Family: Ruthie Bjonerud

Robert, Edna, Neva and now Ruthie Bjonerud were finally reunited three years ago today on the hereafter family farm, where the pastor at Ruthie’s funeral declared that all the cats are nice.

Ruthie was my mother’s cousin and the undisputed keeper of all the family history and lore on the seven-brother-and-two-sister Bjonerud family tree, the diaspora of which came from across the country to reunite at her funeral—probably for the last time—in our easy, loving, treasured geniality to reminisce about Ruthie and catch up with everyone else in our extended Norwegian family. 

Ruthie had been in deteriorating health and had finally agreed to move into the Aase Haugen Home for Lingering Norwegians, where less than a week later she by all accounts died peacefully in her sleep. It’s all anyone could want as far as a way to go, and in her memory her beloved—but now aging, far-flung and busy with our big-city lives—extended family buried her in the Calmar Lutheran Cemetery family plot among the generations of sturdy Norwegian ancestors whose lives in rural northeast Iowa extend back to America’s Civil War. 

And then we—as did those generations before us—gathered at Calmar Lutheran Church for sandwiches and slices of cake prepared by the church ladies and enjoyed the fellowship of family, old memories, new stories and remembrances of the woman who'd spent her life tirelessly, lovingly chronicling it all for us.