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My parents grew up in rural Alberta farm country—

Dad in Irma and Mom in Kinsella—but my grandparents

were pioneers in the truest sense of the word. My

father’s parents came from Norway and homesteaded

in South Dakota and Minnesota before heading up to

Alberta. Their name was originally Nielsen, but there

were so many other Nielsens in Minnesota, the mail

kept getting mixed up. So my grandfather, Nikolai Tobias

Mathias, changed it to Fluevog, which was inspired by

the name of the tiny hamlet back in Norway where the

family came from. There’s also a little lake up in Alberta,

near where my grandparents homesteaded, called

Fluevog Lake. I never met my father’s folks, though I

wish I had. They died back in the 1930s when my dad

was in his twenties; my dad always told me his mother,

Gina, died first, and then his father died of heartache.

My grandfather was tender-hearted, and I think I’m that

way myself.

On my mother’s side, they were Dutch and German

with a bit of Irish thrown into the mix. When he was

just eight years old, my grandfather, Ben Wachter, drove

horses and mules along the Oregon Trail all the way up

to Wilbur, Washington. He eventually became a farmer

in Alberta and worked building the railways. He was

truly a pioneer. My grandma, Clara, was a big, imposing

woman who came from St. Louis, Missouri, and after

she married Ben, she stayed home to look after the

house and family. When we were kids, we’d go on lots of

road trips to the farm. It had no running water or paved

roads, but tons and tons of bugs. It was as natural as

can be. In summer, it would get so hot when we were

driving, we’d cook chuckwagon dinners on the manifold.

At Christmas, it would be too cold to drive to church,

so we’d go out with the horse and sleigh.

My parents met skating one day back in Alberta.

Sigurd was seven years older than Ruth, and both

were ready to marry; in the end, they had fifty-four

mostly happy years together. My mom was a good

cook, generous host, talented seamstress and bit of a

poet. My dad was a great mechanic and really smart, so

smart that during the Second World War, he was sent

A (very) young John Fluevog

discovers his love of cars in his

dad’s garage, where Sigurd sold

cute Hillmans from England.

1951

My grandparents were

pioneers in the truest

sense of the word.

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