OTHER TOWNS

During the early years of this century, Bible truth also found its way to other towns in Norway, through traveling colporteurs, predecessors of today’s pioneers. They went from house to house distributing books and booklets. In the spring of 1903 two colporteurs, Viktor Feldt and Fritiof Lindkvist, came from Sweden. At the beginning, Brother Feldt worked towns in the southern part of Norway. Lindkvist, who eventually became the local manager of the work in Norway, settled down in the capital, Kristiania (now Oslo). As early as 1904, an office representing the Watch Tower Society was established in Lindkvist’s home in Pilestrædet 49 A. Interested persons could write this office and order literature or subscribe for The Watch Tower, which was sent from Denmark. The magazine had eight pages at that time and appeared monthly from January 1905.

The greatest interest was shown in west Norway. Fine results were realized in Stavanger and Bergen. Lindkvist reported that some interested persons in Bergen arranged “reading meetings,” reading aloud from the Dawn books. When something was not understood, it was discussed until the point was clear to everyone. At one such meeting in a private home, twenty-three were present.

One of those who accepted the truth in Bergen at this time was the prominent preacher of the Free Mission, Theodor Simonsen. He was the man who came to Skien about 1905 and angered the religious people with his new teachings.

Simonsen became interested after having received a copy of one of the Dawns from colporteur E. R. Gundersen, who had come to Norway from the United States. Realizing that the hellfire doctrine was false, Simonsen started to refute it during his speeches in the Free Mission, and his audiences got on their feet in excitement over this wonderful news. But then it became known that he had been in touch with the “Millennial Dawn.” Thus, one day when he had finished his discourse, he was handed a slip of paper that said: “This was your last talk with us!” With that he was expelled from the Free Mission. From then on he was talking to the rapidly growing group of interested persons in Bergen.

Brother Simonsen was a very capable speaker, and it was primarily in this capacity that he served the brothers during the decades that followed. From 1919 to 1935 he was a traveling speaker representing the Society in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. He could also sing and play the zither. Before and after his talks he used to sing songs from the songbook Hymns of the Millennial Dawn, accompanying himself. Brother Simonsen died in 1955, ninety-one years old, having served Jehovah God for fifty years. There are few persons whose activity has been so encouraging to the brothers in Norway.

But back to the work in Bergen about 1905. The activity of the colporteurs in this town produced results. Some had reacted favorably to Brother Simonsen’s talks in the Free Mission. Among these was young Sunday-school teacher Helga Hess. At the age of nineteen, she was the first woman in Norway to become a colporteur. That was probably in 1905. The light of the truth had started to dispel the religious darkness in west Norway, but what was the situation in long, narrow and sparsely populated north Norway?

THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE NORTH

The first one to get the truth in north Norway was Lotte Holm. She lived near the town of Narvik, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. In the autumn of 1903 she went south to Trondheim, where she met colporteur E. R. Gundersen. He gave her a small tract, Is Jesus Suffering Eternal Torment? She also subscribed for the Swedish magazine I Morgonväkten, the forerunner of the Swedish Watch Tower.

In this magazine Lotte Holm read that true Christians celebrate the memorial of Christ’s death only once a year, and learned what the Memorial date was for 1904. “I told my mother that I would celebrate the Lord’s Supper at the date of Jesus’ death at the same time as other Christians all over the world,” she wrote in a letter to the Society. “She gave me raisins. I made unfermented bread and ‘the fruit of the vine’​—and celebrated alone. There was nobody with ‘listening ears’ for miles around at that time. But I had an unforgettable celebration in March the first year. . . . My first contact with the office in Kristiania was when I wrote for some magazines to distribute.”

Soon it appeared that there were others with “listening ears” in the town of Narvik, not far from Lotte Holm’s residence. Some time between 1903 and 1905 Viktor Feldt came to Narvik as a colporteur. There he met a married couple who showed interest, and soon another couple joined them. This small group wrote the Society to inquire if there were others in the vicinity of Narvik who were interested in the good news. In this way they got in touch with Lotte Holm, who lived only a few hours by boat from Narvik. This group, the first in north Norway, now consisted of five persons. For many years these were the only true Christians in that part of the country. Lotte Holm remained faithful to Jehovah God until her death in 1966, when close to ninety-three years of age.

THE COLPORTEURS

Always on the move, the colporteurs would work through a town or a territory, place literature with those showing interest and then travel on. They had the literature sent from the office when they needed it.

One of the widely traveled colporteurs was Andreas Øiseth, who got the truth in 1908. One day when chopping wood at his father’s farm in the eastern part of south Norway, he was visited by a colporteur. He acquired the first volume of Millennial Dawn, at once realizing that this was the truth. Within a year he had made his decision: He would turn the farm over to his brother and start out as a colporteur.

First, Andreas Øiseth got a bike and started to work north systematically, not bypassing any town or community. He also made a “kicksled,” and this was his means of transportation during the winter. On this sled he carried all that he needed​—food, clothing and literature. When it was getting late in the day, he would start asking for a place to sleep, and, in most cases, this was granted, as at that time people were quite hospitable toward travelers.

Brother Øiseth did not turn southward until he reached Tromsø, 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) north of his home. On his way south, he worked through all the fjords, valleys and islands until reaching the southernmost part of the country. Having finished this tour, he had covered nearly all the country and had been traveling continuously for eight years!

Later Brother Øiseth worked at the Society’s office for many years, doing, among other things, translation work. Until his death in 1973, at the age of eighty-eight, he was faithfully busy in the service of God’s kingdom, telling others the good news.

INCREASING ACTIVITY AMONG THE BROTHERS

Those few persons who at this time had their eyes opened to the light of truth started to tell others about their new convictions. The colporteurs worked systematically, but not so many were able to take up this work. Here is an example of how some took advantage of the opportunities they had and contributed to the spreading of the light:

About 1907 Anna Andersen became interested in the truth. She had been an officer in the Salvation Army for many years. In the small town of Kristiansund in west Norway, she met another Salvation Army officer, Hulda Andersen, who showed interest. (Hulda Andersen later married Andreas Øiseth, and was zealous for the truth until her death in 1971 at ninety-two years of age.) The following year Anna Andersen asked Hulda Andersen to come along on a tour. They went north together by boat, and at every port they went ashore, placing Dawn volumes. They went all the way up to Kirkenes at the Finnish (now Russian) border, and by the time they returned to Kristiansund, they had covered approximately 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) and had placed 400 books and some other literature. Later, these two sisters made similar tours.

Anna Andersen became one of the most widely known colporteurs in Norway. There is hardly any town in the country that she did not visit with her bike and her book bags. In 1935, in her sixty-eighth year, she made a final trip with a young sister to the northernmost part of the country, visiting all towns and areas. That was more than thirty years after her first visit with Hulda Andersen and more than twenty years after becoming a colporteur. She continued on as a colporteur for several years and died faithful in 1948, eighty-one years old. The results these two sisters had on their tour to north Norway were out of the ordinary.