Born on the 23rd of July, 1914, Prøysen grew up in rural Ringsaker, Norway. He was the youngest of four children. His father, Olaf Andreassen was a woodcutter when he married Julie in 1907. Together, they lived in a cotter's cottage (one of 30-40 cottages) on a farming property in Ringsaker. The year Prøysen (known then as Alf Olafsen) was born, his parents took in and cared for another boy slightly older than Alf.
As a child, Prøysen had a special relationship with his mother, Julie. He spent much of his time indoors, drawing and writing in her company. As she said of his childhood, "Hæin lyt få gjøra det som passer for'n" (He was allowed to do what best suited him).
The stories Julie told Prøysen about her impoverished youth later emerged in his writings as an appreciation of the peasant life. Born in 1879, when Julie was six years old when her father had a stroke and fell dead on the ice of Lake Mjøsa. Julie and her five small sisters were separated and sent off to live in various places while her mother gave up the cottage and found work on one of the large farms on the area. After confirmation, Julie worked as a servant on various farms until she met Olaf Andreassen at a dance one Saturday night and they married.
Six years later, Olaf and Julie moved into the cotter's cottage that Prøysen called his childhood home. The cottage itself was small - there was one room with two beds, a table, and some chairs. Julie and Alf slept in the one bed until he was seven years old, in the other were Prøysen's father and Vesle-Olaf (the boy they had taken in the year Alf was born). The two sisters. Margit and Marie slept on a bench they called "The Canopy." In addition to this room, there was a kitchen and a small room used only in the summer-time as a guest room for his aunt Olaug and family. Like the other cottages on the farm, they kept some animals - a cow, a few pigs and a couple of hens. The cottage itself is now a museum.
 |
Go To Page: 1 2
