Family Photo Identified at Last: 52 Ancestors 2023 Prompt “Favorite Photo”

 

Norway Wedding Photo Now Proudly Hangs in Minnesota

Ove Syverson: 1841-1882 (Paternal Great-grandfather)
Ragnhild Olsdatter Ve: 1848-1933 (Paternal Great-grandmother)

 

My brother has rescued many family photos from the attic of the farmhouse that has been in the family for three generations now. He has painstakingly and beautifully refinished and restored the often elaborate frames, and has hung the largest and oldest in the stairwell of the home. I was fascinated by one photo in particular, but hadn’t been sure of the identity of the young couple depicted. Over Thanksgiving this year, my brother refreshed my memory: the photo depicts our great-grandparents, Ove and Ragnhild Syverson.

This photo is such a treasure! Ove died just a few years after the couple and their children had immigrated to the Linden Lake/Lake Hanska area of Minnesota. He was killed in a farming accident at the young age of 41 when my grandmother, Regina Syverson, was only ten years old. During their early years as homesteaders, the Syversons had no money to pay for a sitting with a photographer, so this photo is the only image of Ove I have ever seen, and was probably the only image his young children had to remember him by.

Ove's death record--1882 Brown County Minnesota

In addition, this is the only photo I have ever seen of my great-grandmother Ragnhild as a young woman. In her old age, she looked quite different. She styled her hair severely and had a rounder, fuller face. In addition her lower jaw looked smaller—I think she may have lost most of her teeth, causing the jawline to compress. 

Ragnhild in her old age

But in this photo I can see the resemblance to her daughter, my grandmother Regina Syverson Peterson, and to her grandchildren, including my father. She is quite beautiful.

My dad, Juhl Peterson, and his mother Regina and grandmother Ragnhild above.

This photo was probably taken on the occasion of Ove and Ragnhild’s wedding. They were married around 1866, when Ragnhild was 18 and Ove 25. The only potential wedding record I have found thus far was from Opland rather than Fjordane and the birthdates and parents’ names don’t match. So as yet I have no marriage record to help me definitively date the photo.

The photo emphasizes Ove and Ragnhild‘s amazingly light blue eyes—even in the sepia-tone photo, those pale irises are arresting. I see where my dad’s wintry blue eye color came from. It appears Ove and Ragnhild were each photographed separately and their images joined in a single photo by the photographer. Not only does my brother have a separate photo with just Ove’s identical image to support this theory, but you can see that Ragnhild’s image is slightly larger than Ove’s, making the photo look slightly off-balance.

Both young people posed stiffly, and probably wore their most formal clothes. They obviously took this event seriously. I love the silk tie Ove wore with his black suit. Ragnhild’s dress appears so perfect except for the white ruffle along the neck that is hiked up higher on the right side.

The Syverson family obviously treasured the photo, placing it in a beautiful oval wood frame—the wood grain, restored by my brother, is lovely. We are fortunate that the oval bubble glass survived all these years—replacing it now costs a fortune.

My brother and his family continue to treasure and preserve this photo of our great-grandparents, an image that has survived nearly 160 years.