More Pieces to the Grimsrud Family Puzzle

More Pieces to the Grimsrud Family Puzzle

Grimsrud Name

Grimsruds are proud descendants of the Norse Vikings, among whom the name "Grim" was quite common. Various spellings are reflected by historical influences; 1401; Grimßrud,* German Hansa trading league occupation of Norway. 1593. Danish occupation. Grimsrød, 1668. Grimsrøed, Danish occupation, 1723 Grimsrued or Grimzrude, Swedish occupation. 1907 to date, Grimsrud.
*Note in the 1401 spelling of Grimßrud, the “ß” in the name comes from old German denoting a strong S, refereed to as eszett, it is in use to this day in the German language.

Fabled among the Norse Viking was the fierce “Skalla-Grim", whose exploits are described in the Chronicles of the Viking. Grim is, in fact, old Germanic meaning fierce. There are a number of localities in Norway with Grim as a noun, a prefix, or a suffix.

As to "Rud", also spelled in a variant Norwegian tongue as "Rød", it simply means a man-made clearance, whether in the forest, a hill, a plain, or whatever. Plenty of Norwegian names of places and families have the "rud" as a name or a suffix.

The best known "rud" in the United States is the famous Norwegian-American engineer Ejvind Rud, inventor of the outboard engines for boats. His name was, of course, changed in the United States to “Evinrud", which is the present brand of the outboard engines still being marketed today.*
*Note: Family names traditionally were taken from the farm where they resided.

First a brief history of Scandinavia:
The following are abridged excerpts from the book: Scandinavia: A History by Ewan Butler.
Norsemen...name for these marauders...applied to all three Scandinavian peoples. Normandy...reminds us of the Norse...and to this day Norwegians refer to themselves as Nordmenn. (The Norse invaders of Russia are alternately known as Varangians, derived from an old Norse word...meaning “confederate,” and Ruotsi, meaning the “rowing men” in old Finnish.)

Scandinavia fell victim to an invasion from England...The bubonic plague, or Black Death, had come to Europe... by infected rats from the holds of merchant ships...1349.
The pestilence spread to Norway and killed off two-thirds of its people...and spread to Sweden in 1350.

German traders brought the “hanse,” or League of Hanse Cities, a “protection racket” cities were expelled from the League for a breach of its rules.

Christianity took advantage to establish a monarchy in Denmark and quench Norwegian independence...Norway was a part of Denmark. Olaf Engelbrektsson, the last Roman Catholic archbishop of Norway, tried to lead an uprising.

1837...Ole Rynning published in Sweden and Norway a book entitled A True Account of America for the Information and Help of Peasant and Commoner. The book... inspired hundreds of families, especially in Norway, with dreams of settling in the New World. The first two ships sailed in 1825 and 1836...after the Civil War the American West settlement took off known as “the American Fever.”

1814, Norway was ceded to Sweden as a separate kingdom united to the Swedish crown. Denmark acquired in return Swedish Pomerania, Iceland, the Faroes, and Greenland.
Sweden’s Riksdag and Norway’s Storting - passed laws giving Norway full legal equality.

1905, the Norwegian government told Stockholm that Norway had the second largest merchant fleet in the world and was entitled to its own consular service worldwide...
The Norwegians stood firm... in June they issued a declaration.



From my blog Bing’s Buzz, October 26, 2017:
Excerpts from my blog post October 26, 2017, NORWAY, DREAMING OF THE OLD COUNTRY.
The Vikings: A New History by Neil Oliver, an amazing book, and the best and most comprehensive I have ever read regarding the Vikings, was published just before the 2017 discovery up the Hudson River in New York State of the Vinland, Norse settlement that was described in the Norse sagas.

In his book Neil Oliver wrote: “Archaeologists doubt that Newfoundland was the ‘Vinland’ reported by Leif Erickson. Instead L’Anse aux Meadows is usually interpreted as a sort of way station, a staging post used by people in transit to and from a more fruitful settlement further south. It seems Vinland itself still awaits discovery.”

In 2017, at Stony Point, New York, up the Hudson River at Minisceongo Creek between New York City and Poughkeepsie, the ruins of a Viking village dating from the 9th and 10th centuries was unearthed. The remains of six buildings containing an iron forage and carpenter shop were part of the village of up to one hundred habitats. This had to be the Vinland or wine land of Leif Erickson, described in the Norse sagas. New York, is definitely wine country and this thousand year old settlement has definitely been confirmed to be Viking.

My wife and I on the maiden voyage of our sailing vessel Dursmirg passed this very spot on our way to Florida in 1972. Our journey is described in our book Sailing Beyond Lake Superior: Travels of Dursmirg. Later in Florida we met Tex Downs who had sailed the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, New York, and found there a strange coin that was identified as being Phoenician and nearly a thousand years old.

In the book The Vikings: A New History by Neil Oliver, the author describes finding coins used by the Viking in America. “The Scandinavian world had grown increasingly dependent upon Arab silver. From early on the Arab Durhams were identified as containing the purest, most desirable silver and during the decades and centuries to come millions of the coins were funneled west. Like a supply of oxygen, the flow of the silver helped energize the whole area, supplying the power to create nation states.”

At the time of the famous Norseman (Viking) Leif Erickson, the Vikings’ influence extended to Russia, Scotland, England, Spain, Greece, Italy, and France. Leif Erickson did indeed make it to America.

Over a thousand years ago, Lief Erickson, the best known Viking a renowned traveling man crossed the Atlantic, built settlements in Newfoundland [unearthed in 1960] and up the Hudson River between NYC and Poughkeepsie, [unearthed in 2017].
A little known fact about Lief Erickson; He became a Christian in Denmark and proceeded to proselytize in Norway.

Norway was the last Scandinavian country to give up it’s Viking religion.

A monument to that conversion still is in use to this day at Skoger, Norway. Up the Oslo Fjord it branches off into Oslo Fjord and Drammen Fjord. Skoger is a suburb of Drammen and has been since the Norse Vikings first went to sea.

From that monumental old church you can gaze across to the Grimsrud family farm, also still in use and occupied by my relatives...the Grimsruds.

To conclude: When I was a child my grandpa Christ started me on this lifelong journey by planting the seeds of curiosity. The jig-saw puzzle that followed rewarded me and whet my appetite for more.




Recommended reading:
Scandinavia: A History by Ewan Butler gives a historical overview of the impact, distribution, consequential effects and heritage of these unique stand alone people.

The Vikings: A New History by Neil Oliver did the most to bring this story together and the clincher was the discovery in 2017 of a settlement of Vinland up the Hudson River near Poughkeepsiei n New York.

Additional Reading:

Discovery of settlement in New York
https://m.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/05/new-ruins-of-viking-village-near-the-hudson-river-seriously-question-where-were-the-borders-of-the-legendary-vinland/



Gold Run: The Rescue of Norway’s Gold Bullion from the Nazis, 1940 by Robert Pearson.



The Life Of John Ericsson, Volume I and II, by William Conant Church



Cycling North: from the French Mediterranean to the fjords of Norway by bicycle (Eurovelo Series Book 5) by Steven Herrick



Defiant Courage: A World War II Epic of Escape and Endurance by Astrid Karlsen Scott and Tore Haug



Norway To America: A History of the Migration by Ingrid Semmingsen



The Shetland Bus: A World War II Epic of Escape, Survival, and Adventure by David Howarth



We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth



Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land by Odd Lovoll

ROAD TERROR –Highlights from My Recollections

 

Traffic moves through steady snow along the Highway 61 Expressway between Duluth and Two Harbors on Monday afternoon, Dec. 2, 2013. (Bob King / rking@duluthnews.com)
Read the article: Evening weather update: Northland still in line for a foot - or more - of snow

ROAD TERROR –Highlights from My Recollections

By John M. Grimsrud ©2013

While I was going to school I took a job working for a clever fellow named Sam Popkin.  These two and an half years proved to be every bit as much education as I got from school.

I was left to develop my own routes and clients and for most of the year this was a lark.

While nearly everyone I knew was shuttered up in offices and behind desks, I traveled scenic highways in upper Michigan, the resort areas of Wisconsin, the north shore of Lake Superior, the Iron Range of Minnesota. and more.

I made business friends and it was great fun…but not a get rich quick enterprise.

As I started my last year of school, Sam Popkin dumped me.

He left a copy of my account at my father’s drug store and stated that if it was not paid by return mail that he would sue.

I was shocked and asked my dad’s advice. Dad told me to take thirty days, deduct 2% and pay by registered mail.

As my dad always used to say, “You never know when someone is doing you a favor.”

Coincidentally, a week before a representative from a company whose products I was selling through Sam Popkin had come by and pitched me to take on their line of merchandise. They said that I was doing a better job with it than Sam.

At the time, I had declined their offer because my life had taken on the complication of a divorce.

Again, I asked my dad for advice, and he said: “Give that company a call.” I did and five days later I was in business for myself.

My dad extended me credit. Though it doesn’t seem like much now, that $2,500 infusion of capital enabled me to get a start. I repaid every penny within six months of finishing school.

These were austere times for me. My neighbor used to shop for me at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift store to keep my wardrobe together. I learned how to mend my own clothes including replacing pockets and zippers. I learned to cut my own hair, and then gave haircuts to others…something that has served me well my entire lifetime.

This poverty portion of my life proved to be a rewarding learning experience that altered my life’s course and strengthened my mindset in a positive way.

Diligent efforts saw my business grow. Eventually I had eleven different factory lines of merchandise I warehoused and shipped, plus I was a factory representative for pharmaceutical supplies. I landed a contact to supply a large cost-plus grocery wholesaler that had over two-hundred and fifty supermarkets with a direct billing arrangement.

If I didn’t get out of my first supermarket before eight in the morning I wouldn’t make the last store by closing time at night. I was like the one-man-band. Many nights my wife Jane worked in my warehouse until eleven at night to pack the day’s orders that went out the next morning by UPS.

This all sounds too good to be true;

There were some downside detractors in this paradise. Driving an average of two hundred and fifty miles a day in my business was acceptable in good weather.

Let me tell you about some incidents that helped me bail out of this lucrative business.

Early one morning as I drove north up Highway 53 to the Iron Range cities of Minnesota in late winter I followed a huge industrially sized flat bed tractor trailer truck pressing the upper limits of speed over jolting frost heaves.

The truck was carrying one gigantic mounted wheel that overhung the trailer substantially. These wheels were used on monster dump trucks in the open pit iron ore mines.

What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion.

The truck hit a giant frost heave, the wheel unshackled itself, bounced high up in the air and came bounding down directly in front of my car and then went airborne again as I passed under it.

That split second seemed to drag on in my mind. If the sequential timing had been off by a split second that might have been the end of me. I would have been squashed like a bug hitting the windshield.

Another Northern Minnesota incident took place on an extremely cold day. The roadway was glazed with glare ice and dusted with powder snow. Tire traction in these conditions is a nebulous thing easily broken by a very slight alteration in velocity. Once traction is broken you must steer into the skid and gently bring the wheels back into traction. This maneuver takes training and lots of time and space. There is a point of no return when the vehicle skids into a spin…control is lost and where you stop is not your option.

I got my driving on ice experience on a frozen lake where there is lots of room to learn. On the frozen lake it was a lot of fun to go as fast as possible and then put the car into a power-on spin…something that only juveniles seem to enjoy.

Back to my story: As I came over the precipice of a high hill with a commanding view I saw off in the distance two double tractor trailer tank trucks speeding over the white landscape and heading my way. They were out of control on the glare ice. Their high speed sent huge clouds of powder snow wafting up in clouds as they fish-tailed along.

We would meet on this two lane road, and the trailers undulating motion caused them to sweep the entire road surface.

Meeting them was like playing Russian roulette with two bullets in the revolver.

Anxiety and anguish sent my heart throbbing like an air-hammer while muscle tension had me gripping the wheel with white knuckles as I slid between the two trucks.

These types of incidents were happening much too often. A number of over-the-road sales people, friends of mine, had become casualties to these driving conditions.

Yet one more icy road story:

One winter evening I was returning from the Iron Range of Minnesota and entering Duluth.  “Lake Effect” snow had drifted in and blanketed this city perched on a hill.  

The road surface became glazed with ice and large drifts of snow were swept by an arctic blast of wind.  

It was treacherous going especially at the point where I joined the city traffic.

I was descending the Duluth hill. Ahead the road made a long sweeping curve. To make this situation even more perilous and terrifying the paved road had a half foot drop-off to the shoulder. If my wheel should slip over it with this ice condition, the probability of controlling the car was slim to none.

The car directly ahead of me lost control and spun violently like a top with its horn blasting and an oncoming car smashed into it with a deadly thud. Both cars were still in motion as I approached and tried to maneuver around the impact zone.

My car spun violently out of control when my wheel left the pavement and I braced for the eminent impact.

My nerves were completely shattered and I trembled with fright.  The last mental image I had was of my car spinning out of control into the two impacted vehicles ahead of me.

As I gained some prospective of my condition I realized that I had missed the collision and was facing in the opposite direction from where I had been coming and I was on the other side of the road slammed into a snow drift and stopped dead.

I was trembling and my nerves were so shaken I couldn’t release my seat belt. 

Roads too slick to stand on, I drove on…but not for long.

I got a gold key from my insurance company for a meritorious driving record.

Ironically, one day as I drove my route my radio quit. My mind didn’t and, lo and behold,  an inspiration struck me that altered the rest of my life.

It was time to quit this insanity and move on. I would rather take my chances on the high seas.

That is another adventure story that I relate in my book, Sailing Beyond Lake Superior.

Available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com and in EPUB for NOOK and iPAD.

Lake Superior's Fall Storms

And Superior has a harder fate in store for many of those who take the last ill-fated trip of the season. Sailors dread it more than the tragedy of dense snowstorms, when they run upon the rocks, for even there hope does not die; they dread it more than the fierce, sledge-hammer wash of Erie in a storm; more than the fearful dash for port in Lake Michigan, where ports are few; and this fate is the fate of "the little ice devils"-—those masses of ice which freeze upon a ship until she is weighted beyond control. In these days of late navigation—days of fierce battles with snow, ice, and wind, days of death and destruction as they are never known upon the salt seas—is material for a generation of writers; unnumbered stories of true mystery, true romance, and true tragedy, which, if fed to the nation in popular form, would be of immeasurable value to lovers of the literature of adventure. The Great Lakes by James Oliver Curwood, 1908.

The Superior, Wisconsin/Minnesota Point Entry and lighthouse pictured in calm weather.

Fall storm, Superior, Wisconsin, November 1968.

During the fall season on Lake Superior it is a common occurrence to have at least one very violent storm on Lake Superior, but one storm I witnessed was exceptional.

My father, Jane, and I drove out late this Sunday afternoon onto a narrow finger of land known as Wisconsin Point.

We went to see just what the raging lake would be like when whipped into an anger fury by a full gale force wind.

While parking the car, the shuddering wind blasted us with sand and icy pelting spray that coupled to make a deafening roar.

We watched the sixty foot tall lighthouse on the east jetty completely buried in crashing seas…a sight beyond belief.

There were four people trapped inside the lighthouse structure and several days would pass before they could leave their imprisonment.

The approach to that lighthouse had been constructed of huge boulders the size of small houses, and the mammoth waves crashing into and over them scattered the rocks about like so many pebbles on the beach.

If this sounds bad, you will not believe the sickening horror we felt as the next chain of events unfolded.

Out on the lake and headed into port was an eight-hundred foot Great Lakes iron ore freighter with the full brunt of that savage storm sweeping it along on a path of no return. As large and as powerful as this ship was, it was no match for the killer storm.

With the wind on the ship’s stern, it was impossible for the crew to turn their ship into the wind. Their fate was sealed. They had no other choice but to run the inlet.

What we witnessed next made our hearts nearly stop. We held our breath as we watched a huge wave break under the stern of this mighty ship. It lifted the stern and sent the ship into a broach position that turned it beam to the sea. The power and force unleashed by the giant wave took all control out of the hands of the crew. Their fate rested with Mother Nature while the ship washed out of control sideways towards the inlet with its rock jetties.

In the blink of an eye it was over. The massive vessel had gone surfing sideways through the outer and inner jetties, and then into the safety of the harbor.

For those aboard that got to stare the Grim Reaper squarely in the eye, that blink of the eye must have felt like an eternity.

After reading terrifying storm stories and witnessing the gale force storm at Superior's inlet, Jane and I still went on to fulfill our dream and ventured out there onto Lake Superior confronting the mighty Gitche Gumme.

I had a Dream – Dursmirg is born.

In 1972 our 46-foot sailing dreamboat Dursmirg was launched and Jane and I sailed away from Superior, Wisconsin, to the salty sea.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, serving as a geologist on the 1820 Lewis Cass expedition to establish the source of the Mississippi River, traversed the Great Lakes 152 years before the maiden voyage of our Dursmirg.

Schoolcraft’s 1820 stagecoach and birch bark canoe adventure from New York to the western terminus of Lake Superior was before the completion of the Erie Barge Canal.

Schoolcraft wrote the account of his epic expedition in his book Narrative journal of travels through the northwestern regions of the United States...performed as a member of the expedition under Governor Cass in the year 1820, Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821.

I have published our epic voyage in the four volumes of Travels of Dursmirg.  All are available in paperback and digital editions worldwide.

• Sailing Beyond Lake Superior
• Sailing the Sea Islands
• Sailing the Florida Keys
• Sailing to St. Augustine

Coming soon:

• Sailing to Lake Superior: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Yucatan News!

Mérida has its own versions of the National Enquirer. They drip with blood and sizzle with sex.

Here in Mérida, our friend Mickey sells several different newspapers on a street in front of a supermarket where we shop.  

Today Mickey yelled when he saw us approaching the market on our bicycles, “Your photo is in the newspaper.  It is of you leaving a cantina. I saved a copy for you!”

Front page of paper on Tuesday, May 14, 2013:

On the bottom of page 4:

Los “hunukmita” por el calor toman wamas

Al parecer el aumento de calor está motivando a los ijas de no sólo tomar agua, sino también cebada fermentada, la cual venden en la “farmacia” pero de los teporochos.

De acuerdo con el director de la Policia Municipal, Guy Freyre Núñez, esta fin de semana pasado aumentó el número de personas tepas detenidas.

Entre el viernes y el domingo, hubo poco más de 15 detenciones en total. La mitad de estos fue por conducer hasta las chanclas y la otra por impertinentes y broncos familiars.

“Normalmente el núnmero de personas que detenidos, los fines de semana, oscilan entere siete y ocho. A parte, conforme el calor aumente, el número de personas que ingieren bebidas embriagantes, también “, dijo el macizo.

Por otra parte, inform los dias nueve, 10 y 11 de Julio tienen programado realizar cursos de seguridad vial a los agents de la corporación. “ La intención es que posteriormente se vaya impartiendo el mismo curso a los vecinos de esta comunidad, especialmente a los que prestan algún servicio de transporte, come los mototaxis”.

IJAS DE Hunucma constantemente van por la chelas, porque: hay calor!

Below is a shortened translation of the above article.  The article contains many Yucatecan slang words; not all were literally translated.

Because of the hot weather, the people of Hunucma drink “wamas” (A “wama” is a quart-sized bottle of beer}

The increased heat is motivating the people to not only drink water but to drink fermented barley sold in “pharmacies” (bars).

According to the chief of the municipal police, Guy Freyre Núñez, this past weekend saw an increase in the number of drunks.

Between Friday and Sunday, there were 15 people detained.  Half of these were for driving while drunk and the others for disorderly conduct.

Normally the number detained on a weekend ranges from 7 to 8. As the heat increases, the number of people who drink alcoholic beverages does too," said the police chief.

Also, the chief said that July 9, 10, and 11, are scheduled to give road safety courses to police officers. "The intention is to then teach the same course to the residents of this community, especially those who provide a shuttle service, such as motorcycle taxis.”

Subtitle of photo.

Sons of Hunucma constantly go for “chelas” (beer), why? Because of the heat!

A note about the newspaper's photo of John in front of a bar in Hunucma:

Jane snapped the photo of John in December of 2010 in Santa Elena…not Hunucma.

The newspaper lifted the photo from our blog: view here.