LA CROSSE COUNTY HISTORICAL SKETCHES

still in the air in 1858, and when Mother heard the evening guns she
became alarmed, thinking it was an attack on Quebec by the Russian
navy!
     From Quebec to Montreal the three hundred immigrants, who had
so fortunately crossed the ocean, were transported in box cars, with
improvised seats made from planks nailed to the sides of the cars. At
Montreal there was a change of cars, and half of the immigrants were
fortunate enough to be housed in box cars, while the rest were trans-
ported in open ore cars. It was on this journey from the metropolis of
Canada to Sarnia (at the foot of Lake Huron) that Mother and Father,
with the other immigrants, suffered the most. The greatest danger was
from the red hot cinders which were being belched from the wood-
burning engine and which occasionally actually set fire to their cloth-
ing. My Mother, to protect my face from the hot cinders, kept it covL
ered with a silk kerchief or shawl. As a boy I remember Mother exhib-
iting this shawl, punctured with small and large holes, where the hot
cinders had burned it.
     From Sarnia the immigrants were shipped on an old, unseaworthy
steamer to Milwaukee. On its return journey, this steamer sank, with
some loss of life.
     After a day or two in quarantine in Milwaukee, they were again
loaded into box cars, with plank seats having backs of board, and, like
merchandise, shipped to Prairie du Chien, where they moved aboard a
Mississippi steamer bound for the port of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
     During the whole journey the passengers' living was of the most
primitive kind, consisting mostly of flat-bread and dried beef brought
with them in huge chests and boxes from the Old Country. At a few
stations hot water was provided for them, whereby they could brew
their own coffee.
     After leaving the port of Prairie du Chien, Mother became seri-
ously ill, one of the first of the immigrants who, in good health, had
left Norway nearly two months before. Very few of the passengers were
ill crossing the ocean, for they were well taken care of and carefully
attended by the ship's physician. Two or three of the passengers were
taken ill at Milwaukee, and were left in one of the city's improvised hos-
pitals, where they speedily recovered. It was remarkable that this large
number of immigrants, traveling under unsanitary conditions, escaped
diseases, as for example, typhoid fever or cholera, which in that year
was endemic in the Western states. After the boat's arrival at La Crosse,
Mother's condition had become serious, and, as one of the party, Syver
Olson, Father's most intimate friend, had as his destination friends
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