PETER AND MARY NICOLETTI       The Nicoletti’s came to America in 1908 from Vicenza, Italy. He was 19 and she was 7. They were neighbors in Italy and Peter came to America with Mary’s family, the Meneguzzos. They couldn’t speak English when they came but learned it as…

JOHN AND KATHERINE NIEMALA Herbster is an actual town on the south shore of Lake Superior has that name. I know because I used to live there. It was a place where we played on the beach, climbed on the rocks, fished in the creeks and sloughs; we even found a family of eagles living…

THE STORY OF MARKKULA PROPERTY Young couples from Finland claimed land on Bark Point and settled their homesteads several years before the date when Clover Township was formed. Their story, their names and the names of their descendants, is well told in The Cranberry Chronicles by Robert Uedelhofen. Henry and Wilhelmina Markkula came from Finland…

WILLIAM AND ANN LUTTMAN   William Luttman came to the U.S. sometime in the late 1920’s from northern Germany. He was born in 1903. He lived and worked for a while in Chicago and then bought land sight unseen in Northern Wisconsin near a town called Herbster. Around this time, he went back to Germany…

WILLIAM AND VIOLET LARSON   William Larson 1906-1997 Violet (Christenson) Larson 1915-2001   William (Bill) was born on Bark Point in Herbster. His family moved to Cornucopia in 1916. William married Violet in 1940 and adopted her son, Victor Allen Korppas. They resided on Bark River Road. In 1941, they had son, John Andrew Larson.…

  THE ARNE & ELSIE KUSEL FAMILY   Elsie Forsberg Kusel was born on August 29, 1907, the oldest of five children born to John and Marie Forsberg, who were of Swedish descent. John and Marie Forsberg had emigrated from Vasa, Finland in 1900 and 1902 and were married on July 4, 1902 in Duluth,…

THE HISTORY OF THE CARL AND MARTHA HAARSTAD FAMILY This is a sketch of the Carl and Martha Haarstad family as recalled and reflected by their eldest daughter, Carlene. Carl and Martha (Erickson) Haarstad settled in Herbster in 1944. Carl was the son of Amanda and Conrad Haarstad who resided in Duluth, Minnesota.  Martha was…

  THE DEJONG FAMILY   At the age of 27, caught up in the emigration movement of 1911, Sjoerd (Stewart) DeJong followed his aunts and cousins to Canada where they settled near Winnipeg.  For a time, he and his brother, Jack DeJong, worked in the large truck gardens of their cousin Klass DeJong. Then Stewart…

THE ERICKSONS Pictured above, left to right: Gust, Gerda, John, Anna, Carl and Erik Erickson The immigrant journey was often a family affair. Often one member of a family would go to America first and then bring the others to join them. The descendants of Eric and Anna Louisa Pearson Larson did just that in…