Syver Sjurson Holland

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=112333618

from http://www.naha.stolaf.edu/pubs/nas/volume15new/vol15_1.htm A Norwegian-American Pioneer Ballad By Einar Haugen (Volume XV: Page 1)

Syver Holland was apparently the author of the famous ballad KORLEJDES DÆ GJEK (HOW THINGS HAVE GONE)

which "so fully did it reflect the common experiences of the pioneer immigrant that it was taken as the pioneer song: they called it the "Prairie Ballad," or simply the "Old Pioneer Ballad."

the article says of him

"Syver Sigurdson Holland was born in Etne, Norway, on February 2, 1839, and immigrated to Walworth County, Wisconsin, with his parents in 1846. {35} He attended district school, and studied at Albion Academy when he was twenty-two years of age. He taught in the district schools a few years, farmed for a time, and was married to Martha Johannesdatter Bakken in 1868. But in 1870 he sold his farm and bought a fourth interest in a store and grist mill owned by his brothers at Moscow, in Iowa County, Wisconsin. Here he and his brothers prospered; eventually a town was named for them, still in existence as Hollandale, Wisconsin. They were described by an anonymous writer in Norden as "worthy men, generally liked, and kindly in their ways with creditors." {36} Syver died in May, 1884, only forty-five years old, leaving his widow Martha to carry on the literary interests of the family. Anderson gives us an engaging glimpse of the man in his description of the evening when Ole Bull promised these country folk that he would play for them, "I can still see how Syver Holland sat rubbing his hands together in joy." {37} He was a man with talents beyond the average, who assumed a position of leadership in his community and leavened its social life with literary interests within the first generation of its founding.