Tracing family roots can take some time

The only grandparent I knew and remember was my mother’s mom. She immigrated from Norway in the 1880s.

She settled in Minneapolis where my mom was born an only child.

My grandmother, Mary Peterson, came west to Palouse with my parents and my three brothers and sister in 1929. I was born the next year in Palouse.

My grandmother lived with us and never bothered to learn English. She held on to her old ways, so my memory of her is rather slim.

It took me a very long time — and I had the help of my oldest daughter, Kathy — to help unlock some of the information about her. It took me over 50 years to get this information.

My grandmother came from Lillehammer, Norway.

Mom gave me two pictures —one showing the family farm there, the other the church my grandmother attended in Norway — plus two gold watches, one a woman’s watch, and the other a regular size men’s watch.

My mom also gave me a, little black booklet, written in old-style Norwegian. Periodically I would look at the items, but couldn’t make any progress.

Kathy took the booklet and found a person in the Seattle area who could make the translation.

My efforts were further complicated when I couldn’t find where in Palouse her gravesite was. I tried the funeral home’s records but was told they had no record.

I tried this a couple of times but got no help.

We got a new funeral director in Palouse who unlocked the mystery. My parents had purchased two sites side by side for their eventual burial sites. My brother, Richard, lost his first wife to cancer. That left one unmarked grave, where my grandmother was buried. During the Depression, they didn’t have money for a stone marker.

I arranged for a marker for May Peterson.

The little black book revealed a few things of her childhood and comments from some of her friends as she was leaving for the U.S. My daughter was most helpful and had always been a problem solver.

I gave the man’s gold watch to my grandson, William, in Portland and the woman’s watch to my granddaughter, Camille, in Seattle.

If you do a search, don’t give up; more information is flowing through the internet all the time.