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Old Romsdal Cemetery
Highland Twp, Lincoln County, South Dakota

T97N R49W Sec 21
Lat: 43° 12' 04"N, Lon: 96° 45' 55"W

Contributed by Brian Hass, Dec 26, 2002 [brian_m_hass@hotmail.com].
Total records = 25.

The Old Romsdal Cemetery is located three miles north and one mile east of the newer Romsdal Cemetery. It is northeast of the intersection of Lincoln County's 289th Street and Lincoln County's 478th Avenue. It is on the southwest corner of the southwest quarter of Section 21 of Highland Township in Lincoln County, South Dakota. The cemetery is located eight miles north and six miles east of Beresford, South Dakota.

On Apr 26, 1872, the first meeting to organize a church was held on the Peter Enebo farm. On July 4, 1872, Peter Enebo deeded an acre of land from the southwest corner of his farm. This was to be used as a cemetery for the congregation. The first burial at the cemetery was that of Peter's own eleven year old son, Johannes (or John) Enebo, who was reported to have been killed in a farm accident.

During the 1880's, there was talk of constructing a church building; but, construction was not possible due to hard times. In 1890, Lars Kylling offered two acres of his land for the construction of the new church. Later that same year, the church was built. Lars Kylling named the new church and cemetery Romsdal after the area in Norway from where he came. The old cemetery, which was no longer used beyond the 1890's, became known as the Old Romsdal Cemetery. In time, the old cemetery became deserted and was eventually abandoned.

In about 1974, the names and known years of death of the people buried at the Old Romsdal Cemetery were inscribed on a monument. Above the list of names and dates, the monument read, "IN MEMORY OF PERSONS BURIED IN THE OLD ROMSDAL CEMETERY." Below the list of names, another inscription read, "WHAT WE KEEP IN MEMORY IS OURS UNCHANGED FOREVER." This monument was placed near the southeast corner of the Romsdal Church at the new cemetery.

The monument inscription spelled the surname of eight of the people as "Eneboe." The burial records spelled this surname as "Enebo" for the same eight people; and, this matched the spelling of Peter Enebo's surname that was found in the GLO records. It is worth mentioning that both spellings of this surname were found on the markers of people buried at the new Romsdal Cemetery; but, the "Enebo" spelling was found only once.

Because of the lack of monuments at the Old Romsdal Cemetery, the memorial monument at the new cemetery was the primary source of data for the list which follows, which includes all known burials at the Old Romsdal Cemetery. Grave numbers were obtained from burial records. Four of the death dates were inscribed on the monument as "UNKNOWN;" and, the death dates for those people are listed with double question marks in the following list.

I made two visits to the site on Nov 07, 2002 which revealed there was no longer any visible evidence of the cemetery. No markers were visible and there appeared to be nothing there, except a corn field.

- Brian Hass

Alness, Sivert, d. 1874, grv. 4
Eneboe Mina, d. 1890, grv. 15
Eneboe, Anna, d. 1890, grv. 13
Eneboe, Joda, d. 1888, grv. 21
Eneboe, John, d. 1873, grv. 17
Eneboe, John, d. 1892, grv. 20
Eneboe, Josephine, d. 1876, grv. 16
Eneboe, Josephine, d. 1890, grv. 14
Eneboe, Marie, d. 1882, grv. 22
Enstad, Marie, d. 1882, grv. 45
Isackson, Mark, d. 1883, grv. 35
Kloppen, Engeborg, d. 1897, grv. 41
Kloppen, Marie, no dates, grv. 42
Kloppen, Marie, no dates, grv. 43
Kloppen, Syvert, no dates, grv. 40
Kylling, Edwin, d. 1888, burial records list as Carl Kylling, grv. 3
Kylling, Louise, d. 1876, burial records list as an infant, grv. 2
Kylling, Louise, d. 1878, burial records list as an infant, grv. 1
Lien, Anna, d. 1876, grv. 23
Rommereim, Joseph, d. 1880
Rommereim, Olina, d. 1881
Sundy, Clara, d. 1880, grv. 31
Sundy, Clara, d. 1882, grv. 30
Sundy, Karl, d. 1878, grv. 32
Torgerson, Marie, no dates

Information was gathered from the following sources:

1) 2002 Romsdal Cemetery Survey Notes by Brian Hass. This is a collection of hand-printed survey data and notes collected during the visit to the Romsdal and Old Romsdal Cemeteries in 2002. The data includes all information of genealogical interest obtained from grave marker inscriptions. Special care was taken to insure that all name spellings were transcribed accurately from the markers. This document includes corrections. No grave markers were noted during the visit to the Old Romsdal Cemetery.

2) "Romsdal Lutheran Cemetery," page 79 of the Beresford Centennial book, Beresford_100_Years, published 1983 by the "Beresford Republic" and the "Lennox Independent." This contains some historical information on the Old Romsdal and Romsdal cemeteries.

3) "Romsdal Lutheran Church," page 173 of the The_History_of_Lincoln_County_South_Dakota, published 1985 by Pine Hill Press, Freeman, SD

4) "Peder and Ragnild Eneboe Family," page 365-6 of the The_History_of_Lincoln_County_South_Dakota, published 1985 by Pine Hill Press, Freeman, SD

5) Old Romsdal Cemetery burial records. This document lists names, years of death, and grave numbers. This document was obtained from the Clerk of Courts on September 17, 1969. It listed all but three of the names inscribed on the memorial monument at the new Romsdal Cemetery.

6) "History of Romsdal Cemetery" by Clarice Yttreness, 1989. This history of the cemetery was written for the GFWC of Beresford, SD for the South Dakota state centennial project.

7) The Bureau of Land Management's GLO records.

8) South_Dakota_Atlas_and_Gazetteer (first edition), page 71, pub. 1997 by DeLorme