Pauline: A Brief Biography

Inger Pauline (Braaten) Hovick (1884–1975)

My maternal grandmother, Inger Pauline Braaten, known as Pauline, was born on 29 January 1884 in Fergus Falls, Otter Tail County, Minnesota. She was the daughter of Mikkel Mikkelsen Braaten (1 April 1834–28 January 1901), a dairy farmer and carpenter, and Gunhild Mathea Johannesdatter Pedersen Braaten (17 October 1844–18 April 1921), known as Mathea. Both were immigrants from Norway, both had been married before and widowed, and both had lost one child. Mikkel had six surviving children and Mathea had five, giving Pauline eleven half-siblings (see family tree below). Together, Mikkel and Mathea had two children, Pauline (29 January 1884–15 August 1975), and Johan Arndt (16 June 1886–3 February 1887).

At the age of sixteen, Pauline decided to become a nurse. Boarding a train to Chicago, she enrolled at the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Hospital on 15 October 1900, and was ultimately consecrated a Deaconess Sister. [1] Begun in Germany in 1836, the Deaconess movement quickly spread through Protestant denominations in Europe and the United States, most actively among Lutherans. Not unlike Roman Catholic nuns, Deaconess sisters lived in community in motherhouses, and were dedicated to nursing. Sisters went through a rite of consecration but were free to leave at any time to marry or to care for family. [2]

Pauline graduated in 1903. Her hometown of Fergus Falls offered her the position of Hospital Matron, but she declined, and instead became Head Nurse of the City Hospital of Madison, Minnesota. Shortly after arriving in Madison, she met her soon-to-be husband, Charles Hovick (2 May 1873–22 February 1848). Born Tjerand Torbjørnsen on the Håvik farm in Skjold Parish, Rogaland County, Norway, Charles ran the grain elevator in Madison. They were married in a grand double wedding on 18 May 1904. Likely because of societal expectations, Pauline gave up her nursing career after she married.

Pauline and Charles had four children: Tarald Melvin Hovick, who was stillborn on 26 June 1905 due to bad fall that Pauline had taken the day before, Mildred Ingeborg (Hovick) Monge (12 April 1907–16 November 2003), Signe Alise (Hovick) Christeson (3 August 1912–
15 July 2012), and my mother, Charlotte Pauline (Hovick) Thompson Lohman (9 October 1925–
8 November 2015).

In 1926, determined that their three daughters receive a quality education, they sold their farm in Madison and moved to Northfield, Minnesota so that the girls could attend St. Olaf College. Pauline spent years as a housemother at a boarding house for male college students, and Charles spent the rest of his life as a janitor at St. Olaf. Charles died of liver cancer on 22 February 1948. Pauline died on 15 August 1975 of heart failure after having broken her hip months earlier. She and Charles are buried in the Oaklawn Cemetery in Northfield, Minnesota.

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[1] Mildred Hovick Monge, “Remember,” family history, 1974; “Remember,” blog entry, Hovick Lohman History, blog (hovicklohmanhistory.blog/remember/ : accessed 30 August 2020), pdf, pt. 1, ch. 4, “Recollections with Pauline,” p. 49 (printed).

[2] “The Deaconess Movement in 19th-Century America: Pioneer Professional Women,” United Church of Christ (www.ucc.org/about-us_hidden-histories_the-deaconess-movement-in : accessed 27 September 2020).

Pauline’s Family Tree

When Oral History and Historical Records Collide

“For me, this was the seminal origin story of my family. And key details proved to be untrue.”

For family historians, oral tradition can be an invaluable treasure. My aunt Mildred Hovick Monge (1907–2003), our first family historian and my inspiration, collected so much of it in her memoirs, Remember, “Niblits and Bits,” and “Life on Board the Twentieth Century, Ltd.” Rich in detail, they tell the intimate stories of our ancestors, things that historical records, with their dates and locations, can only hint at. Those of us further down the Hovick family tree will forever be grateful to you, Aunt Mimi.

At the same time, human memory is an imperfect thing. Stories can change with retelling; details can be embellished or forgotten. Oral history can be like a decades- and generations-long game of telephone, resulting in a tale much changed from the original facts.

I was thirteen when Remember was published, and in particular, Mildred’s tale of my great-grandfather, Mikkel Braaten, utterly captivated me. Filled with tragedy, adversity, and survival, this single story ignited my life-long passion for genealogy. Here are the five paragraphs that so moved me as a youth:

“Angry and hurt at the blows Life had dealt him, Mikkel Brotten [Braaten] turned to his children standing along the boat rail watching the shores of Norway disappear from view and vehemently said, ‘Jeg haaper jeg aldrig ser dig igjen, Norge.’ Translated: ‘I hope I never see you again, Norway.’

“Mikkel was born [in 1840, so we thought] in Hedemarken in Northern Norway and grew up there working as a carpenter. He married Anna Tønset who bore him seven sons and daughters, six of whom were with him now on this trip to America. Recently his wife Anna had died of cancer, making the hardships almost unbearable for him…

“With him were Martin, Mina, Severine, Henry, Tonette (Nettie to us), and Anna Marie. Mikkel stood observing them with compassion, wondering what they were thinking as they huddled together onboard ship. Would they soon be able to forget all the nights they had gone to bed hungry? Often times their supper consisted of nothing more than boiled potato peelings. Could the letters from America, with their promise of plenty for them really be telling the truth? Would all these hopes come true? Would they compensate for the break away from their home? For Home it was to them, in spite of the hardships. Time would tell.

“Ahead of them were weeks onboard ship, crowded together with all the other passengers in very tight quarters with only blankets draped between families for a semblance of privacy. Seasickness plagued most of them, and with no clothes-washing facilities, the vomit and diarrhea dried on their clothing, causing a terrible stench in the airless quarters below deck. Their food, brought from home, became scarce toward the end of the trip and was often spoiled due to the lack of refrigeration. The women had to take turns at the stove in the ship’s kitchen cooking for their families after the ship’s cook had served the crew of sailors. Water was at a premium. The fear of sickness and death at sea was constant.

“But Mikkel and all six children survived. Pauline [his daughter, my maternal grandmother] says he shuddered at the thought of his trip as he told it in later years.” [1]

For me, this was the seminal origin story of my family. And key details proved to be untrue.

Extensive research, delving into both Norwegian and American records, revealed:

• Mikkel had not been born in 1840 in northern Norway.
• Anne had not died in Norway, but in Minnesota.
• Mikkel and Anne only had three children in Norway, the other four in Minnesota.
• Mikkel immigrated, not with his children, but with his sister and her family (Anne and their then-three children followed him one year later).

I have described this research, and its convoluted paths, in an article—a proof argument—entitled “Who Were the Parents of Mikkel Braaten?” that will be published in the Autumn 2020 edition of Minnesota Genealogist, the quarterly journal of the Minnesota Genealogical Association. Because of its publication there, I am not allowed to reprint the article here. But you can read my biography of Mikkel and find out all I learned.

So, how should we think of our oral tradition in light of these hard, historical facts? Rather than history invalidating tradition, I believe it only serves to enrich it. Research has revealed so much more about his life than I ever dreamed we’d know. But in the end, despite these historical revelations, the core of Mikkel’s story remains unchanged. Starvation drove them from Norway, he endured a torturous journey across the Atlantic, and the promise of America, at least for him and his family, proved to be true.

Thank you, Aunt Mildred.

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[1] Mildred Hovick Monge, “Remember,” family history, 1974; “Remember,” blog entry, Hovick Lohman History, blog (hovicklohmanhistory.wordpress.com/2020/08/26/remember/ : accessed 30 August 2020), pdf, pt. 1, ch. 4, “Recollections with Pauline,” p. 45 (printed).

Remember

My mother’s oldest sister, Mildred Ingeborg Hovick Monge (1907-2003), whom we called Aunt Mimi, was talented, funny, smart, and loving. She was a pianist, organist, teacher, and our family historian. The stories she shared of our ancestors ignited my own passion for genealogy. I owe it all to her.

Mildred Hovick Monge (1907–2003)

What began in 1928 as an assignment while a student at St. Olaf College became a life-long obsession. Here is the original family tree that she began that year, now discolored and fragile with age:

To celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary with my Uncle Harold Monge (1909–1984), she created Remember, a collection of family histories of both the Hovick and Monge families.

Remember, 1974

This collection of oral history is a family treasure, telling the stories of generations of our family. Here it is, available online.

by Mildred Hovick Monge
Self-published 1974

Download here:

Cover, Dedication, Table of Contents, Preface

PART ONE

Chapter One: From the Mountains to the Prairies (Monge)
Chapter Two: An Evening Visiting Around the Oil Heater (Monge)
Chapter Three: Papa Charley’s Centennial 1873-1973 (Hovick)
Chapter Four: Recollections with Pauline (Hovick)

PART TWO

Chapter One: The Helmer and Ida Burthus Monge Family (Monge)
Chapter Two: The Charles and Pauline Brotten Hovick Family (Hovick)
Chapter Three: The Harold and Mildred Hovick Monge Family
Chapter Four: Autobiographies of the Sons of Harold and Mildred

PART THREE

Chapter One: Memories of the Madison, Minnesota Farm (Hovick)
Chapter Two: Treasures from the Old Family Trunk – The Baptism Dress (Hovick)
Chapter Three: Family Trees

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Niblits and Bits

Ten years later, over the course of 1984-1990, she wrote what was to become Niblits and Bits, published when she was 83 years old. Unlike the epic scope of her earlier work, this was a collection of intimate stories. These are the tales of her childhood, growing up in and outside of the small town of Madison, Minnesota.

It gives a remarkable view of daily life in the early 1900’s. Detailed descriptions of their homes and furnishings.

Sneaking off with a friend to investigate a nearby house under construction where she fell from the second floor to the cement slab of the basement – and walked away unscathed.

1918 was a big year. The dam at Big Stone Lake broke, flooding farm lands for miles. Mim, age eleven, had her first piano recital in a matter of days, but the farm was separated from town by a mile of open water. So my grandfather and his brothers fashioned a raft to ferry the budding pianist to her auspicious debut.

It was also that year that she and her sister Signe survived the Spanish Flu pandemic.

And there’s one particular story about an old oil lamp. She was told that she could have a keepsake from the old family farm house, and she chose the oil lamp. And that lamp is now with me.

Oil lamp from the Hovick farm, Madison, Minnesota

Download here: Niblets and Bits

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Life on Board the Twentieth Century Express, Ltd.

At the age of 95, Mildred released her final memoir.

Download here: Life on Board the Twentieth Century Express, Ltd.

Life on Board the Twentieth Century Express, Ltd.

In going through my mother’s papers, there was a manila envelope that I hadn’t looked in until now. My jaw hit the floor when I realized that it was a third, unpublished memoir by my Aunt Mildred! Dedicated to her “Twenty-First Century Family,” it’s yet another collection of family stories.

The Three Sisters Charlotte Hovick Lohman, Mildred Hovick Monge, Signe Hovick Christeson

In the final years of her life, my parents and I would drive down to visit her in Northfield, Minnesota as often as we could. On one particular visit, I so clearly remember her saying, “I picked the most wonderful time to be alive! When I think that our Papa was born in a two-room, dirt-floored cottage… and now, just look at all the progress that I have seen!”

In 1974, in her first memoir, Remember she wrote, “These were the real Horse and Buggy Days we lived in, and for us to have seen these days develop into the Space Age of our retirement years makes us thankful to have been born during this century of progress; the most momentous 50 years of mankind.”

That drive to capture the wonders – big and small – that she had seen over her long, well-lived life, resulted in two memoirs that I knew of, Remember and Niblits and Bits. But it turns out that that drive kept her writing into her nineties. Remarkable.

At the age of 93, she closes this collection with this:

After reading this, my hope is that your faith has become stronger, 

your love even deeper, so you can sing with the Psalmist–

‘Lord, fill us each morning with your constant love, 

so that we may sing and be glad all our life.

June 20, 2000  11:00 A.M.

Finis

But two years later, at the age of 95, she adds a final page:

Psalm 127:3

“Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a real blessing.”

Psalm 128:6

“May you live to see your grandchildren.” 

A special gift to me as I also see many great-grandchildren.

Final Finis — June 25, 2002

Mim passed away on 16 November 2003. Mim, your Twenty-First Century family thanks you!

Life on Board the Twentieth Century Express, Ltd.
(click to download)

Charles Hovick’s Dream: An Education for His Daughters

Born Tjerand Torbjørnson, my grandfather came into this world in a dirt-floored cottage on the edge of a fjord near Håvik in Norway in 1873. His entire immediate family came to America from Norway in three waves between 1886-1889. They first lived in northwest Iowa, before finally settling on a farm outside of Madison, Minnesota in 1903. My grandfather, who had changed his name to Charles Torbjorn Hovick, remained in Iowa, but when a job offer came from the grain elevator in Madison, he finally joined his family in 1904. 

Madison, Minnesota in 1909

He met my grandmother, Pauline Braaten, shortly after arriving, and they were married on May 18th of that same year.

The Wedding of Charles Hovick and Pauline Braaten, 1904

My grandfather, often called Charley, has been described to me as a gentle, loving, and funny man. He had only the equivalency of an eighth-grade education. But despite this, he understood the value of education, and would go to great lengths to insure that his three daughters received the finest education that he could provide. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Grandpa’s dedication was so counter to the prevailing attitudes of the day. My Aunt Mildred summed up those attitudes like this: “Education for girls? What a waste of good money when all they would do would be to get married. And who needs learning for keeping house and raising children?”

In 1915, an old family friend, Mr. H.E. Loe from Linn Grove, Iowa offered my grandfather a job managing a farm five miles north of Madison. So at the age of 32, he, along with his wife, Pauline Braaten Hovick, 31, and daughters Mildred, 7, and Signe, 3, left the hubbub of small town life and moved out to the farm.

The H.E. Loe Farm

Now that they had no neighbors nearby to disturb, the girls were delighted that they could make as much noise as they pleased.

The Barn at the H.E. Loe Farm

The Hovicks during the time they lived on the farm back: Pauline, Mildred front: Charles, Signe

Their financial well-being was wholly dependent upon the success of each year’s crops. One year on a hot, sunny summer day, the Ladies Aid Society was meeting at the Hovick farm. The fields looked good, and they were optimistic for a good harvest. But a freak summer storm swept in, complete with driving rain and hail, and by the time the Ladies went home, the crops were devastated.

However, the fall harvest of 1925 was an exceptionally good one. 

Charley Hovick the Farmer

In Remember, my Aunt Mildred’s memoirs published in 1974, she writes:

“…the crops filled the granary and barns to overflowing. Papa called out from the granary [for me] to come to him. The two of us sat on the tongue of the lumber wagon, talking over the days of harvesting just completed, so grateful for the bountiful gifts of God.”

Mildred, or Aunt Mimi as we called her, had graduated from the Lutheran Normal School the spring before, intent on becoming a teacher. 

Lutheran Normal School, Madison, Minnesota

Her first choice was to attend St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, but the family simply couldn’t afford it. So plans had been put in place for her to attend Cedar Falls College in Iowa.

Sitting there in granary, Grandpa asked her if she would like to go to St. Olaf after all. “We can manage it with these crop returns.” Mildred was elated, The beginning of the school year was almost upon them, and before she knew what was happening, she was on a train for Northfield.

“In my pocket was a personal checking account with a $300.00 deposit which would see me through most of the first semester.”

Grandpa’s dream was beginning to come true.

My mother, Charlotte Pauline Hovick, was born a month later on October 9, 1925.

Charlotte Pauline Hovick

Mildred, now a freshman at St. Olaf, excitedly came home for Charlotte’s baptism. She wrote:

“Monday and the inevitable return to college came with shocking reality. I cried. I cried for hours. Papa took my bags in one hand and with his arm about me, escorted me from the car to the waiting bus, determined as ever to see his dream for my education fulfilled. I cried all the way home to Northfield, suffering the very worst spell of homesickness I ever experienced.”

“In June 1929, dressed in the traditional black graduation robe with the tassel switched to the other side of my cap and holding my sheepskin diploma in my hand, 

Mildred Hovick’s St. Olaf College Diploma

“I felt an arm around me. ‘Now aren’t you glad I made you get on that bus four years ago, Mim? It hurt me all these years to think of you and your tears, but I thought I knew what was best for you.’ I turned and hugged him and said, ‘Thank you, Papa. I’m so glad you did.’”

That winter, Charles and Pauline made the momentous decision to leave Madison and move the family to Northfield. The reasons were two-fold. Pauline suffered from pernicious anemia, and living and working on the farm was growing increasingly difficult for her. Secondly, this would be a major step forward in realizing their dream of giving their daughters a fine education. Living in Northfield would mean that they wouldn’t have to pay room and board, making an expensive St. Olaf education a bit more affordable. 

In February of 1926, they sold much of what they had. An auction was held on February 17, 1926 to sell what appears to be everything on the farm – livestock, machinery, and household goods. 

Chas. T. Hovick Farm Auction Notice Click to enlarge

With the downsizing completed, it was time to bid farewell to their dear family and friends and move the 180 miles to Northfield. They must have owned a car by this point, because Charles drove to Northfield loaded down with their remaining belongings, and Pauline, Signe (age 13), and Charlotte (6 months) soon followed on the train. They moved into a rented house at 652 St. Olaf Avenue, which would forever be known as “Charlotte’s Baby House.”

652 St. Olaf Avenue, Northfield, Minnesota Charlotte Hovick in buggy

Signe grew up to attend and graduate St. Olaf in 1934, and Charlotte attended St. Olaf in 1943-1944, before completing nurse’s training at Fairview Hospital School of Nursing in Minneapolis. Grandpa’s dream was fulfilled.

A few years later, as he lay dying of cancer in 1948, he told his girls, “I don’t leave you with an inheritance of money or property, but you have the best of all – an education, which has prepared you for life on your own.”

Charlotte: Early School Years

Charlotte in her Aunt Hilda’s garden in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

with unknown

Back: unknown, Mildred Hovick Monge (sister), unknown, unknown, unknown Front: Charlotte

Back: Harold Monge (brother-in-law), Mildred Hovick Monge (sister) Front: Pauline Hovick (mother), Charlotte

Children’s Choir, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Northfield, Minnesota Charlotte (4th row, far right)

Charlotte, Pauline, Signe Hovick Christeson (sister), Mildred with Mildred’s sons?

Signe, Pauline, Mildred, Charlotte

June 21, 1938 Bridesmaids for sister Signe’s Wedding to Eldon Christeson Mildred, Esther Hovick (cousin), Charlotte

Charlotte, Signe, Charles (father), Pauline

Charlotte: Early Childhood

Charlotte Pauline Hovick  (born: October 9, 1925 in Madison, Minnesota) was born to Charles Tornbjorn Hovick (born: May 2, 1873 in Skjold, Norway; died: February 22, 1948 in Northfield, Minnesota) and Inger Pauline Brotten Hovick (born: January 29, 1884 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, died: August 15, 1975 in Northfield, Minnesota) Charlotte was born in the small town of Madison, Minnesota, near the South Dakota border.  At the age of six months her parents moved the family to Northfield, Minnesota  so that their three daughters could get a good education at St. Olaf College.

Charlotte at six and a half months with mother Pauline

Pauline and Charlotte

Charlotte in buggy in front of their first home in Northfield on Saint Olaf Avenue

Charlotte at the Hovick family farm in Madison, Minnesota

Charlotte at eight months old

Autumn 1926 Charlotte at one year old (left)

Charlotte (right)

Charlotte at two years old

Unknown woman

ca. 1929 Mildred Ingeborg Hovick Monge (sister), Pauline Hovick (mother), Signe Alise Hovick Christeson (sister) Charlotte