After his mother died, Jacob and his siblings became orphans and were sent to various relatives. He was sent to his uncle Ola Gundersen (note 1) to live. Jacob and Hanna lived only a short distance from each other, and they became engaged when he was eighteen.
He then left for the U.S. with his first cousin, Lauritz Tveidt (note 2), in 1898 to earn money, and worked on the railroad in Iowa and in the wheat fields of South Dakota. Jacob changed his last name from Vilhelmsen to Sandve after coming to America. He became a U.S. citizen on 11/30/1904.
He returned to marry Hanna in March of 1905, but stayed in Norway only eleven days. Later that year, their first child, Marguerite, was born. He sent his new wife money to help support them over the next years, but couldn’t correspond himself, because he had very little formal schooling and was not able to write.
In 1911, he was able to send enough money for ship tickets, $546.59, and Hanna and Marguerite finally sailed to the U.S. to join him in 1913. His family stayed with his sister, Kaia (Carrie), and brother-in-law, Jacob Hansen (note 3), at their farm in Norway, Iowa for several years, until he was able to rent a farm in the area to work on his own. By 1919, Jacob was able to buy a farm near Ellsworth, Iowa but he was forced to give it up in the Great Depression. He started over on rented farms in Ellsworth and Randall. Jacob (aka Jake) and Hannah had nine children. In 1948, he bought another farm in Grand Meadow, Minnesota. He died of pneumonia complications, after suffering a heart attack in 1953.
note 1: Ola Gunderson (1809-1883) was actually his great uncle, related through his mother’s father’s sister, Inger Helgesdtr (1819-1890), who married Gunderson in 1845.
note 2: Lauritz Gabriel Larssen Tveidt (1881-1971) was the son of his aunt (father's sister) Anna Malena Toresdatter, and was born in Sæveland(Tvedt), Åkra, Rogaland, Norway. In America, he eventually settled and raised a family in Sturgis, South Dakota.
note 3: Jacob Hansen (1884-1968) came from Denmark to the U.S. in 1905 and was married to Jacob's sister, Kaia Vilhelmsdatter (1882-1918) who came to the U.S. in 1902.
Taken from biography on ancestry.com.