Book Review

The Prince and the Nanny

By Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger

In 2008 Odell M. Bjerkness of Edina, Minnesota published his book The Prince and the Nanny. The subtitle reads: The Life of Prince Harald, now King of Norway, as told in Historical Context and through the Journal of his Nurse, Inga Berg. Odell M. Bjerkness is Professor Emeritus of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota where he was a teacher and served as Executive Director of Concordia Language Villages. For a period of one and a half years Inga Berg of Bagn, Sør-Aurdal, Valdres was Prince Harald’s nanny. She wrote a detailed handwritten diary from her service with the Royal family, and portions of the diary are presented in the book.

The book is divided in four parts. The first part contains background information both on the Royal family and Inga Berg. The author draws the historical lines back to the founding of the kingdom of Norway in the Viking Age (about 800-1030 AD) to the coming of the present Royal family in connection with Norway’s independence from Sweden in 1905. He continues on to the lives of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha. The first part also includes information from Inga Berg’s family history, their home in Bagn, schooling, and daily life. The central part of the book is found in part two which contains a number of pages from Inga Berg’s diary written at the time when she worked as Prince Harald’s nurse. They include notes from the residence of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess at Skaugum, the Royal Palace, travels abroad, and elsewhere. The diary is written in Norwegian with an English translation and footnotes explaining details in the text. The third part of the book forms an epilogue and relates the story of the Royal family and the Berg family from the late 1930s until present. This part includes the German invasion and the Second World War. The last part of the book includes endnotes, appendices, bibliography, and credits.

An extraordinary woman

Inga Berg (1896-1983) was the daughter of wheelwright Martin Olsen from Dølvesknatten and his wife Marit Olsdatter Erlandshaugen from Bagn. The family lived at different locations in Bagn until eventually occupying the small dwelling house of Brue or Brustugu in the village of Bagn around 1900. The building was located just east of the Storebrufossen falls east of the Begna River, an area that experienced growth around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here the family adopted Berg as their family name. The family later moved out of Brustugu, and Martin Olsen and his sons built two other buildings, Fjellvik og Midtberg, that would serve the Berg family and the community. Marit and Martin Berg had eight children, but Marit passed away just after the birth of her last child. The Berg family was heavily affected by emigration. The two oldest daughters Marie and Thea emigrated to America in 1912. Their older cousin Arne Bang and his wife Nellie of Granite Falls, Minnesota helped them acquire steamship tickets. They agreed that the young girls would stay for the first summer at the Bang farm to help with both housekeeping and the care of their children. Her two younger brothers Arne and Gunnar also emigrated to America, in 1922 and 1924 respectively. Arne Berg settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was to become a longtime member of the Valdres Samband. As the only female left at home in 1912, sixteen-year-old Inga was left to manage the Berg household for her father and her brothers. The responsibilities in the Berg household was the first of many duties that young Inga was to perform during her life.

Inga’s skills and interest in the infant care field drove her to a professional career following her primary and secondary education. It was uncommon for country girls to pursue a career in the early part of the twentieth century, but in 1920, at the age of 24, Inga enrolled in a one-year course of instruction at the Jordmorskolen, the Midwives School. The school was located as the Kvinneklinikken (Women’s Clinic), a part of the Rikshospitalet or State Hospital in the Norwegian capital Christiania. Inga received one of the top grades in her class, and the school director gave her excellent recommendations and contacts within the wealthier families in the capital. Inga began delivering babies and in turn attracted her own clients as she gained experience and exposure. Wealthy families hired a midwife that would stay in their home for several months at the time, the period when the child was most receptive to sicknesses. Inga Berg decided to broaden her childcare expertise in pediatric nursing, a field that was not well developed in Norway at the time. Consequently, she moved to London, England where she secured employment with British pediatrician and medical researcher, Dr. E. I. Lloyd.

When Inga returned to the Norwegian capital in 1927 (which had changed its name to Oslo in 1924) with additional credentials and references, she got in contact with clients of increasingly high social status. Through her skills and contacts, Inga Berg’s services eventually were recommended to the Royal family. This happened at an opportune time as Crown Princess Märtha was pregnant with her third child. Following an interview in January 1937, Inga Berg was immediately hired to be the pediatric nurse for the expected prince or princess. The birth of Prince Harald on February 21, 1937 is historic as he was the first prince born in Norway for more than four hundred years. When his father ascended the throne of Norway as King Olav V in 1957, his son became Crown Prince Harald, and the latter eventually became King Harald V of Norway when King Olav V passed away in 1991.

In the service of the Royal family

Inga Berg served as pediatric nurse for Prince Harald from March 1937 to July 1938. The residence of the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess is located at Skaugum, an estate in the town of Asker southwest of Oslo that was presented as a wedding gift to the Royal couple in 1929. The estate consists of 120 acres of farmland and 125 acres of forest, and a staff of about 20 people kept Skaugum in operation. The book lists the numerous tasks and the heavy responsibilities that were connected to Inga’s duties as a children’s nurse. Her diary includes detailed information about her work among others including his weight, diet, general physical condition, and level of activity and sleep. She left Skaugum following a period of 18 months and later secured work at the Kvinneklinikken in Oslo. After the Second World War Inga resumed her private practice as a counselor for well-to-do families and serving as a pediatric nurse-in-residence. Inga Berg kept in contact with her family in Bagn through all these years and eventually moved back to Midtberg following her retirement. She resided there for the rest of her life until she passed away in 1983 at the age of 87. Although she moved from the Norwegian capital she never lost her contact with the Royal family and among others attended the Prince’s confirmation and wedding.

Conclusion

The book contains much information about the Norwegian Royal family for Norwegians and Americans alike. Details and facts in the book give the reader ample knowledge about the life of the Royal family both on the national as well as on the family level. In my opinion, both Inga Berg’s diary and the author’s family connections to Inga are helpful in bringing their life stories closer to the reader. Odell M. Bjerkness is namely the son of Marie, Inga Berg’s older sister who emigrated to America in 1912. He has collected data from informants both in Norway and in the USA, primarily from close relatives and through his mother’s correspondence with Inga. The author thus gives the reader a glimpse of two worlds; on the one hand the world of the Royals as represented by Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway and their children, and on the other hand the world of “ordinary” people as represented by Inga Berg and her family from Bagn. Odell M. Bjerkness puts their respective life courses in their historic context and eventually ties the two worlds together through Inga Berg’s employment as Prince Harald’s nanny.

The Prince and the Nanny is published by Birchpoint Press of Edina, Minnesota. It has 108 pages and contains numerous illustrations both in color and in black and white. The book is available from the author or from www.ingebretsens.com