Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Michele Bachmann
soul. Marcus, our childrenâthey have all been so good to me. And while I have tried to do right by them, I am blessed to have their solid support in my career, and I never want to take them for granted. So someday, I promise, weâll all take that long vacation!
And hereâs a fourth lesson, gained from that political battle in a little corner of Minnesota eleven years ago: Principle is more important than partisanship. I am a proud Republican, fully committed to the profamily, proâfree enterprise, prodefense policies of my party, but if I see a GOP leader failing to fight for our partyâs principles, I will not hesitate to speak outâand, if necessary, stand up.
As John F. Kennedy once said, sometimes political parties ask too much. The Minnesota Republican hierarchy didnât want me to run against their incumbent in 2000; they didnât know who I was. And once many party bigwigs did get to know me, they werenât sure that I could win the seat. But I did. And I did it again two years later. Even then, many of them never warmed up to me, because I always spoke up for what I believed were our core principles. I didnât get into politics to please men and women who had grasped for powerâjust the opposite, in fact.
I have always seen myself as a champion of the values I grew up withâthe values that have grown even stronger in my heart in the decades since. So I felt called to serve on April 1, 2000, and I have sensed that call ever since.
Armed with values and faith, supported by family and fellow citizens, together we can do much. We can secure what people are yearning forâthe chance to take our country back. Just watch.
CHAPTER TWO
The River That Finds Its Way: From the Sogne Fjord to Waterloo
I was born Michele Marie Amble on April 6, 1956, at Allen Memorial Hospital in Waterloo, Iowa.
But first let me tell you about those who came before me. I owe everything to them, and to the faith and values that they passed on to me. I often say that everything I need to know I learned in Iowa, but in fact the essentials of my life are rooted even further back in time.
My people were Norwegians; family names include âJohnson,â âMunson,â and âThompson,â as well as âAmble.â
Norway is a beautiful country boasting many scenic fjordsâlong, narrow inlets of water surrounded by rocky cliffs and hills. Fjords are wonderful to look at, although they are hard to make a living from. As a result, only about 3 percent of the land can be farmed, and those farms suffer from a short growing season and rocky soil. The Munson ancestral home was a modest farm called Ronnei; the family grew mostly potatoes, supplementing its meager food supply with fish caught from the nearby Jostedal River.
A few miles downriver from Ronnei is the village of Sogndal, looking out on the Sogne Fjord. âSogndalâ means a river that seeks its way.
Seeking the way. That was our story.
Norwegians had been coming to America since the seventeenth century, but organized emigration from Norway began in 1825, when fifty or so Norwegians arrived in New York City aboard the
Restauration
âa sloop my people remember as the Norwegian
Mayflower
. These history-making âsloopers,â as the early pioneers were called, settled in upstate New York, but most Norwegians chose to go farther west, where the land was cheaper and the horizon seemed wider.
In 1845 a group of eighty Norwegian Americans, living in what was then called the Muskego Settlementânear present-day Norway, Wisconsinâwrote an open letter to the people back home in the old country, extolling life in America and urging more Norwegians to join them in coming to the new realm, where the growing season was longer and the soil was richer. The signers proclaimed, âWe live under a generous government in a fertile land, where freedom and equality prevail in civil and religious affairs, and
And hereâs a fourth lesson, gained from that political battle in a little corner of Minnesota eleven years ago: Principle is more important than partisanship. I am a proud Republican, fully committed to the profamily, proâfree enterprise, prodefense policies of my party, but if I see a GOP leader failing to fight for our partyâs principles, I will not hesitate to speak outâand, if necessary, stand up.
As John F. Kennedy once said, sometimes political parties ask too much. The Minnesota Republican hierarchy didnât want me to run against their incumbent in 2000; they didnât know who I was. And once many party bigwigs did get to know me, they werenât sure that I could win the seat. But I did. And I did it again two years later. Even then, many of them never warmed up to me, because I always spoke up for what I believed were our core principles. I didnât get into politics to please men and women who had grasped for powerâjust the opposite, in fact.
I have always seen myself as a champion of the values I grew up withâthe values that have grown even stronger in my heart in the decades since. So I felt called to serve on April 1, 2000, and I have sensed that call ever since.
Armed with values and faith, supported by family and fellow citizens, together we can do much. We can secure what people are yearning forâthe chance to take our country back. Just watch.
CHAPTER TWO
The River That Finds Its Way: From the Sogne Fjord to Waterloo
I was born Michele Marie Amble on April 6, 1956, at Allen Memorial Hospital in Waterloo, Iowa.
But first let me tell you about those who came before me. I owe everything to them, and to the faith and values that they passed on to me. I often say that everything I need to know I learned in Iowa, but in fact the essentials of my life are rooted even further back in time.
My people were Norwegians; family names include âJohnson,â âMunson,â and âThompson,â as well as âAmble.â
Norway is a beautiful country boasting many scenic fjordsâlong, narrow inlets of water surrounded by rocky cliffs and hills. Fjords are wonderful to look at, although they are hard to make a living from. As a result, only about 3 percent of the land can be farmed, and those farms suffer from a short growing season and rocky soil. The Munson ancestral home was a modest farm called Ronnei; the family grew mostly potatoes, supplementing its meager food supply with fish caught from the nearby Jostedal River.
A few miles downriver from Ronnei is the village of Sogndal, looking out on the Sogne Fjord. âSogndalâ means a river that seeks its way.
Seeking the way. That was our story.
Norwegians had been coming to America since the seventeenth century, but organized emigration from Norway began in 1825, when fifty or so Norwegians arrived in New York City aboard the
Restauration
âa sloop my people remember as the Norwegian
Mayflower
. These history-making âsloopers,â as the early pioneers were called, settled in upstate New York, but most Norwegians chose to go farther west, where the land was cheaper and the horizon seemed wider.
In 1845 a group of eighty Norwegian Americans, living in what was then called the Muskego Settlementânear present-day Norway, Wisconsinâwrote an open letter to the people back home in the old country, extolling life in America and urging more Norwegians to join them in coming to the new realm, where the growing season was longer and the soil was richer. The signers proclaimed, âWe live under a generous government in a fertile land, where freedom and equality prevail in civil and religious affairs, and