Evan I Evanson, b. June 3, 1846, Jemtland, ØT (Østre Toten); d. Dec. 23, 1902 Florence, WA. m. July 31, 1880 to Anna Carine Jordet, daughter of Knut O. Jordet and Ragnhild Lindelien Jordet, b. Oct. 10, 1857, Gaarden Piltingsjordet, Nedre Hedalen, Søndre Aurdals Prestegjeld, Norge (Estate Piltingsjordet, Lower Hedalen, South Aurdal Parish, Norway); d. Nov. l2, 1929, Los Angeles, CA, Interred Bruflat Cemetery, Portland, ND. Evan’s middle name was originally Johannes, after his father. In his Americanization papers his name was changed to Evan I, the J being mistaken for I. He let it stand and was known to friends and family simply as “E.I.” He left Norway on April 16, 1869, and by coincidence Anna left three days later; they met 1877 in in a caravan of four ox-driven prairie schooners, part of a wagon train from Wisconsin to Fargo, Dakota Territory.

1. Clara Roselia Evanson, b. Aug. 6, 1881 at Portland, ND. d. Mar. 5, 1964 at Bremerton, WA. Graduated 1905 Lutheran Normal School at Sioux Falls, SD. Taught parochial school at Bruflat Academy and in Bang Parish, Portland, ND. and elementary and secondary school, Bruflat Academy. m. Theodore Hokenstad June 30, 1909 at Portland, ND, a Lutheran minister who served parishes in Alexander, ND. and Bremerton, WA. He also served as Director of the Lutheran Brotherhood, a service organization for enlisted Navy personnel. He was born Nov. 26, 1882 at Garretson, SD; d. Sept. 26, 1958 at Bremerton, WA.

   1. Thalia Elvera Hildegarde Hokenstad, b. June 15, 1910 Brooton, MN. d. Dec. 10, 1972 at Carlsbad, NM, where her husband had taken her in hopes the climate would be beneficial. Elvera had suffered from asthma for many years. She attended Pacific Lutheran University at Tacoma, WA and became a teacher in parochial school. m. Sept. 9, 1933 to Edgar Dale Stell at Bremerton, WA. No children.

   2. Margaret Valborg Hokenstad, b. June 10, 1915 at Alexander, ND, d. March 20, 1982 in Modesto, CA. m. Apr. 7, 1945 to Jack Alan Baskerville in Los Angeles, CA. Handicapped by polio at age of 8, she graduated from high school in Bremerton, WA, and was an aid to her husband in his work until his death Feb. 4. 1975. No children.

   3. Theodore Ragnvald Hokenstad, b. Nov. 22, 1917 Alexander, ND. Entered University of Washington in 1936, pledged Phi Kappa Sigma, and immediately joined the rowing class, remaining with the rowers throughout all four years as the coxswain. Enlisted for aviation upon graduation in 1940 and on April 1, 1941 was commissioned First Lieutenant. d. Dec. 26, 1942 at Bizerte, Tunisia, Africa, with the United States Air Force, Navigator, 414 Bomb Squadron, 97 Brigade. Hit by anti-aircraft flak; the B-17 Flying Fortress disintegrated in air. No remains were found. He married Virginia Lee Lenoir in San Antonio, TX. No children.

2. Johannes Christian Evanson, b. May 8, 1884; d. May 9, 1884. A small monument in the Bruflat Cemetery bears this very legible inscription in Norwegian: Let the little children come unto Me and forbid them not.

3. Carl Johan Evanson, b. Jan. 9, 1886 at Portland, ND., d. Nov. 29, 1963 Portland, ND. Graduated Bruflat Academy, attended Park Region Luther College, Fergus Falls, MN. and Luther College, Decorah, IA. m. Ruth Beatrice McNair Oct. 23, 1918 at Portland, ND. She was born Nov. 13, 1895. She remarried May l, 1965 to Henry Kjos of Mayville, ND.

   1. Carl David Evanson, b. Dec. 31, 1920 Portland, ND. m. Clara Frank Apr. 4, 1944 at Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. She was born June 27, 1922 in Devil’s Lake, ND. Both were in the Weather Bureau. They reside in Anchorage, AK. Two adoptive children:

      1. Janice Lucille Evanson, b. July 31, 1961. m. Grant Henderson, son of Bob and Beth Henderson.

         1. Zachary David Decker, b. Dec. 10, 1987. Janey’s son from a previous marriage, adopted by Grant.

         2. Danis Ella Henderson, b. Oct. 16, 1991.

         3. Kierian Samuel Henderson, b. Nov. 4, 1995.

         4. Gavin Theodore Henderson, b. Aug. 10, 2000.

      2. Theodore David Evanson, b. Oct. 10, 1962. m. Shalom, a.k.a. Shay. Now divorced.

         1. Trevor Cole Evanson, and

         2. Tyler David Evanson, twins b. Apr. 27, 1989.

   2. Robert McNair Evanson, b. Sept. 14, 1922 in Portland, ND. Farmed his grandfather’s homestead at Portland. Went to Alaska Jan. 29, 1971 to seek a change if not a fortune. He rented the farm to Strand brothers. He spent three months on Amchitka Isl. preparing the site of the largest nuclear underground test ever detonated by U.S. He went to Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay, North Slope, Oct. 1971 to build something preparatory to the oil pipeline. He is a welder and, because of his farming background, all-around handyman. m. ca. 1979 to Frances Stachura, b. 1945 in Cleveland, OH. Since 2000, they reside primarily in North Dakota on the old family homestead — their house is built around the original log cabin that Evan I. Evanson and Carine Jordet built between 1879–1880, with the only addition being the kitchen and bedroom in the 1940s by Carl and Ruth; long since paneled over, but the original logs are still underneath.

      1. Even Robert Evanson, b. Nov. 13, 1980. Named for his great-grandfather. m. Aug. 13, 2006 in Anchorage, AK to Julie M. Chiara, b. June 14, 1984.

   3. Beatrice Lucille Evanson, b. Nov. 8, 1928 Mayville, ND, d. Dec. 10, 2003 Santa Rosa, CA. Graduated Mayville High School; attended Concordia College, Moorhead, MN. m. Mar. 19, 1949 in Minneapolis, MN. to Richard Guy Elken of Mayville, ND, an architect. Richard now resides in Santa Rosa, CA. On May 28, 2004 there were memorial services in Mayville, ND. Afterwards, there was a reception held by Robert and Fran Evanson on their old Portland, ND farm.

      1. Dana Louise Elken, b. Jan. 20, 1951 in Minneapolis, MN. m. David Terrell.

         1. Jacob Terrell, b. in San Diego, CA.

      2. Thomas Richard Elken, b. Oct. 7, 1952 in Fargo, ND. m. June 21, 1975 to Laura Olson, b. Dec. 16, 1952 in San Diego, CA.

         1. Evan Elken, b. Feb. 17, 1977 in San Francisco, CA.

         2. Nathan Mikkel Elken, b. Dec. 9, 1979 in Boonton Township, NJ. m. July 22, 2006 to Shannon Marie Petzold, b. Sept, 12, 1980 in Sacramento, CA.

      3. Karen Jan Elken, b. Aug. 1, 1956 in Fargo, ND. m. Forrest Walker. Now divorced; she lives in Santa Rosa, CA.

         1. Neal Walker, b. in Portland, OR. d. Oct. 1999.

      4. Leslie Ann Elken, b. Dec. 27, 1961 in Fargo, ND. m. Craig Cozad.

         1. Kyle Cozad, b. in Santa Rosa, CA.

         2. Laurel Cozad, b. Aug. 10, 1999.

   4. Jean Elizabeth Evanson, b. Jan. 17, 1938 at Mayville, ND. Down’s Syndrome. Never married. Resides at State School, Grafton, ND.

4. Joseph Melvin Evanson, b. Apr. 10, 1888 Portland, ND. d. Sept. 27, 1940 in automobile accident. Attended grade school in Florence, WA, when the family lived there on the farm for three years. Attended Bruflat Academy and Mayville High School and Agricultural College in Fargo, ND. It was he who became the farmer as he grew old enough and to him the family owes much for their livelihood. Together with Carl they managed the Union Oil Company. He never married.

5. Ella Clarissa Evanson, b. Oct. 23, 1890 Portland, ND. d. Jan. 1986. Attended grade school in Florence, WA and Portland, ND. Graduated State Normal School, Mayville, ND. Taught first grade in Langdon, Lakota, Alexander, and Mayville, ND. Worked three years in the Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, D.C. (Civil Service). Moved with Mother to Seattle, WA. Graduated B.A., U. of WA. Teacher in Seattle, librarian in junior high school. An interesting summer session at Oxford U. and coronation of George VI in 1937 began the twice-round-the-world travels. Resided in Seattle, WA; moved to Foss Nursing Home May 1975. She never married, but until the end was the family historian. This web site owes much of its origins to her, and her “Real Evanson History” is transcribed and posted here.
   Ella’s teaching experience during the early days of World War II has been commemorated in a Special Collection at the University of Washington Libraries entitled “Ella Evanson Scrapbooks” described and commemorated as follows:

   Ella Evanson, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, began her teaching career in her native North Dakota before moving to Washington State. She taught at several schools in Washington before finally settling at George Washington School (a junior high school in Seattle’s Central District). She taught seventh and eighth grade there from 1928 until her retirement in 1956.

   In 1942 George Washington School was considered unique in the Seattle School District. Principal Arthur G. Sears emphasized democratic ideals and stressed tolerance and respect for differences among the approximately one thousand 7th- and 8th-grade students at his school. The students formed a racially diverse group, many of them Japanese American. Also present in this racial mix were students of Chinese-American, Jewish, African-American, and Caucasian families.

   On the Monday following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Principal Sears called an assembly. The essays written by the students later that day make it clear that he spoke about tolerance, remaining friendly toward those who are different, and what it means to be an American citizen.

   Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, was the instrument that allowed military commanders to designate areas “from which any or all persons may be excluded.” All persons of Japanese ancestry were forced to move from the West Coast to camps in the interior of the country that were euphemistically called internment camps. Before the evacuation in April, 1942, Ella Evanson asked her pupils to write about their feelings. She preserved these papers over the years, believing they had historic value. The papers in this collection reflect the thoughts of her students during WW II, especially in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent order to evacuate Japanese Americans.

   After her retirement, Ella Evanson traveled widely, once taking a freighter trip across the Pacific. She died in January, 1986, at the age of eighty-eight.

   Scope and Content

   Most of the items in this collection were saved in scrapbooks assembled by Ella Evanson. They include: essays written in class after a school assembly held the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; essays written by Caucasian children about the evacuation of some of their classmates to Camp Harmony and later Minidoka; an autograph book with photographs of the 37 Japanese-American children at the school, along with their goodbye messages to Miss Evanson; and letters from students written from the camps. Also included are six stories by Evanson based on the everyday lives of her students from different cultures, and correspondence and clippings from the 1970s describing the value of the materials to future historians.

   Ella’s collection was utilized in 2001, when Yoon K. Pak, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a core faculty member in the University’s Asian American Studies Program, published Wherever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal American: Schooling Seattle’s Japanese Americans during World War II. Here is the book description:

   On a spring afternoon in 1942, Japanese American (Nisei) students in Seattle's Washington School said goodbye to their friends and boarded buses bound for a relocation center in Pullayup, Washington. Forced to bring only what they could carry, these students' families sold most of their belongings; they burned much of their personal memorabilia, for fear it would be deemed "suspect" by the FBI. Yet amid the tumult of their evacuation and internment, some students left a record of their departure in letters to their homeroom teacher, Ella Evanson.

   These engaging letters, at the center of Yoon Pak’s Wherever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal American, document junior high students’ response to the news of the impending internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. In their responses, these students reveal their complex relationship with their schools and their country at a time when their citizenship and patriotism were cast in doubt. Using previously untapped sources, Pak explores how Seattle schools dealt with the dissonance between the rhetoric of democracy and the anti-democratic practice of internment. Yoon Pak painstakingly chronicles these schools’ struggle to maintain a tradition of tolerance in the face of the government’s evacuation orders.

6. Olga Johanna Evanson, b. Jan. 4, 1894 Portland, ND, d. May 7, 1976. Grade school in Florence, WA and Portland, ND. Attended Park Region Luther College in Fergus Falls, MN, and Mayville Normal. Macalester College to study piano and organ. Taught music in Alexander, ND In Feb. Joined the hordes in the U.S. civil service in Washington, D.C. Treasury Department, War Risk Insurance, in Feb. 1919. The next year transferred to Bureau of Internal Revenue, Prohibition Unit. Transferred to Bureau of Narcotics, Seattle, New York, Baltimore, and Kansas City, MO. Returned to Seattle 1952, where she remained. Following a stroke November 15, 1974, she was moved to Hillhaven Convalescent Center. Never married.

7. Jacob Arthur Evanson, b. Feb. 6, 1899 Portland, ND, d. Jan. 1, 1994. Attended grade school in Portland, ND and High School in Mayville. Enlisted May 1, 1917 for Hq. Co. Band Sects 1 ND. National Guard. Mus. 3 Cl. Overseas service Dec. 15, 1917 to Feb. 26, 1919. Graduate U. ND 1923, taught high school in Flint, MI; taught music in Western Reserve U. Cleveland, OH, Director of Music 28 years in Pittsburgh Public Schools. m. Aug. 15, 1932 to Mildred Throne of Cullom, IL, b. July 12, 1900, d. Jan. 14, 1989. She was professor of drama at Chatham College, Pittsburgh, PA and they resided in Pittsburgh, PA.

   1. Jacob Throne (Jock) Evanson, b. Dec. 11, 1934 Cleveland, OH. Graduated Cleveland High School, then Swarthmore College, PA. Attended Yale and U. Wisconsin. m. Apr. 8, 1958 in Dallas, TX, to Elizabeth Moss, b. Oct. 13, 1934. Jock was a staff member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but retired early. Betty is still at the UW, as Assistant Director for Public Information at the Institute for Reseach on Poverty. Reside in Madison, WI.

      1. Evan Arthur Evanson, b. Dec. 16, 1963 in New Haven, CT. A jazz cellist, currently living in Madison, WI, working in Technical Support at the Society for the Study of Reproduction.

      2. Virginia Moss Evanson, b. Nov. 26, 1965 in New Haven, CT. m. Mar. 7, 1996 to Suren Avanesyan, b. Nov. 15, 1971 in Voronezh, Russia to Russian and Armenian parents; interestingly enough, Avanesyan is Armenian for something close to Evanson. They met when she was teaching in Russia. Virginia and Suren now live in Silver Spring, MD; she teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) in the Montgomery County (MD) public schools, and he is a Project Director at the National Center for State Courts.
         

         1. Anna Karina Avanesyan, b. Sept. 13, 2000.
         2. Alexander Moss Avanesyan, b. Jan. 14, 2004.