The brother to Sjur/Syvert Stadem was Knudt Stadem,
and he also moved to Worth County, Iowa, in the 1860s when Sjur and Oline
tookt their large family and emigrated from Bergen Norway to
America. We lost contact with the Knudt Stadem family descendants!
Well, today is a historic day indeed when we talked to
them by phone. Sylvia Yuge (from the Kristine Stadem
line, contacted them first by message and email, then by phone,
and found out where they live, and then called us by telephone to
give us their telephone numbers and address and their names.
They are Matthew and Tina Larson and their three children and one
granddaughter five months old. We had great joy hearing that
Sylvia had discovered these relatives, and she asked if we could guess
where they lived. We had no idea of course Well, it is
Puyallup, our hometown! The Knudt Stadem/Larsons have been
living in the Puyallup area since the 1930s after moving from
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. We have been here since 1942, and never
once guessed we passed these Stadem relatives thousands of times on the main
road. All that time we thought we were alone here, without Stadem
relatives in Washington. Soon we will be visiting in person,
as Mom invited the Larsons to come to her home. Genealogy
is a wonderful means by which our families have come into contact after possibly
over 100 years of separation. God bless this "new" line of Stadems!
Please welcome them, if you read this, and let them know
about yourselves too--as we are new to each other.
Sylvia Yuge is the dear cousin who has in in one year found brought two lines of "lost"
Stadems to our attention at Plain View Farm. She also found Fjelstads in Norway (she is a
granddaughter of Julius Fjelstad who married Andrena Stadem Stene, the daughter of the FIRST STADEM child born to Sjur and Oline in America!), who come from Loftenes. No doubt she will gather some genealogy from them too, which we can add to the Fjelstad family line via our Stadem genealogist: Barbara Vorseth Benson.