Anna Liden

Very little is known about relatives so many generations back.  But I'm trying to imagine, to piece together a timeline on some of them, just because. 

Anna Liden was born in 1877.  She came to America with her mother, and 3 brothers at around age 10. 
I like to think that they came to Pennington County, Minnesota, because they knew someone who could assist them.  Anna is my great grandfather Charles' sister. 

I believe she was baptized as
Anna Cecelia on July 9, 1877,
in Nikolai församling, Sweden
with no Father's name, and her Mother's name as Kajsa Andersdotter.

In 1893 she married Ole Lundberg.  She had her first child, Albin, in 1895.  Clara was born in 1896.  Signe was born in 1898.  Mable Olive in 1900.  Rudolph was born in 1902.  Silwer was born in 1903, and then died.  (Oddly enough, the listing in the Minnesota Deaths shows her name as Anna Danielson).

In 1904, Ole dies, and Rudolph and Albin are sent to live with Charles' family.  I don't know if Clara or Mable went with them; Clara died in 1908.  Mable is found on the 1920 Census as a "boarder" with Anna and her second husband.

In 1906, Anna marries Carl Bergan.  He was married previously, and had seven children with his first wife, Karoline.  His two youngest children, Mabel and Marie, would have been only a few years old when he marries Anna, and yet, the next Census in 1910 doesn't list any of his first wife's children living with him.  Which leaves me to assume divorce, rather than being widowed.

Carl and Anna go on to have more children:  Arthur in 1907, Gladys in 1910, Ruth in 1911, Arnold in 1913, Ettle (or Ettie?) in 1915, Myrtle in 1917, and Frances in 1920.  By this time, Anna is 43 and has given birth to more than twelve children.  Anna dies in 1924, Carl dies in 1927.

In 1940, Rudolph is a resident at Fergus Falls Hospital.  He is buried in the Liden family plot at Greenwood Cemetery in Thief River Falls, MN.  He was 77 years old.  I don't have a clue why he was at Fergus Falls, or where he lived after 1940. 

Piecing together this little bit of history hasn't been easy!

I can't imagine what life was like for Anna when her husband dies.  She can't provide for her children, so they are sent to live with other family members.  She remarries and continues having more children. 

At this point, I haven't located where she is buried, or where her children all ended up. On one of the message boards that I frequent, Dianna Hanson was looking for information, her grandmother is Mable Olive Lindberg.   Maybe some day, we'll be in touch!

Something About Mary

This photo has always puzzled me. 

The photo is marked that the man is Charley Liden, my great grandfather. 

The woman, Mary, is the sister to Anna, the woman Charley married. 

At the estimated time this photo was taken, Anna was 2-3 yrs old. 

The young man in the photo is Oscar, the son of Henry C Liden. 

I estimate he's around 17 here. Henry Liden is Charley's brother.

So what brings three members of different households 

together for a formal portrait? 

I could make up stories... lol 

but sometimes the truth is even stranger than fiction! 

I guess we'll never know.

Then again, maybe my Grandmother had all the names wrong ...... 

Miss Mary 1898

This is Mary Kringsberg, sister to Anna, 

who was the wife of Charley Liden (Myrtle's Dad). 

Isn't this a gorgeous photo? And what a fancy dress ... 

I imagine it a soft brown, with black ribbons and accents. 

It was taken by J. Borry, in TRF, and he was there in 1898. 

She would have been 21 years old. I wonder what the occasion was? 

There's a photo on the table, I wonder if it was of her mother, Maria, who died in 1888?

Solving Mysteries - Emma!

Mrs Emma Pape Beckman

Yes, this is her!

I was told over again and again that my great grandfather Wilhelm traveled to America in 1882 with his sister "Anna".  And yet when I discovered the entry on the ship's log, her name was written Emma.

After lots of trial and error and searches resulting in nothing for "Anna Pape" ... I switched up to "Emma".  Nothing in Minnesota, so going from the stories written how they traveled by train as far as they could go, then walked the last 14 miles in snow - it was still April/May in 1882 - to the German community where his sister had been writing to friends or acquaintances.  Wilhelm didn't like the land there, and decided to head for the Red River Valley.  Apparently Emma stayed there.

North Dakota's records are limited when it comes to online searches, but spending a weekend with my mom and her sister, we chatted about family history a bit, and they opened up and told a story about going to Tolna, ND to visit relatives.

Somewhere in the 90s, I'm thinking 1992, my parents were visiting Minnesota and their father, Bob, got everyone loaded up into the suburban and headed out for a drive.  He never told them where they were going, or why.  After driving a bit, my father, Oliver speaks up "I know I'm going back home to California, but I had no idea we were driving!!"  (Such a sense of humor he had!)

Turns out they're going to meet Bob's cousins, people my mom and her sister had never met, nor heard of.  They visited, had a meal and turned around to come home.  On the way, Marge spoke up, "I just got paid, how about I treat everyone to dinner?"  They stopped and got food, and the bill came.  She reached into her purse, and all her cash was gone!   As expected, this memory hasn't faded a bit!  Bob gave everyone a hard time about it the entire rest of the trip!

Just chatting back and forth between the sisters, the managed to come up with a few details:  His name was Vernon Jorde.  His wife's name is Phyllis.  When reading Vernon's obit, both of them said the name "Beckman" was familiar.  That's Phyllis' maiden name.  More research, and Phyllis' father is Ernest Beckman.  Ernest is the son of Charles and Emma Beckman -- Emma being my great grandfather's sister!  I wasn't 100% positive because her maiden name isn't listed in sources I was able to find, until this little blurb on a North Dakota University search for the name Beckman, and it shows Mrs. Emma Pape Beckman as part of these two written pieces of history.

I'm tickled pink to be able to know what became of this long lost relative.  This family has always been big on secrets and untold stories ... how many of them are lost now, and to me, that's sad.

Great grandaunt Emma .... welcome to the family!

Family Mysteries

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: