Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1981-10-27 (Creation)
Extent
3 file folders
6 photographs
1 sound cassette
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
The interview was conducted with Torvald Handeland on October 27, 1981 in Tacoma, Washington. This interview provides information on family history, life on a Norwegian farm, schooling, decision to move to the U.S., Christmas traditions, fishing experiences throughout life, voyage to America, jobs and changes in the fishing and logging industries, citizenship process, visits to and changes in Norway. The interview also contains photographs of Cook Inlet, Alaska (late 1930s), Gravatn stöl, Torvald Handeland's home in Sirdal, Norway (summer 1981), and Torvald and his wife Martha at the time of the interview. The interview was conducted with English with some Norwegian towards the end of the interview.
Also see Martha Handeland.
Folder Contents
Box 5, File 5 Personal and Family History
Tape Archive Sheet, Family Background, and Tape Index
Box 5, File 5A Correspondence and Forms
Release Form
Handwritten Tape Archive Sheet and Family Background
Box 5, File 5B Photographs
Seven photographs
System of arrangement
Interviewed by Inger Nygaard Carr
Transcribed by Mary Sue Gee, Julie Peterson and Becky Husby
Encoded by Kerstin Ringdahl & Amity Smetzler
Recording Quality: Good
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Finding aids
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Notes element
General note
Biographical Note
Biographical Information Torvald Martin Handeland was born on May 27, 1908 in Sirdal, Norway, the son of Enok Handeland and Ingeborg Tveiten. He had two sisters and five brothers. He went through grade school, was confirmed, and then worked on farms, where the work was long and hard.
He came to America in September 1928 when he was 20, reaching Ellis Island via Southampton, England. He took a train from New York to Seattle and on to Tacoma, where an aunt lived. He got a job on the tide-flats working with green lumber, but he disliked it and got a different job at a logging camp near Enumclaw, Washington.
In the summer, he got a job on a fishing boat in Cook Inlet, Alaska, which started a pattern, that last most of his life-fishing in the summer and logging the rest of the year. He obtained citizenship in 1938, and met his wife, Martha Tweiten, for the second time at Valhalla Hall. He returned to Norway to visit his mother in 1954.
Lineage
Full Name: Torvald Martin Handeland
Father Enok Handeland
Mother: Ingeborg Tveiten
Paternal Grandfather: Eilef Eilefson
Paternal Grandmother: Signe Handeland
Maternal Grandmother: Siri Omlid
Brothers and Sisters: Erling Handeland (deceased), Signe Andreassen, Karl Handeland (deceased), Sigfred Handeland, Martin Handeland, Sigrid Handeland (deceased)
Spouse: Martha Tweiten
Children: Einar Ingvald Handeland Pauline Olivia Campbell Arne Melvin Handeland