Untold Family Stories

When it came time to choose the name of our first child, my husband and I had lots of conversations. Ultimately, we decided we wanted to choose something that reflected our families’ histories. We are both deeply interested in history and are aware that who we are and where we stand—how we view the world—has been built upon the experiences of our ancestors. 

In Jason’s family, the first name of “William” had been used for a number of generations, skipping only one. Some, including Jason, had also chosen to use the middle name on a daily basis. (Until the more recent movement towards having preferred names in databases, this choice has and does cause confusion on the part of service providers and annoyance on the part of the name-bearer.) Still, it turns out that daily use of a middle name is also a bit of a Germanic tradition of sorts, part of Jason’s family heritage.  

From my side, we quickly discarded the idea of Stanley (my grandfather) because, well, the child would have been called “Flatt, Stanley” sometimes—far too close to the popular children’s book series Flat Stanley.  

We fell in love with the name Anton, so we named our first son William Anton and we called him Anton. (When you pronounce “Anton,” think “An-tin,” almost like how we say “Anthony” like “An-thin-ee.”) Anton was named after two people on my side: my great-grandfather (my mom’s mom’s dad) and a more distant relative on my dad’s side.  

Our son, Anton

As we have watched Anton grow up and take possession of his name, including not minding nearly as much as we do when people mispronounce it, we know he is writing his own story. He is claiming that name and showing the world that someone named Anton loves tennis, trombone, and talking with people of all generations and backgrounds. He is compassionate, passionate, thoughtful, and fascinating as a person. Of course, I’m his mom so I’m supposed to say those things, but I think a lot of people in his world have the same opinion.  

I’ve been thinking lately about the people we named him for, particularly my mom’s grandfather. I’ve been thinking about why Jason and I chose that name—or any family-related name. And I’ve been wondering what our Anton thinks about when he considers the ancestors who had the name before he did, if he thinks about them at all. 

We don’t have a lot of stories to share with him. Anton Aspelund, my mom’s grandfather, was born in Norway in 1875, married Inga Karine, had some kids, moved to America, returned to Norway, moved to a very small town in northern Minnesota (McGrath), was followed by his wife and their children (including my grandmother, then just a few years old), and worked as a blacksmith.  

My mom’s grandpa, Anton

We have a few photos of him as an older man. And we have one really interesting story, or partial story.

When my grandmother was young, Inga Karine inherited some money. He wanted the money. She didn’t want to give it to him. So she took the kids and left her husband. 

Now that is interesting. At that time in American history, it wasn’t as common for a woman to leave her husband and take her kids with her, let alone assert her right over her own money. What motivated her? What led her to that decision? 

Unfortunately, that’s the whole story. But it just hints at so much more...  

We speculate. Perhaps life in McGrath was just too rough. I visited there years later and imagined how isolated it must have felt in the early 1900s when they settled there. Perhaps the isolation was too much for my great-grandmother. Perhaps Anton Aspelund was not a good husband or a nice man. Perhaps she wanted more opportunities for her children than could be found in such a little village, and moving to Paynesville, Minnesota offered more.

“What did your mom say?” I ask mine, hoping that she’ll suddenly recall details she hasn’t for the last fifty years. 

“Nothing more than that,” she replies, and I can tell she’s as disappointed as I am. “I’m not sure my mom knew the story. I’m not sure her mom ever told her. Or maybe she just didn’t ask. You didn’t talk about things like divorce back then...” 

True. There was a sense of shame involved at that time. It took courage for my great-grandmother to strike out on her own, to take her kids and leave her husband. Inga Karine died before my mom was born, so even if she had wanted to ask her, the opportunity wasn’t there.  

As for Anton Aspelund, my mom has a few memories of going to see him in McGrath decades later when she was growing up. He was a nice man, she says. Quiet. Distant. They didn’t have any long conversations about who he was as a person, no clues as to why his wife left him.  

“He just lived up in that old shack in McGrath,” she recalls. “He still had an outhouse. The whole place was very primitive.” He figured a way to get by, to use his blacksmithing skills, or some other skills, as the times changed. He did work for the railroad when they needed something. He had an old Model-T so must have known something about cars. 

“Every Christmas, my mom made mincemeat cookies and he loved those. She sent him a package every year.”  

My mom recalls him briefly visiting their house in South St. Paul. He died around the age of 86, perhaps of cancer. She recalls something about cancer of the eye but isn’t sure. 

I wasn’t thinking of these few memories when we decided to name our first son Anton. Unlike when someone names someone “Jr.” or “Something-Something III,” Jason and I weren’t trying to tell our son to be like his ancestor. We weren’t setting him up to have Anton Aspelund as a role model. We want him to be his own person. 

Naming him after his ancestors was more of a way to help him glance backwards even as he grew forwards, a chance for him to consider his place among thousands of stories, told and untold, from generations of individuals. Naming him Anton was a way to show him a connection to something bigger than himself. 

About six years ago, I had the privilege of visiting Norway with my family, seeing the country Anton Aspelund and his family left behind. We were in Scotland for three months while I taught in a study abroad program and suddenly Norway didn’t feel so far away. (It wasn’t!) We took a week and flew up there. A cousin had done research on our ancestry, so I knew a bit better where to travel. I connected with a living museum curator and learned more about what life was probably like for my ancestors. I knew that back a couple more generations, an ancestor was likely a dairy maid. I saw the kind of barn where she would have worked—and probably slept.  

That night, standing near our hotel and looking out over the rolling hills, I thought about her strength. I thought about the vast differences in our lives. I thought about all the choices that had to be made for us to move from her situation to my life. I wondered what she would think of me. I hoped she would be proud.  

I don’t need to have a family story passed down generation to generation to know that we also have a lot in common. I think it’s safe to assume she wanted a good life. She wanted to be safe. She wanted her kids to be happy and healthy. She wanted to have good food and enjoy a laugh sometimes.  

I hope she got all that. I know I have.  

It is in moments like that one, standing amid a part of my family’s story that will forever be shrouded, that I think about the larger arc of the story—the one where I’m just a little part of it. I think about my kids and what they will know of my grandparents or even of me.  

No matter how much I write, there will be many untold family stories like the one of my great-grandmother leaving my great-grandfather when she got a little money. Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to tell those stories. Sometimes we forget them. In some generations, there is neither time nor energy after work and survival to sit and talk through the past. Sometimes society tells us we shouldn’t share our stories. And sometimes people aren’t listening anyway.  

For our Anton, when he thinks of his name, I hope he knows we wanted to ground him in that set of narratives not to restrict him, but to inspire him. If there is one thing I hope he takes from the story of Anton Aspelund it is that forging your own path involves taking risks and working hard. Our Anton will figure out the rest on his own, adding so many wonderful stories to tie to the name he shares.