Ole Mathias Andersen

Fisker og gårdbruker i Tåvær. Gift med Petrine Jensine Kristine 18,juni 1875 på Tjøtta (Tjøtta minestrialbok), Ved folketellingen 1875 hadde de 5 kyr, 9 sauer, 1 gris og de dyrket bygg, havre og poteter. De fikk 15 barn, 9 sønner og 6 døtre, 2 døtre døde som barn (Jim Willite). Anne Gurine født 1876 (Tjøtta minestrialbok). De andre barna funnet i folketellingen 1900. Undersøkt av Dag Marius Hestvik.
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From "The Story of Norwegian Islanders in the Columbia River": The 5th of January 1876 Ole Mathias Andersen's half brother, Hans Andersen, and his wife, Pernille Klausdatter, rowed from their home on the island of Kilvær to visit friends on the island of Rognan, an hour's row away. On the way home a storm took them by surprise. They managed to land of a small skerry, but they froze to death, orphaning 3 boys. The oldest boy was fifteen, and able to earn his own living. The two youngest were only 1 and 11 years old. Their mother, Pernille, had nursed Ole's brother Nils and sister Elen Anna when they got typhus. Typhus killed his sister and mother, but Nils and Elen Anna survived. Ole took Pernille's boys into his home... When the carpenters laid the floor in Tåvær (in 1871), they had no way of knowing that eleven of the thirteen children would leave the island. They traveled all the way to the Pacific coast of the America tho earn their living. Most of them never returned to their childhood home. Ole and Petrine were familiar with America. Ole's brother Benjamin, lived in Tacoma. Originally all three brothers, Benjamin, Ole and Nils planned to emigrate. Ole Andersen bought the house from his stepmother, Anne Christine Christensdatter; when his mother, sister and father died in a space of a few years.... one of the carpenters was Ole's brother Nils Andersen, ....It was Nils that put in the attractive wainscot in the parlor in the house. A few years after he laid the new floor in Tåvær...the first vear Nils, his wife, and his small son lived in the house on Tåvær together with his brother Ole. Their sister Christine, also lived there for two years,until she was 19, and helped her brother run the household. Eventually Petrine came into Ole's life and there was a wedding to celebrate in the house on Tåvær. The oldest part of the house was built in 1793. Almost eighty years later it was necessary to put in a new floor....

    ....Ultimately the household consisted of Ole, Petrine, a maid, a hired hand, and fifteen children. Thirteen of the children were Ole and Petrine's and two were foster children. ...,the hired hand, and maid already were crowded in the second floor. Ole, Petrine, and the youngest children slept in the pantry. The family ate, worked, and talked in the parlor and the kitchen...

    ...There was only one other family on the island, Nils Peder Andersen, fish buyer and cargo shipowner, and his family lived in the "Lower house"... Nils Peder ran a small store, and i of islands and in 1912 they got a post office. Around them, in all directions, were thousands of islands and skerries where two or three families lived, like on Tåvær. Hundreds of people lived in this island world on the coast of Helgeland, and they came to Tåvær to buy sugar and flour, some coffee and tobacco. Once in a while they bought clothing, but for the most part they had to be self-sufficient. They came to Tåvær to work on the "klippfiskbergene", the bare rocks skirting the sea where thousands of cod were laid to dry. When dry, the rockfish were exported to countries in southern Europe..

    ....In the barn were five cows and nine sheep. They provided the family with milk, butter, meat and wool. The family grew their own grain for bread and planted five barrels of potatoes each year. In the summer the cows were out in the pasture, and the maid and the girls walked out to milk them every morning and evening. In the winter the cows ate hay. Since every straw counted, haying was hard work. The boys cut the hay and the girls raked it and spread it to dry on the ground.

    ....In the boathouse lies the boat that they use to fish the cod, herring and pollack, also Haddock and redfish. In the spring they hunted seal. In a good breeze the boat with it's viking lines is a real fast sailer. Ole and his oldest sons rowed to the islands farther north to participate in the best fishing industry in Norway. When the cod came in from the Barents Sea to spawn in the shallows of Westfjord, thousands of Norwegian fishermen also came, to earn the cash necessary for their household economies. Ole's oldest son, Petter, left on the neighbor's cargo ship. The others joined the crews on other boats. However, thirteen childbirths (fifteen ? DMH) took their toll with Petrine's health, and eventually Ole had to stop fishing in Lofoten... The nine brothers all eventually settled on Puget Island, Washington. In the early 1920's, the island was called "Little Norway" since the 600 or so families that lived on it were all from Norway."

Nedskrevet av Dag Marius Hestvik

Tellingsår: 1900, Kommune: Tjøtta, Kommunenummer: 1817, Navn på bosted: Taavær http://www.rhd.uit.no/folketellinger/ftliste.aspx?ft=1900&knr=1817&...

Tellingsår: 1875, Kommune: Tjøtta, Kommunenummer: 1817, Navn på bosted: Tovær http://www.rhd.uit.no/folketellinger/ftliste.aspx?ft=1875&knr=1817&...

Tellingsår: 1865, Kommune: Tjøtta, Kommunenummer: 1817, Navn på bosted: Taavær http://www.rhd.uit.no/folketellinger/ftliste.aspx?ft=1865&knr=1817&...