Biography of Mrs. Ellen Anna Fogderud
Chester Olson
Mrs. Ellen Anna Fogderud, Peter Mossing, was born Mar. 25, 1868 in Aasen, Norway, which is near Trondhjem.
Mrs. Fogderud left home because her father was in America and thought conditions were better there. She left Norway (made the trip all alone) when fifteen years old and was on the ocean about three weeks. The weather was nice and she had a good time. When Mrs. Fogderud landed in America she took the train to Minnesota. The ticket from Norway cost fifty-three dollars and she had to work a little over a year to pay for it. She worked on winter to work for it in Minnesota at the wages of fifty cents a week.
Mrs. Fogderud stayed in Minnesota three years then started for North Dakota in a covered wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen. There were four in the party, her father, mother, one sister, and herself. They traveled a distance of about two hundred miles, and it took them about two weeks. They had cattle with them so most of the trip was made on foot. The cattle were afraid of trains and would run away. Sometimes they had to hunt a half a day before they were found. The trip took them through Fargo. They traveled through main street but Fargo was then just a small town of about three or four buildings. They reached North Dakota in August, 1886.
In the early pioneer days Mr. Fogderud filed a quarter section of land Southwest ΒΌ of Section 22, Township 144, Range 59. The first house was a two-room frame house, 22x12 feet. Dazey was the nearest town and the trips for provisions were made by oxen.
Their neighbors were Peter Mossing, Martin Mossing, Mikel Monson, Nels Austad, and John Lilja.
The crops raised were mostly wheat, rye, and oats. The yield was not very good on account of draught, hail storms, and the first year the crop froze. The fuel used was wood hauled from the Sheyenne River, which of course was free.
Some of the hardships the pioneer had to go through were Door crops, and long stormy winters. Sometimes blizzards lasting three or four days so bad that some people got lost on their way to the barn. Prairie fires were also a dread.
Ellen Anna Mossing was married to Andrew Fogderud in the Gunderson School house about one mile south of Walum on April 8, 1888. Five children were born to this union: Mrs. E. O. Wallin, Steele, North Dakota, Alfred, Laura, Eva, Gunnerson, Conrad Fogerud at Hannaford, North Dakota. The present home of the pioneer is where they filed their claim. No photographs of early days as kodaks and cameras were unheard of here then. There were no documents nor letters of the early pioneer days Preserved.