[I hadn’t intended to post the rest of the second Olsen letter right away, but again I’ve got no clever ideas tonight, so here it is. By the way, there probably won’t be a post from me tomorrow night, as I’ll be driving up to Fargo in order to be on the spot for my 10:00 a.m. speech on Saturday. lw]

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I must also tell you that here in Kvalevaag there will certainly be many weddings this summer. Anne Sirine and E. E. Ylveland the shoemaker will be newlyweds this next Thursday, that is July 9, and the wedding will be at the Mollene home. And Daarte Andresen will marry again now, and the banns have been pronounced; she will marry Ole Svehaugen Ylveland. Also there will probably be a wedding in our house this fall, according to what I hear, for Berthe. She will marry a widower. He has 3 children. The oldest is in confirmation. He is an engineer [i.e., operates a motorized boat], and makes good money, and he is said to be a nice man, so they say, and so he seems to be; I can say no more about that so far. So it looks as if we will see her married, if we weren’t able to see any of you who are in America married. You can tell your wife Lava that I will soon go and visit her family, and then I will write soon to you that I have been down south there, for I will take the opportunity to go to Stavanger and see about a net boat for us, for the net must and shall go out, if I live so long.

Ja, now I’d better close for this time of writing to you, for if my writing has taken time, I have done a good job of telling this and that. I must tell you that old Grandfather is still living, but is now very poorly and awaits death each day. Grandmother is now a little better than he.

And now there is another death in Kvalevaag also; a child of Simund Ch., it died this past Sunday. But otherwise everyone around here is all right. I forgot to tell you that we have no pastor. Andresen has gone to Norland, and now we will have a fellow from Skudesness for pastor again, the son of a sexton on Falness. He is also in Norland. He will come here in August.

Also I can tell you that now is the third time that I have been at writing this letter to you, for I don’t get many chances to sit and write. Ja, hearty greetings from Father and Mother and your sisters to you and Lava. Greet Ole and Helvik and her husband, and tell them that we are still alive up to today, but who knows how much longer? Goodbye. Write and tell what you intend about all this.

Ole Olsen Kvalevaag, Jr.

[Marginal notes:]

I don’t know where to write to you, since I hear you have moved again, but I will try and send it to Millington, since I hear that you are working there now.

There was probably more I wanted to write to you about this time, but I can’t remember any more.

Ja, now people are getting ready to go out mackerel fishing [with lines] again to earn money; but I must stay home.

When I began to write this page, I began wrong, so that you will have to read them according to the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4.

I write poorly now, but that is nothing to wonder at in one who has worn himself out from youth to old age; you get stiff in all your bones.

If you come home, you must by all means come for the fishing, so we can spread ourselves out in several places.

Will you, Lava, be so kind as to write a few lines more to me? It would be precious to me to hear from you. Ja, I don’t know you, but God knows us all well; and if He knows us as His children, all is well. God help us all to that.

[For those of you new to the blog, the first part of this letter was posted yesterday, and the very first letter was posted here. lw]