Hjalmar Rued Holand was a Norwegian immigrant, who, as author, lecturer, cherry grower and civic leader, lived in Door County, Wisconsin, from 1898 until his death in 1963. During his undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin, he earned his expenses by selling books, and continued to support himself in this way as he bicycled to Door County in 1898 after receiving his bachelor's degree from the University. Holand liked the Door County area so well that he borrowed enough money to purchase a piece of property near Ephraim. He married Theresa Ingersall (1874-1960) on June 13, 1900. They had four children: Swanhild (b. 1901), Harold (b. 1906), Ivar (b. 1908), and Valee (b. 1911).
In 1908 his first book, De Norske Settlementers Historie, was published in the Norwegian language. It proved successful in the Norwegian settlements of the Midwest and resulted in numerous lecture engagements. His second book, in English, was a History of Door County published in 1917. Old Peninsula Days followed in 1925 and proved to be his most successful work, published in eight editions. During his lifetime, he wrote thirteen books, five of which concern the rune stone controversy and attempts to prove that the Norse were the first settlers of North America. Holand also wrote numerous articles on this same subject, as well as others on Door County.
Holand was active in the local politics of Door County; he served on the park board and airport committee and was one of the founders of the Door County Historical Society in 1926 and the Door County Museum in 1939. In 1916 he was appointed to the Board of Curators of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
For many years, Holand carried on research in an attempt to prove the validity of the Kensington Rune Stone and the Norse settlement of North America before Columbus. At the time of Holand's death, he was working on another book on the subject. In 1949 he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship of 2500 dollars for runological and linguistic studies in Norway. St. Olaf's Medal was bestowed on him December 12, 1957 by Olaf V of Norway.
Harold Holand (1906-circa 1970) was the second child of Hjalmar and Theresa Holand. When a young man, he severed his right hand above the wrist while sawing wood and in 1927 entered a tuberculosis sanitarium. These two incidents determined the types of activities in which he would engage during his lifetime. He worked for the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association and was apparently involved with its publication, The Crusader. Harold Holand was his father's critic and acted as his research assistant. His papers contain two unpublished manuscripts, “The Grapes of Ephraim,” which is a reminiscence of the lives of his mother and father and the family they raised, and “Young Man in the North,” a fictional account based on his experiences as a patient in a tuberculosis sanitarium.
Two of the manuscripts in this collection deal with the family's history: one by Hjalmar Holand entitled My First Eighty Years and the other by Harold Holand, “The Grapes of Ephraim.” The researcher is referred to these for a more detailed account of the family.
