Hellek Olson Foss
was born on the Fjøse farm in Svene parish in 1818. He immigrated in
1843. According to the ship's manifest he was a mason, traveling in
steerage. Before 1851 he married Torgunn Torsteinsdatter Dustrud
(Haugen), born in 1822 in Veggli. They lived in Ixonia Township,
Jefferson County until 1856, when he and his brother, Ole, and
their families, joined a group of other settlers and made the roughly
150 mile trip from Ixonia Township to New Hope Township. Hellek sold
his land in Ixonia and purchased his first piece of land in New Hope
from the U.S. government in 1855. He continued to buy land and
eventually owned one of the larger farms in the area.
According to
oral family history, the family lived in what is now the granary for
several years before the house was built. Hellek's nephew wrote in his
autobiography that four families lived in one small house while waiting
for new homes to be built. It is not known if the granary is that
house.
While visiting the
farm it is interesting to consider the "Americanization" of Hellek.
Before moving to New Hope Township and building his farmstead, Hellek
had been in the United States for thirteen years.
For further reading on Norwegian-American acculturation
in buildings and farmsteads see the article by Reidar Bakken that was
published in Material Culture and People's Art Among the Norwegians
in America, edited by Marion Nelson and published by NAHA in 1994.