The Kvale family's journey that shaped a century-long ranching legacy

Our Century Farm series highlights the history and legacy of America's family farms. These multigenerational operations have overcome many challenges and have lessons to share.

In the early 1900s, a Norwegian immigrant made his way to northwest South Dakota, homesteading next to a farm family and eventually marrying the farmer’s daughter. More than a century later, their grandson still lives on the family land and farms with his son.

Hazel Albright was born in 1892 in Deloit, Iowa. In 1908, after spending a few years in Minnesota, her family loaded a train car with six cows and two horses, then headed west to Lemmon, South Dakota, to stake a claim.

Meanwhile, in the small island village of Leka, Norway, fisherman John Kvale (pronounced “Qualley”) had been caught in a terrible storm at sea. He vowed never to fish again, left for America, and homesteaded right next to the Albrights in 1911, about as far from the ocean as he could get. 

He regularly called on his neighbors to buy their milk and butter, and to visit their daughter, Hazel, who had staked her own claim on a neighboring half section of land.

The two were married in 1915 and had four children: Harold, Norman, Irene, and Thelma. They raised livestock and planted crops, surviving the drought of the 1930s. Their original home was still standing until a few years ago, but their chicken coop, granary, and windmill remain. 

In 1949, Norman brought his bride, Belle, to the ranch, where they raised four children: Richard, Dale, Tim, and Beverly. Harold lived across the road and worked with them.

Norman continued to ranch until a four-wheeler accident at age 90. He lived to be 95. His obituary read, “He had a reputation for making perfect haystacks. He was still bucking up hay long after the neighbors were using balers.” Belle passed away earlier this year at age 97.

Creating the next generation

Like their father, Norman and Belle’s kids attended the one-room Paris School a few miles from home. Although the windows and paint are gone and light shines through a few places in the roof, the school still stands. Dale says he got a wonderful education. “You could think ahead hearing the teacher give lessons to the older kids, and when she taught the younger kids, it was like getting a review,” he says. “And people are impressed when I tell them I went to school in Paris.”

Meanwhile, a girl named Mary was attending school in Lemmon. Her family moved to Eugene, Oregon, when she was a sophomore in high school. “I couldn’t stand it out there. It rained all the time and I just got depressed,” she says. “So, I finished high school and took the train back to Lemmon by myself. I was scared to death.”

She and Dale met and started dating, married in 1978, and began life together on the ranch. They adopted son Clint in 1984 and daughter Mandy in 1988. Dale and Mary’s home sits on his grandfather’s original homestead.

Mandy works with Farm Credit Services in Bowman, North Dakota, about 90 minutes away. “She comes home quite often,” Dale says. “If we have cattle stuff to do, she likes that.”

Clint is married with two children and works with his dad on the farm. “He’s getting more and more interested in soil health and has been going to some grazing schools,” Dale says.

Cold-weather challenges

Winter in this part of the country can be brutal and unforgiving. With snowfall often measured in feet rather than inches and few trees to stop the wind, snowdrifts can overtake buildings in no time.

The winter of 1974 was one of those particularly tough seasons. “We had our cows about 2 miles south around the creek and they started calving before the bad weather was done,” Dale says. “Our heifers were having trouble calving, and we had snowbanks out here that were probably 8 feet deep. I rode down there twice a day and brought home anything that looked like they were going to calve. Our horses were good. They knew what to do.”

Once he was able to get the heifers into the barn, Dale stayed with them in an old trailer they used for feed storage inside the barn. “I slept in that trailer under an old flannel-lined cowhide robe that my grandma and grandpa had,” he says. 

Dale found some relief from the winter weather when he bought a Deutz tractor with a cab and front-wheel assist in the early 1990s. “We got that after a bad, bad winter, and the two-wheel drive with just the chains wasn’t cutting it because we had to drive about 2 miles to feed the cows,” he says. 

In October 2013, Dale’s cattle were in a pasture on the other side of the river when a blizzard hit. “The river was high by the time we were able to go get the cows and we had to swim them across," he says. "We found a spot to cross with the horses where it wasn’t over their backs, but it was cold. There was ice and snow in the water. It was amazing watching the cows swimming the river like that. There were some that were just shot by the time they got to the other side of the river, and they could hardly get up the bank.” 

Cattle country

The family originally raised Hereford cattle but has since converted to Angus. “First we tried Simmental, but the calves were too big and we had a little too much calving trouble,” Dale says. “We tried Charolais, and same thing. If you have to drag them out of a snowbank, they’re too heavy.”

His cattle graze on his own land and in the Grand River National Grassland (referred to as the government pasture). Cattle from six ranches graze this particular pasture together, making branding crucial. 

“You get a vote, and whatever the majority wants, that’s the bull you have to use,” Dale explains. “Except now we have split this government pasture into two sections so the Angus people are in one and the Charolais people are in another.” He admits to still longing for those Herefords. 

At roundup time, the Kvales work with their closest neighbors, the Bill Penfield family. They move all the cattle into one corner and peel off those belonging to other families. “For sorting cows, there’s no substitute for a horse,” Dale says. “You can get it done with a four-wheeler, but you’re going to have stuff a lot more stirred up.”

Once separated from the herd, the Kvale and Penfield cattle are moved to Penfield’s property, where they are split up. 

“By the time we get there, most of our cows know they don’t belong there so they keep going,” Dale says.

Roundup can last well into the night. “I can remember times when we couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black. We just turned the horses loose since they could see. They knew the way home. We’d come to a gate and they’d stop and wait for us to get down and open it.”

A lifetime of ranching has taught Dale many lessons, including that there are no shortcuts and patience is key. “The fastest way to work cattle is slow,” he says.

Planting on the prairie

In addition to raising cattle, the Kvales grow wheat, oats, barley, and sunflowers. Clint keeps up to date on the technology surrounding planting. 

"We’ve gotten away from conventional farming and have gone to no-till, but that takes a lot of gadgets in the tractor cab and screens to look at and buttons to punch. Clint usually is in charge of seeding and I can combine still,” Dale says.

“I think we’ll eventually phase the farming part out. Right now the cattle pretty much support our farming habit,” he says. “It’s nice to be diversified and have different options. Some years the cattle market’s good. Sometimes the grains are good. But the inputs on farming are getting so high.”

Grasshoppers are another tough obstacle. “In one wheat field, the grasshoppers were so bad we only got 10 bushels to the acre, and we had put quite a bit of money into it,” he says.

The Kvales plant cover crops including oats, millet, radishes, turnips, and rape for grazing. “The grasshoppers this year pretty much destroyed it,” Dale says. “I ended up hiring a plane to spray a half section because there wasn’t going to be anything left for the cows to eat.”

Looking back and ahead

While planning for the future, the Kvales also reflect on the past. 

“I don’t think the ancestors could ever have imagined how things have changed,” Dale says. “Just in my lifetime things have changed so much.”

The evolution goes beyond agriculture. “Even having a telephone changed everything,” Mary says. “Being able to have hot water to wash clothes and for everybody to take a bath.”

In addition to the lessons learned about farming and family, Dale was taught by example to get involved in the community. “Our Christian faith has been an important part our lives, and our family has been active members of Calvary Lutheran Church in Lemmon since its founding in my grandparents’ days as the Norwegian Lutheran Church,” he says. 

Norman served on the county school board and soil conservation board. Norman, Belle, and Harold were selected as Boss Cowman honorees at the community’s celebration of ranching in 2002. Dale has served as township clerk for about 40 years and was one of the founding members of the Grand River Fire Department, where he and Clint still serve today.

Despite any challenges that come his way, Dale has a deep understanding of the obstacles his ancestors overcame to build a life here, and he aims to take care of the land for which they risked everything.