FAYETTEVILLE — Members of the local Sons of Norway Oslo Lodge No. 438 met at the Fayetteville Center for Active Adults May 17 for a celebration of Norway’s Constitution Day.
Called “Syttende Mai,” which translates to “the 17th of May,” the occasion was celebrated with a small parade that led through the center’s back parking lot and over to the memory garden on the East Genesee Street premises.
Helen Conklin, the vice president of the local lodge, then spoke to the group members that traveled in from various areas about the significance of the day.
Conklin said they were there together to commemorate the day the country of Norway took its first major step toward reestablishing its sovereignty by signing and then enacting its own constitution in 1814.
She added that 2025 also marks the 200th anniversary of the sloop Restaurasjon setting sail from Norway carrying the first organized emigration party to have left the “shining fjords and snow-covered mountains” for the United States.
“This was the first assemblage of unrelated people seeking a new home, primarily so they could worship as they chose without having to secure the permission of the state church,” Conklin said.
She also mentioned that in June 1905 Norway took its final step in establishing total independence by officially dissolving its union with Sweden.
“Significant and needful change rarely comes in a flash,” Conklin said. “In Norway’s case, as in so many others, it required the persistent, collaborative effort of people willing at times to take risks and make bold moves to change course.”
The Fayetteville celebration May 17 also featured a presentation by Margrethe Hoff about her book published last year, “Norway Meets America: The Story of My Parents.”
Hoff, who resides in the town of Leonardsville south of Utica, said she decided to create a book about her mother and father after her dad passed away. Through the process she discovered a lot more than she ever knew before about both of them and developed an even greater appreciation for the history and culture of Norway, she said.
Hoff’s father Ornulf—known as “Ernie”—was from the city of Trondheim, Norway, and her mother Jeanne grew up in the Upstate New York countryside.
“If you think about it, there’s more than 3,600 miles between New York State and Norway, and that’s what had to happen for my parents to come together: quite a distance,” Hoff said.
The book covers their separate upbringings, their “providential” meeting at the American embassy in Oslo, and the World War II years as they were experienced in both Nazi-occupied Trondheim and the United States.
Jeanne, who journaled plenty, worked at the embassy in Washington D.C. during the war and learned the Norwegian language by the time she took a freighter overseas to Norway at the age of 23.
During the war Ernie was involved in acts of resistance like taking around illegal newspapers, and he traversed treacherous terrain to cross over into Sweden, which was neutral.
Hoff’s presentation that Saturday afternoon included photos showing the northern lights and the fresh, blue water taken during her travels to Norway with her husband Bradley James Elliott, who edited her book.
Apart from the research and writing that went into her book, Hoff spent much of her adult life in Luxembourg working as an industrial hygienist. She works as an exposure scientist to this day within the state of New York.
The Syttende Mai celebration at the place formerly known as the Fayetteville Senior Center also had a dessert table with ice cream and cupcakes topped with frosting made to look like the Norwegian flag.
