Michele Olsen

I was about this age when I first asked my grandmother, Marie Bush Olsen, about our family history. Her memory was incredible and accurate! We spent a lot of time looking at the photo collection of her life in the Kneeland, Showers Pass, Yager areas of Humboldt County 1896-1920. I loved her tales and had the good sense to write most of them down. In the 1970’s during a history class taken with Andy Genzoli I wrote the history of the Olsen family from their Norwegian births, time in Texas, and to their life in Humboldt County. The paper was my first attempt at research; I asked two great-aunts to write down memories of their childhoods living in the hills of Humboldt and included those in the paper. Eventually I inherited grandma’s photo collection as well as that of my great-aunt, Sammy Olsen Hoelling. Since the advent of the internet I have uncovered a lot more and written articles for family members. Nothing has been published and this website is my offering to my family and anyone else who is interested in how immigrants from Norway and Holland made their way in Humboldt County in the 1890’s and after. Much of my genealogy comes using Ancestry, the Humboldt County Library, and the Humboldt County Historical Society research room. I’ve made an effort to be ask accurate as possible. Some of the memories cannot be “fact-checked” and I include those when they seem plausible.