Biography of ELLEN MUNSON CONVERSE

Ellen (baptized Elen) Munson was born to Melchior and Martha Munson in Laerdal, Sogn, Norway on September 28, 1849. In 1857, when she was eight, she came to America with her family. Her first years in the new land were nomadic. There were two homes in Wisconsin before the long covered-wagon journey to Dakota Territory in 1861. After a brutal Dakota winter, severe flood, Indian scare, drought and grasshopper attack, there was the where-are-we-going-to-settle journey back east to a Norwegian settlement near Saude, Iowa. There her family's situation stabilized when her parents bought an "eighty".

In pioneer families it was particularly important for children to become self-sufficient as soon as possible. When Ellen was 17 she found employment with a Winneshiek County family named Converse. A month later, on June 8, 1867, Ellen and the Converse 's 24 year old son Samuel went to the nearby settlement of Freeport and were quietly married by a justice of the peace.

For the next 13 years, they lived on the Converse "homestead" next to a newer house where her husband's father and step mother lived. Years later, Ellen's oldest daughter Abbie described that first house, where five of the nine children were born, as being the typical pioneer home, and very much different from the homes Samuel and Ellen would live in later. It had a summer kitchen which had been the first shelter of the Converse family when they came in covered wagons to Iowa. This crude kitchen was connected to the main house which had a living room and two lean-to bedrooms. A low attic over the living room held three more corded bedsteads.

We do not know just how the living room was heated or furnished, but we do know it contained the proverbial American "melting pot". Ellen was born in Norway, and her husband descended from New England Pilgrims. They lived amidst a newly settled Bohemian community in Iowa where Sam learned the Bohemian language from his neighbors. After he became justice of the peace, he often held court right there in their living room to settle Bohemian disputes, conducting the proceedings in the Bohemian tongue.

In the early years of their marriage Samuel Converse had bought about a thousand acres of land which he rented out, but during the late 1870's there were wheat failures, and the renters all pulled out and moved on West. This meant Sam had to change his farming operation by developing a herd of cattle and farm the land himself. Of course, this meant keeping a crew of hired hands, for whom Ellen cooked endless meals.

In 1880 they moved to a farm 1/2 mile north and two miles west of Protivin. In order to show off Sam's new prize herd of Red Polled cattle, they built a large "round" barn which is still there. They moved again in 1889 to a farm one mile south of Cresco (where Kenneth Hackman, a cousin of actor Gene Hackman, now lives on highway V-58).

Ellen preferred to wear brown and remain in the background. However, the responsibility of raising the large family must have frequently been her job alone because her husband spent long periods away from home. He was a state legislator in Des Moines and went on business trips as far away as to England buying cattle. He was successful in many ways, but this placed much of the responsibility of raising the large family on Ellen.

In 1899, Ellen was 56 and her health was beginning to fail. Three of her younger children were still at home attending school. It was then that Sam's orphaned niece in South Dakota wrote to him asking for a home for herself and her younger sister. The nieces were of course taken into the Converse home where they said Aunt Ellen treated them just like one of her own. It is from descendants of these girls, May and Louise Pecinovsky, that we learn many of the praises of Ellen's skill and devotion as a mother. They recall stories of the Converses being a loving family with everybody doing something all the time. Where Godliness ranked as high as intellect, good manners and old-fashioned hard work. Where the whole family gathered for dinner every night and talked about important things. Where you could say your piece, too, if you had a mind. No doubt it served as inspiration to the Converse children and the nieces May and Louise to "make something of themselves" a phrase Louise's son remembers often hearing from his mother as a child.

In 1901, Sam and Ellen moved into a beautiful Victorian home they had built at 314 Second Street East in Cresco. At this time Ellen was rapidly becoming incapacitated with Parkinson's disease. The house was designed with a large bedroom located centrally on the first floor so she could remain an integral part of the family. During the next 21 years, her physical health declined and she spent many years confined to her home. She died April 25, 1922 at age 72 and was buried beside Sam in the New Oregon Cemetery south of Cresco, within view of their last farm home.

Six of their seven children who grew to adulthood moved away from Cresco, and their descendants spread throughout America. It seems an amazing tribute to the family unity, which Ellen and Sam instilled in their children, that for approximately 75 years, they kept a "Round Robin" letter going. In this manner the children and spouses, and later, almost all of the grandchildren of Sam and Ellen, kept in contact with each other. Although "The Bird", as it was affectionately called, stopped flying in the 1970's, the shadow of its wings is still apparent, and the many cousins who contributed to it from around the country, still keep in touch.

Melchior and Martha Munson Family History 1812 -1989,
Complied by Paul L. Munson