Anna Ostrom's Scrapbook

Ed's Day Wednesday

Dear FOLKS,

Another Wednesday has arrived and it is time to once again look into the stories and family history that was left for us by my late cousin, Ed Ostrom. Today we will continue with the life of Anna Tomine Brekke Ostrom. Anna was Ed's paternal grandmother and No. 5 on the ahnentafel list of his ancestors.

As we learned in a previous post, Anna was born at home on 15 November 1890 to Norwegian immigrants Torstein Andreassen Brekke and Anna Olsdatter Stavaas. Home was a farm in Pomme de Terre Township, Grant County, Minnesota near the town of Elbow Lake. She would marry Oscar Ostrom, a young man who was also from this same township and together they would settle into having a family while building upon and growing their early homestead in Spring Lake Township, Ward County, North Dakota.

Anna had the normal education of a young girl of that time. She attended the local township schoolhouse and there gained an 8th grade education. That was the highest grade available at the neighborhood school and as much schooling as most girls would get. Like others, Anna learned how to cook, preserve, launder, sew, clean house, etc. with the technology, tools and traditions of the time. Her favorite thing was to stay connected with her family and friends. Now that is my kind of person! I know that Anna and I would have gotten along famously together.

Early on Anna began to collect photographs and newspaper articles of her family and friends, these she liked to save in albums and at least one scrapbook. Quickly thumbing through her scrapbook we see that she was interested in many subjects in addition to family. She clipped bits of artwork, and articles of general interest too and included them among the family-related news clippings.

IMAGE: Front Cover -- Photograph of Anna Brekke
Ostrom's scrapbook that she worked on from 1933-1968.
The scrapbook was photographed in September 2003.
Image from Edwin J. Ostrom collection of family
photographs.

The front covers reads:

THE BOOK OF VALUES

ROSE AND COMPANY

TAILORED CLOTHES FOR MEN

540 SO. WELLS ST.

CHICAGO

SPRING AND SUMMER

1933 

Collecting articles started for Anna shortly after moving to the homestead in 1908. Various articles may have been sent to her from her family and friends who remained in Minnesota in an effort to keep her abreast of the hometown news and then articles containing those she knew in North Dakota started to be printed in the local papers. These were important to Anna and she saved them. After some years of collecting she decided that she'd move these clippings into an ever popular scrapbook where she repurposed a Rose & Company spring and summer sample fabric catalog. She removed the material swatches that may have been used to make a quilt, possibly by Anna. But she then cut and pasted these news articles. While these clippings are unidentified as they do not include the name of the newspaper, page or date, they do give us a window into the things of interest and important to Anna.

IMAGE: Inside front cover of Rose and Company,
Tailored Clothes for Men, Spring and Summer, 1933
catalog. Including artwork that Anna added. Image from
Edwin J. Ostrom collection of family photographs.

Anna built this scrapbook from 1933 until approximately 1968, when she became bedridden. It measures 20 x 15 x 2 inches, contains 54 pages and weighs 11 pounds. In Ed's notes he wondered, "Did she glue them [the articles] on the pages with her own home made paste using white flour and water?" The date of the last entry is unknown.

Anna’s son, Tom Ostrom said that he thought the clippings were from a local newspaper called the "Ward County Independent." Ed notes say that he thought that the clippings are from several papers including:

• The Grant County Herald, Elbow Lake, MN (1887-present) [1]
• The Ward County Independent, Minot, ND (1902-1965), becoming the ongoing  Minot Daily News [1]
•  The Ryder Journal, Ryder, ND (1911-1916) and the Ryder News, Ryder, ND (1903-1943)
• Douglas Herald, Douglas, ND (1906-10 Aug 1922) [1]
• Woodburn, Independent, Woodburn, OR (1888-current) [1]
• Statesman Journal, Salem, OR (1890-current) [1]
• The Oregonian, Portland OR (1937-current) [1]

IMAGE: Completed page of pasted articles in
Anna Ostrom's scrapbook. Image from Edwin J.
Ostrom collection of family photographs.

Another entry in Ed's notes says that one of Anna's granddaughters said, "Grama, brought the auction papers from their ND homestead and her scrapbook with her from North Dakota to Hubbard [Oregon]. I remember it there. Don't really remember who last had it and when."

Another granddaughter said, "And with being on the farm too and she was busy except no TV or computers. Ha! Makes a difference. I don't think she did any fancy work."

Anna's grandson Ed Ostrom said, "It’s fun to peer into the mind of my grandma Anna. She was interested in a wide variety of topics and year after year recorded them with a monumental amount of work cutting & pasting. If she started in 1933 and continued until becoming bedridden in 1968, that is 35 years of work."

Ed's notes don't say where it is today. Hopefully it is still with someone in the family. We are glad Ed kept the photographs.

IMAGE: Inside back cover of Rose and Company,
Tailored Clothes for Men, Spring and Summer, 1933
catalog. Including artwork that Anna added. Image from
Edwin J. Ostrom collection of family photographs.

I see potential for future blog posts here. I am thinking that transcribing the articles from Anna's Scrapbook is a good project to undertake.  They contain a large amount of information that could be shared. We'll have to see how that goes. Hope you have a good day.

Source:

1. US Newspaper Directory, 1690-present, database, Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers site (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 19 April 2016).

 - - -

The URL for this post is: http://homefolktales.blogspot.com/2016/04/anna-ostroms-scrapbook.html

Please comment regarding this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then use the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Or contact me by email at dsteff4246[at]gmail[dot]com. I am glad you stopped by today.

Copyright (c) 2016, Darlene M. Steffens. All rights reserved.