52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Strong Woman

This is one of my 2nd-great grandmothers, Anna Katrina Mansdotter¹. Amazingly enough, even though my middle name is Catherine, I am not named for her. I didn't know anything about her until a couple of years ago.

As you may have guessed, Anna was Swedish. Her youngest son was Carl Johan Anderson, father of my paternal grandmother, Dagmar Alice Viola Anderson.

Although I have hardly begun to research my Swedish ancestors, I am very fortunate to have an audio recording of Carl being interviewed by my grand-uncle, Axel². In it, he speaks of his impoverished and difficult childhood and the impact of his father's death on the family.

Carl's father, Anders Svenson, died on April 6th, Easter Monday, of 1874 when Carl was 7 and his sister, Josefina, was about 13. When Anders, a farmer and blacksmith, fell ill, the family was already living in what Carl called just about the poorest situation in Sweden; with his death, their only income disappeared.

And so, at the age of 52, Anna went to work for a local Patron or Lord. It wasn't light work, she worked on his farm, feeding and milking fifty cows and feeding four pairs of oxen. For this backbreaking work, she made 50 Swedish kroner per year plus food, which was supposed to be enough to feed not only herself but also her family. Unfortunately, it was not enough and Anna was forced to do something we would find unthinkable today. In order to keep her children from starving, she sent them to work.

Josefina, 13, went into domestic service and Carl, 7 or 8 by this time, was sent to work at a glassworks, Limmareds Glasbruk, partly owned, according to Carl, by the same Patron who wasn't paying Anna enough to feed her children.

Carl's pay did not include food, but his mother would take the money he earned and buy it for him (he lived at the factory most of the time as it was too far to walk and he worked from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m.) This part of the recording is very difficult to understand, but it is clear that even though he worked twelve hour days, his pay was barely enough to feed himself. He says on the recording that he still doesn't know how his mother was able to buy his food with so little money.

I have to say that I didn't think of Anna for this topic right away, but I was making the classic mistake of presentism; seeing this family's circumstances through the lens of my own time in history and not theirs. The progressive Sweden that we know today did not exist in the 1870s, there was no social safety net for Anna and her children, and most children in poor families worked. The movement against child labor and toward legislation was just beginning at the time of Anders' death³. In 1874 the country was only a few years removed from a great famine, fear of starvation was a real thing⁴. Anna was fighting for their survival. She went from wife and mother to farm laborer living alone in a very short time. Carl certainly did not appear to have held any grudge against his mother, he speaks of her on the recording with fondness and admiration.

Anna labored on Patron Larson's farm for about ten years, according to Carl. I don't yet know what happened to her after that, except I have a feeling she may have gone to live with Josefina and her husband, Per Johan Bengtson, a shoemaker with whom Carl was apprenticed for a short time. Anna died in 1911 at the age of 89. I need to learn more about her.

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1. Mansdotter, Anna Katrina. Undated photograph. Privately held by the author [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Rockville Centre, NY. This photograph was found in an envelope in the basement of the author's father's home after his death among other artifacts of the Anderson family. Writing on the back of the photo says "Mother of C.J. Anderson" referring to Carl Johan Anderson.

2. Carl Johan Anderson (Healthland, 305 Walpole Street, Norwood, Massachusetts.) Interview by Axel Heinrich Waldemar Anderson 12 October 1955, copy of audio file held by the author.

3. Hindeman, Hugh, ed, The World of Child Labor: A Historical and Regional Survey, (New York: Routledge, 2015) p. 577.

4. Clemensson, Per and Andersson, Kjell, Your Swedish Roots: A step by step Guide, Kindle edition, (Provo, UT: Ancestry publishing, 2004) p. 310.