Category: Hedberg family

Gustava, Stockholm, 1870-1882

Humlegården, Stockholm, 1880s. Gustava lived close to this park for many years.

Anna Cajsa and Johanna’s younger sister Gustafva left Falköping for Stockholm on Oct. 21, 1870. She was 18 years old.

Gustava gave birth to a daughter, Susanna Olivia, on Sept. 2, 1873 in Stockholm. At that time Gustava was living in Kalmar, Uppland, where she was employed as maid. She moved to Stockholm on Nov. 3, 1873, leaving Susanna Olivia behind to be raised as a foster child. During 1873-74 Gustava was employed in a household in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s Old Town.

According to the Kalmar, Uppland, church records, in 1876 Susanna Olivia seems to have moved back to Stockholm. It’s unclear where she went.

The Stockholm population was exploding in the late 1800s. The Swedish church, the main keeper of records, couldn’t keep up and books were instead kept by local offices. It’s not easy to piece together Gustava’s life.

In 1878-1879 Gustava is listed as living in Östermalmsgatan, with a son born in 1877, Karl Anders. In 1879 she’s living in Grev Turegatan with three children, Ada Gustafva born in 1874, Karl Anders born in 1877, and Olga Karolina born in 1879. There is no sign of Susanna Olivia.

In 1879 she’s also listed as living in Bellmansro, with no children.

In 1881 she’s living with her future husband, Anders Wenngren, in Djurgården. No children are listed as living with them.

In 1882 she’s still listed as Anders Wenngren’s fiancé, and now they have two children in the house: Susanna Olivia, and Ada Gustafva. At this time the two girls would have been 8 and 9 years old. Three different addresses are given for them this year: One place in Linnegatan, and two different places in Nybrogatan.

Bror Johan II

Provisoriska barnbördhuset, c. 1890

On Oct. 4, 1873, Anna Cajsa Hedberg gave birth to a second son. She gave him the same name as his older brother, Bror Johan. He was baptized on Oct. 6.

Women who couldn’t afford to bring a midwife to their home were forced to give birth in a hospital, where the risk of contracting infections was high. Anna Cajsa gave birth at Provisoriska Barnbördshuset, a temporary hospital in the southern part of Stockholm where she lived.

On Oct. 16, 1873, Anna Cajsa died from barnsängsfeber (childbed fever or puerperal fever). She was buried on Oct. 19. She was 25 years old.

Bror Johan Theodor Hedberg, 1870-1872

Two of Johanna’s younger sisters moved to Stockholm. Anna Cajsa, b. 1848, and Gustafva, b. 1852. Anna Cajsa left Falköping for Stockholm in 1866, when she was 18 years old.

In 1867 Anna Cajsa lived in Katarina parish, in the southern part of the city. On Dec. 2, 1870, she gave birth to a son, Bror Johan Theodor.

Anna Cajsa must have been without means because the little boy was taken care of at Allmänna Barnhuset, a home for children. According to the established system, Anna Cajsa paid for the care by nursing other children as well as her own son. She is the only parent listed for Bror Johan.

On March 28, 1871, Bror Johan Theodor was placed with a family in Rosendal. They would raise him and receive a small stipend in return.

“Död” is Swedish for death, or dead. While in the care of the family in Rosendal, Bror Johan Theodor died on January 7, 1872. He was a little more than 13 months old.

Mrs. Trommer has gone to her Heavenly home

Sandra Olivia was born on November 4th, 1868, in Marka, Skaraborg, Sweden. She was the fourth child and the first daughter of Anders and Maja Christina Grov. When she was about a year and a half, in the summer of 1870, her family emigrated to Jefferson County, Iowa.

In the 1890s, when Zanna Olive Groves was in her 20s, she worked for a few years at the Willow Creek Boarding School on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation west of Browning in northern Montana.

In Montana she met John Edward “Dutch Ed” Trommer, a German immigrant who had come west working on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Olive and Ed married on August 29, 1898, and filed claims for land close to Chester, Montana. They became sheep ranchers and quite successful.

In the fall of 1905 Olive was visiting her parents in Iowa, giving birth to her fifth child. From the Fort Benton River Press, Nov. 29, 1905:

From the Fairfield Daily Journal, Nov. 25, 1905:
“…. This community was shocked Monday evening to hear that Mrs. Ollie Trammer was dead. She had come from her home in Montana with her husband and children two months ago to visit her parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. G. GROVE. The husband had gone back and Mrs. TRAMMER and children remained. A little babe was born three weeks ago and the mother was apparently on the road to recovery. Monday she was bright and hopeful all day, planning when she would be able to return to her Montana home, but about six o’clock she was stricken with heart failure and in half an hour she had gone to her Heavenly home. Messages were sent to the husband and to a brother and sister in Colorado. The deepest sympathy of the entire community goes out to the bereaved husband and parents and to those who cared for her so faithfully and to the five little ones who so much need a mother’s care.”

Anders Svensson Hedberg

Anders Hedberg, laborer, died in Falköping on Sept. 21, 1875. He was 64.

The estimated total value of his belongings was 90 kronor, around $10.

The estate inventory states that his daughter Maria Christina’s whereabouts were “unknown”.

Christina and her family had emigrated in 1870, and in 1875 they were living in Cedar Township, Jefferson Co., Iowa.

Johanna

The first time Johanna moved away from her family to work was in 1862. She was 18 years old. She moved to Slättäng, in Sandhem southeast of Falköping. Two roads met in Slättäng and there had been a local court and an inn there for a long time. It seems Johanna was a maid at the inn. We can’t know for sure what kind of work she did, but likely household jobs like cleaning and/or kitchen work. She gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Olivia, on Feb. 13, 1864. The little girl died in May the same year.

My grandfather Karl Adolf was born in Falköping in 1871, and his sister Elma Georgina in Stora Malm in 1875. Johanna moved around Falköping several times with her father and younger sister Ada during those years. I haven’t been able to trace all her moves. Even tho Elma is noted as having been born in Stora Malm some distance away I haven’t been able to find Johanna in that parish.

Former staff lodgings at Horns säteri, Överenhörna.

After Johanna’s father Anders died in September of 1875 Johanna and her two children moved to Horns säteri, in Överenhörna. That’s where Johanna met Josef Larsson Kratz, who she would later marry.

More accomplished researchers would probably not give up before they’d been able to trace Johanna’s every step across Sweden. For one thing, there might be clues as to who Karl Adolf’s and Elma’s fathers were in the household records. I’ve decided to let the mystery be, for now.

Alice Maria Bååv

Alice Maria Bååv, Ada’s daughter, Cintra’s older sister, and my grandfather’s first cousin, left Göteborg for Hull on the S/S Runo on March 17, 1913. From Hull she took the train to Liverpool, and then she left for New York from there.

Alice arrived in Ellis Island on March 30, 1913 onboard the Celtic of Liverpool. She was 5 feet and 7 inches tall, had a fair complexion, brown hair, and blue eyes. She gave the address of a friend, Ingeborg Olsson: 33, W. 12th St., NYC. The old notes are hard to read, but she seems to have had $75 with her. She was of good mental and physical health. She was 25 years old.

From where Alice’s family were living in Bangatan, Göteborg, they could have taken a short walk to the quay, and seen Runo sail away. They lived so close they would have heard and smelled the ocean everyday, before and after Alice left.

Maja Christina/Mary C.

Cedar Township, right outside of Fairfield in Jefferson Co., Iowa, is where Johanna’s older sister Maja Christina ended up with her family. Maja, b. 1842, had married Anders Gustaf Grof in 1860. In 1870 they left Sweden for the US with their four children.


Cedar Township, Jefferson Co., Iowa, 1905.

The old map shows 140 acres belonging to A. G. Groves. That’s Maja’s husband, Anders Gustaf. Grof has turned into Grove, or Groves. A little to the west of their property there are 103 acres belonging to Elmer Grove. That’s their son, born in 1874 in Lockridge, Jefferson Co. There are also 100 acres belonging to C. J. Groves. That’s their son Karl Johan, or Charles John. And, there are 40 acres belonging to Groves & Groves. Father and son? Or two sons?

Maja and Anders, or Mary and Andrew, their Anglicized names, had 12 children. Eight boys and four girls. Many of them continued to farm. All of them were given Swedish first names that they made American.

July 10, 1871

      Trädgårdsgatan, Hästtorget, Falköping, in the 1930s.

My paternal grandfather Karl Adolf (or, later in life, Carl Adolf) was born in Falköping. Skaraborg, Sweden, on July 10, 1871. At the time his mother, grandfather, and teenage aunt were living in a small house in Trädgårdsgatan at Hästtorget. I’m guessing he was born at home.

In the 1870s Hästtorget, or Hästbacken as it was known, was right outside town. It was, and still is, a large, open, sloping, area. In the old days it was used for markets. ‘Hästtorget’ translates to ‘horse square.’

From Trädgårdsgatan you have a clear view all the way across town to the mountains on the other side. I am sure in the 1870s the interior of a small old wooden house was dark, cramped, smelly, and dirty. But the view. I hope it lifted some spirits.