American Folk Art Margaret Enid Johnson Porter

American Folk Art, Artist, MEJP, Margaret Enid Johnson Porter of Knox County, Illinois ... She was born September 29, 1920 in Galesburg, Illinois. She died October 23, 2003. She was raised on The Old Johnson Farm in Knox County, Illinois. Her oil paintings were of serene country and farm scenes in Illinois and of the Talle Farm in Luster Fjord, Norway. Luster Fjord is the inner-most branch of Sogn Fjord. The Norway Talle Farm is near and North of Hoyheimsvik. The Norway Talle Farm has historical importance to the Talle / Talla family going back to the 1593 marriage there of ancestors Anders Lauritzson Heiberg Fuhr Ronnei and Maren Tordsdatter Benkestok when Talle was owned by Anders' brother Sofren Lauritzson Heiberg af Talle. As I write this in 2023, 1593 was 430 years ago! The Heiberg brothers claimed direct descent from the lone feral girl who survived alone in the adjacent Jostedal ice glacier valley after the 1350 Black Death killed everyone else in the Jostedal valley which was the next over valley West of Talle. That ice glacier melt water drained into Gaupne Fjord (small branch of Luster Fjord) in a stream between Gaupne and the Heiberg Family Ronnei Farm. 1350 was about 200 years or about 7 generations before the Heiberg brothers' birth. So, this means our Talle family ancestors lived in this immediate area at least from before 1350 which is 673 years ago as I write this in 2023. 673 years ago! And our Talle cousins still now live at Talle! My great aunt's 1978 painting of The Talle Gaard / Talle / Talla Farm is beautiful with its blooming fruit trees and berry bushes in Spring. Susanna and Nils Talle were married in 1801, 222 years ago as I write this in 2023! Both their names came from this farm ... as his father's family name was Hillestad from the name of the place that he lived a short distance South of Ronnei. All four grandparents of Margaret's mother Clara (Claire) Sage Talla Johnson were born in Norway, three in Luster Fjord valley. These four ancestors immigrated to America in the 1850s. Margaret Enid Johnson Porter was my paternal grandma Phyllis Talla Johnson Westerfield's younger sister. I publish MEJP's paintings with kind permission from her son Len Porter (Howard Leonard Porter III, PhD).