S/S Orlando left Göteborg on May 2, 1879 for Hull on the English east coast. On board were Carl Johan Larsson, wife Sara Stina, and children Emil, Bror, Christina, and Selma, from Hässleby parish in Jönköpings län. Their destination: Warren, Pennsylvania. Carl Johan was my 3rd great uncle on my mother’s maternal grandfather’s side. (My maternal grandmother’s grandfather’s brother.)
From Hull the passengers would take a train to Liverpool where they would board the ship for North America.
Carl, Sara, Emil, Christina, Selma, and “infant” arrived in New York on May 20 1879 on board the S/S Greece. According to the record above they left Liverpool on May 8. The family traveled in steerage.
I was looking for Elna Georgina Nilsson Kratz, my grandfather’s younger half-sister, for a long time. She’s the girl who changed her last name to Nilsson for reasons we will never know.
Elna emigrated from Sweden to the United States, by herself, in the summer of 1896. I was able to trace her until she stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, but after that, nothing. I searched the records endlessly, until I found a marriage record where half the information was inaccurate. But, Elna Georgina are exceptionally unusual given names, and I was sure I had found the right young woman.
It turned out that Elna married Hugo Larsson from Hammarby, Sweden, in Manhattan in 1898. They had three boys: Hugo in 1899, Eric in 1902, and Henry in 1904. Elna’s husband passed away or abandoned the family sometime before 1916. I haven’t been able to determine how, or when, but in the 1916 New York City phonebook Elna is listed as Elma, widow of Hugo. ‘Widow’ may not be true, but it was more socially acceptable than ‘divorced.’
In 1900, after they were married, Elna and her husband Hugo lived on 135th street in the Bronx among immigrants from Sweden, Ireland, Italy, and Germany. In 1905 they lived on 246 East 125th street in Harlem on a block with immigrants from northern and eastern Europe, Finland, Norway, Russia, Germany. Hugo is listed as a carpenter, and their neighbors are housewives, laborers, dock builders, seamen, and book keepers. One woman is listed as having a profession, a dressmaker. Later the Larsons moved to #305 on the same street.
New York State Census, 1905.
Elna’s oldest son Hugo stayed with her until his early 30s, when he married. Anna, his wife, and Hugo never had children of their own, but they took in their niece Frances when Henry’s wife, also named Frances, died in the late 1930s.
Eric married Alice Youngson, and had two children, George and Alice, born in 1927 and 1929.
182 East 122nd street in Manhattan on Google street view.
In 1940 Elna lived by herself on 182 East 122nd street. Everyone on her block was white. Many were born in the United States, but there were also many European immigrants. Among her closest neighbors were people from Germany, Finland, and Canada.
In 1940 Elna was 65 years old, and listed as a laundress. It seems she started working, at least officially, when her oldest son Hugo got married in 1933.
Elna lived her whole life, as a wife, widow, and mother, on East 122nd and 125th streets in East Harlem. 125th street is now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The buildings where Elna lived on that street are not there anymore.
On Sept. 15, 1915, Alice M. Boov married William N. Kemp in Spring Valley, Rockland Co., NY. Alice used her mother’s maiden name for the records, and her parents are listed as Ada Hedberg and Alfred F. Boov. William is a ‘laborer’, and Alice’s is ‘doing housework’. They live in Thiells, NY. It’s a first marriage for both of them.
A volume of ‘Documents of the Senate of the State of New York’ published in early 1916 includes The Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Letchworth Village. In it, Alice’s name appears:
At least during 1915, maybe longer, Alice Boov has worked as Matron of Cottage C, at Letchworth Village in Thiells, NY.
Created by William Pryor Letchworth, Letchworth Village was, according to an article in Hudson Valley Magazine, “a self-contained and self-sustaining village of small cottages on a working farm, which would allow residents a more humane and productive lifestyle under the care of the leading researchers and physicians of the day.”
The patients “were grouped into three then medically accepted but now cringeworthy types of “feeble-mindedness” – “idiot,” “imbecile,” and “moron” – based on IQ. According to their abilities, they helped farm, plow, care for animals, cook, sew, and clean, and were provided vocational training in carpentry, shoe repair, welding, and other useful skills.”
There are horror stories about this place. The patients were used as guinea pigs for the polio vaccine and in other clinical trials. The facility was closed in 1996, and the photos of the buildings are haunting. Online you will find information about tours of the abandoned asylum, as well as of a nearby cemetery with “graves about the size of a child.”
Alice Maria Bååv, my grandfather’s first cousin (their mothers were sisters), left Göteborg for Hull on the s/s Runo on March 17, 1913. From Hull she took the train to Liverpool, and then she left for New York from there.
Alice arrived in Ellis Island on March 30, 1913 onboard the Celtic of Liverpool. She was 5 feet and 7 inches tall, had a fair complexion, brown hair, and blue eyes. She gave the address of a friend, Ingeborg Olsson: 33, W. 12th St., NYC. The old notes are hard to read, but she seems to have had $75 with her. She was of good mental and physical health. She was 25 years old.
From where Alice’s family were living in Bangatan, Göteborg, they could have taken a short walk to the quay, and seen Runo sail away. They lived so close they would have heard and smelled the ocean everyday, before and after Alice left.
These are notes made at Ellis Island when the s/s Island, the ship that had left Göteborg on June 23, arrived. Passengers are listed as having embarked at Fredrikshavn on the Danish coast across from Göteborg, but we know that some of them had been on the ship since Göteborg. The Swedish passengers are at the top of the page. They are listed in the same order as they were on the manifest taken in Göteborg.
The page is torn where Elna G. Nilson’s name would be, right below Gustaf Larson. Following her line to the right we can see her final destination, New York. Most of the young men are listed as farmhands, and the young women as servant girls. I’m guessing Elna was another servant girl.
Elna had traveled in the aft, rear, of the ship. She brought one piece of luggage. On this part of the page alone four people are listed as having died on the voyage across the Atlantic. The first digit indicates the date, July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The second digit is a code for the cause of death. I haven’t been able to figure out what they mean.
My father has told me that his father, Elna’s brother Karl Adolf, was a seasick sea captain. I get seasick too. I wonder what three weeks on a ship across an ocean would have been like.
I hadn’t been able to figure out that Elna’s name had disappeared in the worn fold of the piece of paper if it hadn’t been for more experienced researchers. It seems obvious to compare the names on the list created when they departed from Göteborg to the list that was taken down when they arrived at Ellis Island. But I didn’t think of that. Instead I cursed. The records are well organized, but you never know. The paper trail is important. I needed to know that Elna had arrived in New York, or else I would have lost her.
For a very long time this note was the last I knew of Elna’s whereabouts. She disappeared in New York, into what I imagined was a hot summer day, or a warm summer’s night.
