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"I remember that day," the 81-year-old man said as he sat at his kitchen table thumbing through documents of the past.
"I was up working in the field as a car drove up. Her real mother asked her to come meet her," he said.
That one letter started a
67-year quest to find answers to a mystery and find the truth.
For years, Merle watched as Fern Gregerson worked her way through the twists and turns of their family history. By the time Fern died in 1954, Merle too was hooked and continued on with her genealogy research — broadening his spectrum to include other people's ancestry, as well as Norwegian farm names and Norwegian churches.
Gregerson has traveled throughout the Coulee Region, Norway and the United States looking for information. Locally, he found information on the Norwegians in Vernon and Trempealeau counties; orphans in Monroe County; the Smith family in La Crosse County; information in Jackson County; resources galore in Crawford County; a lot of information on his wife Agnes' family in Houston County; and information on Capt. Orrin Smith in Winona.
"It's been a long, difficult thing," Merle said. "But I got in pretty deep."
Gregerson compiled a book of his and his mother's findings about her orphan and adoption family search, which tells the story of orphans in Fern's family caused by injuries in the Civil War. The roots of Fern's mother, Dot, and her siblings, Lillian, Algernon and Edith, are all there, including marriages, remarriages and orphanages.
Edith even stayed for a time at the Wisconsin State School for Dependent Children in Sparta, Wis., before she was adopted in 1902 by Amanda True/Will of Sparta and her husband Edward Prosser of Kendall. In August 1998, Gregerson was able to access several of Edith's documents in Monroe County from her time at the state school.
If that's not enough to make your head spin, there's more. A lot more. Gregerson has documents galore that fill box upon box in his Onalaska home and three computers to be used as research aids.
His own family hasn't been enough. Gregerson has researched genealogy for families in Hegg, Wis., and Ettrick, Wis. He also works a couple days a week at the Family History Center in Onalaska.
He is particularly interested in taking an active approach, using his own techniques to find missing orphans. Those interested should contact Gregerson at (608) 526-3759.
Autumn Grooms can be reached at (608) 782-9710, ext. 357, or agrooms@lacrossetribune.com.
