Letter written by Margaret in 1939: "I wrote this one winter night after dad (Thomas Torgeson) passed away. It all seemed so real I had to write it.

"A Pioneer Life":

When I was one year old my parents moved to Kansas from Iowa where I was born. My father hired a man to bring us as they were moving out here. There were five families in all moving; at that time moving wagons were drawn by oxen. It took six weeks to make the trip. We landed in the Soloman Valley and lived for a time in a sod house with a ground floor and when it rained the only dry place was under the table. Our table was home made and our chairs were nail kegs and boxes. It was hard living for a time. Finally my father got a job on the railway section. As time wore on he was made section foreman, and that was his work for a good many years. Then he moved to Soloman City.

When I was between 8 & 9 we moved to Parkerville, KS. For 4 years my father was a section foreman, then he took over a job as a grain buyer for a man by the name of Joe Drake. When I was 13 he bought a farm 3 1/2 milres from Parkerville. There was a large family of us, twelve in all. Never was there more than 4 at a time as sickness and death took from us our loved ones. I had 5 brothers and 7 sisters. I never had a brother live to be 5 years old. I was married at the early age of 15. In 1907 my father passed away and our oldest girl was married. I had two little girls die just one year and 3 months between them, Mildred Anetta and Merle Agatha, then another girl took sick in another year."

Margaret was a quiet, dignified person who spent her life as a homemaker. She was a good cook and housekeeper who enjoyed needlework and liked to listen to the radio.

Thomas left Norway with his parents when he was a baby. Family notes say he was born near Christiana (Christiansand), or Bygland Norway. They arrived in Wisconsin in 1861. They lived in or near Dodgeville, Iowa County, WI, or Janesville, WI. They moved to KS in 1869. In 1885 he lived in a boarding house in White City, Rolling Prairie Twp, Morris County, KS. He was the postmaster in White City, and was in the grain business and had a feed store in White City for 13 years. About 1926 they moved to Topeka for their retirement years. Thomas was a quiet, dignified man who loved to garden and play croquet but was unhandy mechanically. He died of prostrate cancer.

Contributor: Jack Gilchrist (47124171)
November 25, 2019