An aristocrat in poverty

by Daniel Borgström
danielfortyone (at)gmail.com

"Aunt" Olivia was the daughter of Adolf Høstmark, my grandfather's uncle. Like the rest of the family in Norway, Adolf was a gentleman, a sort of minor aristocrat. However, he was downright poor, so he sent his children to be raised in the proper style by relatives who had the means.

That is how Olivia came to live with the family of my great grandparents as one of their daughters. So my mother called her "Aunt" Olivia, and I vaguely remember visiting her when I was little. She then lived in Seattle and was close to 80.

Her father had come to America, bringing her and her brother, Alf, as well as their cousin (my grandfather), Sigurd Grytnes. They arrived at Puget Sound in 1889, just as Washington was becoming a state. Grandpa worked in a store near Seattle for two years and eventually settled in Minnesota, but the Høstmarks remained in the Puget Sound area.

Half a century later, in 1938, my mother (daughter of Sigurd Grytnes) sojourned on Bainbridge Island, and used to spend her weekends with Aunt Olivia, from whom she learned this part of the family history, as well as anecdotes of my grandfather's childhood, like the time he put a live rooster in the kitchen pantry. Grandpa was something of a prankster during his younger years in Norway.

Recalling her first impressions of America, Olivia told of her difficulties in learning to adjust.

"When I came to this country it was so hard to get used to the idea that everybody is supposed to be equal," she told Mother. Olivia Høstmark had come from a rigid class-conscious society where being born into the right family meant absolutely everything. That façade had to be maintained. She remembered being admonished as a little girl: "Play with the children of the peasants and be nice to them--but don't forget who you are!"

The irony of it all was that she'd been sent to live with her relatives because her own parents lacked the money to raise her in style. She'd come from the outermost cliff-hanging edge of the privileged class and its pretentiousness.

Among the family heirlooms inherited by Mother was a silver spoon. Not all my ancestors were born to eat with silver spoons; my father's side were poor peasants who didn't always have enough to eat. The haunting movie Pelle the Conqueror presents a vivid picture of that world which returns to me like a recurring nightmare, from which I wake up on the verge of screaming, "Get me on the next ship to America!"

America was no paradise of equality, not then and certainly not now either, but, in comparison to Norway, it seemed that way. As one Scandinavian immigrant was quoted saying, "Here in America, nobody asks who your father is."

But it was a land of opportunity. Adolf Høstmark, the poverty-stricken gentleman, went into business here and did well. What he did, or where he lived, I hadn't known. I'd assumed that he'd settled in Seattle, and it was only last month that I learned otherwise, quite by accident. Traveling on the Olympic Peninsula, I stopped in a restaurant where I passed a rack of travel brochures and paused to glance at the maps, saw one of Poulsbo (a town I knew nothing about), took it to my table out of curiosity, and opened it.

"Velkommen til Poulsbo," it said at the top (in Norwegian!). It gave locations of historic buildings, and among them was the "Høstmark Building," a grocery store owned by Adolph Høstmark back in 1886. Seeing that, my eyes popped out. Could this be my grand uncle? Could this town be the unknown location where he'd settled?

It seemed plausible. Mother hadn't said anything about him being in America before 1889, when he'd brought Olivia, Alf and my grandfather, but I knew that Norwegian immigrants often came here ahead of their families, took a look at the country, and found a place to live before going back to bring their families. Could my great granduncle Adolf have done the same?

Imagine finding a bit of family history among a bunch of travel brochures! I showed it to Virginia, my traveling companion, and we decided that on our way back we'd stop by Poulsbo and see that building.

A few days later we drove into Poulsbo and found the address: 18978 Front Street. There was a plaque, put there by a local historical society, identifying it as the Høstmark building. The edifice appeared to have been renovated, and the current occupant was Bayside Engravers.

I went in to look around. The proprietor, Craig Hammond, was very knowledgeable of the local history and was able to tell me a lot about Adolf Høstmark, and he then took out a book of local history The Spirit of Poulsbo from under the counter. It had a full page on Adolf Høstmark. There was even a photo of him; he actually looked like me, except that he had curly hair.

Adolf had opened his store in 1886 with eight sacks of flower, one of sugar, and some miscellaneous items which he brought from Seattle in an open rowboat. The distance was about 15 miles by water. He also became the local postmaster.

Those were missing pieces from my mother's account. So, I realized that Adolf had first established himself in Poulsbo, then returned to Norway to get his family. In addition to bringing his children and his nephew in 1889, he'd also brought his wife. This answered another of my longstanding questions. I'd always wondered why she hadn't come; well she had, and here was her name, Engelbertine. A third child, Ann, had also accompanied them. I'd never heard of her either; she, along with Engelbertine, had somehow vanished from my mother's narrative. Ironically, Ann Høstmark and my mother both resided in Everett, not knowing they were neighbors.

Tragedies are often omitted in the telling of family histories, and there was one, forgotten till now. In 1895, Adolf Høstmark hung himself in the attic of this building.

Daniel Borgström
danielfortyone (at)gmail.com
August 2010

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* The local history book which the engraver showed me was: "The Spirit of Poulsbo" by Judy Driscoll


** Below are the ancestors in the above account:

ADOLF HØSTMARK,1842 - 1895
born in Norway
father of 8 children, including Olivia, Alf & Ann
uncle of Sigurd Grytnes (my grandfather)
had the store at18978 Front Street, Poulsbo

ENGELBERTINE JUNGE (HØSTMARK), 1843 - 1922
born in Norway
wife of Adolf Høstmark
mother of 8 children, including Olivia, Alf & Ann

OLIVIA HØSTMARK (COLE), 1873 - 1975
born in Norway
daughter of Adolf & Engelbertine
cousin/sister of Sigurd Grytnes

ALF HØSTMARK, 1875 - 1953
born in Norway
son of Adolf & Engelbertine
captain of ferry boat in Puget Sound

ANN HØSTMARK, 1885 - 1974
born in Norway
daughter of Adolf & Engelbertine

SIGURD GRYTNES, 1868 - 1961
born in Norway
father of 10 children, including my mother, Agnes
(my grandfather)

AGNES GRYTNES (BORGSTRÖM), 1899 - 1996
born in Iowa, USA
daughter of Sigurd Grytnes
(my mother)