Colfax centenarian still making lefse

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  Melvina Solberg Evenson turned 100 years old this summer, but that has not stopped her from making lefse.

Evenson and her son, Ronald Solberg, demonstrated making the flat Norwegian potato pastry Saturday, October 1, during the Colfax Lutheran Church’s annual fall bazaar.

By the time of the bazaar, Melvina had already made more than 300 pieces of lefse.

“At home, she rolled out most of them herself,” Ron said.

Rolling carefully with short sweeps, working out from the center of the dough, Ron and Melvina both roll the lefse so thin that you can see the stripes of the towel through the lefse.

Melvina and Ron roll out the lefse on a padded surface with a covered rolling pin.

When it was mentioned that Ron must have been making lefse for a while, too, he smiled.

“I’ve made a couple,” he said.

Many people around Colfax will remember Melvina as the owner of Solberg’s Ready-to-Wear on Main Street.

Operating a business did not leave much time for baking.

“Mom never used to make lefse when I was a kid. She was too busy trying to make a living,” Ron said.

“I had to go out to her folks, Grandma and Grandpa Lee, or Grandma Solberg, to get lefse. They all made it. Those guys made it on an old wood cook stove,” he said.

In years past, lefse was baked right on the top of a cast iron wood stove. No pan. No electric lefse griddle. Just the lefse and the stove top.

Melvina grew up south of Colfax in the Highway B area.

“She and her sisters used to walk across the hills to go to school at Colfax,” Ron said.

“When she was growing up, I think she spent more time out in the barn than she did doing lefse,” he said.

“My dad died in ‘62, and she got married again ten years later to Art Evenson, and Art started making lefse. But he didn’t roll it out thin enough for her, so she mentioned that to him. He gave her the stick and rolling pin and said, ‘if you want it thinner, here you go.’ That was in the 70s or 80s,” he said.

Thin, flat wooden sticks are used to turn the lefse while rolling them out and to transfer them to and from the griddle for baking.

Melvina confirmed that she started making lefse somewhat later in life.

“I didn’t make lefse until (some years ago). When my second husband came, he was making lefse. But he made them too thick. I said, ‘why don’t you make them thinner?’ And he said, ‘you do it.’ So that’s when I started,” Melvina said.

“My mother made it when I was growing up. I might have helped turn the lefse, but I never made it,” she said.

Ron says he uses less flour than his mother to roll them out.

“You have to use more in the beginning, but then I don’t use much after that,” he said.

Melvina bakes lefse for the Grapevine craft sale in November as well.

Anyone who has gone to the Grapevine for the craft sale on the opening day of gun deer season knows you have to get there early because the lefse sells out quickly.

Melvina said she received some financial help this year from Thrivent Financial for lefse ingredients and plastic bags to wrap them in.

“What I don’t use (for ingredients), I have to give to the church, and they can use it to buy coffee or whatever they need,” she said.