The House Called Home
by
Carolyn Saul Logan
For Marjorie Lee, her house has never had a fancy name—“it’s called Home,” she said. And home it has been for Marjorie’s family since 1910, when her grandfather, Jens [John] Miller Olesen built the house north of the Humboldt County Memorial Hospital. “I think it is the only house in Humboldt that has been in one family for so long—over 96 years,” said Marjorie.
Born in Horsens, Denmark on October 10, 1865, Olesen came to the U.S. as a young man and first farmed near Rutland. There he was married to Miss Anna K. Anderson in 1889. Four daughters were born to the couple—Catherine, Jessie, Martha, and Julia—and in 1908, the family moved to the 120-acre farm near Humboldt. Olesen paid $13,000 for the land and buildings.
“Originally, the Bennett house stood where this house now stands,” said Marjorie. “When Grandpa bought the land, they moved the Bennett house across the road and lived in it while this house was being built.” The Olesen house was finished in 1910, at a cost of $10,000.
“I think Aunt Martha helped with the design of the house,” said Marjorie. According to the Humboldt High School Nokomis, “. . . Martha always meant the worker; To this name she’s added fame—she’s no shirker.” After graduation, Martha attended university and became a teacher. She was an accomplished athlete—one year she was the champion women’s bowler.
Given the affordable and widespread construction techniques of the era, the Olesens needed only a builder and some ideas of their own. Their design began with a symmetrical foursquare building—two stories and an attic, with a full basement whose thick walls were constructed of large field stones. The ground floor contained a generous entry hall, living room, dining room, den, split stairway, and bedroom with bath. Four bedrooms and a bath were on the second story, with a full attic above. The kitchen was at the rear of the main house and from it another stairway led to two second-story bedrooms that were entirely separate from the rest of the house, quarters for the hired hands on the farm. There was no bathroom for this section of the house.
A photo of Marjorie’s home when it was built shows off the design elements that Martha and her family chose to add—a colonnaded one-story porch across the front, a generous bay window on the living room, railed flat decks above the front porch and the screened-in porch at the back, a graceful half-moon window in the front attic gable, and—to top it all off—a widow’s walk or, as it sometimes called, a roofwalk around the tall chimney.
There are many features inside the house that added to its comfort and beauty. The house was wired for electricity and piped for gas—some of the light fixtures have both electric and gas outlets. “But I don’t think the gas was ever used,” said Marjorie. “When they did rewiring, the electrician discovered the gas lines in the attic.” The house has its own well which still supplies Marjorie with water. It also has it own septic system. The house was steam heated through ornate radiators, with the furnace first fueled with wood and then coal. Later, the Mickelsons converted to oil, and more recently, Marjorie converted to propane gas.
Oak was the wood of choice for the floors and interior woodwork, except in the kitchen annex, where the floors and stairs were of pine. Decorative details in the woodwork add to the beauty of the interior—Corinthian capitals top the columns that frame the entrance to the living room, beadwork is incorporated in the door surrounds, and the dining room has a large built-in china cabinet.
Today, although the house has lost its roofwalk and the railing on one deck, and the porch is now enclosed, the beauty and simplicity of the basic design and the appropriateness of the decorative details shine through. Marjorie Lee’s home is solid and beautiful.
But the story of a house as home is not only the bricks and porches and bay windows, it is the story of the people who lived there. John [Jens] Miller Olesen was one of Humboldt County’s all-time successful farmers and cattle feeders and, according to DeGroote’s history, more than once in the early 1900s he “saved the county fair from closing.” In later years, “Olesen attributed much of his success to the county fairs of the 1880’s, where he learned about good farming and livestock practices. He was for years an officer of the Humboldt County Fair and a tireless worker on its behalf.”
The Olesen girls grew up and left home—Catherine married T. C. Mickelson who was from Thor and they lived on a farm south and west of Rutland. Jessie married J. W. Little of Rutland, Julia married T. D. Foster, and Martha went off to University and a successful career as a teacher.
When John [Jens] Miller Olesen died in 1924, his wife Anna stayed on the farm. Her daughter Catherine, husband T. C. Mickleson, and granddaughters Marjorie and Madalyn, moved to the family home on the farm. Marjorie’s brother Roger was born in their grandfather’s house. T. C. Mickelson continued in the footsteps of his father-in-law—he was civic minded and a highly respected farmer and citizen.
Marjorie married Stanley Lee in 1940 and her wedding dinner was held in the dining room of the old house. The Lee’s went to farm south of Rutland. Then, in August of 1966, Marjorie’s father passed away and Marjorie and her husband Stanley and their children returned to live in the house. For Marjorie, the house has continued to be home right up to the present.
Today, none of John and Anna Olesen’s descendents feel that they can live in the house. This is not unusual—today we do not build our houses to last 100 years or more and we do not expect to live in one house for a lifetime. Times have changed and Marjorie is moving on.
The Olesen/Michelson/Lee home was auctioned off in mid-September for $30,000, much less than it would cost to replace it. However, like Marjorie, the house is moving on. Purchased by Tom and Rosemary (DeGroote) Linhares, whose family has deep roots in the history of Humboldt, the house will be moved—by the 1st of July, 2007—to a site on land north of the Linhares’ present home. There it will overlook the west branch of the Des Moines River and from the second-story front bedrooms there will be a view of the dam and Lake Nokomis beyond. For company the old house will have a grove of ancient oak trees, families of deer, and the silent movement of the old Mill Race.