Category: immigration
William Walden Kemp
Alice Maria Bååv gave birth to a boy on June 17, 1916 in North Collins, New York. North Collins is south of Buffalo, NY., and close to Lake Eire and the Canadian border. The little boy’s given names were William Walden.
Alice’s husband, William Nelson Kemp, had been born in Pennsylvania in 1887. His father was an immigrant from England, and his mother was from New York state.
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.”
Monday July 13, 1896
These are notes made at Ellis Island when the S/S Island, the ship that had left Göteborg on June 23, 1896, arrived. Passengers are listed as having embarked at Fredrikshavn on the Danish coast across from Göteborg, but we know that some of them had been on the ship since Göteborg. The Swedish passengers are at the top of the page. They are listed in the same order as they were on the manifest taken in Göteborg.
The page is torn where Elna G. Nilson’s name would be, right below Gustaf Larson. Following her line to the right we can see her final destination, New York. Most of the young men are listed as farmhands, and the young women as servant girls. I’m guessing Elna was another servant girl.
Elna had traveled in the aft, rear, of the ship. She brought one piece of luggage. On this part of the page alone four people are listed as having died on the voyage across the Atlantic. The first digit indicates the date, July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The second digit is a code for the cause of death. I haven’t been able to figure out what they mean.
My father has told me that his father, Elna’s brother Karl Adolf, was a seasick sea captain. I get seasick too. I wonder what three weeks on a ship across an ocean would have been like.
I hadn’t figured out that Elna’s name had disappeared in the worn fold of the piece of paper hadn’t it been for more experienced researchers. It seems obvious to compare the names on the list created when they departed from Göteborg to the list that was taken down when they arrived at Ellis Island. But I didn’t think of that. Instead I cursed. The records are well organized, but you never know. The paper trail is important. I needed to know that Elna arrived in New York, or else I would have lost her.
For a very long time this note was the last I knew of Elna’s whereabouts. She disappeared in New York, into what I imagined was a hot summer day, or a warm summer’s night.