Among the pioneers who settled in Mabel Township were the four Kjelson brothers who came from the wooded hills of Wisconsin to homestead on the prairie in the 1880's and 1890's. Their parents had emigrated from southeastern Norway in 1852, had lived three years with the Ole Bull Colony in Pennsylvania, and had finally settled at Martell, Wisconsin. Anthon, the oldest brother, had been born aboard the sailing vessel during the ten weeks long Atlantic crossing. Their father, Ame, became a Civil War veteran and died in 1867, leaving Karen, the mother to raise eight young children.
Some of the brothers worked as young men in the lumber camps of Wisconsin and Minnesota before coming to Dakota. Oscar, the first to come, homesteaded the NW quarter of Section 8 in 1882. Several years later Adolph chose the northeast quarter. In 1889 Christian filed on the northeast quarter of nearby Section 18, and two years later Anthon brought his family to his homestead on the southwest quarter. Anthon returned to Wisconsin with his small daughter Orianna after the death of his wife in 1901.
Christian, my father, married Mina Larson at Walum in 1890 in a double ceremony shared with her sister Ida and Gunder Gunderson. The Gunderson family moved to Modesto, California about twenty-five years later. The twin girls, Ida and Mina, had been born in Wisconsin, also of Norwegian parents. Their mother Olava had brought them to Walum about the year 1883 and had died a year or two later. The girls lived with their stepfather Ole Fogderud until they married. Christian and Mina had five children:
Alfred, Clarence, Ernest, Lester and Myra.
Adolph married a widow, Isabelle Mayer, in 1901 at Cooperstown and acquired two stepchildren, Harold and Iva Mayer.
Oscar married Karn Christopherson in Wisconsin in 1902. Having no children of their own, they raised her nephew, Sidney Christopherson.
The first years on the prairie must have been times of loneliness and hardship. The settlers would search the rim of the horizon for signs of smoke or building, hoping for new neighbors. Christian built a one-room sod shack and while alone the first winter used his eight bags of seed grain for a bed. His possessions included a sulky wagon, one mare and one ox for transportation and sod-busting. The prairie grass was covered with dry white buffalo bones and skulls, and dotted with circular hollows (buffalo wallows). The settlers gathered the bones into their wagons and hauled them a distance of forty miles to Sanborn, the nearest railroad town. Father was paid two dollars for a wagonload of bones.
The nearest town where supplies could be purchased was Courtenay, about fourteen miles. The children walked about a mile to their one-room school. As soon as possible the settlers formed a congregation and called a pastor. The Kjelson brothers were charter members of Mabel Lutheran Church. I remember riding the three miles to the country church in a horse-drawn buggy and listening to the Norwegian language service. Father had many stories to tell of Old Pastor Thoreson, who served the congregation for thirty-three years.
My parents added to their small house one room at a time as the family grew. Oscar and Adolph, who were more prosperous, built large new homes. In time the Great Northern Railroad came, Sutton was built, and when I was ready for school I had the privilege of riding the bus (horse-drawn or Model T) to the two-story brick schoolhouse.
The threshing season was an exciting time for me as a child. It began with the arrival of the steam engine pulling the big threshing machine. I was fascinated by the cook car and begged to visit the cooks so I could see the cots where they slept and the long table and benches where the crew ate. My uncles would come with their teams and wagons to haul grain to the granary or to Sutton.
The Kjelson brothers lived out their lives on their homesteads and were buried in Mabel Lutheran Cemetery. Ernest, the only son to remain at home was also buried there, and the three farms were sold to people outside the family.
Survivors are Clarence of Portland, Oregon, now 82 and Myra of Deer Lodge, Montana, Clarence's four children and Myra's two. There are nine great-grandchildren, several of whom are now parents, but none bear the Kjelson name.
Source: Griggs County History 1879 - 1976 Page 359