FOUR FLATENS
FOUR MEN. FOUR GENERATIONS. A FAMILY HISTORY.
A special inaugural edition of FOUR FLATENS has been privately published, but a mass market edition of this title is now available on Amazon. However, if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the special edition, please contact the author, Georgia Flaten Shaw, at georgiashawemail@gmail.com.
Full disclosure: I was not only one of the editors/advisors for this book, but the author is my sister, and this is about my family. Nevertheless, there is some very interesting history recounted in these pages, as well as many original photographs. And of course, some very compelling stories.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GEORGIA FLATEN SHAW is a researcher at the National Archives, in Washington, DC, with a specialty in photography and images. She knows how important written documents and images are for affirming stories. Born with an innate curiosity about origins, her interest during her childhood was ignited with visits to an abandoned house and piqued by artifacts and photographs which her father, Clarence Flaten, brought back from his service in WWII. Trained in art and music, she has a B.A. from Indiana University and an M.S. from the University of Maryland, and after completing work at NIH in Bethesda MD, where she worked in medical illustration, she now writes about her family. She believes that having a knowledge of her origin is important, and the insights gained while reflecting on the past have explained her place and purpose in the world and put other cultures into perspective. She lives in Bethesda, MD, with her husband Patrick, and can be reached at: georgiashawemail@gmail.com
FROM THE PREFACE
This is the story of four Flaten men: Christopher Aslesen Flaten, Gunerius Flaten, Clarence Flaten, and Christopher Flaten. They were, respectively, my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father and my brother. This history begins with some basic background of family lineage, but quickly proceeds to the action: that of Christopher Aslesen’s immigration from Norway, his arrival and survival, and continues through the four generations with their relocation, advancement and endurance, sometimes in the face of great adversity.
Christopher Aslesen, son of a Norwegian cotter, immigrated to the U.S. to homestead in Minnesota. His son Gunerius was a photographer in North Dakota and a Depression-era farmer in South Dakota. Gunerius’s son Clarence was soldier in WWII who laid down arms to build a new life in academia at Indiana University. Clarence’s son Christopher was a physicist with an academic career in California.
Born in different eras, each began life with the challenge of little wealth, although each man built modestly upon that of the last generation. They were all strongly propelled by individual aspirations once they came of age. Each left his boyhood home to seek promising opportunities and adventure. All were shaped by the large events of their own times, including wars and the aftermath, climate catastrophes, and economic downturns, all of which they met with mettle.
This work began, like so many other personal histories do, after I discovered an old birth certificate in a box of family papers. After gathering many additional facts of birth, childhood, marriage, children, work, education, and military service and careers, and putting them into sequence, a long narration and an extremely satisfying order to their stories lay before me. In the process, to my surprise, I discovered facts that had never been known in my family, tales of tragedy that had become vague, and marriages and children that had been forgotten. The whole process of reconstructing their times and environment meant that these eras became exciting and alive as I pictured my forefathers making their way.
I could see the impact of world events on their opportunities and decisions, the shattering effect of unlucky obstacles on their individual hopes and dreams. I also now see that the decisions and crossroads in their individual lives are common to all men and women. While the Flatens’ particular ups and downs and their time periods are what make this book an interesting tale, I hope that you, too, will be inspired by their determination to succeed in spite of the odds. In the end, we are all only partially in control of our own fate. The ability to rise up requires more than luck. It takes guts, courage, and bravery, but also music, humor, and much support from family and community.
All photographs, unless noted otherwise, were taken by my grandfather and father, who were professional photographers. Most are now the property of Indiana University Photographic Archives. I have researched the histories of towns, cities, and locations in the relevant eras in order to convey an accurate setting. I have located property plats and deeds, certificates of birth, marriage, and death, as well as original letters, obituaries, newspaper notices, and family lore to verify facts. From this, I constructed the narrative. However, when supporting documents were unable to be discovered, I tell their story as I understand it most likely happened.