I’ve taught at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, Calif., for almost 20 years. Recently I’ve learned that when I started teaching there, someone I am related to (4th cousin once removed, if you want to keep track) was enrolled as a student. And it seems, according to Facebook, that he is still good friends with one of my colleagues.
Our relative-in-common is this guy, Johannes Theodor Rudin, who was born Sept. 10, 1865 in Oskarshamn, Sweden and died May 13, 1920 in Miflin, Alabama. He left Sweden in 1885, aged 19, and became a US citizen in Chicago in 1890.
Theodor was my great grandmother’s first cousin, and he must have made quite an impression on someone at some point. I remember hearing his name when I was growing up even tho by then everyone involved had been dead for decades.
Theodor worked for a while for the British corporation Mazapil Copper in Concepcion del Oro, Zacatecas, Mexico. Here the British Vice-Consul in charge of American Interests, who’s signature we can’t decipher, has basically sworn that Theodor was a good guy. Theodor was applying for a new American passport.
We also learn how to sign our letters when we really want to make an impression:
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
xxx
The fact that Theodor (who my family apparently talked about in the 1960s or 1970s) had emigrated in 1885, and they STILL didn’t talk about emigration, is baffling to me.
It seems Theodor had a reasonably successful life. He traveled, worked in different places, got married, twice, and had British Vice-consuls sign themselves ‘obedient servants’ on his behalf. But my family didn’t talk about emigration, at least not in front of the children, when I was a child. Shame is the only explanation that comes to mind.