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This is the Find A Grave on-line cemetery for "First James River Norsk Lutheran Cemetery" founded in 1878 and located at:

Jamesville Township
T96N R56W - Section 18
Rural Yankton County, SD

As documented by the WPA Graves Registration Project in a listing completed February, 1941, this cemetery was abandoned prior to 1940 and plowed in 1940 for the first time since 1878, probably the spring of 1940.

There is no "Front Gate", "Sign", or "Memorial" to photo and use for the home page photo of this cemetery at Find a Grave. Consequently, the photo used was determined to be "appropriate" to represent the sad reality of what happened to those interments at this cemetery.

Today, there is a huge number of descendants, like me, since at least 3 of these l2 interments were in their 40's at death even though this is not documented in the WPA list. Please advise if you have any documentation to add to this web page or one or more of its memorials.

To prevent further confusion (discussed below) between this cemetery and a nearby cemetery with a similar name (First James River Cemetery which became the "Our Savior's East Cemetery" in 1936), the First James River Cemetery will be referred to as "Our Savior's East Cemetery" or "OSE" in the remainder of this history.

The similarity of the names between these two cemeteries, and the lack of a First James River Norsk Lutheran Cemetery at Find A Grave prior to February 19, 2015, resulted in the twelve interments for this cemetery being added to the "First James River Cemetery" aka "Our Savior's East Cemetery" on May 24, 2006.

On February 19, 2015, this cemetery was added to Find A Grave and memorials for 11 of the 12 interments on the WPA list transferred from "First James River Cemetery" to this cemetery. Nikolai Larson, my great-grandfather, is one of the 12 on the WPA list whose memorial was transferred to this cemetery.

From research performed by the author and four of his cousins who performed extensive genealogical research for many years:

1) None of the interments include a date of death later than 1881. Data from descendants of two of these without a DOD, document death in 1878 and about 1881. A spouse that died in 1920 is not on this list but has a headstone at OSE. There was a diphtheria epidemic in 1881 which is probably the cause of death for several of these interments as infants or early child hood.

2) The WPA was born in 1935 and the grave registration project started in 1939 as a grave registration project for Veterans. The entry of the United States into World War II in 1941 resulted in the WPA being discontinued on June 30, 1943 as, with the demand for war goods, the WPA had outlived its purpose of creating meaningful jobs.

3) When the Grave Registration Project ceased to be a Federal project, some states continued, others abandoned the effort. Some cemeteries were never surveyed, some of the records were never transcribed and some of the records were lost or intentionally destroyed. Do not expect complete accuracy but be thankful for what is available.

4) In the memorials created from the WPA list, this has been noted in the "Plot" to indicate that the interment was included on the WPA list. For example:
. Plot: Grave K (Per WPA List Dated Feb 1941)

5) For some cemeteries, there are graves that are known to have existed at the time of the survey that do not appear on the WPA lists. This could be an oversight or a temporary marker that was not found or did not exist at the time of the survey with headstones installed at a later date. These were interments before the "Dakota Territory" became SD and ND on November 2, 1889.

With the field plowed in 1940 and the WPA list dated almost a year later, it raises the question of whether the list published by the WPA is complete or just the "best available", potentially the list was created based on records available prior to plowing the field. If the list is complete, it appears that the cemetery was largely a ‘family cemetery" without additional interments for almost 60 years prior to returning the cemetery to a farm field. There is no documentation that indicates whether the WPA list was from a physical inventory of the cemetery or some source that existed prior to returning the cemetery to a farm field.

Since the First James River Church, now Our Savior's Lutheran Church, was dedicated November 29, 1885, including 4 acres for the OSE cemetery, it would be logical that this "family cemetery" was abandoned due to the availability of the new church building with a cemetery on the grounds. Please refer to the aka "The Stone Church".

Other WPA Grave Registration Project history documents state that many of these "family cemeteries" no longer exist leaving only the data compiled by the WPA. This is the case with this small cemetery:

1) Six of the 12 interments were infants through Age 16 with surname Gudmunson.

2) Two additional interments, Alette Fauske and Alette Olsen are listed as infants.

3) Nikolai Larson (1843-1881), Lars Olsberg (1831-1878), and Hans Olsen (DOD after 1870) all died at as young adults in their 40's with written documentation from Olsberg descendants that the three knew each other. Please refer to their Find A Grave memorials for additional information.

4) There is no documentation for Barnhard Svenum. There are no interments with the same surname in Yankton County but there are a total of 10 in SD and 243 total with Find A Grave memorials as of February 23, 2015.

There is a double headstone in Our Savior's East Cemetery for Lars Olsberg (1831-1878) Find A Grave memorial #14396941 and his widow Maria Olsberg (1830-1920) #68437922 who survived Lars by 42 years. No headstones have been found for any of the other 11 buried at this cemetery and included on the WPA list.

Lars Oleson Olsberg (1831-1878)
Maria Nielsdatter Olsberg (1830-1920)

If anyone has a concern with this change, I will be happy to return the memorial for your loved one to "Our Savior's East Cemetery" aka "East Cemetery" formerly known as "First James River Cemetery" prior to 1936.

The UsGenWeb WPA list for this cemetery can be viewed on line at: .

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For the search engines:

Alette Fauske (infant)
Caroline Gudmunson (Age 5)
Gilbert Gudmunson (Age 10)
Hans Gudmunson (infant)
Magnus Gudmunson (Age 1)
Magnus Gudmunson (infant)
Martha Gudmunson (Age 16)
Nikolai Larson (Drowned in James River)
Lars Olsberg (Double headstone with wife Maria at OSE)
Alette Olsen (infant)
Hans Olsen (Filed for land in Yankton Co, 1870
Barnhard Sveum (Same surname in SD=10)
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