205.1165.3-5

The Brekke family of Roland (Iowa), around 1945. Front row, left-to-right: Adel (daughter), Jacob (father), Everett (son), and Celina (mother); back row, left-to-right: Jeanette (daughter), Orville (son), Meyer (son), William (son), and Margaret (daughter). Celina Beranger Brekke had ridden the "orphan train" from New York City in 1900 at the age of ten and eventually settled with a minister's family in Roland. At the age of 19, she married Jacob Brekke. They lived for two years in Nevada, Iowa, and then farmed in the Roland area for most of their working years, with a brief period in Goodhue County, Minnesota. They had seven children and ended their farming days in Franklin County near Iowa Falls, Iowa. In 1966, they returned to Nevada, where Celina lived to the age of 91. The story of Celina Beranger's orphan train experience appears as Appendix B, written by Carol Kenealy, in "Ames in Word and Picture; Book Three: Tales of Two Old-Timers," 2003. (See also: 206.1166.1-2)