Linderoth Mystery

My paternal great-grandmother is Christine Hendrickson.  She is listed in the obituary of Peter Hendrickson as his sister; her son Harold is listed as living with Peter on the 1910 Census as "nephew" -- so the family line fits.  Martin H Linderoth is listed as the brother of Peter Hendrickson (oh the joys of these swedes who came over and re-invented themselves with a new name...... ) 

So I am trying to do research on Martin H Linderoth.  I find it quite odd that I cannot locate a grave for him.  I know he was born in August 1858, and that he died after 1922.  He was the President of the State Bank of Alvarado (Minnesota) and also on the board of directors.  Wouldn't a small town make sure there was a grave marker for one of their own? 



Thanks to the Warren Sheaf for putting small town news in their paper, I know that he bought a new Ford car in 1917.   Considering he had a family, perhaps it was the Model T Touring car like this one:








And then in 1922
he was the administrator of his
brother, Peter Hendrickson's estate.




Where does one look for Mr. Linderoth after this?  I have tried to follow his children, but girls are difficult because of their possible married names.  He had four children with Carolina, who had already been married and had children prior to this marriage.  Esther, Henning, Edwin and Ida. It's also difficult to locate children when they change the spelling of their name.

Maybe one day, I will know more!

Mysterious Fire!

I found another glimmer of life on the farm with this tidbit from the Warren Sheaf, October 1916.  Peter Liden is my great grandfather's older brother, and sadly, they lost a part of their livelihood when there was a mysterious fire in the barn. 

It's easy to gain dates, numbers, marriages, childrens' names from sources like the Census data.  But it's these little newspaper blurbs that give a glimpse into the real history of your relatives.  I'm grateful the Warren Sheaf liked to print local history, colorful and otherwise!

Laidley, Sewing Award

Thanks to a free weekend at Newspapers.com, I was able to peruse the Warren Sheaf in search of my old relatives.  The Sheaf was popular for putting in the little newsy tidbits of local folk.  This one is about my Grandmother, Luella Laidley Pape .

My grandmother died when my mother was young, so she didn't know much about her own mother.  Her dad, Robert Pape, didn't discuss her much.  It was much later in his life that he told us he was "so damned mad that she died."  It's my belief that's his reason for not discussing her.

It was a pleasure for me to share this with my mother:  Luella won two awards at the Marshall County Fair in the Sewing Category for girls under 13.  August 1921.

Summer of 1930, Liden Girls

Summer of 1930

In the summer of 1930, my grandmother would have been 15 years old.  Life on a farm was a struggle for many, as this was part of the depression era.

In her memoirs, she wrote:  "Our farm had one hundred sixty acres, which was the average size of the farms people claimed as homesteads.  The farm was a mile and a half south of Thief River Falls.  The home that my father built here had a large kitchen, a large bedroom and a large living room with two porches - one in the front and one in the back.  There were two large bedrooms upstairs, one for the boys and one for the girls. 

Living on the farm we always had plenty of food to eat and clothes to wear.  We had a very large garden where we grew all our own vegetables.  The staples were potatoes, corn, carrots, onions, beans, peas, rutabagas and turnips.  There were a few things we couldn't grow very well because of the cold winters and short growing year like tomatoes.  Yet we did grow enough to get us by.
Under the house was a large cellar where we stored our fruits and vegetables.  We had a lot of potatoes.  A large box of sand is where we stored the carrots and they stayed fresh all winter.  We would dry the ears of corn, beans and peas.  The onions and rutabagas were stored down there too.  In the winter when it was very cold my folks would hang a lighted lantern down there to keep it from freezing.  My mother would place a dish of water on the step going down there to see how cold it would get. If it looked like it would get cold enough to freeze she hung the lantern.

When we got home from school it was our job to slop the hogs, pick the eggs, feed the chickens, then it was up to us to milk all of the cows.  We did it all by hand as there were no milking machines then.  We had a water pump and we would have to pump all of the water for the animals to drink.  It took so much water it seemed we just pumped and pumped and pumped.  We had to take turns.  It took a lot of water to water all of our animals.

When the depression of 1929 hit the country, we hardly knew it on the farm.  The only things we had to purchase were coffee and sugar.  One day my father sent a cow to the herd stockyards in St. Paul but the price of meat was so low it didn't even pay for the freight so my father had to send them money instead of him getting anything for it.  He never sold any more."

At Home on the Farm

A distant cousin, Pat, sent me a copy of something "written in long hand on yellow lined paper".  Harriet is the older sister of my great grandmother, Luella Laidley Pape.  I found the tidbits Aunt Harriet jotted down as amusing and entertaining.  You certainly get a feel for what life was like.  And it's funny how life back then intertwined with other families:  Roy Gowan is related to Jim Gowan, who married my mother's sister Margie!    And just to help with the family line, Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith is Harriet's father Joshua's brother and his wife.

At Home on the Farm

by Harriet Isabell Laidley

I was born on Oct 8, 1905 in the home near Manvel, ND.  I was the 7th child of Joshua and Susie Laidley.  Effie, Roy, Wilmer, Bernice, Elsie & Della all came before I did.

I started school when I was 6 in a school near Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith's farm.  The little white school has been hauled away.

The family moved to another farm not too far away.  We all loved that farm and hated to move again.

When I was about 10 we moved to the Roy Gowan place near Oslo.  That is where we had our picture taken of the six girls.

The harvest was always in full swing about the time we started to school.  We wanted to stay home and watch them thresh the grain.

Every fall we filled our bed tick with fresh straw.  We thought it was great to get it filled.  Just like having a new bed. 

Most all country homes had an upstairs where we children slept.  Sometimes the snow would seep in onto our bed.  In the morning we'd get up and grab our clothes and run downstairs and stand around the warm old stove where it was warm and we'd dress ourselves.  Dad was always up early and had the fire going.  The stove ha a tray for the ashes and that was our job to empty that everyday.  Also to fill the wood box with split wood for the kitchen stove and front room stove.

Mother baked bread for the whole family -- 6 loaves at a time.  She kneaded the dough and let it rise and shaped it into loaves.  She always had a big garden and would can some of the vegetables.  In the Fall we would pick potatoes and garden vegetables and store them in the big cellar.

We pulled mustard weeds out of the grain fields and carried a pail and board to sweep the potato bugs into.

It was fun riding in the bob sled behind two horses.  We always loved to have the bells on the harness.  It made a joyful sound.  The wagon box was put onto sleigh runners.  We also had a one-horse sleigh.   I remember riding with Dad (I always wanted to go places.)  We had hot irons wrapped in cloth to keep our feet warm.

Christmas was the highlight of our lives.  Mother would say "Off to bed early so Santa can come."  I remember when we heard sleigh bells and we ran like mad up the stairs to bed (must have been Dad shaking the bells that went on the horses.)

At Easter Dad would say "Get up early tomorrow and see the sun dance in the water."  He would set a pan of water on the porch and of course when the sun came up it looked as though the sun were really dancing! 

We had cattle, horses, dogs, pigs and chickens.  We butchered a pig and a coy every fall and let the meat hang from a branch of the tree over night.

Mother made soap in the big black kettle hanging over the fire.  She used lye and grease.  She stirred it.  It was a hot job.  Poured and then when cooled it was cut into cakes of soap to wash our clothes.

Wilmer was called off to war in 1918.  He didn't like it.  He and cousin Alonzo Lindsay went at the same time.  They didn't go overseas.

When we lived near Manvel, Alice and Ted Buck came over and we would swing on the rope swing together.  Baby came and we all wanted her to be named Alice so that's what it was but she died.  Ted Buck married Lillian.  They live on our old home place -- new house.  He's gone.

We lived near Warren.  I said "I'm going to high school."  Della said, "I'm going too."  We graduated in 1925.  Vera and Luella graduated too (from East Grand Forks). 

We lived near Bob and Mary (unknown last name).  Popcorn at their place.  We played ball in the yard and they'd see us out and come down.

Popcorn at McClearys.  She would pop a whole dish pan full.  That's why we kyds always wanted to go to their house. 

We put plums that weren't quite ripe into the hay mow.  We went every day to look at them but it took many days for them to ripen.  We'd find baby kittens in the hay mow too.  They were born with their eyes closed.  Soon they would open.

The church from near Oslo was brought up here (East Grand Forks) to the Heritage grounds.

My brothers fished with a lantern for catfish.  Wilmer would shoot rabbits and we had rabbit meat for supper.  Roy was too kindhearted to hunt.  He couldn't stand to kill anything.  He had poor eyes and we always wanted to look through his glasses because everything looked differently.

I was married at home to Ed Betts.  I walked down the stairway as Elsie played "Here Comes the Bride".  Donna was born Dec 7, 1930.  She would always tease me and say "You were married Dec 2nd and I was born on the 7th".

(I'm guessing this is the photo she's referring to with all six sisters)

Ida aka Ingeborg

Sometimes, the internet is an amazing thing!  When I find something that pertains to my family, I try to leave a note on the page when possible, that I'm related to this person.  FindAGrave is one of my fav places to do that.  And I got a response from someone because of this!

Ida Pape, my great grandfather's wife has been somewhat of a mystery all these years, and because of a DNA test, the results came back that gave us some information into this woman.  Turns out, she had many half siblings, some of them emigrated to the US!

Here is some of the information given to me:

Every year in Sweden, the parish minister went to each house, and did a Household Examination. The word from it in Swedish is Husförhór.  Hus meaning House, förhór means investigation. Basically the minister brought the parish record book, opened it up the page for that farm, and proceeded to take down all of the information for those living there. Their birthdates were listed, where they maybe had moved from or moved to, and anything else pertaining to them. Birth, death, marriage.  He would also question them on their knowledge of the catechism, and there is a column for that too in some cases. Also if they had been vaccinated for smallpox, or had smallpox. 

In order to move to a new place, they had to have the permission of the parish, and got a piece of paper to present at the next parish, which made sure that they were accounted for, especially if they had financial obligations such as children to support.

Markus Pärsson Gran (1836-1895) was born in Dalby, Värmland, Sweden. He married Karin Olsdotter (1836-1898). They only had one child out of 3 or 4 who survived childhood. Her name was Ingeborg “Ida” Markusdotter Grahn. She was born in 1869 at the parish called Norra Ny in Värmland.

Then Markus Pärsson Gran left his wife and child about 1870 or 1871, and left the parish of Norra Ny, Värmland without signing out. 

He met  Maria Jansdotter Löf, from Gräsmark, Värmland, and they started having kids together, but way over at Delsbo, Gävleborg, Sweden, far away from their home parishes in Värmland.  They were not married.

Ida died 10 JUN 1938 • Fergus Falls, Otter Tail, Minnesota, United States (She died at the State Hospital where she had been in and out of over the years)

Great, Great Grandparents

Maria Johansdotter Lundell married Henry Kringsberg, a preacher in Sweden, in 1876.  They emigrated to the US in 1886.  With the help of internet friends, I have located this information from a Sweden registry:  

        Johansdotter Henriksson, Maria --- Hustru (married woman)

b. 9/26/1854 in Södra Finnskoga, Värmlands län (Värmland)

Emigrated 8/1/1886 from Kringsberget, Södra Finnskoga, Värmlands län (Värmland)

to Nordamerika

0221886032 - Bilaga/ytterligare information finns. Kontakta Emigrantregistret i Karlstad

Source: Household Examination Roll, p. 171

Emibas migration file ID: Södra Finnskoga S 1886 032

Their first child was Mary D Elizabeth Kringsberg.  I'm wondering if this is her with her parents, perhaps taken before the next child was born (in 1881) so she would be 4-5 years old here? Maria died shortly after arriving in America (1888).  "Doug Windle who is also researching the Linden and Kringsberg family wrote that Mary Johnson Lundell Married Kringsberg ( a preacher in Sweden) was on a train and got off to get some milk for the baby - fell under the train and had her leg cut off (died) the children were separated and Anna was raised by Pete and Lizzie Liden."  

To follow up the family chain, my father (Oliver), his mother, Myrtle. Her mother Anna, and her mother is Maria Lundell.  (My second great grandmother).  Anna married Charley Liden, and Peter (Per) Liden is Charley's older brother.   

Well Water Memories

This morning I woke up thinking about all the little things that bring us happy memories. 

Today's thought was back being a kid, traveling to Grandma's farm in Minnesota, and I remembered just how good the well water tasted.   We'd walk outside with the water pail and pump water from the ground.  There was running water in her house, but well water tasted that much better!  No matter the outdoor temp, the well water was always cold.  We'd dip it out of the water pail with a stainless steel cup.

Grandma always kept the water pail sitting on the counter near the back corner of the kitchen counter.  This is the only photo I could find where parts of the kitchen showed.  There's Grandma baking up some kind of dessert for after supper! 

Now that everyone (including me!) drinks water from a bottle, sourced from goodness knows where, or processed in some kind of facility, it's hard to remember how it was "back in the day".   I have to say that I think I miss those days.  Most of moments in every day was filled with little chores that needed doing in order to just keep going.   Living took thoughtful planning.  If you needed something for dinner, you didn't just open a freezer door and pop something in the microwave.  If you planned on a roast for dinner, most times you took it out of the freezer in the morning, left it to thaw, then began the cooking process in the afternoon.  If you wanted a cake for dessert, you needed to get baking in the late morning, or early afternoon, because both the cake pan and the roasting pan might not fit in the oven at the same time.   When the nearest grocery store was 20 miles to town, you made sure you bought what you needed for the week, because you couldn't just zip around the corner to grab something on your way home!  Although, if you were a mindful gardener, you could pick something out in the vegetable garden. 

"Sometimes, you never know the true value of of a moment until it becomes a memory."