Clara Sage Talla Johnson 1909 portrait fine art Kort

Clara "Claire" Sage Talla Johnson 1909 (about age 20) (1889 - 1975). First, I tried to fully restore this image by individually cloning out every scratch and damage. (I do not have any computer program that does it automatically ... I wish I did!) Then, I computer colorized it adding soft color to her skin, a whisper of blush tint to her cheeks and lips, and slight color to her eyes. She was my great grandmother. I am age 73 and I remember her. I remember when dad took me over to mow my great grandparents' yard and I remember their 50th wedding anniversary and I remember the huge family gatherings (my grandparents had 9 kids!) at their house and helping Dad and my uncles and their first cousins to make the homemade vanilla ice cream in my great grandparents' backyard. All 4 of my great grandma's grandparents immigrated to America from Norway in the mid 1800s, so the family proudly said that she was full-blooded Norwegian. I was later to discover that her great grandmother Susanna Christophersdatter (Kristoffersdatter) Kjorlaug (Kjorlog) Nitter Talle was directly descended through both her parents from the ancient Medieval and Viking Era kings in Norway ... through each side of Susanna's parents' families, many multiple times although you must go many generations back on each branch. It seems that the Norwegian descendants of the ancient Medieval and Viking kings purposely intermarried to improve their family claim to the throne especially the descendants of the heirs to the 'Sudreim Claim' who descended from King Haakon V Magnusson who died in 1319. He ruled 1299 - 1319. He was survived by two daughters (no sons). We descend from his eldest daughter Agnes who married Norway's highest ranking noble the Baron of Sudreim. They had two sons. We directly descend from both sons. But, the throne first passed to the descendants of Agnes' younger half sister whose mother's family guaranteed King Haakon's older brother's (the previous king's) financial debts to the king of Denmark upon Duke Haakon's marriage into that family ... which was soon followed by the death of his brother so Haakon was made king and his very new wife was made queen. Their daughter married the duke of Sweden (brother of the king there) who later became king of Sweden (interesting mysterious coincident!) so their son became king of both Norway and Sweden and was first cousin of the sons of Agnes from whom we descend. This tangled story would be worthy of a TV series like THE GAME OF THRONES. The story includes the murders of several Heirs to the Sudreim Claim by kings of Denmark in 1502 and in 1520 (the Stockholm Bloodbath). These murders of Heirs by the Sudreim Claim in 1502 and 1520 are horribly dramatic stories each by themselves. The Norwegian descendants of Agnes claimed rightful claim to the throne of Norway for hundreds of years while Norway was ruled by kings of Sweden and or Denmark. The murders of Heirs to the Sudreim Claim understandably caused their descendants to lay low in the hidden valley of Luster Fjord for hundreds of years where they continued to intermarry. Another natural explanation of these intermarriages includes that the region population became much more sparse due to the BLACK DEATH which reached Norway and the Luster Fjord region circa 1349 1350 ... Indeed, the Heiberg Family claims direct descent from a legendary lone survivor of the 1350 BLACK DEATH in the adjacent Jostedal ice berg valley whose descendant Anders Lauritsson Heiberg lived at the Farm Ronneid ... and married at his brother Sofren's Talle Farm in 1593 to Maren Tordsdatter Benkestok a descendant of kings of Norway by multiple lines back. We directly descend from at least three children of that 1593 marriage at Talle Farm. The ancestry of Susanna's mother emphasizes almost all the same family connections back in multiple lines as well. It would be extremely interesting to discover any ancient artifacts buried in ancient mounds found in Luster Fjord Valley particularly near Talle Farm which still is in the family. Mark Edward Westerfield 2025 Computer restored and computer colorized by Mark Edward Westerfield 2024. www.zazzle.com/markewesterfield 2025.