Mom's at Knute now

Mother (pictured above with grandson Alexander Rolfsrud) has been transferred to Knute Nelson Home in Alexandria, after five days at Douglas County Hospital. She says she is getting good care there, but is still in a lot of pain from her fall.

Please write her a note at

Beverly Rolfsrud

Knute Nelson Home, Room 142
420 12th Ave. E
Alexandria, MN 56308

Knute Nelson was a Norwegian U.S. Senator from Minnesota. The only thing I can remember about him was that he died on a railroad train coming back from Washington. Dad wrote a pamphlet or a book or something about him once.

Knute was also the boy in Gopher Tails for Papa who put gopher tails in the collection plate.

No one names their sons Knute any more. Why is that?

Here's his biography:

NELSON, Knute, a Representative and a Senator from Minnesota; born in Voss, Norway, February 2, 1843; immigrated to the United States in 1849 with his mother, settled in Chicago, Ill.; moved to Wisconsin in 1850; attended the common schools and Albion Academy, Albion, Wis.; taught school; served as a private and noncommissioned officer with the Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War; wounded and taken prisoner at Port Hudson, La., 1863; at the close of the war he returned to Albion College and completed the course; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1867 and commenced practice in Cambridge, Wis.; member, Wisconsin assembly 1868-1869; moved to Alexandria, Douglas County, Minn., in 1871; county attorney 1872-1874; member, State senate 1874-1878; presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1880; member of the board of regents of the University of Minnesota 1882-1893; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1889); was not a candidate for renomination in 1888; elected Governor of Minnesota in 1892; reelected in 1894 and served until January 31, 1895, when he resigned, preparatory to becoming Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1895; reelected in 1901, 1907, 1912, and 1918 and served from March 4, 1895, until his death; died on a train near Timonium, Md., April 28, 1923, while en route to his home; interment in Kinkead Cemetery, Alexandria, Minn.