Home II. Boxholm and Kinnekulle

Family Photos

Good heavens.  Now, the back row third from left looks like a photo of Kajsa Johannesdotter -- was this a big family reunion back there, with all nine of Kajsa's children? No idea. We keep spotting that little boy, there in profile. The back of one of the pictures with a child by a hedge says "Fallehagen."

Was there another trip to Sweden in 1953?

We see MS Kungsholm on the back of a ship photo, here, and that TransAtlantic liner on the Swedish America line was not commissioned until 1953, and went from Gothenberg to NY. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Kungsholm_%281953%29

 Anna front, second from left.


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Who are the Bungers?? Did a Widing or Osterlund marry a Bunger?? If nobody knows, I'll take these out.

The Bungers? Sweden 1929-1932

 

1. Bill, Marie and Dona

2. Elmer's brother Ray and family, Amy, John, Billy

3. Ma Bunger

4. Elmer's sister Ora and husband

5. Elmer's cousin Lena and family

6. Leona and Bette - Oscar took the picture

7. The Bungers

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People should not be forgotten.

Here is the mystery on the Kungsholm.  The name is indicated for the ship, on the back of some of these, but the MS Kungsholm was commissioned in 1953.  A third trip to Sweden to visit? This shows a hemline like the 1950's, for example. And some shuffleboard. 

MS Kungsholm

If this is the Kungsholm, is there another?  This looks 1930's or 1929, not the 1950's.

Martha, Lee, Bill, Ella, Oscar

That is the Lee as in Lee's family? Now, who is Lee?

Another puzzle:  This has "Vadstena" or Wadstena written on the back, but it does not look like other photos we see online. Then what is this?  There should be many old and royal burials in it, and fine wood sculptures. What connection to the ruin

Vadstena Abbey? Lake Vattern, Ostergotlund 1929-1932

We usually spell it Vattern. This is the third largest of the lakes in Sweden, see ://www.vattern.se/index.php?lang=en/  Boxholm is not far. See Granna there, and Vadstena.

Widing home, Boxholm

Stockholm, the Guard

"Home." 1929 Kinnekulle, Husaby; Granna, Boxholm, Ekeby,

Preservation

Looks-back through a camera's eye.

Kajsa Johannesdotter 1829-1933 and Anders Petr Olausson 1836-1878 -- Kajsa then apparently lived at Kinnekulle, attended Husaby Church, and raised the five children there:  John August, Sophie, Frank, Lenus, Anna Matilda (here), Selma Elizabet, Carolina, Otto William, and Josephine.  Anna and her husband, Philip Widing from Boxholm, returned twice to visit after everybody came to the US on both sides -- Philadelphia for many Widings, Chicago and elsewhere for the Kajsa-Petr children, who seem to have taken a new name, Osterlund, at some point.  In Sweden or here?

We can't tell the 1929 photos from the (is it 1933??) so we call them all 1929-1933.  Nothing is firm. Identifications come from the backs of the pictures so far.

"Home" --Anna Osterlund Widing on the left, photo 1929-33 and ?

Home for Anna Matilda Osterlund Widing would be at Kinnekulle, which village?

Anna Widing 1929-32, center, windy

The vertical wooden slats for structures are common. Does that keep out cold better than horizontals?

Was this a reunion trip?  Folks went sightseeing.

Alvastra Cloister is the ruin of a Cistercian Monastery founded by the French in 1143. It is in Ostergotlund. We did not get there, but this is a photo from relatives from the area, back in 1929-1932 or so. See ://www.raa.se/cms/en/places_to_visit/our_historical_sites/alvastra_monestary.html/

Alvastra Closter 1929 or 1932, ruin

Family -- ID as we go.  On the back, this one says, "Take good care of this. It is the only one we have."

Done.

William Widing, my husband's grandfather, one of four Widing sons, second from left, back row; Anna Matilda Osterlund Widing, his wife, front row, with tea. 

Boxholm, family photo, 1929 or 1932. Back 2d from left, Philip Widing; front, 3d from left, Anna Widing

The little boy front right looks like this one below, at the big hedge.

Boy at hedge, Sweden 1929-1933. Boxholm? Kinnekulle?

More sightseeing.

Brahe Slott, or Brahehus Slott or Castle, dates from the mid-1600's.  It is near Jonkoping, Granna, and served as a suitable lodging for noted guests, distance special envoys, and the like.  See ://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/57498/slideshow_of_brahehus_slott_ruins_in.html/ We did not get there, but this is a family photo from 1929-33.

Brahe Slott (castle) 1929, near Granna, Sweden

That would be the big lake Vanern at the base of the cliff there, I think.

Philip Widing, husband of Anna, and his cousins from Granna; wife Anna Widing in front

Maybe Josephine here, Aunt Josie, sister of Anna, daughter of Kajsa Johannesdotter, Sweden 1929-1932

Ekeby Kyrka, Boxholm Municipality, Sweden

There are several churches called "Ekeby" - see ://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ekeby_kyrka:  at Gotland, Narke, Skane, Uppland, Ostergotland.  The Ekeby Kyrka at the Linkoping Diocese seems closest to Boxholm at Boxholm Municipality, West Yorkshire, about a mile south of Mjolby and a mile N-NW of Boxholm, and 5 km NW of Stralsnas, that from various sites. We did not know of it at the time so just have to go back.

"Mellosa" on back, Sweden. Anna Osterlund Widing, and is that Farfar, or grandfather?

Farfar's Kors, Grandfather's cross, Ekeby Kyrka? Hans Widing?

We looked in lots of church years for Widings, and found none -- are they here, at Ekeby? We hear now of an early Hans Widing. Is he buried at Ekeby. 

Farmor (Grandmother) and "Misdie" or Miadia? Sweden 1929-1932.  Anna is back row, middle. 

An Osterlund daughter, immigrated, Canton, Ohio

The back reads something like "har ai ja i min bakjard taget farliden sommar var just pershig att bart Wilma Kahre Canton Ohio."

Husaby Kyrka, Kinnekulle area, Kajsa Johannesdotter's Church? Sweden. Osterlunds?

Lee and Family group

Who is Lee?  Front says "Lee and family. At this end: Darlene in arms, Allrin, Irene, Bobby and Frank (over).  Back says: "This was taken four years ago.  The last time we were all together.  The couple not marked are Lil's brother and his wife.  The couples are Frank and Lil, Oscar and Leona, Bill Marie and Dona Belle."

Kajsa Johannsdotter's Story. The Epidemic, The Survivor and The Farmhand. The Marriage. Osterlund, but how?

Kajsa Johannsdotter

An Epidemic, A Survivor, A Farmhand, and a Marriage.

Looking for Osterlund

Kajsa Johannsdotter, or Kaisa Johannsdatter, seated 1909; with a daughter, Anna Matilda (Osterlund) Widing, Sweden.

This photo identified by Britsie Murray, an Osterlund.

Family stories. Kajsa Johannsdotter told this story to her daughter Anna Matilda Osterlund (Widing); and Anna told a niece, Dagmar, and Dagmar told a daughter (or a niece?? I am looking forward this week to a visit with Britsie) Britsie (Sjostrom now Murray); and the niece Britsie Sjostrom Murray told cousins, Philip and Helene Widing,  and Helene wrote it down and sent it to us here, just this year. *  It relates to a family that ended up in Kinnekulle, Sweden.  Where did it begin? This is just like the Bible.  A tells B, B elaborates and tells C, etc.

Family stories.

Kinnekulle, Sweden. Now a nature preserve,  geologically interesting mountain plateau, with a long history of towns, churches. Kajsa Johannesdotter story begins here?  Or not?

Kajsa's Story:

Kinnekulle Epidemic
Or was it elsewhere, and the family, such as was left, came to Kinnekulle somehow. 

For family records: Recalled by Dag H,

told to and recorded by HW in 2010, and sent here.

Dag H is B's sister        

Dag, or Dagmar, is speaking to Britsie. Damar is since deceased.  Britsie, a cousin, reports to Helene, the wife of another cousin, Philip Widing.  Helene writes it down. The only changes we make are to clarify who the people are, as best we can.

"The Osterlund family came from the small village of Kinnekulle, on the eastern side of Lake Vanern, province of Ostergotland.  There is a mountain named Kinnekulle, with tourist information on top, and, I think, a park.  It is said to be very beautiful. We have some old photographs of people, not the place itself.

"Anna Matilda Osterlund Widing was the middle daughter among seven children – two died in infancy – whose father was Anders, I think, Osterlund, and Cajse or Kajse Osterlund.  We use Kajsa here.

"The older sons of the seven went to the US, and eventually sent for their mother, Kajsa, and siblings.  They, Anna – later Widing; Selma – later Sjostrom; Otto and Josephine came to Philadelphia.  The older brothers ended up in the Midwest.

"The story is that Kajse’s parents were landowners and had a farm.  The “red plague” as the family called it, maybe typhoid or scarlet fever, swept the village when Kajsa was a young girl.  Her parents and siblings died.  She survived, nursed through it by a young farmhand, Anders (not sure of first name) Osterlund. They married and had nine children, seven surviving.

"When Kajsa was pregnant with the last, Josephine, Anders cut his hand ploughing.  He developed tetanus, and died of lockjaw.  He left his young widow with seven children.  Anna Matilda (later Widing) was sent out to live with another farm family and to work for them.  She developed very strong work habits which stayed with her the rest of her life.  I don’t think she enjoyed that family very much, but she did learn to be very self-reliant.

"All this was told to me when I was a child by Aunt Anna herself.  I also saw a typed version as typed by my mother, who knew and remembered Kajsa, who lived in the US until she died in 1921 or 1922 (it was 1922)."

Family tree may be in the files now in boxes at PW’s house. Kajsa died in Philadelphia.

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Conversation with Britsie 2011.

She does not know how the name changed from Andersson or Andersdotter, as the names would have been in Sweden, to Osterlund when the family moved here.  Kajsa is also listed as an Osterlund at that time.

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Similarities in family names and elements of other families' stories -- to show how hard researching is, with spellings so variable. Is Kajsa Johannsdotter in this record the same as Kajsa Johannsdotter in another.  Is Per the same as Peter (yes, same name, but perhaps not same person)

Orust Island, Rora Parish, near Goteborg.  Bohuslan.

For example, on the western coast of Sweden, north of Goteborg, is an island where a diary was kept in the 19th Century by one Jakob Jonsson, 1795-1879, of Prastbacka Farm, Rora Parish, Orust Island, Buhuslan.

It is edited and translated by Anders Gustavsson, see http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol43/gustavsson.pdf.

 Jakob Jonsson's includes the story of his third daughter, Anna Britta, who lived on the farm.  Jonsson "shared the work" with the "halftenbrukaren" (half-owner) named Olle Olsson and Olsson's family.

Anna Britta married farmer Per Olausson in 1873 (not the same as the Olsson's), and Per Olausson moved in and shared the farm, Prastbacka, with father-in-law Jakob Jonsson.  [Does this mean that the household was

a) Jakob Jonsson,
b) Anna Britta and her husband Per Olausson, and also
c) Olle Olsson and his family?

Olausson later managed the area's hearse, making it available as needed, for a fee. 1870: scarlet fever epidemic.

The epidemic devastated Olle Olsson's family, the halftenrukaren: nearly all his children died, eldest daughter Matilda also finally died. 1871 - typhoid.

Anna Britta also became ill, finally recovered after nearly two months.

Augustana College has a center for Swedish studies, immigrants, and stories like these, see Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Rock Island IL, see  http://www.augustana.edu/documents/swenson/newsletter/SCN2003.pdf
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*  Osterlund is clearly the surname named for Kajsa's husband here, as given, and children, but how did that come about if the parents were Kajsa Johannsdotter and Anders Peter Olausson. The children would be Andersson or Andersdotter. If the children took the American surname idea, perhaps Olausson was hard to understand and they went to Osterlund. No idea. Osterlund it is, but I'm curious. *

Osterlund-Widing-Sjostrom Tree from 1970's: Reunion Cape May NJ. Kajsa Johannsdotter and Anders Peter Olausson, Seven Children named Osterlund (Anna Osterlund,m. Philip Widing at top)

Kinnekulle:  see ://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1989808/kinnekulle.html/   Kinnekulle is spelled phonetically as Chinicoola on the Tree.  Try a search for that, with a Ch, and you won't find it.

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* Update January 31, 2011.  We may have our answer as to the origin of "Osterlund" -- see NYT,  In In Sweden, a Swede by Any Other Name. In Fact, Many Swedes, ://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/world/europe/01stockholm.html/.  The article notes that for the last 100 years or so, people have simply adopted new names, with government permission of course -- not just any name -- to get away from the --son or  --dotter tradition, and all its repetitions.  Thank you, New York Times/

We enjoyed looking up the tradition, here, so will keep this reference it just for that. Here is the older post, Osterlund intact, just in case our situation is not just an arbitrary renaming at all, but a more exciting reason.

Surname, Widing. Boxholm -- Looking for Roots. Family Widing, starting points

Boxholm, Sweden

Widings in the 1920's, 1930's.  Return visits by Philip Wilhelm Widing and Anna Osterlund Widing, on either side of the flowers, to the family home - now gone - and we do not know if others also returned to visit from America, or what.   FN 1

Widing photographs, Boxholm, Sweden perhaps 1920's return visit Philip O. Widing and Anna Osterlund Widing, at floral center, from Philadelphia

The Widing men -- Philip's four sons -- all look like these. 

Genes are eerie.

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's?

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's?

aBoxholm, Sweden, 1920's? Anna Osterlund Widing at right, and it looks like Philip O. Widing on the far right, my husband's grandfather. 

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's. Anna Osterlund in center. 

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's. Who? #1

Boxholm, Sweden 1920's. Philip O. Widing, someone, and Anna Osterlund Widing. Could that be FarFar on the right, the father of Philip?

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's?  Who?

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's? Who? #2

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's? Who? #3

Boxholm person photographed Stockholm,  Sweden, 1920's

Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's.  My favorite.

On the boat. Going to or returning from visit to Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's.  Anna and Philip Widing, but who on far left, and in between?

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Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's. Who? #4

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Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's.  Anna Osterlund Widing on left

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Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's. Who? #5.  Anna Osterlund Widing front row left?

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Boxholm, Sweden, 1920's. Who? #6

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Boxholm trip, Sweden, 1920's; but this must be Stockholm? Who? #6

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FN 1

Some Widings (ours) stemmed from Boxholm. My husband's grandfather was Philip Wilhelm Widing, and he married Anna Matilda Osterlund, after they were here in the United States. We don't know how they met.

For the Widing family, they all seem to have left Boxholm in the late 1800's. A diaspora, along with the thousands and thousands of other emigrants in the late 19th Century to America.

We believe these photos are from a return trip in the 1920's of Philip Wilhelm Widing and Anna. They had settled in Philadelphia. Anna Osterlund was originally from Kinnekulla, Sweden. How did they meet? Their return visit was to; to Philip Wilhelm Widing's home at Boxholm.

The town has undergone urban renewals, so that the old houses we were looking for are gone, and new efficient blocky buildings (very functional, and serve the purpose) have been put up instead. That happens everywhere, but is a disappointment to returning families who hoped to find perhaps a quaint Ystad inland. Not so. But people were so friendly and helpful, and we enjoyed the pizza for lunch and even met someone with great access to the library -- fine people, in Boxholm. She came in just to help. This is a fine community for living.

Still, towns in Sweden seem to have none of those basic information-theme centers (the big universal "i" sign); or arrow signs on posts to direct folks around.

We came in the wrong way, through the woods, and possibly missed signs at the lake side route. Perhaps we should have started at the RR station, but then we would have missed that wonderful library. Need to go back to see the local museums and find gravesites at Ekeby. We had tried to find old graves at the big church, and did not realize that the old small parishes may have been a place to look, predating 1880 or so. Next ones back, go look for Farfar's kors.

Vaxjo -- Emigration, Domkyrka, Yggdrasil and Welcome

 Vaxjo

Vaxjo has medieval Christian roots. Vaxjo:  Did you say Vacks-Joe?  That would be wrong.  Say (pretend you are a horse, chuffing) WUH-chxHch-yau. There you go.  In old manuscripts, it is spelled as it sounds to us:  Wexiow, see the account of Saint Sigfrid at http://www.bartleby.com/210/2/152.html

On the way, see some sights.

Kalmar to Vaxjo: Hospitality Committee

Vaxjo is mid-size, but the grid-streets mean cars once parked disappear. Note your location, use your camera for unpronounceable cross streets and landmarks, or have a GPS. Or plan to walk a lot.

Religious history.

Vaxjo or Vaexjo has a long religious Christian tradition, see Medieval Religious Life, Sigfrid.  Saint Sigfrid of Wexloe, also known as the Apostle of Sweden, Holy Sigfrid, or Sigfrid of Vaexjo, is the first Swedish Saint, made such in the 13th Century. The Swedish King Olof asked the English King Mildred to send an emissary of Christ, and Mildred sent Sigfrid who came with his three sons. Sigfrid had a dream of a place to build a church, went there with a son, and did so.  He then, alone, headed for Husaby, and converted King Olof there, but when he returned, his sons had been murdered.  There are, allegedly at a place called Odenslanda, three large stones marking where the sons' bodies are buried, after some adventures.  The heads are the subject of other stories, and are said to be on the seal of the church at Vaxjo. We didn't know at the time and missed it. The Medieval Religious Life site lists saints' days.

Immigration, Emigration.

The library here in Vaxjo houses the geneological databases for emigrants and that should be highlighted more, we think.  Town websites ignore it -  see ://www.vaxjo.se/VaxjoTemplates/Public/Pages/Page.aspx?id=1638 /  If you already know it is there, however, you are fine.  Archives, museum, research center, and library combined. See Swedish Emigration Institute at ://www.utvandrarnashus.se/eng/ We did not delve there, but understand there are the full panoply of CD's, cross references, anybody find anybody.  We need to go back and find Osterlund, above. See why at Kajsa Johannsdotter.

A favorite place turned out to be a church - a modern one, looks very active, no stodge.

Domkyrka, Cathedral:

The steeple committee forgot to coordinate the plans. We have seen many multiple steeples on Scandinavian churches, but this is the least integrated, we think. We are trying to find the story behind.

Domkyrka, Cathedral, Vaxjo, Sweden. Facade, double steeple

Doorway, Domkyrka, Cathedral, Vaxjo, Sweden

World's best Lion Latch, Cathedral, Vaxjo, Sweden

Modern interior, Dom Church, Cathedral, Vaxjo, Sweden

Chancel view, Vaxjo. Sweden, Cathedral

Organ, Domkyrka, Vaxjo, Sweden (Cathedral Church)

We are looking for St. Sigfrid's seal.

That is a woman priest.  Very refreshing.

Tree of Life, Cathedral at Vaxjo, Swedem

The tree of life has special significance in Scandinavia, as it is a symbol common also to the early religions with a large panoply of deities. Yggdrasil in traditional belief is a huge ash tree, linking and shielding all the worlds. Beneath the roots, find Asgard, and find the full explanation (in brief!) at ://www.pantheon.org/articles/y/yggdrasil.html/