Maria and Ragnihld

As soon as we met Maria and Ragnhild, Eric and I were amazed at how incredibly young and energetic they were. We figured it must be the Norwegian blood. Grandpa Gilbertson had told us that when he and Grandma visited Maria and Ragnhild in 1994 they were “two nice old ladies.” So Eric and I figured that sixteen years later they might not be getting around too well if they were “old” back in 1994. To our surprise we discovered that, at 78, the “Oppen twins” were as feisty as ever, and eager to take us on a little adventure over the next couple of days around the homeland of our ancestors.
But first we needed to renergize with some waffles. We had met Maria in “downtown” Roa (pronounced like ‘rue-uh’ with a slight rolled ‘r’) and on our bikes we had tried to keep up with her little Volkswagen as she zipped around the turns up to her house. When we arrived Ragnhild, her identical twin sister, greeted us with a smile and a big hug.
At first Eric and I had worried that we would be so smelly that they wouldn’t want to get near us. I had wondered: Will they hose us off in the front yard? Do we give them a hug, even though we’re not that closely related to them? Is that the custom in Norway? But they had immediately broken the ice with a big grandmotherly hug.
“Would you like some waffles?” they asked. Their English was fabulous. They had taken several years of English way back in school but probably didn’t get to speak it more than once or twice a year. Nevertheless they spoke like pros.
We said that waffles would be excellent. Grandpa Gilbertson had told us that waffles were a staple in Norway so here was our chance to try them out. I thought we were going to go to a restaurant but it turns out that Ragnhild had already cooked the waffles and they were waiting for us on the table. We soon discovered that Maria and Ragnhild were such good cooks that they could probably out-cook any restaurant in Hadeland. (Hadeland is sort of the county that includes Roa).
Ragnhild’s house was a masterpiece. She and her husband had built it back in the ‘70s and had kept it in perfect shape. There were all kinds of decorations and family pictures on the wall. When we walked into the dining room we were greeted with an impressive spread on the dinner table. There was a big stack of waffles and all kinds of little dishes of jelly. She had brought out the VIP plates and shiny silverware just for this occasion. Everything was arranged meticulously and orthogonally. We sat down and Eric and I said the Catholic dinner prayer. Maria and Ragnhild followed it up with the Norwegian version. Then we dug in.
Eric and I were starving but we remembered our manners and resisted the urge to scarf down the waffles. The waffles were so good I probably could have eaten a few dozen. But we suppressed the urge. We had to reactivate our “civilized” eating mode and temporarily turn off the “scarf-it-down-survival-mode” that we had employed for the past two months. If we were in a race we probably could have made the whole stack disappear in about two minutes. Maria and Ragnhild could probably sense this, and what do you know, every meal after that there was more food than we could finish.
I told Maria and Ragnhild that this was the best meal I had eaten in a month. And the best company too. After waffles we drove out to Jevnaker Lutheran church, which had been built in the 1830s. Maria said that a few Nøklebys had helped to build it. Inside the church there were actually two balconies, one on top of the other. All the wood was painted to look like marble and everything was in excellent shape. I can see where Grandpa Gilbertson gets his wordcarving expertise from, I thought to myself.
It was moving to think that some of our ancestors had gone to church here 150 years ago. And in this church they had no doubt thought hard about whether life would be better in America. Afterwards we met a few of Maria and Ragnhild’s second cousins. We started to get the sense that just about everyone knew everyone else around here, and most people were probably related to each other somehow or another. After church we went into downtown Jevnaker for some ice cream.
We had a nice sleep that night at Ragnhild’s house. She has two grandsons who visit often so the beds were set up perfectly for us. It was the first time we had slept in a bed in two weeks and it was hard to get used to not being against the ground.
For breakfast it was time to switch venues and eat at Maria’s house. I got the sense that Maria and Ragnhild were sort of fighting to see who would get to cook for us. Maria’s house is about 100 feet away from Ragnhild’s, just down the hill along a bike path. Her house was also impressive. In the doorway hung souvenirs and stickers from countries all over the world that she had visited. Family portraits and old photos hung in the hallway. Maria showed us a picture of her parents. “Wow,” I whispered to Eric, “her mother looks so tough she could probably have beaten us up.” It must be the Viking blood, we thought.
Maria had prepared an exquisite frukost (breakfast) of homemade bread, jam, vegetables, tea, cheese, meat, meatballs, and rolls. I’ve never seen a meal with that many different dishes before. It was astounding. My mouth watered. My eyes watered. I almost couldn’t decide what to eat first. This beats cereal + powdered milk hands-down, I declared. For the first time in a long time I ate until I was completely full. We were still used to eating 8000 calories a day, about as much as four normal people.
Maria and Ragnhild had a little adventure planned for us. We were going to visit some really old churches and tour around the countryside. We hopped in the green VW and sped off. This area is farm country. Wheat and bygg (similar to wheat) cover the rolling hills as far as the eye can see. The farms are a lot smaller in Norway than the US so you see a lot more barns and farmhouses.
First we visited a farm that their late sister Kari had operated with her husband. Nobody was around at the time but it was still impressive to see so many old buildings that had probably served the farm for over a century.
Next we drove to two sister churches near Gran that had been built from stone around 1100. Gotta appreciate that Norwegian engineering, I said to Eric, it’s built to last. Then we visited another church and Maria whipped out a picnic of tea, bread, and apples that she and Ragnhild had prepared. We looked out over the golden landscape of wheatfields and I couldn’t have imagined a more peaceful place. It was hard to see why our ancestors would have wanted to leave this place.
In the evening we met up with Carl Jakob Nøkleby, who runs the Nøkleby farm, which has been in the family since the 1300s. He had just gotten off work and picked us up from Ragnhild’s in his Saab. He runs a very successful farm with wheat and horses, and also leases some of his land to homeowners. He’s a very shrewd entrepreneur and speaks good English.
He drove us up the hill on the west side of the fjord, way back in the woods. He was going to show us the Falla farm, which some of our ancestors had come from 150 years ago. Even though he wasn’t related to the Fallas he still knew the location of the farm. There were actually three Falla farms, which he said had all probably been one at some time. There weren’t any Fallas living there now, but the sign still said “Falla Way” and the farm was still named “Falla Farm.”
It didn’t appear that any of the original buildings were still there. Carl Jakob explained to us that the Fallas probably had a very tough life. They probably worked across the fjord at another bigger farm. In the winter they would probably walk across the ice and in the summer they’d take a boat. In addition to working on the bigger farm they also had their own little farm in order to make enough money to make ends meet. He said they must have worked very hard and life must have been tough. It probably became so tough that they eventually decided to seek a new life in America.
On the way back from the upper Falla farm I had a little “city slicker” moment. I got out of the car to open a farm gate to let the car through. Then I closed the gate. Carl Jakob yelled out the window “you have to pass through first!” Then I realized that I had closed myself in. I undid the gate and walked through. So much for trying to act like a local, I thought.
After we visited the Falla farms Carl Jakob asked us, with a smirk on his face, “would you like to see my hunting cabin?” Definitely, we said enthusiastically. We wound farther up the hill and came to a spectacular vista overlooking the fjord and the town of Jevnaker. He had built a magnificent cabin for his family with the best view in Oppland Kommune. During hunting season in October, he said, he spends 14 days up here hunting moose. Even though he’s only four miles from home, he said, he doesn’t see his wife for the whole two weeks.
Next he showed us a big barn where “business” is performed after the hunt is brought back. He lifted up a secret brick and slipped out the key from underneath it. “Now don’t tell anybody where I keep the key,” he said with a smile. He opened up the door and all kinds of hooks and chains hung from the ceiling. I think he said that one time they had forty moose in there at once. He showed us a rugged-looking vehicle that they use for getting the moose carcasses out of the bush. He called it his “baby.” Last he showed us a room with a few couches and beer cans all over the place. “You can imagine what goes on in here,” he said with a big grin.
On the way back he pointed out the route we would take with our bikes the next morning. At first I had thought Carl Jakob’s personality was a little cold, but I eventually realized that that’s just how Norwegian men are supposed to act. You’re supposed to act tough and not get too excited about anything. It must come from the Vikings. But deep down you’ve got a soft side. I could tell he liked us. He dropped us off at Ragnhild’s and with a firm handshake bid us farewell, and wished us a good journey. We thanked him for showing us around and said we would come back again some day.
That evening we had yet another exquisite meal at Maria’s. She had prepared a spectacular feast of baked fish, potatoes, bread, and vegetables. While we were eating Ragnhild asked us for an important clarification. “What is the meaning of the phrase ‘you guys’?” she asked, “you have said that phrase many times.” She said she had looked it up in the dictionary but it didn’t make much sense. Eric and I laughed a little. Over the past day and a half we had kept referring to Maria and Ragnhild as “you guys” because it sounds a lot better than “you two” or just plain “you.” We told them it was a friendly way of saying “you” and they immediately smiled in acknowledgement.
We asked them if they had any Lutefisk, but they said that no, unfortunately, it’s only a Christmastime food. Lutefisk must have reminded Maria of something, because with a little smirk on her face she soon brought out a different food called pultost. Try some, she said. Both Maria and Ragnhild had mischievous smiles. Hesitantly I dabbed a little bit onto some bread and forced it down. It tasted like really, really, old cheese. Ugh, I wasn’t planning on eating any more of that. They laughed. The said it came from cheese and that some people like it. To me it seemed more like one of those foods that you eat just to say you’ve eaten it, rather than because you actually like it. We wondered if Lutefisk was the same way.
After dinner we called up Grandpa Gilbertson in Montevideo so that Maria and Ragnhild could talk with him. It was nice that they could talk to each other for the first time in sixteen years. Maria and Ragnhild did a little tug-of-war to see who would get the phone and have to opportunity to speak with Grandpa.
In the morning we had another superb breakfast at Maria’s. We were planning to leave by 10am so they told us to eat up. They said we’d need the energy. They said we must have Viking blood to be able to ride all those miles. Just before we left they told us they wanted to check out our bikes, to get a sense for what we do every day. They put on our helmets and sunglasses and posed near the bikes while I got some priceless photos.
Over the past day and a half they had treated us like grandsons. They had welcomed us into their homes just like we were part of the family. It had been so pleasant that I didn’t want to leave. We thanked them profusely for all their hospitality, and for all that they had given to us. We told them that we would be back again some day. With hugs all around we pushed off and cruised down the hill, on our way to Oslo. We were back on the road.
Eric and I were silent for a few moments. “You won’t meet anybody nicer than them,” I said. As we pedaled I couldn’t help but smile as I replayed the past day and a half in my mind. “And we won’t eat that well for a long time,” Eric said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they drove after us to say goodbye again,” I said.
A few miles outside of town we stopped by the tiny town of Grua, where some of our Gilbertson ancestors had come from. We asked people if there was a cemetery in town where we might find some old gravestones, and people were more than happy to point out the way to the church. But it turns out the church was built in 1921, long after our direct ancestors would have passed away. We found some Gulbrandsen and Abrahamson tombstones, but they wouldn’t necessarily be related. Maria and Ragnhild had said they would probably be buried in a cemetery in Roa, which we had not gotten a chance to visit. They could also be in Jevnaker or Sogn.
We continued on our way. We had pedaled 17 miles from Roa when sure enough, we looked in front of us and saw Maria parked on the side of the road. Eric and I both laughed. When we got closer I noticed that Maria was holding in her hand my fleece. I had forgotten it. “You left this at the dinner table,” Maria said. “I said to Ragnhild, ‘Matthew needs his jacket so I have to find him.’ Ragnhild said, ‘you’ll never find him.’ But here I am. ‘You guys’ went a lot farther than I had expected!”
It was touching that Maria had driven all this distance to make sure that I would be warm on the road ahead. And it was nice that we would get to see her one last time. We each gave her a big hug and took one last picture. “Have a safe ride!” she said. And then we were off. We hoped that we would come back to Norway again soon and experience Maria and Ragnhild’s hospitality once again