![[Line]](../prikk.gif){kind=small}
Widows and fatherless...
Left to right: Hilda, Ingeborg, Johanne, Ragna
...exploitation disguised as charity
Previously a flourishing family with father, mother, six children and grandmother - just four years later only these four (above) remained at "Fredheim".
Ingeborg's older sister and brother, Hjalmar and Louise, were already in the US, now her brother Gustav emigrates as well.
The remaining four feel how society "cares for" its weaker citizens.
Johanne faces hard times after her husband's death. "Fredheim" is sold to a relative, because of their NOK 60,- debt to the doctor. The family is allowed to live in a chamber in their previous home. The children have to earn money - although their work was seriously underpaid. "I never forget the small girls' faces when they after an entire summer's barking work received 0.75 from the tannery. That evening, the children were hysterical. They were half conscious-less from fatigue. Previously, they kept going by dreaming about the rewards for the toil..."
Ingeborg herself was employed by the teacher at Tangen. She had to work for him unpaid , else the teacher threatened to fire her mother from her position as the school cleaner - the family's only secure income. This segment of a school picture (above) is the earliest picture we know of Ingeborg.
their mother wrote.
