Ole Simensen Hervin

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229043230/ole-simonson-hervin

1851 https://www.digitalarkivet.no/view/255/pd00000009344150

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G7JB-5RW

Who Was Herm. Wang? by Ingrid Semmingsen In Johannes B. Wisťs knowledgeable survey of the Norwegian language press in America after the Civil War one reads as follows: "Older readers of Verdens Gang in Kristiania will remember a familiar pseudonym that appeared in the latter part of the 1870s under several well-written satiric articles about such matters as military life on a drill ground or politics and the authorities. At the time, these articles created something of a stir and contributed greatly to the popularity of Verdens Gang . Later similar articles appeared in the same journal and from the same pen about the police in Kristiania, articles that were read with interest all over the country. The pseudonym was 'Herm. Wang.' In time it became just as well known in America as it once had been in Norway.

The real name that for a long time was hidden behind this nom deplume is Ole S. Hervin. He was born in Stange, Hedmark, in 1852, attended the military academy for petty officers, and became a sergeant in 1873. Besides holding a military commission he was also for a time a policeman in the capital. He emigrated to America in 1880, and was here associated with various newspapers, among them Budstikken, Nordvesten, Skandinaven , and Nationaltidende. The last he edited in 1895-1896. In 1901 he started a small monthly in St. Paul called Smuler (Crumbs) in which he gave, in his own characteristic way, his opinions 215 216 Ingrid Semmingsen on 'men and forces' among us. Smuler appeared regularly until 1912. Since then it has been published occasionally. Hervin has a sharp pen. As a writer he possesses a good deal of originality and a great fund of humor."1 It is easy to subscribe to most of what Wist wrote in 1914. In addition it may be possible to put the life and work of Ole S. Hervin into a broader historical perspective in regard both to Norway and to the Norwegian-American milieu.

Ole Simensen H verven- Americanized into O. S. Hervin - was the son of a cotter. But his father, born in 1825, was the son of a freeholder. The situation is typical of the social development in the eastern lowlands of rural Norway at the time. Ole's father was one of the many victims of the downward social mobility that resulted mainly from the population pressure caused by decreasing infant and child mortality. Ole's mother was the daughter of a cotter.

His parents were not married when Ole was born, nor did they marry until two years later, presumably because they could not afford to do so. This is also typical of the social conditions at the time. By 1865 three more children had been added to the family, according to the census of that year.2 The farm Hverven (today Verva) was one of the largest in the municipality of Stange. According to the census of 1875 seven cotters' houses belonged to the farm. It also had a blacksmith's shop, and Ole's father was the blacksmith. The combination of blacksmith and cotter was not an unusual one in these districts. The occupation of blacksmith gave considerable esteem to a cotter and usually allowed him more favorable terms than the ordinary cotter's contract. The shop must also have been of great value to the farm and its owner.

Young Ole was a bright boy. When he was confirmed in September, 1867, at the age of fifteen, the pastor gave him very good marks. He ranked second among the confirmands. Out of a total of twenty boys he was one of nine who scored "very good" both in "knowledge" and in "diligence at work and general behavior."3 Many years later Hervin gave an amusing, ironic, but possibly somewhat romanticized ac- Who Was Herm. Wang? 217 count of how this happened, which also involved an element of social criticism. In this account he praised his teacher in the elementary school as an excellent man who did not pay too much attention to all the baffling questions in the big Pontoppidan catechism, or their complicated answers. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/799196/summary