Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / February 2006

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/13964356.htm

FAMILY REUNION: Ella's children

Siblings of mother who had 17 get to know each other

By Stephen J. LeeHerald Staff Writer

Ella Olson grew up in a big family near Oklee, Minn. - with 11 siblings
- but she produced an even bigger one. A family complicated enough that
most of them never knew about the others.

birth to 17 children, the last two twin boys
.
This month, some of them got together to meet the youngest sister for
the first time and share stories of their remarkable mother.

While her child bearing nearly followed the calendar like clockwork for
two decades, Ella Olson Torkelson Halverson's life was not always so
regular.

Hard times and some missteps early on that she was afraid and ashamed
to talk about with her own youngest children led to secrets - children
given up for adoption or raised by relatives. In fact, her youngest
never knew about the older children Ella had until her death.

Search for siblings
It took Pat Christianson, the one child of Ella who shares no father
with the other 16 to search for decades to piece together the many
parts of the family.

Her work culminated 10 days ago with a reunion in East Grand Forks for
the youngest sister, Debbie Lomba, to finally meet the brothers she
only learned about a few months ago.

Born on the Fourth of July in 1914 to George and Sophia Olson in Red
Lake Falls, Minn., Ella grew up in the Oklee, Minn., area and worked as
a cook in restaurants. She married Knut Torkelson in 1934. They had 11
children; four have died. Ella also had a daughter with a man named
Gustav Carlberg in 1949, giving her up for adoption.

Knut died in 1950 in a fall from a railroad bridge over the Red River
in East Grand Forks. Ella married Galen Halverson in December 1951, a
few months after Ella gave birth to their first child (unknown to
Galen), Debbie, who was given up for adoption. Ella and Galen had four
more children, all boys, whom they raised in East Grand Forks.

Galen died in 1979. Ella died in 1992.

Ella's 12th child, Pat Christianson, lives in Seeley Lake, Mont. Pat
never knew her mother because she was given up for adoption at birth
because her father, Gustav Carlberg, was a hired hand on the same farm
Ella and Knut Torkelson were working on near Hoople, N.D., in 1949.

"I'm the Swede," she smiled in the East Grand Forks kitchen of her
brother, Donny. The Swede part is something her all-Norwegian siblings
remind her of from time to time.

Although she was raised in Crookston, Pat never knew her biological
mother lived only 25 miles away in East Grand Forks, with Pat's four
half-brothers.

But as she started to have children herself in 1973 in Montana,
Christianson began to look for her birth mother.

She found out bits and pieces, but it wasn't until shortly before Ella
died that the search was successful. And it took 13 more years to track
down her younger sister, Debbie.

"I don't consider her my mother," Christianson said. And while she was
disappointed that Ella rebuffed any talk of meeting her, Christianson
said, "It didn't hurt me. I grew up in Crookston. I had loving parents,
Randolph and Audrey Christianson. I wanted to meet Ella and thank her
for giving me up."

Curiosity
Pat - named Gail Eunice at birth, later Patrica Gail - ended up having
five siblings in the Christianson home near Crookston. "It was very
ironic," she says of her parents. "The doctor told them they couldn't
have children. I was such an inspiration, after they adopted me they
had five children."

She always had a curiosity about her biological parents, but knew next
to nothing about them.

"I found her in 1990 and contacted her," Christianson said. "She had no
desire to meet me."
"Her voice on the phone sounded scared," Christianson said. "She said,
'I love my boys. They are coming home for lunch, you have to get off
the phone.'"

But she gave Christianson the name and phone number of Jean Torkelson,
Ella's second oldest child, to get her off the phone, according to
Christianson. And talking to her half-sibling, Jean, who lives in
Fosston, Minn., Christianson found out much about Ella's first marriage
and "first family," the Torkelson children.

Some not interested
There were 11 children born to Ella by Knut Torkelson and four of them
have died. One, George, they think lives somewhere in Canada, but they
are not sure.
Others aren't really interested in a family reunion. Doris, for
example, adopted by a social services administrator, was raised as an
only child in St. Paul, has demurred establishing contact with
Christianson or others.

Pat has met all of them but George and Blanche.

The 'new' sibling
The "newest" sibling is Debbie Anderson Lomba, who met her Halverson
brothers only 10 days ago.

Born in 1951 to Ella and Galen before they were married, Debbie was
adopted at one month by Orbin and Rose Anderson in Minneapolis, through
Lutheran Social Services. She grew up in Arizona and California, where
she now lives with her husband, Steve Lomba.

She always had known she was adopted, but thought she was the youngest
child.

Last fall, LSS contacted her and told her a half-sister was looking for
her and passed on a letter from Pat.

"I read the letter and immediately called her," Debbie said. "I was
waiting for that phone call. I thought I was the baby."

"We started e-mailing back and forth. I just couldn't wait any longer
so my husband, Steve (Lomba), and I got on a plane. The first time I
met my siblings was on Wednesday (Feb. 15) at the Fargo airport."

She only learned last fall she was a full sibling to the Halverson
boys.

Photos of the mother she never met are important to her, Debbie said.
"I look just like her. It's like looking in the mirror. It's been an
unbelievable experience meeting all my brothers after 54 years and
finding out I have 13 more (siblings)."

Her brothers sort of agree she looks like the mother they grew up with,
but they see Dad in her, too.

Awkward times
The Halverson boys didn't even know about their mother's previous
family until they met Pat shortly before their mother's funeral in
1992.

When Pat Christianson began contacting them, the boys shared some of
their mother's reluctance to meet the rest of her family.

"It took us a while to pick up the phone," said Jerry. "We didn't know
what to say."
It was awkward for a time.

Pat was asked not to attend Ella's funeral, so that relatives would not
be upset. And she was allowed to look in at Ella as she lay dying in a
nursing home in Grand Forks, but was asked not to meet her.

That really didn't bother her, Christianson said. She understood it,
and wasn't emotionally connected to Ella. "I was grateful I got to see
her," she said. From outside the door, Pat could see, "Her eyes were
closed. She was in and out. I wish I could have put my arms around her
and told her I was happy I was born."

Catching up to do
Now, the siblings have a hard time not talking, catching up on years
gone by apart.
And all the talk has opened up some new doors.

Ella's younger children and their families have been invited to the
Olson family reunion, they said.

Ella's children don't blame her for the secrets that grew from the
complicated life she led. "We don't feel it was her fault," said Rick,
who lives in Daytona Beach, Fla., with his wife, Roxy, and drives truck
between East Grand Forks and Florida. "She couldn't take care of all
those kids. There were too many."

Despite the hardships, Ella provided for her children as best she
could, and ended up well.
The adoptions weren't done because Ella didn't care about her children,
they said.
"The social worker said she was a wonderful mother," said Pat, who
pored over documents tracing the varied upbringings of all 17 children.

Ella brought up her younger boys going to church, getting them
baptized. Rick spent the first year of his life in a Fargo hospital
with spinal meningitis and has the certificate showing he was baptized
there in First Lutheran Church while the family lived in East Grand
Forks.

Debbie says she has no resentment for the mother or father she never
knew. She's enjoying getting to know the siblings she just met.

"I guess she wanted the best for us," Debbie said. "Luckily, I was
raised by two loving parents. I was spoiled rotten."

Brother Rick can't let that one pass: "That explains a lot," he said
with a grin.