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with me to the courthouse. My wife and I brought them because we thought that in this country they had the same procedures as in Denmark. Meaning that if a widow wanted to get remarried she needed to come to terms with the children, but here the customs were different. When we had stated our case to the judge he asked us if we were married to which we both replied no. So he in turn told us that we had no business here. He told us to go get married and then we could talk again, until then you have no business being here. It is the responsibility of the children, the heirs, who have to come here and tell us that their mother has remarried and that they now seek their inheritance from their father's estate. So we let him know that this is why we're here. We wanted to know whether or not my wife was able to sell me her house and transfer the deed to me. He tells us that we can certainly do that but we need to appoint someone who could advocate for the children. Lars Larsen, Peter Marcusen and Peter Christensen were selected for this purpose, and they decided on a value of $1100 for the property, which had a $200 mortgage. So it amounted to $300 for each of the girls and $300

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for my wife as a dowry. 

So we had our wedding on the 5th of September in 1885. We were wed in the so-called New Church in New Denmark, by the honorable reverend Rasmus Nielsen, while Johan Hylsenberg and Jørgen Nielsen were our witnesses. One day we hired Anders Peter to drive us to the courthouse. He was an old justice and he was going to help us getting it all done. However, after talking to the judge for a while he tells me that even if I had a million dollars I'd never be able to become the owner of that house because the youngest child in question was 21 years of age. All that is left for you now is to go home and help each other the best you can to raise your children.

So we went and spoke with another old justice named Fritz Rasmusen. We presented our case to him, to which he said that he could get it done quickly but we might have to bend the law a bit. We told him to stop right there. If our goal couldn't be achieved in a honest manner then we didn't want anything done about it, and just like that it was all over and we left for home. 

A couple of months had passed and I had paid out about $500 of my own money I had brought with me from Negaunee,