Ruthi Winter and the Winter Band
In 1923, a young Norwegian named Peter Sundness emigrated to the Seattle Area and, after several years, brought his wife and children over too. Pete’s daughter Ruthi Sundness Winter, later born in Seattle, fondly remembers playing Scandinavian music together with her family, a tradition that has continued after marrying Mike Winter, whose own family had a similar tradition. The result is the present day Winter Family Band that plays Scandinavian favorites that celebrate both life in America as well as “back home”. In this podcast you’ll meet Ruthi, and hear about her discovery of writings and tapes made by her father long ago, detailing his adventures as a fisherman, logger, trapper, and whaler – a life about which Ruthi had never known.
Join us as we talk about her father’s dangerous occupations as a young immigrant, about growing up Norwegian-American, and about how music and the stories they convey bind a culture — and all of us — together.
Links
–The Winter Band website at winterbandseattle.com, which includes the Norwegian American News article from 2021 explaining how they gave concerts out of their garage in order to keep people going during the pandemic. There’s even videos of those and other performances under the Video tab. Go to the Music tab to listen to several more of their (and my) favorites, such as Bestefars Valsen (The Grandfather’s Waltz), Pål Sine Høner (Paul and His Chickens), and Per Spelmann (Peter the Fiddler). Of course, there’s also lots of photos.
–The story of Søstrene fra Flatholmen Fyr (The Sisters from Flatholmen Lighthouse), the song the band plays during the podcast, is told on Karen Støylen‘s website related to her book Brenninger. If you click on this link, you’ll get the story of “Jentene fra Flatholmen” (The Girls of Flatholmen Island) in Norwegian, but by scrolling to the very bottom, and right-clicking on the webpage, you should get a drop-down where you can select “Translate to English” (or whatever language your browser is set to). A translation of some of the lyrics (the poem) is given. Tom Olsen wrote another great account of the event in his 2007 blog post. I also recommend looking up Wikipedia’s Sangen fra fyret (The Song of The Lighthouse) and translating that to your native language, to learn more about this amazing and daring rescue in 1894.
–Scandinavian immigrant music is a large and wonderful subject.. One CD album I like featuring these songs is Duo Scandinavica’s (Lori Ann Reinhall and Jim Nelson’s), Emigrant, which is commercially available online. It’s described as “a presentation of traditional vocal and instrumental music from the major period of [Scandinavian] emigration”. Check out the songs we play from Emigrant during our Nordic on Tap podcast entitled Lori Ann Reinhall and the Norwegian American.
Photos
Pete Sundness lost his footing on the ropes while reefing the sails on a frigate like this one, and miraculously survived. The crew in this picture of the barque Garthsnaid is likewise trying to reef (furl or fold) a sail in rough seas, supported only by ropes underfoot and their arms over the yardarm. Photo by 19-year-old second mate, Alexander Harper Turner, from the foremast. From Wikimedia Commons and info from mmbc.bc.ca/garthsnaid/.
Flatholmen fyr (lighthouse) is located on Flatholmen island, west of Tanagger, near Stavanger, Norway.
Flatholmen fyr (lighthouse) as it was 1890-1900. The oil lamp that was visible from the sea was positioned at the very top of the conical building to the right. The lighthouse was rebuilt in 1952 and electrified in 1984. From the Norsk Riksarkivet on Wikimedia.org
A fishing trawler in Petersburg, AK from the 1930s — around the time Pete Sundness was there fishing. From Wikimedia Commons.