Private Committal Service
Section 57 Lot 14 Grave 1C
Marjorie Alice Rovelstad was born on May 8, 1923 in Minneapolis MN. Her father was Ernest Andrew Rovelstad, born in Elgin IL on November 1, 1891. He was second generation Norwegian whose father, Andrew Rovelstad had emigrated from the Rovelstad farm in Nord-Odal, Norway in 1872 to work in the Elgin Watch Factory. Later in a fraternal partnership, Andrew became a successful jeweler, establishing the Rovelstad Brothers Jewelry store in Elgin. Andrew’s mother, Inga Korsmo, had emigrated from the Korsmo farm in Sor-Odal to marry Andrew in 1879. Ernest, like most of his siblings, attended St. Olaf College, the Norwegian Lutheran liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, which had a profound generational influence on Marjorie and her family on both sides. Ernest met Alice Josephine Heiberg, Marjorie’s mother at St. Olaf, both graduating in 1912. Alice’s father, Adolf Oscar Heiberg, had been trained as a pharmacist in Staenkjer, Norway and had immigrated to Minnesota also in 1872. He later became a physician and practiced in Rushford, MN. Alice’s mother was third-generation American; her parents and grandparents had immigrated to Minnesota in the late 1840′s and early 1850′s as some of the earliest Norwegian farmers in the new state of Minnesota and were among the actual builders of the first Norwegian American Lutheran church in Arendahl, MN.
Although both were of strong Minnesota Norwegian stock, Ernest ventured out of state to graduate from the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, and Alice who was trained as a concert pianist, taught music at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa and later received her registered nurse diploma at Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis. As managing editor and editor for trade publications in Chicago and New York City, Ernest’s work took his family from Minneapolis to Elgin IL (1925-31) and to New York City (1931-40). Marjorie’s first years were surrounded by large maternal and paternal families in Minnesota and Elgin IL, but her nuclear family (her father, mother, Marjorie and her younger brother, Roger) left the family fold to live in New York City when she was 8 until she went back to Minnesota to attend St. Olaf in Northfield in 1941. She told wonderful stories of growing up in Flushing and going into Manhattan for concerts and culture, to visit her Dad at his office next to Radio City and to hear her mother either play organ at church or accompany famous singers on the piano at recitals. Marjorie was a perfectionistic student like her father and a musician like her mother, taking voice lessons from a noted voice teacher who wanted to mold her into an opera singer. However, Marjorie was determined to follow family tradition and go to college at St. Olaf, in large part because she wanted to join the St. Olaf Choir under the celebrated direction of F. Melius Christianson. One of her living regrets was that she had too operatic a vibrato to be accepted into the choir, which is famous for its white a cappella tones. While at St. Olaf, she studied the Norwegian language courses required for those of Norwegian ancestry, and there completed an assignment on family history that became the basis for her lifelong avocation as family genealogist.
After graduating from St. Olaf in 1946, she went on to the Yale University School of Nursing and obtained her Master’s in Nursing in 1949. A devout Lutheran, she met her husband, Albert Foberg Wessen at the Yale Lutheran Student Association when she was Secretary and he was President. Despite the fact that his lineage was Swedish (his family hailed originally from Varmeland, a province just across the river from the Rovelstad and Korsmo farms in Norway), and the standing family joke that grandparents on both sides were rolling over in their graves, they were married in Elgin IL on August 27, 1949. An advocate of cutting edge practices in maternal/child care at Yale, Marjorie was a natural mother. From 1952-1972, childrearing was her joy and full-time priority. Barbara Jeanne and Elizabeth Ruth were born in 1952 and 1953 in New Haven, respectively, Paul David was born in Burlington VT in 1956 and Timothy Eric was born in 1959 in St. Louis, MO. Maintaining her strong spiritual and musical interests, she was Sunday school teacher, Junior Choir Director and member of church choirs and community choral groups with Albert. She also was constant support team for Albert, typing and editing his doctoral dissertation, manuscripts and later the books he authored.
When Albert’s pioneering work in medical sociology took the family first on sabbatical to Leicester England and then into a four year diplomatic lifestyle in Geneva, Switzerland, she expanded her love for travel with careful documentation of all family trips and the development of a huge correspondence with many friends and acquaintances from many countries. Her skill in organizing and compiling family memories and maintaining contacts and communication through the written word was incredible. After the family returned to the States and settled in Rhode Island in 1971, Marjorie returned to nursing as Pediatric Nurse Clinician at Miriam Hospital and was able to use her skills to develop innovative patient education programs. After the pediatric unit was closed in 1977, she became a Claims Examiner for six years but in 1984 sought retirement to travel to New Zealand
with Al and son, Tim, for one of their several extended trips there. Highlights of their itinerary included stays in Australia, Bali, Kashmir, India, and Thailand. Marjorie treasured this journey as a remarkable experience for herself, but also as a final adventure with her son, Tim, who died in 1986.
Concurrent with her professional work and travels, her genealogical research work was exhaustive and groundbreaking. Not only did she trace her own family back to the 1200′s using primary Norwegian language sources, but she researched Albert’s side of the family in Sweden in Swedish. She “discovered” long -lost family relations in Norway, Sweden and throughout the United States and beyond.
Her greatest joy derived from spending time with her grandchildren Matthew, Jenna, Rebecca, Sara, Jia, Wesley, Sonia and Nathan. From 1997 until present, she served as full-time granny/nanny for Jia Wessen (born in 1997) and Sonia Wessen (born in 2001), her happiest recent occupation.
Arrangements made by Thomas & Walter Quinn Funeral Home.
