“How will our children know who they are if they do not know where they
came from?”
(author unknown)
I am a fourth-generation American on most branches of my
family tree. The first of my Wallin
ancestors to live in America—my “gateway ancestor”—was
my great-grandfather Frederick Isadore Wallin (1849-1926)—more commonly known
as “F.I.”
Frederick’s mother died in childbirth while having him. In Sweden he was a tanner and the son of a
tanner—one of the lower occupations on the social scale. Yet a number of his personal papers survive,
and the records say that he “read aloud well” and had a fine tenor singing
voice. He came to America (via
Gothenburg, Sweden; Glasgow, Scotland; and Moville, Ireland) on the ship
“Anglia” in May of 1871 at the tender age of 21; the ship’s steerage class
passenger list was filled with Scots, Irish, Germans, Swedes, and a few
Norwegians. He was a lieutenant in the
New York National Guard from 1874 to 1878—when this picture of him was created. He became a U.S. citizen there and married
Christine Bengston/Wennerholm, another Swedish immigrant. The 1880 census finds them living with their
baby son in Jamestown, New York, where Frederick is a store clerk. But soon the young family went west to
Nebraska, where Frederick was a peddler by trade, according to the 1885 Nebraska
census. By 1900 he is a farmer, and he
and Christina have seven children—Isadore, Inez, Frederick, Ithel, Aurora,
Sture, and Leonard. Soon afterward he
and Christina “moved to town” (Hordville, Nebraska) and built a store.
These words were written by his grandson Robert (my father) about
Frederick’s later years:
“Old Frederick never really liked farming. When his son Sture was 17, Sture wanted to go
out on his own; so he told his father that he would finish out the year on the
farm, and then help his dad build a store in town during that winter. (This proposal was prompted by the old man
telling Sture that there wasn't enough money for a new ball glove this year,
while unloading a gallon of whiskey from the supply wagon.) So they built the store, with living quarters
in the back and twelve rooms upstairs, which made it a hotel. The guests were traveling salesmen who went
by train and would time their routes so as to spend an evening playing cards
and having a few nips with F.I. Let it
not be thought that he was a bad man; he was a founder of the Fridhem Lutheran
Church in Hordville. This would have
been about 1910, and Gramps ran the place until about 1920. Later his son Leonard had a store in the same
building, but the hotel business went out with the automobile.”
F.I. lived to be 76 and died in 1926; Christina died in 1935. They are buried at the Fridhem Lutheran Church cemetery in Hordville.
Delightful tale
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteSusan, I live near the community of Hordville. We are celebrating 110 years this summer with a party. Do you have any photos of their life in Hordville? We would LOVE to have one of the hotel.
DeleteHi! I just checked. None of the hotel. One big newspaper ad from the Central City newspaper for Wallin's general store in Hordville, and a few pix of my great-grandfather's house in town (Hordville). Email me (address on right side) if you want them. Sue
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