AND MAN BE ABASED!"
--Bernice Augusta Stadem Schaefer,
Founder of the Tradition of Annual, now the Biannual Stadem Reunions on Plain View Farm
"Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
Then the earth shall yield her increase;
God, our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us,
And all the ends of the earth
shall fear Him."--Psalm 67:5-7
CONTENT: Christian Family, Norwegian American pioneer farm life, Faith, Values, Roots in Norway and Haugean Revival, Death, Tragedy, Restoration, Church, America the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, Nordic Cuisine, Patriotism, Sod House and Pioneer Farm Origins, Farm Children's Stories, Israel and Jews, Messianic calling, Reunions and Welcoming Hospitality to All, Centennial Farm celebration 2018, Centenarians, SD Centennial Message by Pastor Leroy Stadem, Bryant, SD, June 29,m 1986, Bible and Hebrew Heritage, Tributes to Godly Ancestors, Parents, and Grandparents, Rare Portrait of Grandmother at Prayer for her Families, Clean Norskie jokes, Album Photos, AND MORE!! BUT CAN YOU TAKE IT? CAN YOU AND YOUR HEART EXPAND ENOUGH TO ENJOY IT ALL?
NORWEGIAN LIVES MATTER
"Is there a Cross on Plain View Farm?"
by Ron Ginther
where sinners can find a cure for sin?
Is there a cross on Plain View Farm
with healing for life's wounds within?
No need for excuses, not when
they stagger to the grave--
they need a real Savior,
not to improve but their souls to save!
The real Jesus was rejected long ago,
a whole society chose Barabbas
--and viewed Christ's death as a circus show.
They rejected His Cross, is it any different today?
Is there a Cross on Plain View Farm?
Or did Jesus, with tears, walk slowly away?
Ron Gnther's new book, "Becca the Red," illustrates the life and career of a Danish Viking, starting with his boyhood in a little village named after a stream in the hollow. In obscure circumstances, he rises out of a Dark Age culture engrossed in grossness--raiding, looting, burning, and worse things--all based on greed. The popular Viking television programs and Hollywood films and books and YouTube videos do not tell the true story about Vikings. They glamorize them, and glamorize violence at the same time. The tragic cost to Viking society is not depicted. This book attempts to show what it was really like for a Holbek ancestor who was encouraged by his wise grandfather and father to set another course for his dragon ship than the course set by the misled society around them. The book will not be long, perhaps 200 pages, available as an e-book on Amazon and other platforms. Frankly, I expect few serious nibbles from Relations, but the Holbeks over in Norway might find it interesting, those who are English-proficient. Perhaps they will get it translated for the Norwegian market? Would be nice! This was my chance to connect with my Holbek ancestors in a way that showed how a troubled, conflicted young Dane of the 9th century could find Christ and experience a transforming faith that would change society around him, even as he served as a mercenary for the Emperor Constantine IV in Byzantine Constantinople and later Charlemagne in the Frankish empire.--Ed.
THIS IS A REALLY TOUCHING FILM LIKE FEW ARE: THE DANISH FILM: "BABETTE'S FEAST": PORTRAYS SACRIFICIAL, SELFLESS, CHRISTLIKE GIVING TO OTHERS SHOWN BY A SINGLE WOMAN, A FRENCH REFUGEE AND LOWLY HOUSE SERVANT IN A NORTHERN COASTAL VILLAGE HOME OF TWO PIOUS, ELDERLY SISTERS IN THE 1900s. SOUNDS DULL? WELL, THAT VILLAGE LIFE WAS CERTAINLY HUMDRUM AND DULL AS SOGGY, COLD FRENCH TOAST ON YOUR PLATE. BUT DON'T BE FOOLED, DYNAMITE IS GOING TO EXPLODE IN ALL THEIR LIVES, IGNITED BY THIS LONE, POOR, HARD-WORKING FRENCH WOMAN, BABETTE:
Heg "practiced what he had preached" about the rights of men including black people. He put his very life on the line for the freeing of the slaves. Isn't that admirable? Wisconsin teachers, are you teaching these facts to your students, or or you parroting the mantras of Black Lives Matter (but white lives do not?).
Heg was a colonel in the Wisconsin infantry and was killed in the battle of Chicamauga, in Georgia in 1863 while fighting to free the slaves. He gave his very life for them, yet he is labeled a "white racist" by the anarchist mob in Wisconsin. They dragged his statue to Lake Manona and threw it in. The historic statue had been erected in 1925 and stood there as a noble example of Heg's self-sacrifice for the freedom of black people.
Any state would be proud, you would think, of such a citizen, who brought such glory and honor to it. But not Wisconsin, apparently! The irresponsible Wisconsin authorities allowed the destruction of the statue, standing down when the mob began its rampage.
Wipe the shame from your Wisconsin State Escrutcheon, People of Wisconsin! Remove the sin, shame, and outrage of what an anti-American mob was allowed to perpetrate in destroying Hans Christian Heg's statue. How? Start teaching again what you need to teach instead of the political substitutes for a genuine education. Long live the memory of this noble man and Norwegian immigrant in Wisconsin and American history!--Ed.
"S-S-S-SOUTH DAKOTA
(Tune "Katy")
S-S-S-South Dakota, South Dakota,
You're the only s-s-s-state that I adore.
Whenever the sun shines over the corn fields
We are worth a m-m-m-million dollars more.
(Tune "Smiles")
You may sing of your Nebraska,
You may sing of Iowa, too.
You could name multitudes of blessings
That the Lord has given you.
There is just one State in all the Union
From the north to south, from east to west,
That was made for men to really live in;
South Dakota, we love you best.
Hail, South Dakota, the State we love the best,
Land of our fathers, Builders of the West;
Home of the Badlands, and Rushmore's ageless shrine,
Hills, farms and prairies, blessed with bright sunshine.
Published by Cooperative Extension Work, U.S. Department of Agriculture
and South Dakota State College Cooperating. Distributed in furtherance of Acts of Congress of May 3 and June 10, 1914.
George I. Gilberton, Director--SDES-Y-87
Leroy Stadem, Pastor of many churches, gave a Centennial State celebration message.
Grace Shubert Svanoe, who moved out from the nice Peace Corps compound quarters she had and once chose to live in the same squalid poverty as a lone woman among those in Central America she came to serve, breathed out these Last Words in Prayers in Anahuac, Chihuahua, October 31, 2010:
"Help us find our way"
"Thank you, Lord"
reprinted from "Rennard Svanoe Update - DEN STADEM SAMTALERAN,
March 2011
Memorial to Grace"
Tribute to Grace Shubert Svanoe,
by Ron Ginther
was all she could say,
on her bed of pain in Old Mexico.
As you hurry and click on by, on some app seeking pie in the sky,
pause a moment, friend,
and hear her whisper, sweet and low:
"Help us find a way,"
was all she could say,
but no lengthy eloquence in a marble and gold pulpit was ever equal.
She was drawing her last breaths,
and her soul was nearing the end;
but yet the Spirit was drawing her close,
healing and making her whole.
We know all was well, when her very last words came,
"Thank you, Lord"-- breathed to the One she adored.
Yes, Christ came down for physical needs,
but no one could pay him with
meritorious deeds;
spiritually blind, halt, and lame,
rich or poor, schooled or untaught,
they needed him most desperately
all the same.
Posted Bryant Inspector's Building Permit for the Plain View Farm HERITAGE CENTER BARN
PART I--WORLD WAR II COMMANDO AND RESISTANCE HERO, KNUT HAUKELID AND HIS TEAM FLEW FROM BRITAIN TRAINED TO KNOCK OUT THE HEAVY WATER PLANT AT VEMORK THE NAZIS WERE USING IN NORWAY FOR THEIR NUCLEAR REACTOR IN GERMANY.
****************************
THIS IS THE INTRODUCTORY, OR FRONT DOOR, BUT IT TAIN'T THE ONLY PART BY ANY MEANS! PLEASE GO FROM HERE TO HOME PAGE PARTS 1, 2, 3, and 4, AS THERE IS MUCH, MUCH MORE FOR YOU TO EXPLORE OF OUR GOLDEN HERITAGE IN GOD AND FAMILY VALUES OF A CENTENARIAN PIONEER SOUTH DAKOTA PRAIRIE FARM.
JUST A BIT MORE OF TRUE HISTORY
behind this old farm being a "Sabbath Farm":
How would they accomplish that? We know how they did it. They established their whole operation on the Sabbath. From Monday to the Sabbath they worked to be ready for keeping the Sabbath holy. Despite all the demands and regimen of daily chores, the children were instructed in holiness and right behavior and love for God and respect for God's commandments and obedience and humility shown all those God put in positions and roles over them.
Right away, the naysayer or skeptic reacts with, "Ridiculous! Nobody does that, and it could not be done anyway!" You do not know anything essential about Plain View Farm and its family the Stadems, friend!
I am not claiming that this devotion to God's commandment to keep the Sabbath holy was followed in all the families that came out from the main stem, nor am I claiming that the majority of the Stadem Descendants have anymore the slightest idea what holiness and the Sabbath and a Holy God mean, though they sometimes sing in their churches the historic hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy!"
I am stating the absolute truth, that the Stadems practiced a rigorous, faithful Sabbath preparation that culminated every Sunday with them in church, fully prepared worship and give thanks to God, and ready to serve God and man and to receive the saving Word of God preached from the pulpit and declared from the open Bible.
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
What was going to be his response to terrible tragedy in his own close home circle? Read his own words: Papa Alfred Stadem's letter concerning the Events of 1947, involving the plane crash and deaths of his eldest son, Arthur, a WWII navy vet in his early twenties, and his son-in-law Bob Ginther, family man with six children (a seventh coming 9 months after his death) and wife Pearl:
Note that encouraging things do happen in the midst of what seems a total disaster: Alida Spilde's Norwegian language Bible may have been found by Stephen Stadem in the ruins of their beautiful home which recently burned. A very large but partly damaged volume in the Norwegian language was found. I believe it is the one Alida Spilde possessed, and which her daughter Eloise donated to the Farm. I will be able to tell by the surviving illustrations, as I took a number of pictures of them.
On this "commemorative cup" he created and so thoughtfully sent to us, Steve is pictured holding the huge book that somehow survived the fire and the deluge of water poured on it by the fire trucks. On the cup is the inscription: "Start Each Day With a Grateful Heart," and there is also a picture of Ron Ginther with the Flag of Israel, a photo that also survived the fire."
3. Please also return Pearl Ginther's Memorial items last housed in the master bedroom of the house!
4. And the Green Railroad trunk in the utility room was a very old Ginther artifact, full of Pearl Ginther's records and Ginther family films. Please return them to the Ginthers even if you do not want them on the property for some reason, okay?
5. Mim Rinderknecht's piano donated to the Stadem reunion attendees has also been missing for some years now, and needs to be returned to her or to the farm.
6. Ron Ginther's easy-learning organ also has been missing and needs to be returned.
There are other items as well that are missing, but we have pictures of them, so we have records and will continue the search and inquiry after them.--Ed.
The on-line archived Stadem Samtaleran Collection is being updated to include the issues by year of 1971, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 (2 letters), 1993, 1995, 1996 (with three parts: Part I, the Bryant Dakotan article about the Reunion 1996, Part II: The Samtaleran about the coming Reunion 1996, and Part III: Bernice Schaefer's Letter telling about the 1996 Reunion!), 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, [lacking complete Samtaleran for 2008, but we have two wonderful pages identified from it], 2008 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 (the succeeding issues were digitized and emailed to the subscribers and can be sent to anyone on request to Aanna Chase). Please contact this website editor first:
ronaldginther42@yahoo.com
Gloria Brown has yet another fascinating trip as a notch in her travel belt to tell us about:
Reghan Brown (12 going on 13 years of age), of Sioux Falls, Great-granddaughter of Pearl A. Ginther, won the scholarship award of $250 for her timeline and explanatory essay at the 2018 Centennial Reunion!:
From this volume, in our Plain View Farm heritage 40+-volume Archives at the Farm in the Heritage Barn, we have given the name of a pastor who bore the name of Stadem, who might well be a First Stadem Waver.--Ed.
2. "The Old Horse and Buggy Days," On the Prairie Farms of South Dakota, by Darrell R. Ginther (e-book, $1),
3. "Nine Tales of a Lille Tupin and Tupa," an Interactive Story of Life on Old Plain View Farm, by Ronald D. Ginther (e-book, $1)
Proceeds will go to heritage projects on Plain View Farm.
Have you ever wondered what motivated our ancestors to leave Norway and travel across the Atlantic in a sailed ship, then travel by train to Iowa?
Britta was the valiant Matriarch of the Olsons or Stadems or Stadeims or Stadheims of the Old Country who produced our particular line. (I am so glad they dropped Olson, aren't you?--THAT TRIBE HAS ENOUGH PEOPLE IN IT!).
Mother to all of us, a true Matriarch, she was the mother of Sjur and Knud, who had the old Viking spunk living in them and emigrated to America. We have devoted an entire tribute to her. I am not sure there are any extant photos or drawings of her--which is too bad, but who knows what priceless pictures were destroyed when a cyclone obliterated Sjur and Oline's house when it was under construction. All they saved from that disaster was a single family photograph. But what they have to teach us could fill volumes. All we have is a website, to do this great work of translation. I hope you have patience as we unfold the things they have bequeathed us in their golden legacy. It isn't fashionable, yet it is so timely it could save us and teach us how to survive as Christians in the coming world famine and the collapse of the present order.--Ed.
on Plain View Farm, which we called "God's Little Acres,"
with Picture of Peder Johan Stadem & First Wife Marie Stadem
A new and exciting development to the Archives Center will be an Audio library! We have a video with audio already available, two in fact. They can be accessed as soon as we post them to the Archives page.
Another way to say it is: "If you don't know where you have been, you don't know where you are going!"
As Grandpa repeatedly testified in one way or another, his wife was the real spiritual powerhouse and pillar of the Stadem household, not himself. But do you know the basic facts about her, that they weren't promising at all, in fact, were almost guaranteed to keep her down and cause her life to be of no real significance? That she had great handicaps to overcome even at a very young age is revealed in this short biographical sketch:
Pearl wrote on back that the St. Olaf College entrant was training to be a pastor, while she was a high school student, which points out how college students back then were pitted against high school student in this contest, which wouldn't happen today. Incidentally, Barbara Jean Rothnem remained a friend lifelong of Pearl Ginther and became a singer of repute.
Lillian Heide taught at the Academy beginning Fall 1956 (U.S. History), and was the librarian until the school closed on its American campus. She was a graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota. After marriage to Elmer Heide, the family moved from California so that the children could attend the Academy. Arden (1954), Margaret (1956), Marian (1960), and Sharon (1962), all graduated from A.A.
Update on Marian Heide, my classmate at AA: She has passed from this life to eternal life, and we will have a tribute to her on the Academy pages.--Ed.
Both Jerry & his Mother, Pearl, Graduated to Heaven, Jerry Entering the Pearly Gates in first week of July, Preceded by Mother Pearl Entering the Pearly Gates on April 30, 2011; Darrell Also Entering Soon After Jerry August 13, 2011
Framed Print of Watercolor by Stephen Stadem,
Used to Raise Funds for the New Heritage Barn Project
If she wasn't, how do you explain these facts away? I cannot. You have the job if you like.
As a young woman, as she related to me many years later, she was losing her hair and in danger of going bald. Her hair was very fine, and thin, and a picture of two show her thin hair. She looked so unlike other pictures, where her hair was growing again, or had not yet thinned out.
Growing very concerned, she prayed to God, "Lord, if you will regrow my hair, I will never cut it."
Her hair regrew, and though fine, it was thick way into her advanced age, when she lost it all due to a doctor's use of an antibiotic in connection with her eye trouble with cataracts.
Twice the same prescription caused her to lose her hair and a lot of skin too, when the doctor failed to take our warning about what the first prescription had done to her.
Her daughters-in-law pressed her to go to a beauty parlor and cut and perm it, but she would never do that, she held firmly to her vow to God.
She never discarded what she combed out when the prescriptions took her hair. We have it still in bags.
Mother also, like a Nazirite, did not drink wine. She took only Communion wine. Pressed to take glasses of wine even at family get-togethers, she declined, and she was made subject to considerable jokes at her expense, but she again held firm.
As for not touching dead bodies, Mother touched many living people in praying for them and administering wonderful back-rubs. Dead bodies? She never washed any dead person, that we know of, in preparation for burial.
Do Old Testament, so-called, vows have any validity today in the Church Age of Grace? In Mother's case, they certainly do in the case of her vow to God concerning her hair loss, as there is no real division between the Old and New Testaments, and the Old Covenant regarding Israel and its land and is still in force, though the New Covenant in Christ['s Blood has superseded it.
"I'm so proud of Darrell as he truly feels led of the Lord, and shares the Lord in scripture, word and gospel song as he is out picking up pop cans for the Tacoma Seafarers Mission, where he works once a week. After the Lord delivered him of his mental problem, he loves calling me, and we feel truly blessed having our devotions and prayer over the telephone every morning. Children and their parents will ask him to sing gospel hymns wherever they see him, and they truly let him know how much they enjoy it. Winning souls has been his joy."--Pearl Ginther