Traveling from Grygla to Norway
Tue, 07/31/2018 - 10:01am
admin
By:
Corrine Richards
In January of 2013 I received an email at Richards Publishing Company in Gonvick from Rev. Olav Berg Lyngmo in Norway. He was looking for relatives of Pete Levang who had immigrated to the United States in 1899 and settled in Grygla. We put an article with three pictures in the paper from him. One was the house that Levang lived in near Grygla and one was of him and the other was of Rev. Olav Berg Lyngmo who had contacted the paper. Julie Sparby worked at the American State Bank in Grygla and after the information was in the paper she called right away as she knew of the man and she got in contact with Olav. He has again emailed to me.
Descendents of Peder Isachsen Levang which includes the McLean sisters and their husbands went on a trip to Norway. The sisters Bette Sundberg and Sandra Bragg live in Grygla. Joy Austin lives in East Grand Forks and Dee Wells lives in Mission Viejo, California.
They took the Hurtigruten Cruise on the Finnmarken Ship from Bergen to Kirkenes in Norway and back to Bergen!
Hurtigruten ships have been travelling along the Norwegian coastline for almost 125 years, stopping off at towns and cities to deliver mail to those areas.
One stop with the Cruise Ship was Nesna, the parish where Levang was born and grew up. That is between Øksfjord and Kirkenes, in Finnmark County, which is the West East at the top of Norway.
Rev. Olav Berg Lyngmo and his uncle, Hans Mathiassen went with these Americans from Harstad to Tromsø. Hans (85) can remember Levang visiting his family just before 1940. Therefore he liked to follow the Americans to the ship. But he does not speak English. The time took over six hours.
Lyngmo sent this picture of the group that visited Norway. He also said, “Thank you again for your help in 2013, finding descendents of Peder Isachsen Levang!”