet and small where the cold winds blow.
Warm it with stories, with laughter and flame,
And suddenly kinfolk step out of the name.
The old Ole and Lena stories, told with affection, were little safety valves for immigrant life: the accent, the misunderstanding, the hard work, the church supper where lutefisk appeared and everyone pretended bravery was a side dish. Today we are rightly careful about punching down, yet a puzzle remains: we can polish language so brightly that we forget to see the person reflected in it.
Ole scratched his head. “So kin ve not laff at old Norwegians now?”
“It depends,” Lena said. “Are ve laughing because dey are foolish, or because ve are family? If it is family, you laugh gentle, den you pass da cookies.”
That is the difference. Family laughter does not erase dignity; it restores warmth. Ole and Marte are not merely names in my family tree. They are real people who married in Norway, crossed an ocean of uncertainty, worked, worshipped, played the fiddle, raised children, adapted, and passed life forward.
In imagination, Ole might look at the family tree and say, “Lena, ve got too many branches on da tree. I cannot find da trunk.” Lena would answer, “Dat is not a problem. Dem branches makes shade, and if you sit under long enough, somebody brings pie.”
And shade is a blessing. Beneath it we find more than dates, places, and spellings that confuse descendants, clerks, and cousins alike. We find a man from Agnalt and a woman from Svindal who have enough courage to become part of a new country without entirely surrendering the old one.
So let the record show: Ole Eriksen and Marte Marie Arnesdatter were names, yes—but also hands, voices, prayers, patched shoes, music, hard winters, small joys, and the quiet comedy of ordinary survival. Perhaps they would not ask whether we described them perfectly, only whether we remembered them kindly.
And Lena, being Lena, would have the last word: “Kindly, Ole—and pour da coffee.”
