This record preserves the Brekke family history as chronicled by Grethe Brekke,
documenting the lineage of her father, Ole Halverson.
The Norwegian word gaard refers to a farm, reflecting both place and identity.
The following account was compiled by Hannah Mathilde Teslow and
Ida Amalie Warner and completed in 1955.
Ole Lien and Margit
In the early 1800s, Ole Lien and his wife Margit traveled from Tuddal and Tinn
with their two sons, Hans and Anund, to the district of Sandsver.
After a period in Sauherred, they homesteaded a tract of approximately 200 acres,
much of it wooded, which they named Brekke,
a Norwegian word meaning slope or high ridge.
Brekke was located on the Buskerud–Bratsberg border in Sandsver,
sometimes called Lower Telemarken.
Skien and Kongsberg were each about twenty English miles away.
Although Kongsberg was their original market town,
travel eventually became easier to Skien, despite the journey across
Lakes Oktern and Luksevandet.
Hans and Kari Oldalen
Ole and Margit’s eldest son, Hans, married Kari Oldalen.
They had two daughters, Margit and Gurine.
Hans remained on the original Brekke property,
later known as Brekke-Pladsen.
Their daughter Margit married Halver Knutsen of Gjerpen, near Skien.
The family lived with Hans and Kari at Brekke-Pladsen until 1865,
when Margit, Halver, and their children emigrated to America.
Hans died in the spring of that year, before the journey,
and his widow Kari accompanied the family to the United States.
She later became blind.
Margit and Halver brought seven children to America—three sons and four daughters.
Their eldest son was Knute Halverson.
Their second son, Ole Halverson, would become the father of the compilers of this record.
His twin brother died in childhood in Norway.
A third son, Hans Halverson, died in Wisconsin at the age of nineteen.
The daughters were Ingeborg, who died young and unmarried;
Karen Nelson, who lived to eighty;
Gunhild Malum, who lived to seventy-eight;
and Maren, who died in her early teens.
Gurine and Jon Johnson Furuvold
Hans Brekke-Pladsen’s second daughter, Gurine, married Jon Johnson Furuvold.
They immigrated to Portage County, Wisconsin, likely before 1860,
and later settled near Ellsworth in Pierce County.
Their children included one son, Hans Johnson,
and three daughters: Maren Hulback, Calla Bradwell,
and Annie Marie, who died young and unmarried.
Margit’s Passing
Margit, the mother of Ole Halverson, died of typhoid fever in 1865
during the family’s journey from Norway, near Waupaca, Wisconsin.
She was buried either in Waupaca or in Scandinavia, Wisconsin.
The family continued on to join her sister Gurine in the Town of Sharon,
Portage County.
Anund and Grethe
Ole and Margit’s other son, Anund, married Grethe Karine of Sandsver,
possibly from a place called Rokstad.
They had seven children—four sons and three daughters.
Their sons were Ole of Alban, Wisconsin;
Anund of the Scandinavia area;
Tosten of South Dakota;
and a younger Ole who never married.
Their daughters were Margit Kolden, Gurine Bestul, and Randine Lysjen.
Anund built Nedre Brekke (Lower Brekke) on part of the original farm.
Known as a literate man, he wrote letters to America on behalf of neighbors
who could not write.
After Grethe Karine’s death, their eldest son Ole moved into Nedre Brekke
with his family.
His daughter Grethe—future mother of the record’s compilers—was eleven at the time.
Anund died in 1869, four years after his brother Hans.
Tosten and Sophie
Tosten, Anund’s son, established Øvre Brekke (Upper Brekke).
He married Sophie Berg and immigrated to America in 1872,
settling in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota.
He spelled the family name as Brakke.
They had ten children, whose descendants spread widely throughout the Midwest.
Ole Brekke and Maren Hopstul
Ole Brekke married Maren Hopstul.
They had eight children, though two died in infancy in Norway.
Ole Brekke was the last of the Brekke family to immigrate to America in 1873.
He delayed the journey until all of his children could come together,
with travel costs advanced by his brother and later repaid.
The First Brekkes in America
Anund, Ole Brekke’s brother, was the first of the Brekke family to arrive in America,
immigrating in April 1849 with his wife Ingeborg Bestul.
They had six children.
Other family branches followed,
including the Bestul, Satre, Kolden, and Lysjen families,
each contributing to the growing Brekke lineage in America.
The Journey to America
Grethe and her sister Karen paid approximately $55 each for their passage,
working for wages of $1.50 to $2.00 per week to repay the cost.
At the time, a yard of calico cost fifty to sixty cents.
Brekke-Pladsen later served as a mountain chalet for the Rokstad family.
The house at Nedre Brekke reportedly burned many years after the family’s departure.
Origins of the Brekke Name
Without doubt, Ole Lien—great-grandfather on both sides—
originated the Brekke name through his homesteading of the farm.
Ole Halverson Brekke-Pladsen later married Grethe Brekke,
uniting two branches of the same lineage.
They became the parents of Hannah Mathilde Teslow and Ida Amalie Warner,
the two eldest daughters who preserved this family record.