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Biographical note: As I entered senior high school, it was not without trepidation that I went to my first class in Swedish literature. Our new teacher, Erik Norrhem, was preceded by a reputation as a demanding teacher - which he fully lived up to.. At the time I had no idea that we were related, or that later in life we would share the joy of discovering the family history! Erik helped my father get started in tracing the family history, and has been of great assistance to me as well. His work laid the foundation for this history. Lennart Elg The Swedish mass emigration to the US took place in the 1880´s and 1890´s. In some years during these two decades, more that fifty thousand Swedes emigrated. Lars and Stina Elg, of Gravendal, Säfsnäs, had ten children between 1844 and 1860. Two of these died in childhood, of the remaining eight, six emigrated to the US. First to emigrate was Lars Erik, b. 1853, who departed from Gothenburg for Iowa in November, 1877. Like all the other emigrating siblings, he appears in emigrant records kept by the Gothenburg police. Lars Erik Elg was accompanied by Emma Maria Nordström, age 20. She had been working as a housemaid in the family of Erik August Bergström, a blacksmith in Fredriksberg. Mrs Bergström was Lars Erik Elg´s sister Emma Kristina, b. 1848. The Bergströms had four children by 1878, when the whole family emigrated, one year after Lars-Erik Elg. The Bergström family, however, was headed for Topeka, Kansas, nor Iowa. With the Bergströms travelled another daughter of Lars and Stina Elg, Ida Augusta, b. 1857. Next to travel west is Anna Kristina, b. 1861. Only 19 years old, she emigrates in 1880. Her ship departed Gothenburg on May 21. According to emigration records, her destination is New York. However, on the same ship is another 19-year old Säfsnäs girl, Emma Dahl, with a ticket for Osage City, Kansas, only 25 miles south of Topeka, where the Bergströms lived. It is unlikely that the two girls made this journey independently. Later records of Anna Elg also support that she has been living in Kansas. She soon returns to Sweden, and parish records for Gravendal in 1889 show that she had married a man named Dahl in the US in 1883, but that she is now a widow. She has one daughter, Anna Kristina, "born 29th of July, 1884, in Kansas, N. America". Other sources confirm that her husband was Emma Dahl´s brother, Erik Albin, who had emigrated in 1881, and who died from yellow fever in August 1885. The daughter´s birthplace is recorded as Osage City, Kansas. Swedish parish records also show that in 1889, Anna Dahl is employed as housekeeper for Ludvig Andersson, a steel mill worker. In June 1890, Anna once more emigrates to the US., this time with Ludvig Andersson, Anna´s daughter, and a son Gustaf Ludvig, only nine months old. They travel far west, to Laramie, Wyoming, on the railroad between New York and San Francisco. Here they get married, and soon move on to Idaho Falls, Idaho (at that time known as Eagle Rock), where Ludvig Andersson finds work as a carpenter. They have five more children, a son who dies in infancy, and four daughters. Anna Andersson Elg dies in 1924, in Long Beach, California. When the Anderssons moved to Idaho Falls, Anna´s older brother Carl Johan, b. 1851, is already living there. He had emigrated via Gothenburg in March 1881. It is possible he travelled with Erik Albin Dahl, but emigration records show no destination for Carl Johan. It is possible that he has lived in Kansas before settling down in Idaho, where he became a successful merchant. Sixth, and last of the siblings to emigrate, is Eva Elisabeth, b. 1863. She had worked as a primary school teacher in Sweden. After marrying Oskar Eklund, the family emigrated to the US, some time in the 1890´s, where they too settled in Idaho Falls. Eva died around 1930, and her husband some time in the 1940´s. The two remaining children of Lars and Stina Elg, daughters Johanna, b.1846, and Maria Gustafva, b. 1854, both married local men, and stayed in Gravendal all their lives. Moreover, the two familes lived in apartments in the same house, most likely built by their father, and possibly the same house where they had been born. A remarkable contrast to their well-travelled siblings! Johanna is my great-grandmother. Maria´s grandchildren have raised my interest in my unknown American relatives. Much of the information in this article comes from Roy B Johnson Jr., grandson of Anna Elg and son of Anna Kristina Dahl, who tragically lost her father to yellow fever. Still, she did well in the new country, like the rest of these emigrants. In the US she called herself Christine Dahl, trained as a primary school teacher at Idaho Teacher College, married Roy B Johnson Sr, and had three sons, who all went to university. She passed away in 1971, in Berkeley, California. Erik Norrhem, in 1990.  Last updated 02-11-11, 10.09 |