Skip to main content

Finnestad School

I stumbled upon a couple of sites today that verify the name of the school that was kitty-corner across the road where Ole Finnestad, wife Caroline and family lived.

The school was located in Lee County, Alto Township, Northwest Section 12 on Woodlawn Road on the southeast side of the intersection.

The School was called the Finnestad (or Carlson) #135.



Here is a photo from the Lee County Historical Site.

Correction (April 12, 2013) below:

The School can be found on the following plat map of Alto township by locating Section 12:

http://finnestadhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/alto-township-lee-county-illinois.html

Comments

Anonymous said…
The location of Finnestad School is correct on the plat map (red letters) on your site, but the East/West crossroads at its location was/is not McGirr Road. McGirr Road is two miles south of Perry Road while Finnestad School was two miles north of Perry Road on the SE corner of the E/W road's intersection with what is now called Woodlawn Road. The E/W Road might be Hayes or it might no longer be a road. I thought you would want to correct this inaccuracy in an otherwise excellent site.

gary.krahenbuhl@asu.edu

Popular posts from this blog

Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad obituaries

I have had previously posted the obituary for my great great grandfather Ole Finnestad several posts back. I have not yet been able to locate an obituary for my great grandparents Oliver and Mary Finnestad, though here are the obituaries for my grandparents, Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad.

Ole Finnestad Jr obituary

Here is the obituary for my great, great grandfather, Ole Finnestad Jr from the Dixon Evening Telegraph of July 9, 1928. Note the misspelling of his first and last name, though Finnestad was spelled correctly within the content of the article. You will also note that his brother Rasmus had moved from Canada to Washington by the time of his brother's death. Oddly, there is no mention of the sisters that survived him, leading me to believe they may have lost touch by the time of his death.

Finnestad Farm - Stavanger, Norway

It was customary in Norway to take the farm name as the family name. Prior to arriving in America, Ole Finnestad was known as Ole Olson. According to the Regional State Archives of Stavanger, in 1862, Ole Olsen bought a farm from Bjørn Larsen. The following link provides some farm information along with the family members in 1865: http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=59&filnamn=f61126&gardpostnr=582&sokefelt=vis “Merknad 387b” now means property nr. 16 of the farm Finnestad. (Please keep in mind that accuracy of records is less than perfect - so ages and other information are not always correct) For more information on Stavanger and a map of the area, please go to the following wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavanger