Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) (3 page)

As John F. Kennedy once said, sometimes political parties ask too much. The Minnesota Republican hierarchy didn't want me to run against their incumbent in 2000; they didn't know who I was. And once many party bigwigs did get to know me, they weren't sure that I could win the seat. But I did. And I did it again two years later. Even then, many of them never warmed up to me, because I always spoke up for what I believed were our core principles. I didn't get into politics to please men and women who had grasped for power—just the opposite, in fact.

I have always seen myself as a champion of the values I grew up with—the values that have grown even stronger in my heart in the decades since. So I felt called to serve on April 1, 2000, and I have sensed that call ever since.

Armed with values and faith, supported by family and fellow citizens, together we can do much. We can secure what people are yearning for—the chance to take our country back. Just watch.

CHAPTER TWO

The River That Finds Its Way: From the Sogne Fjord to Waterloo

I was born Michele Marie Amble on April 6, 1956, at Allen Memorial Hospital in Waterloo, Iowa.

But first let me tell you about those who came before me. I owe everything to them, and to the faith and values that they passed on to me. I often say that everything I need to know I learned in Iowa, but in fact the essentials of my life are rooted even further back in time.

My people were Norwegians; family names include “Johnson,” “Munson,” and “Thompson,” as well as “Amble.”

Norway is a beautiful country boasting many scenic fjords—long, narrow inlets of water surrounded by rocky cliffs and hills. Fjords are wonderful to look at, although they are hard to make a living from. As a result, only about 3 percent of the land can be farmed, and those farms suffer from a short growing season and rocky soil. The Munson ancestral home was a modest farm called Ronnei; the family grew mostly potatoes, supplementing its meager food supply with fish caught from the nearby Jostedal River.

A few miles downriver from Ronnei is the village of Sogndal, looking out on the Sogne Fjord. “Sogndal” means a river that seeks its way.

Seeking the way. That was our story.

Norwegians had been coming to America since the seventeenth century, but organized emigration from Norway began in 1825, when fifty or so Norwegians arrived in New York City aboard the
Restauration
—a sloop my people remember as the Norwegian
Mayflower
. These history-making “sloopers,” as the early pioneers were called, settled in upstate New York, but most Norwegians chose to go farther west, where the land was cheaper and the horizon seemed wider.

In 1845 a group of eighty Norwegian Americans, living in what was then called the Muskego Settlement—near present-day Norway, Wisconsin—wrote an open letter to the people back home in the old country, extolling life in America and urging more Norwegians to join them in coming to the new realm, where the growing season was longer and the soil was richer. The signers proclaimed, “We live under a generous government in a fertile land, where freedom and equality prevail in civil and religious affairs, and without any special permission we can enter almost any profession and make an honest living. This we consider more wonderful than riches.” Freedom! What a wonderful word, brightening the hearts of people all over the world.

One of those who learned of the Muskego manifesto was my great-great-great-grandfather, Melchior Monsson. He was born in 1812 into a family too poor to afford any education; he learned to read only late in life. As a young man, Melchior enlisted in the army; because he was tall, he was picked for the King's Guard. But lifelong military service was not for him, and he went back home to be a farmer. When the exciting news of the Muskego Manifesto rippled through Norway, Melchior was already well into middle age. This was at a time, of course, when the average life expectancy was perhaps half of what it is now. So in terms of the likely number of years left to him, there wasn't much reason for him or his wife, Martha, born in 1815, to leave Norway and start over.

Still, the celestial fire of freedom was sparked within Melchior. He and Martha agreed that they wanted a better life for their five children; that was the most important thing. And if that meant crossing the ocean, traveling to what Norwegians were to call
Vesterheim
—the western home—well, that's what they would do.

Indeed, all across Europe, striving people—the “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,” in the immortal words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty—had the same idea of seeking a better life. They were coming to America.

In 1857 Melchior sold the farm, along with everything else the family owned, to buy passage on a ship to journey across the Atlantic. There were five children: Gjertru, Halvor, Elin, Monsine, and Ingeborg Marie. But when the Monssons arrived at the dock, the captain looked at Halvor—my great-great-grandfather—and declared that he was an adult and would have to pay full fare. Halvor was only eleven, but, taking after his father, he was tall and looked much older. The Monssons didn't have any extra money for the additional fare; they had spent everything they had on the tickets.

It was a heart-wrenching dilemma. The farm had been sold; there was nothing anywhere in the Sogn region for the family to go back to. So Melchior made a painful decision. He told Halvor that he would have to walk back to the old village, hoping that someone would take him in so he wouldn't starve. Someday, the father pledged, they would earn enough money to bring him to America. But not now.

As a mother of five, I pause over that story, because it's impossible for me to imagine being cruelly separated from one of our sons like that. The pain that Martha Monsson must have felt at that moment still lingers in my soul.

But then, just at the moment when the ship was about to push off, the heart of the captain softened and he took pity on the Monssons, saying, “Oh, I guess the boat won't sink if there's one more on board. Hop on!” The boy-man scrambled onto the ship like a jackrabbit. Hallelujah! The family was reunited.

Yet the Monssons' arduous journey was just beginning. In those days, a passage across the Atlantic Ocean took at least two months. Arriving in Canada, the Monssons next had to spend six weeks traveling overland, carrying their belongings from Quebec all the way to Dane County, Wisconsin, where a Norwegian family was waiting to host them. When the Monsson family finally arrived, they dropped down in front of the house in sheer exhaustion. The welcoming family rushed out to give them milk and bread. Thinking back on this kindness, I recall the biblical injunction: Love the stranger, because you were once a stranger yourself. Miraculously, all seven Monssons had survived the long trip from Norway.

Soon these strangers—or rather, these new Americans—were back on their feet, although fully aware that their trek was not over. They then chopped wood and built a simple wagon that could also be used as a raft to take them across the mighty Mississippi River. From De Soto, Wisconsin, they crossed the Father of Waters into Lansing, Iowa, where they looked forward to a homestead of their own. Soon the new “Iowegians”—that is, Iowans from Norway—had simplified their name to “Munson.”

My goal here is not to tell the whole story of their remarkable lives, nor those of all my other ancestors. The saga of the Norwegian Americans was better told by the novelist Ole Edvart Rölvaag. In his many works, the most famous of which is
Giants in the Earth,
Rölvaag describes the heroism of those early pioneers, who survived snow, drought, hunger, and loneliness to achieve the upper-midwestern version of the American Dream.

I am proud of my sturdy forebears. I took Norwegian in college but never had the time really to gain proficiency in the language; to this day, that's a regret. One legacy, though, is the way I pronounce my vowels, like the
O
and
A
in “Minnesota,” which comes out as “Minne-so-oh-tuh-uh.” But to my mother, who sang Norwegian folk songs to us as kids way back when, I sound just fine.

Of course, I realize that few people anywhere had it easy when they first came to America. Every family has great stories like mine—because back then, you didn't make it if you couldn't overcome adversity. Whether in a rural area, a small town, or a big city, every American can take pride in ancestors who possessed the grit and ambition to sacrifice much and to achieve much.

One great source of strength for many of the early pioneers was faith. As the psalmist tells us, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Most of the Norwegians were Lutherans; their faith in God was indeed a mighty fortress. Bolstered by their beliefs, the Munsons, Ambles, Johnsons, and Thompsons smoothed the path for those that followed.

Through the hard times and the good, those early Iowans always worked purposefully. They planned for success, never for failure, and that faith in success kept them going. The first permanent settlement in what is now Black Hawk County began in 1845. The early settlers grew corn and wheat; they also harvested honey and syrup. The very next year, they built a school, because they knew that education was important for their young people. No bureaucrat in Des Moines or Washington, D.C., had to tell them that truth; they simply knew the value not only of reading, writing, and arithmetic but also of learning civic republicanism. And of course, they knew the supreme importance of reading and knowing the Bible.

Indeed, within a few years, the pioneers had created a functioning government. The first taxes were levied in 1853; the county collected a grand total of $873.08. As a former tax lawyer—and always a thrifty taxpayer—I appreciate that sort of precision when it comes to using other people's money, down to the penny. By contrast, in today's Washington, a billion dollars is counted as a mere rounding error. Good government should be a closely monitored tool for the people, of course, not a plaything for the powerful elite. Two years later, in 1855, Waterloo was designated the Black Hawk County seat, the home of courts and public administration.

These details of self-government are important, because we should understand that the early settlers were seeking freedom and order, not anarchy. As soon as they could, they established representative institutions to provide the responsible order that promotes both liberty and prosperity. They knew that they needed
some
government out there on the frontier, just not too much. And in their desire to keep government limited, they insisted that it be kept close to them, so that the humblest citizen could know that public servants were truly serving the public.

Yes, these new Americans loved their new country and were eager to be part of its institutions. Indeed, as the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the early nineteenth century, Americans were not only joiners but also builders and creators. Every little Iowa town soon had not only schools but also libraries, auditoriums, and civic associations. Back in places such as Sogndal, people had been regarded by their rulers as merely peasants. Here in America, they were independent and proud citizens.

And that pride manifested itself in patriotism. When the bugle sounded, Iowans answered the call. That same great-great-grandfather Halvor Munson—the tall one who almost didn't get to leave Norway—was fifteen when the Civil War broke out. Halvor rushed to enlist, and because he was big, it was easy for him to join the army. The young soldier was sent west, spending the war years guarding U.S. forts out on the frontier.

After the war, Halvor was demobilized and ended up coming home on a river raft. And who else was on the raft? None other than Jesse James and his gang. That notorious criminal crew, in fact, invited Halvor to join them; he declined. Yet he did agree to play poker with James and his gang, and he won, of all things, a farm in Iola, Kansas. Who knew that you could win at poker with Jesse James and live? For a while, Halvor traveled back and forth between Kansas and Iowa, but Iowa was always his home. A true patriot, rightly proud of his military service, Halvor carried Old Glory in Fourth of July parades for many years thereafter. Once I counted two dozen Munsons who served during the Civil War—I claim them all!

They were good people, these folks—the Munsons, Ambles, Johnsons, and Thompsons—but they were never rich. That's what Waterloo was like: a town of workers. Iowa started out as a farm state where people mostly grew and ate their own food, but in the late nineteenth century, a new kind of economy was emerging. The big cities in the East were filling up with immigrant workers and their families, and all were hungry for food grown in the Midwest.

So as America grew, Iowa and the Midwest became export oriented, and the region prospered along with the nation as a whole. Rail lines snaked through the land, carrying foodstuffs back to the East and returning with consumer products from, perhaps, the Sears Roebuck catalog.

Indeed, my mother taught us that Iowa was the proud breadbasket of the world. Our whole family loved the Hawkeye State; we were schooled in the virtues of our hardworking heritage and equally determined, in our own time, to make future generations proud of us.

But first the crops and the livestock had to be processed—transformed into bread and meat. Iowans raised millions of hogs on their farms; the animals were then taken by rail to slaughterhouses in cities such as Waterloo. And there, on the banks of the Cedar River, the Rath Packing Company stood guard over the growing metropolis. Rath, founded in 1891, grew into a huge complex, a maze of red-brick buildings running a half mile along the waterfront; it was said to be the largest single meatpacker in the world.

It was rough work—dangerous, heavy machinery clanking and whirling around as workers cut the carcasses into ham, sausage, bacon, and lard. Nothing was wasted. They used the hides for leather and the hair for upholstery or insulation; the bones, hooves, and horns were boiled down into gelatin. They used, according to the old joke, “everything but the squeal.” And then from that food factory, the Illinois Central Railroad carried these pork products to Chicago and beyond.

Yes, it was rough work, but it provided a living for thousands. In its heyday, Rath was a place where men could work for a lifetime and support a large family. One of my grandfathers, my mother's father, worked at Rath for years. In fact, he died inside the plant of a heart attack, just as he was pulling on his boots at the beginning of a shift.

Women worked there too. My grandfather's widow labored at the same plant for many years after his death. It's hard for me to imagine what it must have been like to go work every morning in the place where her husband had passed away. My grandmother was a tiny little woman, but she moved around huge trays of bacon—that was her job, and she did it.

In 1948 a major strike changed everything, and in the next few decades the plant began to decline. In 1980 the company, in desperation, turned the factory over to the union; in 1985, after a few more faltering years, the plant closed for good. At present, the city of Waterloo owns the plant, which is included on the National Register of Historic Places. Today there is no bustle and no jobs—just empty buildings holding powerful memories within their age-stained walls. Indeed, across America, we now see far too many sad and forlorn sites, all of which could tell similar tales of faded industrial greatness. Very sad.