The following was apparently written down by Melvin Barnaal, in left-handed script. (It was not signed.) Transcribed by Dennis, Dec. 17, 1996.

Isak (Isaak C.) Barnaal was born on Jan. 30, 1851 in Sel, Gudbrandsdalen Norway and immigrated to America in 1879. The North Sea became stormy after the first day out, and also the Atlantic, and it took the little ship six weeks to reach Staten Island. From New York he traveled by train to New Ulm, Minn., and from New Ulm to Sacred Heart by foot across what was mostly prairie.

During the first five years in Sacred Heart he was employed as book keeper and helper in the lumber yard operated by Ole Fuglesjel. In 1884 the Dakota and Hastings Railroad offered railroad land for sale and he purchased 200 acres in section 31 of Ericson Township.

The equipment for breaking the virgin sod was hard to come by for lack of money and high interest rates. Only a few acres were plowed the first year, seeded to wheat and oats, as shelter had to be built for home and animals, a well for water dug by hand, and windbreak planted.

A must was to plow several furrows around the homestead in two separate spacings as fire break against prairie fires.

***Remarks from Dennis: Although Melvin Barnaal wrote right handed as an adult, he started school as a left hander, and the teacher made him change this, as well as insisting that he immediately begin speaking English instead of Norwegian. But Melvin severely injured his right arm in about 1950 in an accident dressing the belt on the combine, so he switched back to a somewhat shaky left handed writing.

But what is the true story about Ole Fugleskjel? In Isak Barnaal's Decorah Posten obituary, it states that Ole Fugleskjel was the Postmaster in Sacred Heart, and Isak began to work in the post office for a time. (I plan to write up this obituary and send it out soon.) BUT, I found Ole Fugleskjel (misspelled Fugleskgel) in the 1880 census that was transcribed by Vesterheim Geneological Center in Madison and listed on the Bergen's Archive on the internet(!); there it listed Ole F. as 52 years old living in Hawk Creek township and as a farmer!? And I could not come up with Isak Barnaal in the 1880 census information that they have, so he just have been missed in the 1880 count!***

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