April 14-20

BIRTHS:

200 years ago this week, my 3rd great grandfather Johan Peter Landström was born in Göteryd parish in Kronoberg, Sweden.

He was the sixth-born child of a master blacksmith (mäster smed) and as a young man became a blacksmith himself. Johan raised six sons, most of whom became blacksmiths, and Johan’s only daughter Augusta married a blacksmith.

Augusta’s husband Peter Tolf was one of eight children, four boys and four girls. His sister Carolina Fredrika was born April 17, 1855. At 18, Carolina left Sweden and settled in the far west suburbs of Chicago. Peter, their three younger sisters, and their parents immigrated to Batavia Illinois in 1878.

Joseph Schmitt is on the French side of my family tree. He was born April 18, 1855, one year after his parents and siblings left France for Cincinnati Ohio. Joseph was the first American-born child of Nicolaus and Maria-Anne Schmitt.

Coincidentally, as things like this sometimes happen; Joseph’s older sister Christina had a baby on April 18th. Adelaide Kirchheiner was born in Cincinnati in 1869 to Christina and her husband Nikolaus.

MARRIAGES:

A (second for him) marriage took place on the 18th of April 97 years ago. My great-grandfather Gustav Robert Mangels, the son of German-speaking immigrants, married German-born Emilie Heinzelmann.

DEATHS:

Ironically, two of the Swedish ancestors about whom I wrote above, died in Chicago during the week of April 14-20. Peter Tolf (my great-great grandfather) died April 15, 1929 and his father-in-law Johan Peter Landström (my 3rd-great-grandfather) died the day before his 90th birthday.

Sophie Larsen nee Tønnessdatter (Americanized to Thompson) is the fourth of nine known children born to my Norwegian 3rd great-grandfather Tønnes Christiansen. There are some mysteries surrounding Sophie that I hope to solve in the near future. What is known is that Sophie Larsen died in Chicago on the 20th of April 1890.