Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag

by S. O. Susag

We would then repeat the Lord's prayer and sing another song.

One afternoon, when I was two and a half years old, a number of we children were invited to a neighbor's for lunch and play. As we passed the pantry window on our way in, we saw a number of dishes filled with nice red berries. One youngster suggested that we help ourselves to the berries, and this we did. After a few mouthfuls I began to scream and ran home. Mother, hearing my screams, rushed out to meet me and, picking me up in her arms, asked me where I was hurt. I couldn't tell her but kept screaming. Finally mother began to chide and shaking me, said, "Tell me where you are hurt." Still I could not speak, then mother fell upon her knees and cried, "Lord, my child is dying in my arms and I cannot find what is the matter with him." I was then able to speak and tell her the cause of my trouble. Putting my hand over my heart I said that I was having pain there and not in my stomach. Mother questioned me as to whether the lady had given us the berries, and I told her, "No," that we had helped ourselves to them. She said, "I will tell you how to get rid of your pain: Go and tell the lady what you have done and giving her your hand ask her to forgive you, and I am sure the pain will leave you." Mother went with me and when I confessed to the lady she took me up in her arms and wept with me. After confessing the pain all disappeared.

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When I was about eleven years of age it seemed that a voice was continually speaking to me and saying, "You ought to be a better boy; I want you for a preacher." I did not understand at the time that it was the Holy Ghost speaking to me. Mother often wept over me and said, "Child, O child, what shall I do with you! You make me more trouble than all the other eight children put together."

At the age of fifteen I was confirmed and at the following preaching service I was supposed to participate in taking the Lord's supper (as was the custom of the church). Before that service I went out into the woods to pray. I asked the Lord to forgive me for partaking of the Lord's supper, for to refrain from taking it would bring disgrace upon my family.

From that time on, the Lord continued to talk to me, saying, "You ought to be a better young man." It seemed as though I could not be better at home in Norway so I determined to sail for America.

I had been in America about a year and a half when I met a distant relative who was thought to be lost in this country, because his family had not heard from him for two or three years. He invited me to go into a saloon with him and have a glass of beer. We went in, and also played several games of pool.

In the meantime I took off my coat and hung it on the back of a chair. In the inside pocket of my coat I had my billfold containing about one hundred dollars, all the money I had, and also my valuable papers. When I went to reach for my money my billfold was gone. The saloon keeper seemed to know what had taken place and handed me five dollars. I had no work as there was none to be found. It was the custom in those days for the saloons to give a free lunch with a glass of beer. I went at noon every day and bought a glass of beer so I could have the free lunch that went with it. I lived that way for about two months.

During the late winter I got a job at night work, which consisted of pushing loads of stone in a wheelbarrow for the building of the Stone Arch Bridge over the St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River for the Great Northern Railway Company. The planks upon which we had to walk became very slippery and on one trip the man ahead of me slipped back in the wheel of my wheelbarrow upon which I had a large stone. The force of his fall threw both stone and wheelbarrow into the river. The man behind me, seeing what was happening, flung himself face down over his wheelbarrow, and in the dark, grabbed me as I was going over the plank into the river. He caught me by one of my arms and held me until help came and I was pulled out. I was hanging from his hands about fifty to seventy-five feet above the river.

After that experience I could not make myself walk those planks anymore, so I was again out of work and so terribly discouraged. A few nights later I walked onto the Tenth Avenue bridge intending to jump off into the river to end it all. As I took hold of the railing someone from behind me called out and said, "When you jump, your troubles will begin." I looked, to see the man who had spoken but there was no one on the bridge. The way he spoke had sent a chill through me. It was after eleven o'clock at night and I seemed to realize that it was the Lord who had spoken to me.