Wednesday, July 16
We’re sitting in the Orsta Volda airport waiting to board our flight to Oslo. It’s a small airport with small planes! Figures on the day we needed to check a fourth bag—an Adidas sports duffel bag!
We’ve been in the village of Davik on Nordfjord for the past two-plus days. Yes, it looks like my last name. Davik is the ancestral home of the Davick lineage. Our first stop was to the Davik Kyrkje.
A man named Gunnar met us there and let us in. He took us all around the church, even had us climb up the bell tower. He was somewhat of the church historian as he rattled off significant dates and names of import to the church. As we stood outside the church, Gunnar was apologetic that his knowledge of the Davick family lineage was limited. But he had a friend who did, so he gave him a call.
A few minutes later Per Inge Boen arrived at the church. As we talked over the truncated family tree we had brought with us, it was determined that Per’s grandmother and my great-great grandmother were sisters. Here we are; our appearances are not that dissimilar! (By the way, Per is 81 years old!)
Our AirBnB was located between the one grocery store and one restaurant in Davik. As we were leaving the grocery store with some frozen lasagna and pasta carbonara, Per was leaving the restaurant with two other people: his sister, Liv Marit Boen, and her husband, Aage Kvendseth. Liv was delighted we’d run into one another. In fact, she invited us back to the restaurant for a cup of coffee. Our frozen dinner still in our arms, we suggested later in the evening. At 8:00 p.m. Per and Liv were guests with us at our AirBnB. We shared stories of our incredibly tough ancestors. An uncle of Per and Liv’s who’d been a fisherman his whole life, left Norway for a better life in America. He brought with him as much fishing gear as he could carry. Others getting on the boat questioned why he’d brought his gear as he wouldn’t need it in America. The voyage was long and hard. Food was running out. The fisherman with the gear did what he knew best; he caught fish and no one went hungry.
During the depression, my grandfather and a few of his brothers would sneak onto rail cars at the Minot, ND train station. They’d climb under the cars onto the brake lines. There they’d ride the train to the apple orchards of Washington state. Once there they’d pick apples for 5 cents a bushel basket. When finished, they’d climb back onto the train and head home with a few dollars in their pockets.
That’s tough.
Peder and Christiana Davik, Carl M. Davick, Per and Liv Boen…relatives across time and place who’ve, each in their own way (whether they knew it or not), shaped the ‘Davik’ in me. Perhaps one day when my grandchildren’s children are exploring their roots they’ll say the same of me.
Brad
Wander Tales by PC, PB, and Ellie 