Background
Source: The House of Emigrants, Växjö, Sweden
Swedish emigration primarily had the same causes as the contemporary population surge from Northern and Western Europe: population pressure, economic and - above all - agricultural hardships, a profound social crisis, widespread political and religious discontent.
At the end of the 1860s, Sweden was struck by the last of a series of severe hunger catastrophes. The agriculture which was still only partially modernized had been struggling with difficult times. Now came a series of crop failures. 1867 thus became "the wet year" of rotting grain, 1868 became the "dry year" of burned fields, and 1869 became "the severe year" of epidemics and begging children.
President Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862, the political stabilization after 1865, and the enormously expanding industries of the North represented three important drawing factors on Swedish emigration to the U.S. The generous offer of the Homestead Act became a powerful magnet on land-hungry farm people. This also destined them to the so-called Homestead Triangle, especially to Minnesota, which became the Swede State of America.
The Swedish mass emigration would not have been possible without the Swedish railroads and the organized passenger traffic over the Atlantic. At this time no Swedish line carried passengers directly from Gothenburg to New York. The Swedes therefore had to use British or German ships. The emigrant route started with the train ride to the big port of Gothenburg, where the complete passage, such as Gothenburg-Chicago, of the British Wilson Line, which brought the emigrants to Hull in England. A train took them across the country to Liverpool or Glasgow; from there the Inman Line or some other company's ships sailed them to New York.
It is estimated that there are now as many Americans of Swedish descent today as there are inhabitants in Sweden, or a little more than eight million.
Editor Note: As the family grew in size, it was clear that the small farm could not support them and as the children reached adulthood , a steady exodus to the United States resulted. In 1907, it was Ture's turn to leave.
At the end of the 1860s, Sweden was struck by the last of a series of severe hunger catastrophes. The agriculture which was still only partially modernized had been struggling with difficult times. Now came a series of crop failures. 1867 thus became "the wet year" of rotting grain, 1868 became the "dry year" of burned fields, and 1869 became "the severe year" of epidemics and begging children.
President Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862, the political stabilization after 1865, and the enormously expanding industries of the North represented three important drawing factors on Swedish emigration to the U.S. The generous offer of the Homestead Act became a powerful magnet on land-hungry farm people. This also destined them to the so-called Homestead Triangle, especially to Minnesota, which became the Swede State of America.
The Swedish mass emigration would not have been possible without the Swedish railroads and the organized passenger traffic over the Atlantic. At this time no Swedish line carried passengers directly from Gothenburg to New York. The Swedes therefore had to use British or German ships. The emigrant route started with the train ride to the big port of Gothenburg, where the complete passage, such as Gothenburg-Chicago, of the British Wilson Line, which brought the emigrants to Hull in England. A train took them across the country to Liverpool or Glasgow; from there the Inman Line or some other company's ships sailed them to New York.
It is estimated that there are now as many Americans of Swedish descent today as there are inhabitants in Sweden, or a little more than eight million.
Editor Note: As the family grew in size, it was clear that the small farm could not support them and as the children reached adulthood , a steady exodus to the United States resulted. In 1907, it was Ture's turn to leave.
Ture's Story - In His Own Words
Part 2: 1907 - 1917
The Journey
On the 27th of October 1907, it was my turn to go. I will remember it was a Sunday morning. It was hard for me to say goodbye to my parents and relatives. We could not know whether we would ever see each other again. Father got the horses and took me to Hällestad station. It was to take your little bag, step on a train to Palsboda, there you changed trains to Göteborg. I was a little nervous to go on one as I had never been away from home. I had to stay a couple days and there I celebrated my 20th birthday. Fare for the whole trip cost me 300 kroner and one had to have 1500 to land in America. I became acquainted with a few Northlanders young people. They were going to the large forests in the Northwestern states to get work. Among them was a good and pretty girl, we had companionship to Chicago.
We rode over North Sea in a old poor boat called Rollo, it took us 2 days, weather was very good. We landed in a place called Grimsby. We took the train to Liverpool, England there stayed overnight.
Next day we went on board in Guardlinjens (Cunard) boat Lusitania, a new large and fine boat. It went fast and only took 4 days over the Atlantic. On trip we saw doctors and got vaccinations for small pox. Never got sea sick. Lusitania sank in battle in WWI. I think it was the reason America came into the war.
We got to go inland on a little island outside New York which was called Kastelgarden. There we were divided into groups. To get a package of food we went through duty and after on train to other places.
{Editor note: Castle Garden (Battery Park in NYC) was America's first official immigration center.}
I went to Chicago. It took over 2 days. There I changed trains to Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. There I got off the train showed an address I had for brother Carl to the police, who took me to a Swede who had a carriage and he took me to my brother’s shop and I was through with my trip. All had gone well. Everyone had been friendly and helpful to me, so it had been in all of my long life. A little depends on if a man tries to do his best for that’s what man can do. I was well accepted in my brother’s home, he had married in the fall of that year with a girl he knew back home. They had a good living. Carl worked as a watchman at Drake University. My brother, Gustav, came and visited me. He worked for a farmer for board. I followed him home and wanted to begin work.
I got a job on a farm where they were picking corn.
"The secret to successful farming: dung, credit and drainage" John Johnston
In summer, I got work on a building. I would carry brick and mortar round to the mason. It was very hard work, wages were $2/day for 10 hours , the mason got $5/day for 9 hours. The first apartment I got to carry it up on a gang plank, then later the setup a hoist, so it was much lighter for us. The work boss was a Swede, we became very good friends. On day I said to him I wanted to quit, for I wanted out on the land and work together with my brother, but he thought that was dumb because it goes faster to learn the language in town. My brother Gustav dug tile ditches on the big flat land in northwestern Iowa, and I began to work with him. We dug and laid clay tile, small and big. It was hard work, but days wages were higher. Land was laid in four corners went around 640 acres. Around 200 years ago, those that wanted a piece of land got it free. They only went out and measured up a piece, but that was not easy. There were not any roads, only Indians and buffalo. I don’t think there were many Swedes that traveled then. They came later and bought land cheap. Out there where we worked was one big area with most only Swedes. They built churches and schools prepared their fields, planted their corn, had a few cattle and many hogs.
{Editor note: Castle Garden (Battery Park in NYC) was America's first official immigration center.}
I went to Chicago. It took over 2 days. There I changed trains to Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. There I got off the train showed an address I had for brother Carl to the police, who took me to a Swede who had a carriage and he took me to my brother’s shop and I was through with my trip. All had gone well. Everyone had been friendly and helpful to me, so it had been in all of my long life. A little depends on if a man tries to do his best for that’s what man can do. I was well accepted in my brother’s home, he had married in the fall of that year with a girl he knew back home. They had a good living. Carl worked as a watchman at Drake University. My brother, Gustav, came and visited me. He worked for a farmer for board. I followed him home and wanted to begin work.
I got a job on a farm where they were picking corn.
Life in Iowa
Picking corn
We had a pair of horses, a wagon with a big box, corn was planted in rows a half a meter apart. Corn was planted in groups, three or four kernels, same length apart as it was between rows. It grew very fast, was over 2 meters high. Flowers came out on top, but corn ear grew out of the middle of the stalk, for the most only one on each. In that time they raised mostly corn, a little grain, now they have soybeans in Iowa. Corn was left to dry before it was harvested. It was hard work to pick corn. Horses went themselves and ate of the owner’s picked corn. You took two rows at a time, with left hand took an ear, in right hand one had a little hook fastened that you tore under the husks and also broke the ear and threw it into the wagon. The far side of the box must be higher to throw against. One accustomed could pick up to 100 bushels a day. A bushel was about 20 kilo of clean corn. Pay was 5 cents per bushel. Now they pick with machines. When the corn picking was done, I moved in with my brother in town, staying with them. There was very little work, pay was $1.50/day, so one was not exactly in gold with a whittling knife.
Drain Tiling
"The secret to successful farming: dung, credit and drainage" John Johnston
In summer, I got work on a building. I would carry brick and mortar round to the mason. It was very hard work, wages were $2/day for 10 hours , the mason got $5/day for 9 hours. The first apartment I got to carry it up on a gang plank, then later the setup a hoist, so it was much lighter for us. The work boss was a Swede, we became very good friends. On day I said to him I wanted to quit, for I wanted out on the land and work together with my brother, but he thought that was dumb because it goes faster to learn the language in town. My brother Gustav dug tile ditches on the big flat land in northwestern Iowa, and I began to work with him. We dug and laid clay tile, small and big. It was hard work, but days wages were higher. Land was laid in four corners went around 640 acres. Around 200 years ago, those that wanted a piece of land got it free. They only went out and measured up a piece, but that was not easy. There were not any roads, only Indians and buffalo. I don’t think there were many Swedes that traveled then. They came later and bought land cheap. Out there where we worked was one big area with most only Swedes. They built churches and schools prepared their fields, planted their corn, had a few cattle and many hogs.
More Arrivals
Two years after move move, my oldest sister Maria, came over to America. She got a place as a domestic maid in the town of Des Moines. Brother Carl moved out on the land where we were, worked with us for a time, but soon got land and became a farmer and there he was for over 50 years. He had 4 boys and 3 girls so they had good help. Gustav married with a girl named Ida. She was a teacher, very good and qualified, but a little weak in health. She lived only a few years after their marriage. They had no children. Gustav finished with ditch-digging. I got to take over the job. He traveled home to Sweden awhile. Maria followed and stayed home 2 years but came back later. Gustav came after a few months [ed. 1914] and had our brother Emil with his family with him, wife, Elizabeth and two small girls, Anna and Alice. With time there were 5 girls and 2 boys. Emil stayed with me and dig a few years, later leased a farm that was better for them with a family.
I had a good friend Axel, a brother to Emil’s wife. We worked together for many years. In summer we dug ditches and in winter we hunted. A hunting license cost only $3 and we could hunt almost where we wanted. We bought fine guns, also we set out traps. We found there were good small fur animals,mink, muskrat and skunk. Once in awhile we traveled into town, stayed in a fine hotel and had a good time a few days. We earned good wages in the summer, around $5/day, not taxes and everything cheap that we needed to buy. Axel became acquainted with a Norwegian girl, they married and settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Brother Gustav married with a Swedish girl named Hilda and later bought a big farm in northwest Minnesota. There is a big flat land with fertile wheat land, there are not trees, scarcely a bush. There is too much mineral in the ground, if they drilled for water, the cattle would not drink it. They had big ponds that they gathered water from melting snow in the spring. He had 2 cows and 4 horses. When they began with tractors, he later had only one cat.
I was there one fall and helped him with harvest. When I got there he had cut with a grain binder, a whole week, so it was not much fun to start setting up the bundles. The most they did not set up, the grain lay on the ground and dried. After a few days came the threshing gang. They had 8 pair of horses to haul the bundles. A threshing machine and a steam engine, sometimes fired with straw or coal. It pulled itself and the machine between the farms. They threshed grain and the farmers hauled it home themselves. If they did not have time to haul, they ran it on the ground, with luck rain was seldom in harvest time. When it was fall and snow began to come, it could be severe snow storms on the big flat land. Then it was that I packed my things and said goodbye to Gustav and Hilda and traveled to Iowa. It could also be severe winters there sometimes, but it was not so long.
I remember winter 1918, it was the month of January and very cold. There was one company that organized a trip to southern Texas, an American state. The sold artificial watered land down there. We were probably 200 that both slept, ate and rode on a train for 10 days. They took water from a river near the border between Mexico and Texas, they had two pump stations. It was a big desert territory that was watered. They had mostly fruit and vegetables they grew well in the spring. Apples and oranges hung big and fine on the trees. Land was very expensive, they sold in small tracts, 5 or 10 acres. Artificial watering is much work, but they got more crops a year. I bought no land down there. There were many that bought, but they most all sold it as soon as they could. I had a share in a farm before, 3 of us brothers bought a farm around 120 acres. They cost $20,000. A very pretty farm, only a kilometer from a little community. Carl lived there until his death in 1969.
I had a good friend Axel, a brother to Emil’s wife. We worked together for many years. In summer we dug ditches and in winter we hunted. A hunting license cost only $3 and we could hunt almost where we wanted. We bought fine guns, also we set out traps. We found there were good small fur animals,mink, muskrat and skunk. Once in awhile we traveled into town, stayed in a fine hotel and had a good time a few days. We earned good wages in the summer, around $5/day, not taxes and everything cheap that we needed to buy. Axel became acquainted with a Norwegian girl, they married and settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Brother Gustav married with a Swedish girl named Hilda and later bought a big farm in northwest Minnesota. There is a big flat land with fertile wheat land, there are not trees, scarcely a bush. There is too much mineral in the ground, if they drilled for water, the cattle would not drink it. They had big ponds that they gathered water from melting snow in the spring. He had 2 cows and 4 horses. When they began with tractors, he later had only one cat.
I was there one fall and helped him with harvest. When I got there he had cut with a grain binder, a whole week, so it was not much fun to start setting up the bundles. The most they did not set up, the grain lay on the ground and dried. After a few days came the threshing gang. They had 8 pair of horses to haul the bundles. A threshing machine and a steam engine, sometimes fired with straw or coal. It pulled itself and the machine between the farms. They threshed grain and the farmers hauled it home themselves. If they did not have time to haul, they ran it on the ground, with luck rain was seldom in harvest time. When it was fall and snow began to come, it could be severe snow storms on the big flat land. Then it was that I packed my things and said goodbye to Gustav and Hilda and traveled to Iowa. It could also be severe winters there sometimes, but it was not so long.
I remember winter 1918, it was the month of January and very cold. There was one company that organized a trip to southern Texas, an American state. The sold artificial watered land down there. We were probably 200 that both slept, ate and rode on a train for 10 days. They took water from a river near the border between Mexico and Texas, they had two pump stations. It was a big desert territory that was watered. They had mostly fruit and vegetables they grew well in the spring. Apples and oranges hung big and fine on the trees. Land was very expensive, they sold in small tracts, 5 or 10 acres. Artificial watering is much work, but they got more crops a year. I bought no land down there. There were many that bought, but they most all sold it as soon as they could. I had a share in a farm before, 3 of us brothers bought a farm around 120 acres. They cost $20,000. A very pretty farm, only a kilometer from a little community. Carl lived there until his death in 1969.
I kept on digging for 10 years, had 2 men employed, we drained big low lands. They took up many miles, long ditches, both opened and laid pipes, depth up to 40”. One winter I emptied a little lake. It took the whole winter before it became dry, we dug around 100,000 pipe that year. We also dug several wells and pipelines to schools and living houses, many ditches we did. I remember a pair of old brothers. They were rich and good, named Karl and Klas. Karl died with an unfortunate work accident, then came Klas and asked us to dig a grave for his brother, but after he did not pay us anything, but said “I will do you boys a favor instead.” That got to be the way he wanted it.
In spring 1918 we dug along a road which should drain. Then we saw a black cloud in the west. It stood still then towards noon began to stir itself. Then I said, now it is time to go home. It was a cyclone or a whirl storm. We had barely gotten home and down in the cellar and it was there. It became completely dark. Land where we lived it went over without much damage. It took a kilometer wide and two miles long in area. There was big damage, many houses were totally destroyed, an old man was dead and many were hurt. On our farm, all out buildings and on the living house it blew the roof off. We got to borrow a tarp to cover the roof. Afterwards it was hard rainy weather for several days. There were lakes in the low places. For Carl, it drowned a colt. One night it was necessary to drive the hogs up on a hill so they would not drown. I got permission to leave my work and help clear up our farm. We got much help from neighbors. We got a great deal of money from insurance, but it reached not to build a new house.To Be Continued ...
No comments:
Post a Comment