How Peter Oscar Torkildson Lost His Farm

My paternal grandfather Peter Oscar Torkildson was born in Vienna, Clark County, South Dakota, in 1885. The town got it’s name from an influx of early settlers from Austria, who fondly envisioned the dusty brown plains as a cultural mecca like its namesake. The collection of tar paper shacks they erected, however, never had more than 800 living souls in it, and nearly disappeared during the Great Depression. Today it holds a mere 50 persons, according to the U.S. Census. Residents of Clark County pronounce the town’s name as “Vie-enna,” accented on the first syllable.

Peter’s father, Ole Torkildson, who was a skilled telegraph operator, left behind the abundant salmon rivers of Nord Trondelag in Norway to become a homesteader just outside of Vienna. Although he has left behind no written record that I know of concerning his decision to up stakes from the lush green forests and towering mountains of Nord Trondelag to plant wheat which was regularly eaten by locusts, withered by drought, or burnt by prairie fires, I suspect that great grandfather Ole must have had some dour second thoughts, like a character out of Rolvaag’s novel “Giants in the Earth,” as he contemplated his dwindling bank account and increasing family. He had five children that we know of -- Peter was his second born and the first boy.

My dad, Peter’s son, wholeheartedly condemned agricultural pursuits of any kind his entire adult life. Removing the expletives, my father’s opinion of farming was basically: “Any appleknocker who can make money with a farm must be robbing banks on the side -- and those crooks deserve to be robbed.” So strong was my dad’s aversion to anything associated with planting and harvesting that he stoutly refused to water, cut, or weed our lawn. Our grass alternated between luxurious tropical canebrake and sere brown sagebrush. Until I was put into harness, that is, as lawn caretaker at the tender age of eight, for a measly allowance of one thin quarter a week. Hard work never killed anyone, but it sure ruined my Saturdays!

Gleaned from my memories of comments from my dad and his mother, the redoubtable Olena Christina Torkildson (nee Gullikson), here is how the Torkildson homestead was finally lost during the stewardship of Grandpa Peter . . .

Peter’s father Ole kicked the bucket at the start of World War One, 1914. As oldest son, Peter inherited the farm, lock, stock, barrel, and McCormick Reaper. Peter had no intention of selling the place and divvying up the proceeds with his siblings, and so the other four were left out in the cold and eventually drifted away from Clark County to make their way in the world as best they could.

For reasons that are shrouded in Federal fol-de-rol, Uncle Sam decided that the Dakotas were prime breeding ground for carrots, not grain. In 1917 Peter Torkildson, along with other farmers in Clark County, were given bags and bags of carrot seeds to plant, on the cuff. As patriotic as the next farmer, and unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, Peter tilled and manured his fields, then struggled to hand plant the carrot seeds -- there were no automatic planting devices for such teensy weensy things. The rains were abundant for the next few years and the carrots grew like a house afire. Plus the crickets and locusts, apparently sharing the same universal dislike as human children, gave the carrot fields a wide berth. The Federal government bought up all the carrots he could produce, so Peter was in the chips for several years.

But then the War to End All Wars itself ended, and Uncle Sam saw no more need to hand out free carrot seed. Peter reverted back to hard red Turkey wheat. The rains began to fail sporadically, the land itself began to grow restless and drifted off in dark gray clouds, the price for grain tumbled, and Peter was forced to get a mortgage on the old homestead to keep going. He, too, produced five children -- four sons and one daughter. And the land continued to disintegrate before their red rimmed eyes. When the Great Depression hit in 1930, Clark County was already one of the poorest counties in the whole state, with population draining away like bubbles down a sink.

In 1932 Peter and eleven other farmers in Clark County formed the Last Man Standing Club. They each put ten dollars in the pot; as each one gave up or was dispossesed of his farm, he lost his ten dollars. The money, all of it, would go to the last farmer left -- if it got down to that. And it did. In 1934 the bank foreclosed on the Torkildson homestead, making Peter next to last. The $120.00, so I was told, went to a shifty-eyed Swede who used a good part of his meager corn and wheat crop to make moonshine.

My dad, Peter’s son, hitchhiked out to San Diego after the farm was gone, where his older brother Albin was a cook on a Navy ship. For the next several months, said my dad, he lived off of donuts and coffee smuggled off the boat by Albin, and slept on the dock nestled in giant coils of manila hemp rope. Dad told me that this was when he decided that families were no damn good, and that God, if there was one, was no damn good either.

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(a response from my nephew in Spain)

SiffyandTor Torkildson Oh did I laugh when you mentioned getting put into harness. You forgot to mention the 2am pee spot on the lawn, buried coffee cans of gambling money, and Tork hitchhiking back from San Diego, breaking into a jewelry store to get a hot rack and meal in the local jail, before the final push back to Minnesota to become an egg seller (when I lived in Japan, I heard a song one morning on the radio, it was, The Egg Seller from Minnesota, and I wondered if it was Tork. Actually, it wasn't about the eggs, it was about prohibition, and selling whiskey door to door. I have a million stories about Tork during the years I hung out with him and brought him home after long nights. He always wanted me to take him to after hour joints over Nord East and when we walked in, all the Italians would cheer that the "Swede" had arrived. Tork would shoot right back that it looked like a room of Dago's needed to buy him a drink and lose some money at the card table. In the morning he would call me up and demand to know where all his money went. Interesting times!

And from a distant cousin:

im's article is very interesting. I don't know much about the history of Vienna but he is right that it isn't a very big town now. Ole was a Telegraph operator in Norway. I believe he worked for the railroad or was involved in the building of the railroads in Norway before he emigrated. He was born in Asker, Norway, which is in southern Norway but apparently moved northward as the railroads were being constructed. He met his wife, Ellen, in Hegra in the Nord Trondelag region and lived there for several years, having 3 children. When he came to America in 1880 he went first to Goodhue county in Minnesota. His wife's family had emigrated to America earlier and were living there. I imagine that is why they went there. Ole & family moved to Claremont in Dodge county, Minnesota at some point where he worked as a clerk for a while. He then moved to South Dakota in 1883, receiving land as a homestead grant from the government. He actually had 11 children; Peter is the 6th child and the 4th son. They left Norway with 3 children under the age of 5. One of these children, the first Gunhilda Christine, was only 7 months old when they left Norway. She died right after they arrived in Goodhue county in 1880. We think she is buried in the Minneola Lutheran Church (the church still exists!), although there is no record of where. But the date of her funeral is recorded in the church records. Her grandparents (Ole's wife, Ellen's, parents) are buried there as well. Jon and I went to a church service there last year. It is a lovely church. Ole and Ellen lost three other children between 1900 and 1902 when they were living in South Dakota; looks like all of three died of tuberculosis. Ole did die in 1914 but I have never found anything saying Peter took over the farm. He may have but the only hint that he had anything to do with farming was the 1900 census which indicated he was a farm laborer (perhaps on Ole's farm since he was only 15 at the time). Peter went to high school at Augsburg Cemetery in St. Paul for three years from 1902-1904. He was a blacksmith (sometimes with 2 of his brothers) in 1910 and 1915. He apparently spent a little time around 1915 in Mankato, Minnesota. I believe your dad was born there, wasn't he? I don't have his birth certificate but there is a database on Ancestry.com that shows his birth place as Mankato, MN. Peter was back in SD in 1915, however. He is listed as a blacksmith again. His 1918 draft registration card lists his occupation as auto repair at Torkildson Brothers and in the 1920 and 1925 census records he is listed as a machinist. In 1930 he is listed as a Grocery Store Merchant. Lillian told me that her mother first met him in a grocery store when she went to buy something. They married in 1926 so apparently he worked in the grocery store for several years. He must have moved to Watonwan County by 1931 because his daughter, Ellen, was born there in November 1931. He lived there for many years, working as a gamekeeper. Lillian remembers living on the game farm and said it was a lovely place to live. He did die in Mesa Arizona. His sister Joanna was living there. Lillian told me that his doctor recommended he should go there for his health. He died shortly after he got there, however. Peter certainly could have been a farmer in addition to having the other jobs. Even today most family farmers have to have other jobs to make ends meet. There should be a copy of Ole's will filed in South Dakota that would state whether or not Ole left the farm to Peter. But the part about the Last Man Standing Club doesn't fit too well with the census records since Peter clearly was living in Watonwan since at least 1931.