10. Hearing our cousin James Anders Svanoe rehearse his song for the Sunday morning service: “Tis a Gift to Be Simple; Tis a Gift to Be Free.” Ren was thinking about the simplicity we have come to know in our life here in Mexico as we listened to Jim and was moved to slip an arm around his wife Grace in the pew. Jim stopped mid-phrase for emotion when he saw us. Later as he sang the song during the service he finished the song by doubling up an octave on the final syllable of the words “in the land of love and delight.” Clear as a bell, the note was as though struck in heaven. We Svanoes in our usually reserved way nevertheless do not lack deep feelings and ways of expressing and conveying them.

9. Finding an old news clipping at Erikstad farm on Svanoe Island. Atle Svanoe had returned to his childhood home in Askvoll down the coast from Svanoe Island. It was in the 40’s and he was in his seventies. In the article he was reported to have said, “It is good to be old.”
REFLECTION: Ren’s grandfather Atle enjoyed his job as a minister, and Ren’s cousin Harald once told Ren that that was one reason he reactivated during his retirement years, when given the chance by the Quisling government. The older members of our family also enjoyed the reunion more for being older, with more memories to recall and to share.

8. Being offered a ride on the road to Erikstad by a young Islander whose young passengers graciously gave us their places and walked the rest of the way. Besides the kindness of these young Norwegians, we enjoyed hearing the young driver tell of taking his boat on a week long trip to fish in Canada.
REFLECTION: The trip Leif Ericsson took in discovering the New World around 1000 A.D. is now routine for this young Svanoe Islander.

7. Meeting Berit Svanoe Ramirez, the other family member from Mexico and speaking Spanish with her. Because we have something besides family in common, we asked Berit some questions about herself. We were pleased at her openness. She had met her husband in a night club in London and together with Flavio Ramirez had made Mexico City their home. She mentioned having met Ren’s sister Naomi at the reunion and said, “She is a person without barriers.” Berit herself is a person without barriers, a quality she may have learned from her mother Amsen, another delightful Svanoe family member at the reunion.

6. Seeing little Tomas Svanoe, age 10, proudly represent the 8th generation in a 4 generation picture that included his mother Monica Svanoe, his grandmother Gudrun Svanoe Meier, and his great grandmother Ambjor (Amsen) Svanoe.
REFLECTION: Ren’s aunt Gunhild was 5 years old in 1904 and could have stood for a 4 generation photograph with Ole’s son Torger, Ren’s great, great grandfather who was 92 that year. The other 2nd generation person with great grandchildren in 1904 was Karen Ruud Svanoe, the widow of Anders, Ole’s 6th child.

5. Hearing from Alfhild Svanoe, matriarch of Erikstad, that she is recording her memories of life on Svanoe Island.
REFLECTION: Endre Olai Johanneson wrote a book about Svanoe Island in 1902. His son Einar and grandson Endre Olai have since assembled scrapbooks of news clippings, many of which include family names. Now Alfhild, Endre Olai’s widow, uses her spare time when there is less farm work in the winter to write up the rich experience of living at the center of the Svanoe family, continuing the tradition of her husband, his father and his grandfather.

4. Enjoying the big old house in Gamle Bergen (Old Bergen) where Ole T. Svanoe set up his sons Torger and Anders in business in the early 1800’s.
REFLECTION: When Ole couldn’t give his 3rd and 5th grown children an inheritance in land on the Island, he took pains to start them off well in a nice big house. An urban center, Bergen, was as different from life on the Island as the Island was from the Helling farm up in Hallingdal, but Ole and his sons net this new challenge together.

3. Seeing in the Ship Museum in Oslo the boat Ole T. Svanoe used in going as a newly elected member of the Storting (Norway’s legislature) to Eidsvoll to place his signature on the 1814 Norwegian Constitution.
REFLECTION: Ole had suffered vicariously with a friend who was imprisoned for living out his faith in 1804. Now as he rowed up Sognefjord to dock at Laerdal on his way to Eidsvoll, was he thinking of Hans Nielson Hauge? As Hauge was released that same year, did Norway’s new independence or maybe Ole’s new role in the Storting somehow play a part?

2. Meeting and hearing from members of the 5th generation, most in their eighties. Grethe Svanoe Hauge, who was missing her brother as much as anyone, suggested that the work Tommy did on the family genealogy, indispensable for bringing us all together, was Tommy’s way of compensating for not living in Norway after he emigrated to the United States. Amsen Svanoe remembered Ren’s visit to the Island 43 years ago together with his brothers in the Augsburg College Quartet. Ingeborg Svanoe remembered Ren and Colette in 1994 as her first family visitors from overseas. Tor Svanoe from British Columbia, Canada accepted our thanks for having written up his childhood memories of Svanoe Island for the Svanoe website, and then offered to send us a copy of his book on “How to Own and Run a Restaurant.” Einar Svanoe Grude told us how as an engineer he went on to become a teacher, imparting what he knew to the next generation. There wasn’t time to meet and talk at any length with many other members of this active group of elders, but those we did meet helped make the reunion a first rate experience.

1. Our most memorable impression of the Svanoe Reunion was to stand on the lawn of Svanoegard listening to Ole Helling Svanoe’s hearty welcoming address, translated for us in English by his daughter Maria, and lining up for the picture in the same place grandfather Atle Svanoe stood one hundred years ago. The picture taken that year shows him and about 40 others. This compares to about 280 present in 2004. Then, except maybe for his cousin Haakon Svanoe or his aunt Pernille Svanoe Lund, he was the only one from America. Now there were 86 from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica, including 16 of his grandchildren and their families.
REFLECTIONS: 1) If the seven-fold increase in 100 years is repeated in the future, there could be nearly 2000 attending the 300th anniversary reunion in 2104, maybe even from countries in the southern hemisphere! Who will carry on the work Tommy did, and Endre Olai Johanessen Svanoe before him, of keeping records and keeping the family connected? 2) Our Nordic Company tour guide Chuck Morkri stated that he hadn’t seen a family reunion as large as ours. What made so many come? The good job Tommy and others did keeping us connected? The good job Ole and others did with arrangements? The Island itself, which is the pride of the Sunnfjord region? Yes, these reasons and more. Perhaps more than any other is the man from Hallingdal who at age 23 together with his bride made a big leap of faith pulling up roots in the mountains to take up a new life on an island for a reason that went far beyond making a life for themselves. Ole Torgussen went on to become an example for his generation. He developed a model of economic self-sufficiency and was a servant-leader for the whole surrounding community. His example still has ripple effects among his descendants, who have followed many career paths, but share his ideal of community service. 3) Twenty or more of Ole T’s descendants have likewise pulled up roots and made just as big a leap in crossing an ocean and establishing themselves among people of a different language and culture. May it not be time to know their stories? We owe it to our children to preserve this tradition before it is lost.

If you know anything about any of the Svanoe New World Immigrants, please email us at famsvanoe@hotmail.com, write to us at Rennard and Grace Svanoe, 1103 Avenida Chihuahua, 31600 Anahuac, Chihuahua, Mexico, or call us at 52 625 58 51031. Hopefully someone will do this for the Norwegian Svanoes as well, for Norway has received many benefits from their dedicated service. Many of the Svanoe New World Immigrants are still with us, and their self-reports will be primary, but this project is intended to be more than a collection of autobiographies. Participation of both Old and New World Svanoes is solicited.

Svanoe New World Immigrants

Name Generation number Destination Birth Death
1.Peter Andreas Svanoe 3 Chicago, IL,USA 4/10/1840 20/3/1893

Name Gen. No. Destination Birth Death Descendants
2. Pernille Christense 3 USA 8/9/1843 ?/?/1906
Svanoe Lund
3. Atle Svanoe 4 USA 8/9/1869 9/12/1958 Ansgar,etc
4. Haakon Holdt Svanoe 4 USA,Nor.,USA 11/12/1879 24/11/1945 Haldis,etc
5. Bjarne Svanoe 4 USA, Norway 17/10/1883 9/10/1925 Bertha,etc
6. Christian August Swano 4 USA 8/3/1884 Lawrence
7. Hans Svanoe 4 USA? 17/7/1893 Willard,etc
8. Earl Knutson Gail 4 USA 1899 10/2/1964
9. Kristi Svanoe Styker 5 Canada 30/1/1913 Gunhild
10. Christina Breetholtz 5 Canada 11/4/1918 Nina
11.Per Svanoe 5 USA 25/2/1923 Sidsel
12. Tor Svanoe 5 Canada 14/8/1927 Tor,etc
13. Thomas T. Svanoe 5 USA 20/4/1931 4/6/2004 Anne,etc
14. Anne Kirine Hewit 6 USA 14/2/1942 Carl,etc
15. Hans Ingolf Svanoe 5 USA 20/10/1948
16. Berit Svanoe Ramírez 6 Mexico 18/4/1951
17. Gunnar Eilif Hafstad 6 USA 10/9/1952 Gunnar
18. Anne Christine Bogen 6 USA 3/7/1959
19. Lars Angelus Svanoe 6 USA ______ _____
20. ___________ __ ___ ______ _____