Sessel's Story

Buxton Township, North Dakota, Spring 1918

Sessel had butterflies in her stomach. She paced back and forth in the bedroom she had shared with her two closest sisters, Ina and Bertha, both older and gone from home. The youngest of 9 children, Sessel was the only one born in America. She wondered if that was why she rebelled against the strict stoicism practiced and demanded by her parents. Sven and Berta Hauge and their children ranging in age from 2 to 17 came to America to make a better life, lured by the promise of land along the Great Northern Railroad tracks. To Buxton Township, North Dakota. Where Sessel was born in 1893.
So much had happened in the past year. She had been looking forward to starting her life with Jens, who had proposed just before leaving to join the Army and fight in the Big War.  They wrote to each other every week. Sessel re-read each letter until she memorized every word, gently touching the words Jens had written, as if she could connect with him through the thin airmail paper. She sighed. She had been so happy. Then, his family told her he had been killed in action in France. Her world collapsed.
That was 6 months ago. Now, it was time for her to leave. She couldn’t stand being in Buxton. The walls, the fields of grain, the rolling hills, the very sky closed in on her until she couldn’t breathe.
Sessel opened her satchel and checked her packing for the fourth time:

• her winter cloak and gloves
• her good dress
• spare leggings (wool for winter and lawn for summer)
• nightgown
• dresser set of her brush, comb, and mirror
• hair pins
• her Bible
• a packet of letters from Jens, wrapped in a red ribbon
• a brown crockery bowl wrapped in a linen towel her sister Serena had made
• her train ticket
• the letter from the wealthy department store owner in Minneapolis offering young, hardworking Christian women of good character the opportunity to work as a maid

Father called from outside, “Sessel, it’s time to go, girl. You’ll miss the train.” Sessel snapped the satchel closed and, holding her head high, walked out the door and down the steps towards the horse cart where Father was waiting impatiently.
Mother ran out the door, holding a small package. “Sessel, I want you to have this. It was my mother’s. I brought it from Norway. It is too fine for farm work.” She held out her hand. Sessel took the small package and opened it to find a silver broach, shaped in a circle with filigree and fringe. She gasped. “This is too fine for me, Mother.”
“No, Sessel, you are the one who should have it, living and working in the big city.”
With a lump in her throat, Sessel nodded and pinned the broach to the high collar of her blouse. She pulled on her gloves, checked that her hat was securely pinned, and climbed up on the cart to sit next to Father. He clicked the horses to a trot, dust kicking up from their hooves and from the wooden wheels as they clattered down the dirt track.
Father left her at the platform with a stoic goodbye and an admonition to be humble and work hard. She found a seat in an empty compartment in second class and sat down, storing her satchel in the rack above her head. She looked out over the grasslands and wheat fields of the Red River Valley, her light blue eyes, straight nose, and strong jaw of her Viking ancestors taking in every detail as the train puffed its way down the track towards her new life.