Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Future Hopes—Farm Life—Norwegian Pioneers—The Condition of the Immigrant at the Beginning of the Fifties—Religious Meetings—The Growth of the Settlement—Vasa Township Organized—A Lutheran Church Established—My Wedding—Speculation—The Crisis of 1857—Study of Law in Red Wing—I am admitted to the Bar and elected County Auditor—Politics in 1860—War is Imminent
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ss Story of an Emigrant. 102
well acquainted with our laws, well educated, young and
ambitious, why not study law, then ? This state and this
county is just the place for you to make a splendid
beginning in that profession. Come to me, and within a year
you can be admitted to the bar, after which you will find it
easy to get along."
I returned to Yasa in the evening, and, having consulted
my wife, who was visiting her parents, I soon made up my
mind. The next day both of us were on the way to Red
Wing supplied with clothcs, bedding, a few dishes and some
provisions, which had been given us by my wife’s parents,
who also convevcd us to town. In Red Wing we rented a
room about sixteen feet square, got a cook stove and a
few articles of furniture on credit, and everything was in
order for housekeeping and the study of law. I immediately
commenced my course of study with that excellent lawyer,
Mr. Warren Bristol, who afterwards for many years served
as United States Judge in New Mexico, where he recently
died.
This life was something new for my young wife, who had
grown up in a house of plenty. Now she had to try her hand
at managing our household affairs, with the greatest
economy, and she accomplished her task so well that no minister
of finance could have done better. In fact we were so poor
that winter that we could not afford to buy the tallow
candles which were necessary for my night studies (kerosene
was unknown at that time). But every evening during this
trying but happy winter my wife made a lamp by pouring
melted lard, which her parents sent us, into a saucer, and
putting in a cotton wick, and in my eyes this light was more
brilliant than the rays from the golden chandeliers in the
palaces of the rich. Bv this light I studied Blaekstone, Kent,
and other works on law.
Late in the spring of 1858 a place became vacant in the
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