Jennie (Janna Johnson) Cederson was born in Filmore County, Minnesota, in 1878. At the age of six years, she moved with her parents and family to North Dakota, first residing in Valley City for two years when a flash flood at night drove the family out of their home, after which the family came to Griggs County and homesteaded about four miles north of Union Church where a sod house was their first home there.
Jennie has told about the many incidents that took place in early childhood. Losing her mother at the age of 15, and along with her sisters, took full responsibility of the home. The girls walked to Cooperstown and home, a distance of about 13 miles both ways, for confirmation lessons and also carrying with them eggs to sell in Cooperstown for 6 a dozen.
Later years, the family became charter members of Union Church.
To assist a midwife or doctor, if one were available, was an early experience when a neighbor gave birth to a newcomer.
Luxuries and gifts were few. A ruby pin and a ring given to her by her father and her mother's Bible (given to the mother in 1872), were the only cherished possessions still owned by Jennie at the time of her death at the age of 94 1/2 years.
Jennie’s daughter, Mae (Cederson) McCallson, still has the pin and Bible and daughter, Alice (Cederson) Lee, has the ring. A high, stemmed glass fruit bowl, too, and the original lefsa rolling pin from Norway are in the possession of Mae and Judy McCallson Isaacson. Jerome McCallson has possession of great grandpa August Johnson's watch, one of the first watches in North Dakota.
Jennie recalled the time that Theodore Stone hurt his eye as a young boy and he with his parents stopped at their home en-route to a doctor in Cooperstown.
Jennie also worked at the C. O. Johnson home and took care of Carl as a little child. She assisted at the Kroogsgaard home when Edgar was born. She also related when several members of a neighbor's family died of tuberculosis within weeks apart. There were no sanitariums or methods of sterilization except by boiling and burning of clothing and bedding, etc., thereby making the disease so transmittable to other members of the family.
Source: Hannaford Area History North Dakota Centennial 1889 - 1989 Page 104