Kristi Noem Family History

The American politician Kristi Noem was born Kristi Lynn Arnold on November 30th, 1971 to  Ron and Corinne Arnold in Watertown, South Dakota.  Her parents were of north European stock, her father Franco-German and her mother Norwegian.  She was the third of their four children.

Kristi’s home was the family ranch near Hazel in Hamlin county.  Growing up, she learnt horsemanship and participated in rodeo queen events.  She attended Hamlin High School where she met her husband-to-be Bryon Noem.  They married in 1992 when she was twenty.

In 1990 she started at Northern State University in South Dakota, but did not graduate.  In March 1994 her father was killed in a grain bin accident and Kristi left college early to help run the family farm.

South Dakota Politics.  It was in 2006 that Kristi won a seat as a Republican in the South Dakota House of Representatives.  Four years later she ran for and won South Dakota’s at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Then in November 2016 she announced that she would run for Governor.  She won in 2018, the first woman to hold that office.  She was re-elected in 2022 by a record margin.

All this showed her popularity among voters in South Dakota.  She now had bigger national things to aim at.

National Politics.  The chance came with Donald Trump becoming President in 2024.  At this time she thought that she had the charisma and the right-wing credentials to succeed on the national stage.  She even harbored hopes that she might get the Vice Presidential spot.

That did not happen.  Still, President-elect Trump did select her to serve as his Secretary of Homeland Security, a important post because it was pivotal to the Government’s planned crackdown on immigration.

However, Washington DC was not so friendly to her as South Dakota had been.  The criticisms might have been unfair, but she had started to antagonize.  There was the story in her memoirs about shooting her dog.  She was labelled the ICE Barbie.  And rumors started to circulate about an alleged affair with her Chief of Staff.  Later there were jokes around her husband’s fetishism for women’s clothing.

Things got really bad with the ICE behavior in Minneapolis in January 2026.  Bruce Springsteen’s On the Streets of Minneapolis captured the anger that many felt when innocent Americans were being shot down dead.

• “Trump’s federal thugs beat up on his face and his chest,
• Then we heard the gunshots and Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead.
• Their claim was self-defence, sir, don’t believe your eyes.
• It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones
• Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.”

Someone had to take the rap.  Kristi Noem lost her job.

Kristi and Her Father

In her 2022 memoir Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland Kristi wrote a lot about her father.

This was one early story:

“There was the time her father grew irritated with his children’s inability to move an ornery cow into the barn.  He stormed toward the cow, wrapped his arm around its neck and ‘began punching her giant black nose.’  She and her brother watched as their dad lost his footing and became pinned under the angry animal.  They had to draw the cow’s attention away to save their father.”

Then there was the memory of fixing fences with her dad.  When she didn’t produce a needed tool immediately on demand, he barked: “Listen, you should know what I need before I know what I need!”

In her early twenties Kristi clashed with her father. They had a heated argument about the management of the family farm that ended in a verbal blow-up.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Kristi recalled saying. “I can’t do anything right for you.”

“Fine,” her dad responded. “Find yourself a job somewhere working for somebody else who lets you do anything you want.”  Kristi did just that and got a job in town.

Several months later, Ron Arnold climbed to the top of a grain bin, got sucked into a pocket of corn as he was trying to break up its crusted surface, and was instantly buried.  Rescuers eventually extracted him, but he died later in hospital.

During the aftermath of the tragedy, Kristi made a defining decision.  “No matter what I did,” she wrote, “I would live my life to make him proud.”  And Kristi inherited and embraced her father’s stubborn and risk-taking nature.

Her Franco-German Ancestry 

Her Arnolds originated from German-speaking Alsace Lorraine in present-day France.  Jacob Johann Arnold was born in the Bas-Rhin (Lower Rhine) region of Alsace in 1817.

Jacob left with his wife for America in 1841 and came to Cook county, Illinois where Chicago now stands.  His first wife Maria bore him six children, including William Arnold below.  But she died in 1850.  His second wife Mary whom he married in 1854 bore him another eleven children.

The early Arnolds of Kristi’s line in America went as follows:

• Jacob Johann Arnold from Alsace (1817-1891) m. Maria Pfieffer in Bas-Rhin in 1840
• to William Arnold from Illinois (1847-1925) m. Melissa Wendling in Illinois in 1873

South Dakota.  The Arnolds had arrived in America forty years before the Bergans on Kristi’s mother’s side had come.  But both reached South Dakota at around the same time (the mid-to-late 1880’s).  William Arnold’s route with his family was via Indiana.  They settled in Brantford township in Hamlin county.

They had come at the time of the Dakota Boom of the 1880’s.  This had been fueled by the passage of the Homestead Act and the extension of the railroads into Dakota Territory.  Germans and Norwegians were prominent amongst the new settlers of the region.  They mainly came to farm with wheat being their primary crop.  South Dakota gained its statehood in 1889.

Hamlin county where the Arnolds had settled lies in the northeast part of the state.  Its terrain consists of low rolling hills, dotted with small lakes and ponds.  Not many people live there.  The land is largely dedicated to farming.  The closest town of any substance is Watertown in nearby Codington county where there is a railroad terminal.

The Arnold line in Hamlin county went as follows:

• Edward Arnold from Indiana (1875-1951) m. Flora Robish in South Dakota around 1902
• Wesley Arnold (1914-1984) m. Arlys Bohn in South Dakota in 1939
• Ronald (Ron) Arnold (1944-1994) m. Corinne Bergan in South Dakota in 1967

Ron’s Death and the Aftermath.  Following Ron’s early and unexpected death in 1994, the family decided to take out a loan to pay off the taxes due on the estate.  Kristi and her siblings moved back to the ranch to help promote its business.

The ranch did benefit from Government farm subsidies during this time.  Over the years Kristi added a hunting lodge and restaurant to the property.

Her Norwegian Ancestry

The first evidence of the Bergan side of the family was the 1865 census in Norway.  Karen Jensdatte Stenstadvold, aged twenty-two, was then living on the family farm at Holla in the Telemark region of Norway.  She became the wife of Nils Thorstensen Bergan a year later in 1866.

South Dakota.  Karen’s husband died in 1884.  Two years after his death she departed with her children for America, ending up in South Dakota.  She died there in Dexter township, Codington county in 1894 at the age of fifty.  Her four children had thus lost both of their parents when they were still young, their ages then ranging from thirteen to twenty-three.

Thorsten Nilsen Bergan (Tom in America) was the oldest.

He farmed, married his wife Berta (also Norwegian) in 1909, and they went on to have ten children, seven boys and three girls.

One of their sons Alf Bergan – father to Corinne and Kristi’s maternal grandfather – worked at many things in his lifetime.

He co-owned a gas station, ran a small agricultural spraying business, and was for twenty years a rural letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service.  But when he died in 2008, he was remembered more for his love of the game of croquet.

“If there was a signature event associated with Alf’s life, it would be the sport of croquet.  This gentlemen’s sport gained popularity with family, friends, and his wife.  Over the years nearly forty invitational croquet tournaments were held at Alf’s home.  His love for the out of doors was not limited to croquet.  He was an avid sportsman and hunter for many years.”

Alf and his wife Dorris would hold biannual Bergan family reunions at their home for over forty years.

Kristi Noem nee Arnold Family Tree

• Edward Arnold from LaGrange county, Indiana (1875-1951) came to Hamlin county in South Dakota in the mid-1880’s and m. Flora Robish from Wisconsin (1880-1963) around 1902
• – Eldon Arnold (1904-1985) m. Riva Marquette
• – William Arnold (1905-1951) m. Ruth Forcht
• – Violet Arnold (1907-1994) m. Robbie Wright
• – Pearl Arnold (1909-1995) m. Paul Purintun
• – Theodore Arnold (1912-1989) m. Ardyth Johnston
• – Wesley Arnold (1914-1984)

• Wesley Arnold from Hamlin county, South Dakota m. Arlys Bohn (1921-2020) in South Dakota in 1939
• – Robert Arnold (1942-2023) m. Judy Lee
• – Ronald Arnold (1944-1994)

• Ronald (Ron) Arnold from Hamlin county, South Dakota, killed in 1994 m. Corinne Bergan (b. 1948) in South Dakota in 1967
• – Cindy Arnold (b. 1968) m. Wesley Grantham
• – Rock Arnold, older son
• – Kristi Noem nee Arnold (b. 1971)
• – Robb Arnold, younger son

• Kristi Arnold m. Bryon Noem (b. 1969) in Watertown, South Dakota in 1992
• – Kassidy Noem (b. 1994) m. Kyle Peters in 2019
• – Kennedy Noem (b. 1997) m. Tanner Frick in 2022
• – Booker Noem (b. 2002)

• Alf Harold Bergan from Codington county, South Dakota m. Dorris Rangaard (1925-2005) in South Dakota in 1947
• – Corinne Bergan (b. 1948) m. Ron Arnold (1944-1994)
• – Ronad (Ron) Bergan (b. 1952) m. Carol, teacher