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Read the story →Small stories
Stories froma farm by Mjøsa.
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Read the story →Small stories
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Read the story →Short stories from Grefsheim: Jomfru Karine and the McVitie's biscuit tin, Friedrich Hayek on the farm in 1920, the rose 'Emelie' and the spiraea 'Grefsheim'.
The Bronze Age
At Grefsheim there is a stone with 21 small, round hollows, probably carved some 3,000 years ago. That was long before the farm was mentioned in written sources.
The stone has been called «the offering stone». Cup marks like these may have been used in religious rites, but what the people who made them really had in mind, we do not know.
The stone is still there.
Source: Directorate for Cultural Heritage: Kulturminnesøk. Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), p. 346.
The Viking Age
Long before Grefsheim got its present name, beautiful jewellery was worn here.
In the 1800s a pair of oval bronze brooches was found in the soil of the farm, then spelt Grefseng. Such brooches were usually worn with women's dress in the Viking Age, one on each side of the chest to hold up the gown.
The Museum of Cultural History has also registered jewellery finds from the Merovingian period, several centuries before the Viking Age.
Who wore the jewellery, and how it ended up in the ground at Grefsheim, we do not know. But the brooches are preserved in the museum collections.
Source: Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, object C1114. The museum's registration of Iron Age jewellery finds from Grefsheim.
1313-1903
Grefsheim has had many names. In older sources we find the form Græfsæimi, and in 1398 Grefsseims.
Then followed Grefsheime (1460), Grepsheime and Grefsen (1462), Grepsheim (1463), Greffshem (1467), Greffsym (1471), Grepsem (1473), Grefsem, Greffsæm and Grefsinn (1488), Grefseim (1489), Grefsin (1490), Gressen (1493), Grefsim (1496), Greffsem (1500), Greffssene (1530), Gryffsum and Græffsym (1536), Grepsæ and Grepse (1537), Grebsingh (1552), Greffßenn (1578), Greffsen (1604) and Græfs Eng (1723).
In the 1801 census the farm was called Grefseng, while people on Nes said «Græfsom».
But what does the name actually mean? The place-name scholar Oluf Rygh thought it might be linked to the old word grofs, a rock cave or steep-sided hollow. Another explanation links it to grefsi or gref, an old word for a mattock or hoe. There is no certain answer.
In 1903 the then owner, Johan Egeberg Mellbye, had the spelling Grefsheim officially fixed.
Source: Oluf Rygh: Norske Gaardnavne, vol. 3. Store norske leksikon: «gårdsnavn». The 1801 census. Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), p. 345.
After the Ice Age
Along Mjøsa, Grefsheimberget rises steeply from the water. In places the rock face is about 20 metres high, and at its foot cracks and openings run a few metres into the rock.
For most of the year the openings are hard to see. Only in winter, when the water level in Mjøsa is low, do several of them appear.
Oluf Rygh discussed whether the farm name might be linked to the old word grofs, used of rock caves and steep-sided hollows. It cannot be proven. But it is hard to stand beneath the cliff without thinking it.
For the family at Grefsheim the cliff means something else. For many years it has been the site of an Easter egg hunt.
The cliff is steep and rough, and the cracks are not a place to visit on your own.
Source: Oluf Rygh: Norske Gaardnavne, vol. 3 (1900). Information from the family at Grefsheim.
1487-1488
Magnhild Oddsdatter lived at Grefsheim at the end of the 1400s. The family owned farms across much of the country.
One of her sons, Karl Sigurdsson, was Bishop of Hamar. When he died in 1487, a will came to light leaving large estates to the Church.
Magnhild protested. The will had been sealed after her son's death, so she held that it was not valid.
Together with another son, Odd Alvsson, she took up the fight against the priests of Hamar Cathedral.
The dispute seems to have ended with the family keeping the estates.
Source: Per-Øivind Sandberg: «Karl Sigurdsson» and «Magnhild Oddsdatter», Norsk biografisk leksikon.
1497
On 6 November 1497 a property deal was concluded at Grefsheim.
Jon Pedersson and his wife Gudrid sold the farm Baanerud in Elverum to Magnhild Oddsdatter, who lived at Grefsheim.
The deal was sealed with a handshake.
Four men were present as witnesses. In a letter they confirmed that the couple had received the whole price, to the last penny, and were satisfied with the settlement.
The letter was written on parchment and sealed. It survives in the National Archives, although one of the seals has been lost.
So we know fairly precisely what happened at Grefsheim on this November day more than 500 years ago.
Source: Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. IV, no. 1026.
1502
Knut Alvsson was the son of Magnhild Oddsdatter of Grefsheim. He came into conflict with the Danish crown and became a central figure in the struggle over who should rule Norway.
In 1502 he met Henrik Krummedike, one of the king's leading men, for negotiations aboard a ship off Akershus.
Knut had been promised safe conduct. Even so, he was killed during the meeting.
Almost 400 years later Henrik Ibsen wrote of the blow to Knut Alvsson's brow as a blow to Norway's heart.
Source: Øystein Hellesøe Brekke: Knut Alvssons krig. Ridderen som ville erobre Norge (Vigmostad & Bjørke, 2016). Magne Njåstad: «Knut Alvsson», Norsk biografisk leksikon. Henrik Ibsen: «Paa Akershus», Digte (1871).
16th century
Jomfru Karine Alvsdatter owned Grefsheim in the 1500s. She is said to have been close to Bishop Mogens of Hamar.
According to old tradition, the bells of Hamar Cathedral did not ring for mass until Karine had pushed off from the jetty at Grefsheim, on the other side of Mjøsa.
She is said to have been rowed across by twelve men.
Whether the bells really waited for her, we do not know. But the story has lived long on Nes.
Source: Anno Domkirkeodden: Historical figures in En Hamarkrønike. Aftenposten, 29 September 1962, p. 2.
1536
On Christmas Day 1536 Jomfru Karine Alvsdatter lay ill at Grefsheim. She owned the farm and large estates in several parts of Norway.
That Christmas she gave her kinswoman Karine Galle a whole farm in Vestfold, Bugården. Several witnesses were present to confirm the gift was freely given.
Karine Galle and her husband Iver Jenssøn later moved to Vestfold. There Iver ran sawmills and a timber trade.
Source: Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. I, no. 1086. Ludvig Daae: «Om Fru Gørvel Fadersdatter og hendes norske Jordegods» (1895). Store norske leksikon: «Iver Jenssøn».
1537
When Jomfru Karine Alvsdatter died at Grefsheim at the turn of 1536-1537, she left large estates, money, silver and valuable documents. Several people believed they had a right to the inheritance.
While Karine still lay on her bier, her kinsman Iver Jenssøn came from Hovinsholm to secure her possessions. But the bishop's men came too.
According to a historical account, they took gold, silver, money and important deeds by force.
Some of the documents were never recovered. The following year four men stated that they had seen an important letter about the inheritance. But none of them could remember which estates it covered.
That hardly made the settlement any easier.
Source: Ludvig Daae: «Om Fru Gørvel Fadersdatter og hendes norske Jordegods», Historisk Tidsskrift (1895), part III.
1537
As Jomfru Karine Alvsdatter lay dying at Grefsheim, Bishop Mogens of Hamar received a deed of gift transferring the farm and its estates to the Church.
But the bishop kept Grefsheim for only a few months.
In the summer of 1537 the Danish nobleman Truid Ulfstand came to Hamar with the king's forces. He was to carry out the Reformation and secure King Christian III's power in Norway.
Truid was married to Gørvel Fadersdotter, who was Jomfru Karine's heir and laid claim to Grefsheim.
On 18 June the bishop had to surrender the farm to Truid. Shortly afterwards he also gave up the bishop's residence in Hamar and was taken prisoner to Denmark.
So the man who took Grefsheim from the bishop was married to the woman who claimed the inheritance.
Source: Gustav Storm: «Om de Hamarske Krøniker». Ludvig Daae: «Om Fru Gørvel Fadersdatter og hendes norske Jordegods». Norsk biografisk leksikon: «Truid Gregersen Ulfstand».
1602
In 1599 the noblewoman Gørvel Fadersdotter handed Grefsheim and her other Norwegian estates to King Christian IV.
But she had already provided for one of her old servants.
The year before, she had decided that Moses Stub and his wife should live on and farm Grefsheim without paying land rent for the rest of their lives. Their children could continue at the usual rent.
In 1602 Christian IV confirmed the arrangement.
Grefsheim had thus become the king's property, but Moses Stub and his family had secured the right to stay.
Source: Wladimir Moe: Norske Storgaarde (1920), the chapter on Grefsheim, with a transcript of the provision of 1602.
1675
In 1675 Grefsheim was sold to Andreas Tombloe and Anne van de Wiele, a married couple living in Hamburg.
The farm had earlier been part of a large Norwegian estate used as security for loans to the Danish king. Among the lenders was the wealthy merchant family Marselis.
So Grefsheim was also part of the trade in money, debt and property between Norway, Denmark and the trading cities of Europe.
Whether the couple from Hamburg ever visited the farm they had bought, we do not know.
Source: Wladimir Moe: Norske Storgaarde (1920), the chapter on Grefsheim.
1714
District judge Hans Blichfeld, who owned Grefsheim in the early 1700s, left quite a wardrobe.
One outfit had no fewer than 84 silver buttons. His clothes were worth as much as 23 cows.
His estate also contained 54 silver objects, 18 horses and 50 cows and calves.
But only three months after Blichfeld's death, almost all the farm buildings burned down.
His widow had them rebuilt, at her own expense.
Source: Ragnar Blichfeldt: Slekten Blichfeldt (1969), pp. 21-23.
1700s
Christine Sophie Grønbech, née Vagel, was one of the great landowners of Hedmarken in the 1700s. She lived at Storhamar but also owned Grefsheim.
She was known as «the old lady» and had a reputation for being both proud and strict.
When she came to Grefsheim to inspect the farm, she liked to be carried about by the farmhands.
According to an account from 1916, things went wrong one day when the roads were especially muddy. The men carrying her are said to have been so tired of her strict ways that they dropped her straight into the mud.
There she lay, shouting in fury.
Whether it really happened like that, we do not know. But someone must have thought the story worth passing on.
Source: Mjøsenlagets Aarbok (1916), pp. 61-62. The story is an older account.
1777
In 1777 Grefsheim was sold to Halvor Gundersen of Sterud on Nes. The seller was Jens Grønbech Wessel, who had taken over the farm through his family.
Jens was the nephew of Peter Wessel Tordenskiold, the naval hero of the Great Northern War. His father was Tordenskiold's elder brother.
Jens himself made much of the connection. When he petitioned the king for the title of chancery councillor in 1761, he used his uncle as an argument.
With the sale in 1777, Grefsheim left its old connection with the Storhamar estate.
Source: Wladimir Moe: Norske Storgaarde (1920), the chapter on Grefsheim.
The 1780s
Far more than farm produce was once made at Grefsheim.
In the 1780s there was a potash works on the farm. Wood ash was processed here into potash, used among other things in making glass and soap.
Later came lime burning, a brickworks and a distillery. Lime and brick were building materials, while the distillery produced spirits.
On Snippsandodden by Munkevika the ruins of the old lime kiln still stand. Ringsaker municipality has registered them as a heritage site belonging to Grefsheim. When the kiln was last in use, we do not know.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), pp. 352-353. Ringsaker municipality: Municipal sub-plan for cultural heritage (2018), p. 52.
1806-1825
In 1806 Gunder Grefseng, who owned Grefsheim, wanted to start a ferry across Mjøsa.
The ferry was to run from Snipsandodden at Grefsheim to Viker-Ødegarden in Furnes. It would have given people on Nes a much shorter route to the other side of the lake.
But the owner on the Furnes side said no.
Almost twenty years later, in 1825, the plans were revived. This time the county governor, the state's representative in the district, thought the link would be important. Others protested.
Again, no ferry came of it.
Mjøsa went on dividing the two communities.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), p. 387.
1834-1865
Lieutenant Haagen Norgreen took over Grefsheim in 1834. He had fought in the war against Sweden in 1814, where he was wounded, and was known as a man of unusual strength.
An old description of the farm tells of two labourers struggling with a large stone while clearing new land. They could not budge it. Norgreen came along, lifted the stone and carried it off alone.
Even past the age of 80 he is said to have been able to walk on his hands.
He was also known for swearing fiercely. According to tradition, two fields at Grefsheim were named after him: «Helvete» (Hell) and «Aftensangen» (Evensong). Both names are still in use.
Norgreen built the present main house at Grefsheim, but his finances did not hold. In 1865 he went bankrupt and had to sell the farm.
Source: Wladimir Moe: Norske Storgaarde (1920), the chapter on Grefsheim. The field names are still used on the farm, and their explanation has been passed down in the family.
1800s
Behind a framed glass panel in the drawing room at Grefsheim is a wallpaper that once covered the walls of the room.
The pattern is anything but modest. Between Gothic arches, columns and spires, small figures stand in niches, surrounded by ornament that could have come from a medieval cathedral. This is how the 1800s liked to reimagine the Gothic.
The wallpaper is pasted directly onto the wooden panelling, with no trace of older paper beneath. This suggests it may have been the room's first wallpaper, perhaps from the early furnishing of the main house.
Later, new wallpapers were added. The old one lay hidden beneath the next layers until it came to light again.
Today a section is kept visible on the wall.
Source: Information from the family at Grefsheim.
1837
Peder Eriksen lived at Skauger, one of the crofts under Grefsheim. Here he and his family had a home and a patch of land to farm.
In 1837 Peder got a written contract with the farm owner. To use the croft he had to pay and work for the main farm. He was also responsible for keeping the houses in repair.
A croft was not a home the family owned. They had the right to live there and use the land on the terms agreed with the owner.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok, vol. 2, part 2 (1995), pp. 392-393.
1854
The garden at Grefsheim has roots going back to the mid-1700s. In front of the main house lay an elaborate garden with symmetrical beds, winding gravel paths and a round central bed, laid out after the Baroque-inspired ideals of the day.
In 1854 the surveyor Fr. Julin drew a detailed map of the garden – probably the Swede Fredrik Julin, born in Stockholm in 1822.
Much has changed since then. Trees have grown large and parts of the garden have disappeared. But the old lines can still be traced in the ground, and historical photographs show how it once looked.
Source: Garden map of Grefsheim (1854), attributed to Fr. Julin. Grefsheim's historical photographs. Application for restoring Grefsheim's historic garden (2025).
1865-1900
In 1865, 207 people lived at Grefsheim and the crofts under the farm. They made up 33 households on 24 registered crofts.
Here lived crofters and their families, servants and others who worked on and around the farm. Children grew up on the crofts, and families lived off the land and the work they were given.
Just 35 years later the population had fallen to 95.
Many had left for America or moved to find work elsewhere. At the same time farming was changing. New machines and methods gradually reduced the need for labour.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), p. 359, and the entries on the crofts.
1868
In 1868 Peder Monsen and his wife Karen left the croft Båthuset under Grefsheim. They took six children with them.
The family sailed on the emigrant ship «Hannah Parr» to America. In time they settled on a farm in Minnesota.
Why Peder and Karen chose to leave Båthuset, we do not know. But they were among many from the crofts on Nes who crossed the Atlantic in the second half of the 1800s.
Eight people left a small croft by Mjøsa and began a new life in America.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok, vol. 2, part 2 (1995), the entry on Båthuset.
1871
Ernst Robarth Dalin Norgrenn was born at Grefsheim in 1839. His father was Haagen Norgreen, the lieutenant who owned the farm and was known for his unusual strength.
Ernst chose to become an architect and trained in Karlsruhe and Berlin. He designed the new Bragernes Church in Drammen, completed in 1871.
After a period of poor health he travelled to Egypt. There he found work as an architect with the general staff and was commissioned to restore buildings for the Khedive, Egypt's ruler.
He later returned home and was commissioned to design Sandvikskirken in Bergen.
He died in 1880, only 41 years old, before that last church was finished.
Source: Drammen Byleksikon: «Norgrenn, Ernst Robert Dallin». Norges Kirker: «Sandvikskirken».
1877
In 1877 yet another family left one of the crofts under Grefsheim.
Ole Evensen and his wife Agnete Kristiansdatter lived at Munkvika, a croft by Mjøsa. With their children Julie, Johannes and Thea they left for America.
Several of Nils Larsen's children from the croft Sveen also crossed the Atlantic.
We know their names and the year they left. But what later became of Ole, Agnete and the children, we know less about so far.
Source: Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok, vol. 2, part 2 (1995), the entries on Munkvika and Sveen.
1883
Johan Egeberg Mellbye received a rather unusual confirmation present: Grefsheim.
The gift came from his godfather and great-uncle, district judge Johan Egeberg, who owned the farm.
Johan would later take over the farm and make Grefsheim his home. He later became a government minister and for many years led the Norwegian Farmers' Union.
A confirmation present of a rather rare kind.
Source: Norsk biografisk leksikon: «Johan E. Mellbye».
c. 1840-1950
For many years it was the dinner bell at Grefsheim that set the rhythm of the working day.
Work began at seven in the morning. At eleven the bell rang for dugurd, a larger mid-morning meal. At half past twelve it was back to work, and at five the bell rang for dinner.
It was also used to warn of fire and accidents.
The bell hung in a tower on the farmhands' house, a building from around 1830 also described as a storehouse and brewhouse. After the farm fire of 1902 the building was moved about 100 metres north of the main house, and in 1904 it got a new bell tower in Swiss chalet style. The farmhands' house and the tower were demolished around 1960.
As working life on the farm changed, the dinner bell lost its old role. But the tradition of ringing in Whitsun was kept.
Grefsheim got a new bell tower in 1993, raised on the former stable building.
Source: County Governor of Innlandet: Dinner-bell towers in Hedmarken, record for Grefsheim. Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995).
1901
Johan Egeberg Mellbye, who ran Grefsheim from 1889, took a keen interest in the weather. He had already measured the farm's rainfall for many years when in 1901 he became an observer for the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
The family has kept up the readings ever since, at the same spot in the farmyard.
The old logbooks survive. The entry for 3 July 1936 reads: «another hot day with thunder, followed by 45.77 mm of rain».
More than a hundred years of rain, snow and changing weather have been written down at Grefsheim.
Source: Feature in connection with the book Værfolk by Hugo Lauritz Jenssen and Guri Dahl. The logbooks in Grefsheim's collection.
1903
When the Great Dining Hall at the Royal Palace in Oslo got electric lighting in 1903, eight old crystal chandeliers for candles were sold at auction.
One of them ended up at Grefsheim.
It still hangs there, in the dining room.
Source: The Royal Court: “The Great Dining Room”, kongehuset.no. Grefsheim collection.
Before 1907
We know little about the origins of the two large mirrors in the drawing room. Both are marked Paris on the back, but who brought them to Grefsheim, and when, is unknown.
They can be seen in photographs from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's visit in 1907, and so have been at the farm for at least 119 years.
Their design points to 19th-century French interior tradition, but the mirrors have not been dated more precisely. For now, the Paris marking and the old photographs are the only sure traces of their history.
Source: Photographs from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's visit to Grefsheim in 1907. Information from the family at Grefsheim.
1907
In 1907 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and his wife Karoline visited Grefsheim, where Johan Egeberg Mellbye and his family lived.
Bjørnson had won the Nobel Prize in Literature four years earlier.
The visit was photographed, and the pictures are still kept in the farm's collection.
Source: Grefsheim collection.
1908
In the second half of the 1800s many families left the crofts under Grefsheim. Some went as far as America. When Johan Egeberg Mellbye took over the farm in 1889, the population had already fallen sharply.
Mellbye later became involved in the work against emigration from Norway.
In 1908 he became the first leader of the society later known as Ny Jord. It aimed to create more opportunities to make a living from farming in Norway, through new cultivation and the founding of new farms.
The following year Mellbye co-wrote the pamphlet Mot emigrationen.
Source: Norsk biografisk leksikon: «Johan E. Mellbye».
1911
In 1911 a historical pageant was held to raise money for a museum at the cathedral ruins in Hamar.
Emelie Mellbye of Grefsheim played Jomfru Karine, the noblewoman who had owned the farm in the 1500s. She was rowed across Mjøsa from Grefsheim to Domkirkeodden, as Karine had travelled to church according to tradition.
A photograph from the pageant later met a rather unexpected fate.
It ended up on a biscuit tin from the Scottish maker McVitie's, labelled «Viking Shortbread».
Both the photograph and the tin lid are kept at Grefsheim.
Source: Anno Domkirkeodden / DigitaltMuseum, 0412-17025. The photograph and the biscuit-tin lid are in Grefsheim's collection.
1920
In the summer of 1920 the 21-year-old Austrian Friedrich Hayek came to Grefsheim. He had been ill with malaria and was to recover his strength.
He arrived on 27 July and stayed until 13 September, almost seven weeks.
His diary tells of tennis, swimming, riding and boat trips on Mjøsa. He read Adam Smith, learned Norwegian and worked on a manuscript that later became a forerunner of his book The Sensory Order.
He later became a professor of economics, and in 1974 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics.
But he spent his summer at Grefsheim as a young student, with books, swimming and boat trips.
Source: Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger: Hayek: A Life, 1899-1950.
1920-1936
In the autumn of 1920 Johan Egeberg Mellbye received a consignment of apple rootstocks from Holstein in Germany. He wanted to plant an orchard at Grefsheim.
But there were more trees than the farm itself needed. The surplus was the start of Grefsheim Planteskole, the nursery.
The first nursery catalogue appeared in 1923. The following year the nursery began growing roses, and by 1936 it offered 66 rose varieties.
What began with a few spare apple trees became Grefsheim Planteskole, with customers across much of the country.
Source: Mellbyes Planteskole: «Om oss». NMBU: historical study of rose varieties in Norwegian nurseries.
1923
Grefsheim once had its own motorboat, named after Jomfru Karine Alvsdatter, who owned the farm in the 1500s.
Jomfru Karine was about nine metres long, with a twin-cylinder engine and seats upholstered in wine-red plush. She carried people between Grefsheim and Hamar.
On 15 February 1923 the boat was on her way home from Hamar after a repair. Mjøsa was full of drift ice, and the sharp floes cut holes in the hull.
The boat sank. The skipper, Even Støen, died.
The accident was seen from land and a rescue began quickly, but Støen could not be saved.
Jomfru Karine was later raised and repaired. The hull was given extra protection against the ice, and Even's son Torleif took over as skipper.
The boat went on sailing Mjøsa until the mid-1930s.
Source: Mjøssamlingene: «M/B Jomfru Karine», with information from Johan Mellbye at Grefsheim.
1924
From 1916 Martin and Petra Rud were in charge of the dairying at Grefsheim's summer farm at Grimstilen in Ringsaker common.
A photograph from around 1918-1920 shows them in front of the dairy hut with Johannes Tangen, Emelie Mellbye and a person whose name we do not know. The two pack horses were called Nybronen and Gentil.
The Rud family stayed until 1924. That summer was so wet that they did not want to carry on.
Source: Anno Domkirkeodden / DigitaltMuseum, inv. no. 0412-00850.
1929
Between the wars Grefsheim had a sizeable turkey production. Turkeys from the farm are also said to have been exported to Scotland.
In 1929 De Døves Blad, the magazine for the deaf, wrote about Polla Grefsheim, who worked on the farm. That summer she had reared and tended 400 turkeys.
The magazine printed a photograph of Polla holding a nine-kilo turkey, surrounded by turkey chicks.
Source: De Døves Blad, no. 6-8 (1929), p. 16. The information about exports to Scotland is based on the farm's historical material.
1941
In March 1941 the Gestapo, the German secret state police, came to Grefsheim and took away the farm's owner, Johan Egeberg Mellbye.
He had led the Norwegian Farmers' Union for more than 30 years. Now the German occupiers wanted to force the organisation under Nasjonal Samling, the Norwegian Nazi party.
Mellbye refused.
He was interned for 14 days and then kept under house arrest for the rest of the occupation. He was also forced to step down as chairman of the Farmers' Union.
Source: Thorleif J. Kvissellien: Garden Tokstad, Løykjedalen og væla omkring, p. 72.
1943-1945
Grimstilen in Ringsaker common was Grefsheim's summer farm. During the war it took on a very different use.
According to Ringsaker historical society, Milorg's activity in the area began right here. The summer farm became quarters for resistance men and for young men who had fled German labour service.
They took no chances. An escape trench was dug from the house out to the meadow beyond the fence, so they could get away unseen.
Even so they were discovered, not by a patrol but by German officers out hunting elk. The officers fired at them. The group escaped and took shelter in Rauskjørbua, a well-hidden cabin deeper in the forest.
Who stayed at Grimstilen, and exactly when it happened, we do not yet know.
Source: Ringsaker historical society, war history centre Garveriet in Moelv: post 46, Grimstilen. Ringsaker Blad: «Den mystiske Rauskjørbua».
1949
In 1949 nursery manager O. Imsgard was clearing an old nursery bed at Grefsheim. While working he found a spiraea that he decided to keep.
The shrub, which had probably arisen as a seedling, was later named «Grefsheim». It became known for its long, arching branches, covered in spring with small white flowers.
The variety became popular both in Norway and abroad. In Sweden it is called norskspirea, and in English-speaking countries it is known as «Grefsheim Spirea».
In 1993 it received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Source: Norske utvalg og foredlinger av busker og trær (2006), p. 82. Royal Horticultural Society: Award of Garden Merit (1993).
1960
In 1960 gardener O. Stenseth at Mellbyes Planteskole at Grefsheim discovered a new variant of a rose.
It had orange-pink flowers with a yellow centre and was later named «Emelie», after Emelie Mellbye.
The rose became part of the nursery's own range.
Source: Studies of the rose range.
1962
In the library at Grefsheim, books from several centuries stand close together. Old leather bindings with gold tooling, works of history, fiction and reference books fill the shelves. Among them are Edward Gibbon's great work on the fall of the Roman Empire and the collected works of Friedrich Schiller.
We do not know for certain when the library was given its present furnishings. The collection has grown over several generations.
In 1962 Aftenposten wrote about old documents at Grefsheim. Among them were the diaries of Johan Egeberg Mellbye (1866–1954), who began keeping a diary in 1888. The newspaper also mentioned papers left by the historian P. A. Munch (1810–1863), Johan Egeberg Mellbye's maternal grandfather. These included Munch's boyhood diary and the original manuscript of his edition of Fagrskinna, an Old Norse saga of the kings.
The library is still one of the rooms in the main house. The tall bookcases, the large fireplace and the old furnishings have been kept. In an older photograph two poodles sit comfortably in an armchair each, apparently quite content with life.
Source: Aftenposten, 1962. The Grefsheim collection.
1976
On 1 February 1976 Johan Mellbye and his wife Anne Lise, who owned Grefsheim, were out on the ice of Mjøsa. They wanted to check whether it was thick enough to drive on.
Then they noticed some small black stones lying on the frost.
Where had they come from?
The answer was space.
The stones had probably fallen a few days earlier. Altogether eight to ten pieces were found, weighing just 45.5 grams.
The meteorite was officially named Grefsheim and given to the Natural History Museum in Oslo.
Quite a long journey for a few small stones on the ice of Mjøsa.
Source: Store norske leksikon (Norwegian encyclopaedia): “Grefsheim - meteorite”. Natural History Museum, University of Oslo: “1976: Grefsheim”.
1979-1980
In winters when the ice was safe, Grefsheim kept an ice road across Mjøsa between Nes and Hamar. Across the ice it was three kilometres, against thirty around the lake.
Johan Edvard Mellbye at Grefsheim was responsible for measuring the ice and clearing the road.
Once he was out on the tractor when it suddenly felt as if he were driving uphill. But the ice was flat.
Johan realised what was about to happen and threw himself off the tractor. Moments later the ice broke. The tractor disappeared and came to rest 79 metres down.
Luckily he had a man with him on a kicksled with a rescue line.
Johan got ashore, but his beaver-nylon boiler suit was frozen so stiff that it had to be broken off him when he got home.
A hot bath did him good.
Source: Dagbladet, 15 February 2017. Interview with Johan Edvard Mellbye.
1993
In July 1993 Grefsheim had some unusual guests.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in secret at the farm to discuss a peace agreement. Johan and Anne Lise Mellbye, who owned Grefsheim, were the hosts.
The meetings were part of the secret negotiations that later led to the Oslo Accords. At Grefsheim the talks came close to breaking down.
On 12 September 1993 VG told the story over two pages. The next day the agreement was signed in public in Washington.
Source: Hilde Henriksen Waage, PRIO report. VG, 12 September 1993.
1993
In July 1993 Johan and Anne Lise Mellbye hosted secret peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians at Grefsheim.
The talks took place under heavy guard. For the first few days six security men in suits walked around the farmyard. It looked so conspicuous that the hosts sent them to Brumunddal to buy casual clothes. After that they were given garden tools.
One day a cow got out of its enclosure.
The Palestinian chief negotiator Abu Ala spotted the cow from the drawing room and wanted to go out and help. The security guards would not let him. The policeman sent to bring the cow back did not have an easy job either.
Johan later remarked that stopping cows was hardly part of police training.
Source: Dagbladet, 15 February 2017. Interview with Johan and Anne Lise Mellbye.
2010
Grefsheim has three old avenues. An ash avenue follows the approach road from north to south. A maple avenue runs west from the farm towards Mjøsa. Above the main house is a shorter chestnut avenue.
In 2010 the avenues were surveyed. More than a hundred large trees were recorded, several with massive trunks and great age.
The two longest avenues were given the highest natural value, «very important».
Source: Survey of the trees in the avenues at Grefsheim, 2010.
For more than 80 years
The family at Grefsheim has kept standard poodles for more than 80 years.
Through the generations the dogs have been part of life on the farm, with names such as Sambo, Olle, Olle, Bonnie, Sara, Funny, Marco and Susi.
The drawing shows these eight dogs, from different times.
Source: Information from the family.
Christmas
Anne Lise Mellbye, who owned and ran the farm with her husband Johan, wrote the book Jul i Norge (Christmas in Norway). In it she describes the preparations at Grefsheim: the house to be decorated, the food to be made, the songs that were sung and the traditions handed down from generation to generation.
Source: Anne Lise Mellbye: Jul i Norge.