Bertha (Betsy) LIEN

1857 - 1929  (71 years)

• Name	Bertha (Betsy) LIEN
  Birth	2 Dec 1857	Winneshiek County, Iowa
  Gender	Female
  Death	1 Aug 1929	Hennepin County, Minnesota
  Notes	In the 1900 census, she had had five children, four still living. The following is from her Find A Grave entry, as created by her great-granddaughter, Connie: Bertha Lien was born on a small farm near Decorah, Iowa, the sixth child of 14 born to Gullik Knutsen Lien (1815-1903) and Berit Knusdatter Austreim (1826-1904). Her parents had emigrated in 1850 from Vang, Valdres, Norway. Bertha attended public schools in the area and the local parish school. She later attended the Breckenridge Normal School at Decorah for two years and then taught school for one year in the district schools of Springfield township. While attending school at the parsonage in Decorah, Ole Joris Norby may have worked at the Lien farm. After his graduation and a call to Dakota Territory, Ole left for Yankton County and sent for Bertha. Bertha got on the train, bringing all of her belongings in trunks, mostly clothes and a few quilts, and left Iowa to meet him. Once she arrived, they rode forty miles on Indian ponies, riding in grass over their heads, to the minister's house in Websterville, Dakota Territory, to be married on 14 Sep 1879. The day following the wedding they traveled on in a "single-seated" buggy drawn by two small Indian ponies to the pioneer settlement where they would live in Turner County. As the years passed, she became reconciled to frontier conditons, but Bertha never wholly accepted the view of those who professed to see beauty in the prairie. She gained experience and greater assurance in her role as pastor's wife. Parish work was not then a highly organized system so her functions were largely those of an ever-ready hostess, Sunday School teacher, leader of the Ladies' Aid Society, parish visitor, friend and confidant. In 1893, she and Ole left the frontier to move closer to good schools for their four children, leaving one infant son buried in the cemetery at Sims, North Dakota. They moved first to Chicago and then to Winchester, Wisconsin, before returning again to the west where O. J. served as minister in Havre, Montana, and Aberdeen, South Dakota. In 1923 he retired and they moved to Minneapolis to be near their son, Joseph and his family. Bertha's health had been poor with heart trouble for several years but her strong will had sustained her. In the end, her strength failed and Bertha died on 1 Aug 1929 at 71 years old. Her obituary states, "Her natural inclination and devotion to service made her an ideal pastor's wife and all with whom she came in contact remember her as the embodiment of the precepts which her husband taught from the pulpit. She was an ideal wife, a loving mother, and a true servant of the Master."
  Person ID	I26419	Don Carlson's Tree
  Last Modified	20 Jul 2017

  
  

  Father	Gullik Knutsen LIEN,   b. 18 Feb 1815, Vang i Valdres, Oppland, Norway d. 1 Apr 1903, Iowa (Age 88 years)
  Mother	Berit Knudsdatter AUSTREIM,   b. 1826, Vang i Valdres, Oppland, Norway d. 22 Mar 1904, Iowa (Age 78 years)
  Marriage	13 Apr 1850	Vang i Valdres, Oppland, Norway
  Family ID	F18519	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Ole Joris NORBY,   b. 26 May 1855, Klæbu, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway d. 26 Apr 1930, Hennepin County, Minnesota (Age 74 years)
  Marriage	1879
  Children	1. Joseph Gerhard NORBY,   b. 28 Mar 1883, South Dakota d. 6 Mar 1965, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin (Age 81 years)
  Family ID	F18548	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	20 Jul 2017