Book Blurb:
Martin and Asta came to America in 1913 to homestead and create a better life for themselves and a hoped-for family. Nineteen years later during the difficult years of the Great Plains Dust Bowl, they intend to improve the lives of three of their nine children by sending their eighteen-year-old daughter with her two younger sisters to Norway to live with relatives for two years.
But things do not go according to plan.
The oldest sister falls in love with and marries a young Norwegian man leaving the two younger sisters with no one to take them home. By 1940, when Germany invades Norway, the two younger sisters were living with the family relative who in the meantime married a Quisling, a member of the Norwegian Nazi Party. The two sisters miss the last US evacuee ship out of Petsamo, Finland, and soon German soldiers take one sister to Grini, a concentration camp north of Oslo. Eventually she and her older sister both marry men active in the Norwegian Resistance Movement of WWII.
Will the entire family ever reconnect?
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/whatweleavebehind
Author Bio:
It's amazing to be here and to have the opportunity to showcase my historical fiction novel as well as a bit of info about me! I'm told this is the place to "lay it all out there!" So, let's get after it.
October 1, 2022 update: Amazing how this book has taken off! Over 1,000 copies sold to say nothing about how many readers share the book with their friends! Books are like chain letters --- remember those??? --- we share! Great Idea.
Since last April I have done 8 presentations on the book, visited with 4 book clubs, spoken to a Sons of Norway Lodge as well as at the local Midsummer Festival in June. I am booked to be a keynote speaker at two conventions -- 2023 Arizona Symposium with Women Authors next February 4 in NW Phoenix and the ND State Delta Kappa Gamma State Convention in Bismarck, ND, in June 2023. What I especially enjoy is having readers share their stories --- and tell me they plan to get their histories organized! Love that . . .
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I began my freshman university year as a history major! Love history. Then I got a D in my first class. I won't go into why because I hide behind lots of reasons. Main reason: I must not have done the work the professor expected. So, I decided to drop history as my major. I also will confess that I got a C in my freshman English class. I think it was composition, but I don't recall.
I began to enroll in classes I thought sounded interesting. This process continued until I was a junior and needed to declare a major so the registrar's office could let me know how close I was to graduation. I inquired regarding what I had the most credits in that could safely become my major. "English" was the answer. Oh dear! Maybe I should be a teacher -- but I was told I needed to take Public Speaking. Oh dear! I took Public Speaking and realized that not only did I like it, but I was rather good at it. So, I declared Communication as my major because I never wanted to teach English anyway.
So, here I am retired! I have spent my professional career teaching English, Speech, and writing. I have spoken at more events than I can count! And now, this person who got a D in history and a C in composition, has written and published an historical fiction novel! Go figure!
My novel was published in mid-March 2022, and since that time I have done a number of presentations on the book. First, the book launch at Main Street Books, Minot, North Dakota, brought over 70 people in for the book talk! Largest book launch group they've hosted. Then the genealogical society wanted to know "how did you do this?" So for about 90 minutes I explained "how I did this!" Then the local Scandinavian Heritage Association asked for a presentation at their Midsummer Festival in June. That led to a number of elderly women from the area to take me to lunch! One of the ladies in attendance said she knew everyone in Part I of the book and that her grandmother was the midwife for my mother's birth!!! (I just can't make all this up :-) ). Now it's retired teachers organizations, Sons of Norway groups --- you name it! I will be the keynote speaker at a state convention next June. HISTORY. WRITING. SPEAKING. All those things I wasn't going to get involved in when I was young.
What does this tell me? We aren't very well equipped as eighteen-year-olds to know what our gifts are, what our strengths are, and what we really should be doing.
So, I am retired. My husband and I have been married 46 years!!! We have two adult children and five grandchildren. We consider ourselves quite lucky to have all of them within close distance --- 100 miles one way isn't too far!
You won't learn much about my life in this historical fiction novel, but you will learn about my heritage. You can easily assume that I love genealogy, am a relentless researcher, and undoubtedly quite committed to leaving the family story behind!
I suggest that you leave some breadcrumbs as well! Thanks for listening! and reading.
Feel free to contact me at solbergbarb@gmail.com
Editorial Review:
In the dark of the night, Asta thought about her homeland – her parents back in Norway. They ask often in their letters if she and Martin couldn't bring the family home for a visit. But raising children during poor farming years certainly meant they couldn't possibly afford that trip.
Told from the perspective of the author as she recounts the story of her ancestors, Martin and Asta, who journey from Norway to America in 1913 to the MidWest prairies in search of a better life, this story unfolds as a touching view of the struggles of many emigrants. Faced with learning a new language, of leaving behind loved ones, of building homes and lives in uncertain times and environments, of making new friends, of raising children, and sacrificing their own happiness to ensure a bright future for their six girls and one boy over the next 19 years.
Wanderlust. Adventure. The urge to get away and go abroad churned in his head. Several of Martin's friends were packing up and leaving. They told Martin they'd get to America, get some land, and work hard. Others had done it. They weren't worried about the money. The land of opportunity. “Life for us is not here,” they'd tell Martin.
After overcoming the many obstacles to acquire land and build a homestead, Asta gives birth to girls, one after another, and one boy, and Martin becomes a farmer intent on supporting the family... even through the first World War, onward through the Dust Bowl years, the Great Depression, and just as the threat of WWII rose on the horizon, the couple are faced with the prospect of sending three of their daughters back to Norway for a couple of years because of the hardships and to help better their lives.
There were days she hated the prairie. Those were the days when the wind blew, the skies grew dark with threats of tornados, hailstorms forced them inside, and mosquitos swarmed around them. There were days she loved the prairie. Those were the days when the birds sang, the sea of tall prairie grasses swayed in the breezes, and wildflowers colored the open skies as she looked out at the vast horizon.
What they don't know is after they send the three girls, of the ages 17, 8, and 4, that the outbreak of the war across Europe will prevent the girls from returning. After Clara, the oldest, falls in love with a Norwegian man, she leaves her sisters in the care of relatives in Norway and moves away. Borghild and Eleanor are left to literally “grow up” in the midst of all the chaos, without their mother and father, and dependent upon a family relative who marries a Quisling (a traitor who collaborates with the Germans who occupy Norway after 1940). Everything changes for the two girls over the following years, with and even though they are American citizens, both suffer from the occupation, such as when Borghild is taken to the Grini concentration camp; and later she marries a Resistance fighter. Not until some ten years later do either of them get to see their parents again. By that time, the girls are grown.
But again, things change for Martin and Asta back home. Asta has given birth to two more girls, sisters unknown to Clara, Eleanor, and Borghild; yet, Asta longs to move on from their struggles in the MidWest. Many of the settlers there have their sights set on Seattle, and Martin and Asta eventually leave their son and his wife in the MidWest, and move to the coast to begin again.
Conversations about moving to Seattle occupied much of their family time. Martin and Asta emphasized how they made decisions. They talked about how they decided to leave Norway for the United States and what a journey that had been. They recalled how they decided to send the three girls to Norway and what a journey that has been. Both journeys were meant to create a better life. Now they faced a new journey, a new horizon, and hope for a better life.
This is a story of family, of sacrifice, of love, and survival... and how the roots of a family reach far and wide across the old country into the blossoming sprouts formed in America. As said above, this is a touching story and when reading, a reader gets a sense of the immense love the author has for her family and the stories passed down through the generations. To know that the family, to this day, still gather together to remember Martin and Asta and their brave steps to leave behind all that they had ever known to start anew, is quite heartwarming. The historical aspect is woven in nicely and while not as immersive as a typical historical fiction novel, with wide story and character arcs, or intense building conflict, this story gives insight into the struggles of most emigrants of the time period. “What We Leave Behind” is a lovely homage to Ms Solberg's family and a treasure she has shared with the world.
*****
“What We Leave Behind” by Barb Solberg receives four stars from The Historical Fiction Company
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