PLAIN VIEW FARM...A BIG LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN ON EARTH!
Where the Gate Grandpa Made is Always Open to Visitors With Childlike Hearts of Love and Wonder!
"You must become like a small child,"
the Father's Son said most plainly.
"Unless you're trusting, humble, mild--
Heaven's gate will close to thee."
ANGELS CAN DANCE ON A PIN, BUT HERE ARE NORWEGIANS DANCING ON A REAL TABLE NAPKIN!
Special thanks go to the Lakota Indian Tribe kids at St. Joseph's school, Chamberlain, S.D., for furnishing, whether they know it or not, the picture we used to greet you.
Velkommen! How GOOD to see you! We love to have you come and visit us on Plain View Farm! Come on in and let's go into the parlor, where family and friends all gather!
Have some refreshments. Mama's wonderful Lemon Cake is ready to serve with fresh, hot coffee, and rich farm cream and sugar as you like. The doughnuts are hers too, and go well with the Norske coffee! Now, everybody please give full attention, so the great-grandkids can hear about our golden Norwegian heritage and our legacy of faith in Christ of Plain View Farm from Papa and Mama's daughter Estelle. She is going to give us her exciting account in "God's Little Acres"! God bless you as you all join us in the Parlor to hear Estelle. Listen! She's just starting...
All Nine Stadem Children--(L to R, by Age) Pearl, Bernice, Myrtle, Cora, Alida, Estelle, Arthur, Ruth, Leroy
Please check out the Tribute to Myrtle Stadem-Svanoe, which has now been illustrated. A most remarkable person, her legacy lives on in manifold ways. Check out this tribute find out some of the many ways she made a big difference in the world! The Svanoe Central page has all the Svanoe family listings.
The 2008 Reunion was a great success! The picture shows it, as there were
more than 70 attending (some not at the same time or as long as others, so not all made it in the group picture.
PLAIN VIEW FARM HERITAGE CENTER: Now please go to Plain View Farm on Yahoo/Geocities for the truly exciting news on the Plain View Farm Heritage Center Fund Drive! We hope and pray for this to be a reality by the next reunion, so we can all gather and dedicate a wonderful new facility, which will replace the barn which fell down a few years ago. We always needed something about that size to accommodate our activities, crafts, and special productions and memorials--but now we Stadem Families are at last getting underway, with Steve Stadem's picture of the barn, which he did in watercolor, and will frame and put in glass, with the money for it going to help the Heritage Center fund. You can read about his
fund raising project on the Plain View Farm site on Yahoo/Geocities too (and the Buffalo Mound website as well). The direct link is:
Contributions to the Plain View Farm Heritage Fund, and contact information for Steve Stadem, contact information is given on the Plain View Farm site and the Buffalo Mound site, both found on:
Pearl Stadem Ginther, at age 99 the eldest of the Alfred and Bergit Stadem clan, was taken right after the Reunion to see the all wood Norwegian stav church over in the Black Hills, re-created after the original over in Norway which goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. Some stav churches are 800 to 900 years old! This one shows its young age, for the wood is still light of color and not weathered. The all-wooden gift house (which the food storage was in, originally, over in
Norway) was sent direct from Norway, and was built in the 1800s, but it hardly shows any age yet.
But the stav church, of course, is the star attraction, and thousands see it each year. Pearl Ginther is in the center of the family, pictured with some of her great grandchildren.
We have Stadem relatives over in Norway! Brita Stadem was Sjur Stadheim's sister, and descended from her are cousins who still reside in the Stadheim farms. Aalaug Ese is Brita's
descendant, and she has an actual working farm pictured on their website, producing various delicious berry crops, sheep, eggs, and garden produce, which can be accessed at:
Stadem/Vorseth Cousin Barbara Benson and her husband visited Aslaug Ese and her husband Oddbjorn in 2000, and conducted genealogy research in Vik and other sites of the Stadem
roots and our ancestors. They took pictures of the Ese's beautiful farm over in Vik, and included them in the Stadem Genealogy book that Barbara Benson compiled dealing with the line of Sjur and Oline
Stadheim and their descendants. Our ancestors, the pioneering emigrants Sjur and Oline Stadheim and their family sailed bravely (with faith in God enabling them to make this great venture) from Norway on one of those sailed boats in the early 1860s and traveled via Quebec to Northwood, Worth County, Iowa, where they settled for a time. They then moved from there to South Dakota, where, a generation later or so, Alfred Stadem, grandson of Sjur, was born and married and raised the family that is chiefly featured on these Plain View Farm websites, as Alfred Stadem is the founder of Plain View Farm in rural Bryant South Dakota, together with his beloved wife Bergit Holbeck Stadem. Barb's genealogy book is a wonderful labor of love, and only a limited edition was produced, but enough for the Stadems and her own Vorseth line to each have a copy if they requested one.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE ERLING JORDAHL ACCOUNT OF THE OLD BRYANT LUTHERAN CHURCH OF BYGONE TIMES BUT STILL CHERISHED IN MEMORY. MR. JORDAHL HAS KEEP INSIGHTS TO SHARE WITH YOU ABOUT WHAT IS VALUABLE ABOUT THE CHURCH OF YESTERYEAR BUT HAS BEEN LEFT OUT OF TODAY'S PRACTICES AND CHURCH SOCIETY, THINGS WE MIGHT WELL WANT TO SEE RESTORED IF POSSIBLE:
OUR LATEST PAGES OFFERING A UNIQUE, STEREOSCOPIC TOUR OF NORWAY (WITH NOTRE DAME THROWN IN FOR AN ENCORE), IN CASE YOU MISSED THE TOURS AROUND THE TURN OF THE CENTURY ENJOYED IN PARLORS ACROSS RURAL AMERICA:
Pearl Stadem-Ginther (age 99 in September, 2008) is still very active in the Tacoma Seafarers Center in the Port of Tacoma, after a long service as financial supporter and attendee of the Ladies Auxiliary every month at the Center, as well as providing over 30 Christmas gift boxes to the Center for giving out to sailors at Christmas. Please go to the tribute page to the Center, which is a vital ministry to sailors coming to the Port from all over the world--a unique opportunity to show them we care, and then they will care what we know about the Lord! Like his mother, Darrell R. Ginther, eldest in the family, has served as a volunteer worker in the Center for many years too. Comments about both Mrs. Ginther and son are included in the following tribute page devoted to the Center for Seafarers.
Please Visit and Sign Our Guestbook
"Ballad of the Voyage of Faith," Centennial Tribute (1903-2003) to the Voyage of Bergit and Katrine (Tena) Holbeck from Norway to America, by Grandson and Grandnephew Ronald Ginther
Links to other pages in our Family of websites
