[Soaring Feather]

Ah, I have ties to South Dakota. When my grandmother came to America in 1899 at (age 24 years)from Finland her parents where already here in South Dakota.

My grandmother came to join her husband in Canada. She arrived in Fitchberg, MA, traveled to New York City, then to Canada. This husband was not my grandfather. They, the first husband, married in Finland. He left Finland to escape the impending war. Grandmother arrived to have that husband die three weeks after she got to Canada.


Well, she traveled to South Dakota where her parents where, met my grandfather, they married and their first child was born in Lakota, South Dakota in 1900. One year later they packed up and headed to Canada to homestead. In those days that was done a lot. Four of their children were born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, my mom being one of the kids.

The story continues with the family of five kids and my grandparents leaving Canada for Tarpon Springs, Fla. Nearly all the kids got malaria. That homesteading effort last for two years. They packed up again and headed North to New York - a settlement of Finns was here. So that's why I am an American and not Canadian.
Aren't you glad you did not ask?? LOL

[w_over_w]

Aren't you glad you did not ask??

Absolutely!!

I love hearing (reading) stories about how folks ancestors came to America.

Your grandmother arrived about four years after my great grandfather (1895) on my father's side. Like her, he left Germany (Bonn) to escape the war (fascism) and immigrated to New Orleans, LA. where he owned and operated a barbershop in the French Quarter.

It's on my Mom's side that I became a 5th generation Texan but that's another story.