Elise Waerenskjold

Before Texas, Elise Tvede was already a public figure in Norway. Educated at home by tutors, she became a teacher at nineteen, rare for a woman, and opened a handicraft school for girls at Lillesand that ran past 1845 without public funds. In 1839 she married the sea captain Svend Foyn, later the founder of Norwegian whaling; they separated in 1842 and stayed friends. Signing herself E. Tvede, she wrote on temperance, and in 1843 she published a pamphlet on the harm of brandy. The magazine editorship the plaque mentions came three years later.

What the plaque says

Elise Waerenskjold Influential early promoter of Norwegian emigration to Texas; born Elise Tvede in 1815. In 1846, after John Reiersen migrated to Texas to found the first Norwegian settlement in the state, she became editor of his periodical "Norway and Texas." Through her articles, many were inspired to move here. In 1847 she, too, moved to Texas, and resided in both Van Zandt County and Hamilton County. She married Wilhelm Waerenskjold. Often they welcomed grateful newcomers into their home. Here she helped preserve the history of her people. Died 1895. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — steps away
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.
• Meridian State Park — 28 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.

More markers nearby

• Col. George R. Freeman — steps away
• Elise Waerenskjold — 0.5 mi
• Ann Whitney — 0.5 mi
• John J. ("Jack") Durham — 0.5 mi