The Bertelsen House

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Bertelsen House. Sometime in the 1880s, a Norwegian settler named Andres Johnson had a stone house put up right here in Bosque County. Now, the marker doesn't say for certain who built it, but the best guess points to a man named Andrew Mickelson, a builder who put up other structures in this same community.

Stone work, solid and deliberate, the kind meant to outlast the man who ordered it. And outlast it did. In 1894, Bertel and Christena Bertelsen bought the property, and they didn't just move in, they got to work.

They enlarged that stone portion, made it their own. Then, around 1910, they added a frame addition onto the house. Now, you might wonder why a family would need to keep adding on like that.

Well, the marker answers that question plainly: Bertel and Christena had eighteen children. Eighteen. That frame addition wasn't a luxury, it was a necessity.

The Bertelsen name stayed on that property for decades after, the house holding the family, and the family holding the house, all the way until 1977. Nearly a century after that first stone was laid for Andres Johnson, the Bertelsen family finally let it go. Some houses just carry a whole world inside their walls.

What the marker says

The stone portion of this house was erected in the 1880s for Norwegian settler Andres Johnson. The builder was probably Andrew Mickelson, who erected other structures in the community. Bertel and Christena Bertelsen bought the property in 1894 and enlarged the stone portion. They built a frame addition about 1910 for their large family of 18 children. Ownership of the home remained with the Bertelsen family until 1977. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979