People across the USA celebrate Independence Day today, but do you know where the largest US Independence Day celebration is outside the USA? The answer is Rebild, Denmark. Check out this post, Independence Day Fourth of July at Rebild Bakker in Denmark by Hans Nyberg and be sure to click on the picture and drag right or left to get a panoramic view.
My great-grandfather, Carl Peter Kruse, was born and raised in the small town of Ribe on Denmark's southwest coast. He was born there in 1851, just two years after Ribe's most notable native, Jacob Riis (1849-1914), was born. Riis became a pioneer investigative journalist using photography and journalism to bring the plight of America's poor to the nation's attention. His book How the Other Half Lives and his close friendship with Theodore Roosevelt contributed to many progressive reforms around the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
My great-grandfather's father was Jens Anderson Kruse, a shoemaker and a member of the Danish Parliament in the 1860s and 1870s, not long after Denmark adopted a parliamentary form of government. Jens was an early member of the Venstre party, which advocated the interests of farmers and small business owners. (I believe it is the largest party in Denmark today.) They championed several reforms, including women's suffrage. They also championed classic economic liberalism (Which is almost 180 degrees opposite of what liberal means in the US today.) I guess it runs in the blood.
Carl Peter Kruse settled in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1880 and became a citizen a few years later. He was the youngest of eight children and wanted to farm, but there was no land to be had at a reasonable price in Denmark. Using the tree claim act, he purchased 160 acres of land in Lincoln County, Nebraska. If he held his land for five years, planted forty acres of trees, and lived there for a short period each year, the land was his for about $1, as I recall. He commuted between Omaha (where he worked in breweries) and his land until he secured his property around 1890. He lived in a sod house for a decade and prospered before deciding to marry my great-grandmother in 1900. (That interesting story is for another time.)
I have had the privilege of getting better acquainted with Denmark and its very close relationship with the USA over the years. (One day, I am actually going to get around to going there.) It seems almost everyone in Denmark is related to someone who came to America. We re-established contact with second and third cousins in Denmark a few years ago and occasionally exchange news.
Anyway, I thought you might appreciate this bit of Independence Day trivia and my personal connection with Danes and the American dream.
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