When the Titanic sunk on April 15th, 1912, Johannes Nysveen from Øyer, Gudbrandsdal valley, Norway, went down in the disaster. Johannes, born 1850, had emigrated to the US some time after 1880, and had lived in ND with his Norwegian wife. After 6 children were born his wife died and so in 1909 he returned to Norway. He remarried there and planned to remain in Norway. However, in 1912 Johannes decided to take a trip to ND to arrange for his eldest son from the first marriage to take over his farm here. He had plans to return to Norway after the business was settled, but he never returned.

Johannes left by train from Gudbrandsdalen in April 1912, went by ship to England, and found that the ship he had booked a ticket on was overbooked, so he entered a drawing for a ticket on the Titanic. Unfortunately, he won a third class ticket and boarded the Titanic for it's maiden voyage. He sent a card from Southampton to his wife before he knew he was going on that ship, and told her that all was well. When the vessel went down, none in his family knew that he was on it. When the list of the lost and the saved came out in May 1912, his name was mispelled as Johan Nyoven so his family did not know that he was among the lost. When it was corrected to John Niskenen they still did not know that he had perished on the Titanic!

When Johannes realized that he would go down with the ship, he gave his watch and his overcoat to a younger man thinking that he would have a better chance to survive than himself as he was now 60 years old. The younger man did survive and brought the items to the sons of Johannes and told them what had happened. They were living in Traill Co. between Hillsboro and Mayville. The grandsons of Johann live in Hillsboro at present.

When Mr. Nysveen's widow got the news in Norway, she never overcame the shock and had mental problems for the remainder of her life. She and Johannes had 3 three children. The oldest emigrated to America and 2 others remained in Norway. There are decendants of Jørgen Nysveen, youngest son of Johannes and wife #2, living in Valdres today who say that seeing the movie about the Titanic was a very emotional experience for them.