Kajsa Anderson. My great great grandmother. She must have been quite a woman.
She had her first child at 19, Henry, in 1857. Peter was born 6 years later, then Charlie, and last, Anna. From what little I've been able to piece together, she emigrated from Sweden to America around 1883. She was 45 years old at the time, and traveled here with her four children. Henry was 26, Peter was 19, Charles was 13 and Anna, just 6.
How do you imagine that you can start a new life at 45?
What motivates you to make such a move?
I can only relate in my own experiences. I was 49 years old when I rented a truck, loaded all my belongings, towed my car, moving me and my son across country. Brian was 22 at the time. But I was moving to be closer to family, needed to be closer to them.
So that brings me back to the same question: What was the driving reason behind Kajsa moving from Sweden to America? I know younger men and women moved for the dream of a better life. Was she doing that for her children, a new place where they could make a better life on their own?
I don't ever recall my father talking about visits with his grandfather, Charles. They lived in Pennington county, my father was born in Marshall county, the distance between Thief River Falls and Alvarado, MN, is ... according to Google 39 miles. Was there ever a family picnic or Christmas gathering? Grandfather Charles died in 1952. My father was born in 1937. Surely there must have been some kind of .... relationship.
Or perhaps there was a family rift, they didn't seem to approve of Grandmother Myrtle marrying Harold Danielson. And I've always been curious about that. Grandma was always secretive, never wanting to talk about Harold's background. Now with the advent of the internet and census data being readily available and searchable, I have found several things that lead me to believe that the stories told were fiction. Or embellished 'truths' based on very little facts. I've contacted people over the years, and there have been differing opinions as to the real truth.
In the Alvarado cemetery, there are some other Danielsons buried there. Relatives? If so, they were never spoken of, either. And Alvarado has never been a town of thousands. Harold's mother, Christina, had family around as well. Her brother, Peter Hendrickson, was raising Harold at one point, as he's listed on the census as his nephew. So what's the real story? She was buried without a headstone, I haven't been able to locate any kind of information whatsoever about her, other than her being listed on different census' over the years.
About every six months, the urge to dig a little bit more grabs hold of me and I can't seem to let go without finding out something about a relative! Even a tidbit puts the whole story more into focus.
Genealogy sure is addicting!
Here's my great grandfather Charles with a cow on a lead ... one of my fav pictures because it tells more of a story than just a posed photograph:
