Lives & Loves of Norwegian Immigrant Women from Amsterdam to Swaziland with Sandra Bestland

Lives & Loves of Norwegian Immigrant Women from Amsterdam to Swaziland

with Sandra Bestland

Norwegian women who ventured beyond the borders of their homeland in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries did so with courage and fortitude. Among these intrepid women from the 19th-century was an adventuress, a bigamist, a composer, a diarist, a divorcee, a dressmaker, a homesteader, an interpreter, a journalist, a landowner, a midwife, a missionary, a pastor's wife, a politician, a publisher, an unwed mother, a widow, a writer, a slave owner, and a soldier. There was also a baby girl who was born aboard the sloop Restauration in 1825, and a Norwegian mother and daughter who walked across America in 1896.

Sandra is an Independent Scholar whose primary source research has taken her to cemeteries, churches, museums, battlefields, historic sites, and to archives here and abroad. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Hamline University, and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas. Her interest in "all things Norwegian" was kindled during the pandemic shutdown. She is a member of many Norwegian culture groups and is editor of the Agderlag Avisen. Sandra and her British husband Bill reside in a suburb of St. Paul. Kong, their Siamese Manx cat, is a very friendly feline and comes and goes as he pleases. "Kong" means king in Norwegian.