One of the stories told when I was growing up was that the Ku Klux Klan made attempts to organize in the Red River Valley in the 1890's.  There were a few meetings of this "patriotic social club" in the Kassenborg barn.  The Grovers were immediately united and vocal in their opposition and it caused a serious albeit temporary rift with their Kassenborg cousins. (It only took a meeting or two for everyone to figure out what the Klan was really all about!) This piece of local history was often explained by saying "Tarje worked with slaves on the levees coming up the Mississippi, you know, and he would have none of it."     The oral tradition about how the Grovers reached Koshkonong is a bit muddled, as might be expected after over 150 years of "telephone." These travel tales included mention of La Crosse WI and Decorah IA, although neither of these existed in 1846. The account offered by Mr. Hastvedt indicates the Fyresdal party traveled by river to La Salle, Illinois and completed the journey overland. Even if his report of Kristi's destination (Chicago) is questionable, the rest of the details are no doubt credible.  The costs of the trip were likely much more than expected, given the delays at Arendal and in Le Havre. The trip up the Mississippi was long and probably far more expensive than Kristi could have imagined.   From an historical perspective, much like the gathering spots for day laborers today, the river docks served as a place where locals came to recruit day laborers on the Mississippi in the decades before the Civil War. The riverboats weren't like trains with brief stops at each station.  At some places a boat might be moored for a day or more as it offloaded supplies or took on products being shipped further upriver. There's no reason to believe that Kristi and her family wouldn't have taken advantage of these circumstances to make a little money along the way.          Is it possible Kristi and her family would have worked with slaves on plantations, either as house help or "on the levees"? Tarje and Ole were strong and strapping young men with a capacity for hard physical labor. Tone and Aase were young women of the correct age to work as "house help." After the fall harvest, field slaves were put to work repairing and building structures and on other improvement projects on their plantations and in the community.  This often included "flood control" projects along the river.  During the holiday season, entertaining was as much competition as social event on the plantations of the South, requiring days of special cleaning, food preparation, and decorating.  Beginning in November, there would have been a need for additional workers on the plantations.  This is precisely when the Grover family was making its way from New Orleans to Illinois on the river.       Oral tradition includes these interesting details: Tarje and Ole learn English from the slaves and were teased about their "accents" after arriving in Wisconsin. On the work crews, the only difference in the treatment they received and that of the slaves was that Tarje & Ole were not subjected to physical beatings. Tarje and Ole were separated for some period of time when a levee crew moved on and they could not get word to their mother. There is a story that the boys celebrated Christmas in slave quarters, and were treated with great generosity and kindness.   The exposure to slavery that would have been the result of even a few days of work would certainly have made an impression on Tarje and Ole.  Likewise, they could easily have picked up at least a few words of American/black slang that would later have caught the ear of those in Wisconsin.  The separation might be explained if the riverboat continued upriver before Tarje and Ole returned one night.  (It should have been relatively easy for them to catch up as the boats hopped from town to town.) It is likely that Kristi and her children reached Koshkonong before Christmas.  However, the family was probably still on the river during the Thanksgiving holiday. If this snippet of the story has any truth to it, it seems more likely that the boys would have celebrated their first Thanksgiving with the slaves, an experience that would no doubt have been remembered and certainly worth passing on.      The oral tradition that the boys worked on the levees with slaves cannot be dismissed, but the exact nature of that experience will probably never be determined.      Research will continue on this interesting piece of Grover family lore. It may be impossible to find documentation that proves the oral tradition, but careful study of the history and culture of the times sheds light on what was a likely way the family could have made money on the trip north.  Anyone with additional information or research suggestions is encouraged (actually, begged!) to email what they know.    Speculation revised in December, 2006