Dear Minnesota - David Bornus

David Bornus

Shoreview, MN - Fourth-Generation - Maine, Rural Southwest Minnesota, Twin Cities, Norway

I am a fourth-generation Norwegian immigrant, all my ancestors came from Norway to southwestern Minnesota in the 1800's. One of my ancestors was one of the first county commissioners of Lac Qui Parle County.

My parents grew up in southwestern Minnesota during the Great Depression in the 1930's. My father flew B-24 bombers on 40 combat missions in the Pacific in WWII. My mother's father died of tetanus when she was six, and so her family struggled, my mother left 8th grade to start working. After their marriage, my parents bought a farm in southwestern Minnesota. After my four older siblings were born, my father was recalled into the military in 1953, so we became a military family, living on air bases in South Dakota, Texas, Maine, and North Dakota. 

I was born at Loring Air Force Base in northern Maine.  My father flew 50 B-52 combat missions in Vietnam. When he retired, we returned to the farm, but I am the only one of my siblings who grew up there. 

My two older brothers worked in law enforcement. When I graduated from college, I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I applied for a position my brother told me about, working as a jail deputy in downtown Minneapolis. I did that for twelve years, then 21 years as an administrator with the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and later a secure residential treatment program in the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

In 2017, I visited some of the areas and farms in Norway where my ancestors lived. This completed the circle - when I stood on the original farm where my great-grandfather had lived, I didn't feel the need to pick up any souvenirs – my own DNA had come from this place, I was my own souvenir.