Dunham Family and My Stroke Story!

​ The Price of Ignorance: A Lesson from 1883 In a quiet Minnesota cemetery, there is a weathered, joint headstone for Ida Mathilde and Fritjof Bernard Dunham. They were my ancestors, and they died four days apart in 1883. For years, the inscription was a blur of degraded stone—a literal erasure of two lives. I’ve always been intrigued about those young ancestors of mine. Recently I scoured cemeteries in Otter Tail County in Minnesota. I called several cemeteries especially ones designated for Norway. Luckily, a very nice woman researched the graves for me. She also detailed the cause of their deaths.  The mystery is solved in a heartbreaking way. It was a death sentence called smallpox . In 1883, my great-grandfather watched his siblings die because science hadn't caught up to the cruelty of the natural world. They didn’t have a choice. They didn't have a "personal philosophy" or a "suspicion of big medicine." They just had tiny coffins and a lifetime of g...

Today marks the 14th anniversary of the day my world went silent. I was already in a hospital bed, recovering from a first stroke, when the "massive one" struck. In an instant, the right side of my body surrendered to paralysis. I remember the desperation of trying to reach the call button—a simple plastic switch that might as well have been on the moon for all my arm could move. I lay there in the quiet for an hour before a nurse finally walked in. Later, through a fog of shock, I heard Heather’s voice. She told me the truth: it was a "really bad" stroke. I couldn't speak to ask questions; I could only cry.  When she told me my parents and my oldest brother, Dan, were on their way, the fear deepened. My mind raced—Dan was supposed to be in Hawaii; my parents were hours away in Twin Falls. If they were all suddenly standing in my hospital room, there was only one logical conclusion: they were coming to say goodbye. I remember my two middle brothers leaning in...

The massive wave of Norwegian immigration to Minnesota from the 1850s through the early 20th century wasn't a casual choice; it was an escape from crushing land scarcity and economic desperation.  My ancestors, the Dunhams, arrived in 1851 and built a life in Otter Tail County in Minnesota. My great-great-grandfather, Jens Christian Dunham, didn’t just survive—he thrived. He served in the Minnesota legislature as a Republican from 1888 to 1890 and later became a staunch advocate for President Teddy Roosevelt. He was the literal embodiment of the American Dream: an immigrant who fled poverty to become a lawmaker in his new home. Fast forward a century, and a new wave of immigrants—this time from Somalia—is following that exact same blueprint. Like the Norwegians before them, they fled hardship to build a future in Minnesota, and many have run for office to serve the state that welcomed them. Yet, the political rhetoric surrounding these two groups couldn't be more polarized. Don...