The Ekekqvist's of Homestead

This is the page as it appears in the album.

Article from 1894 newspaper telling about the new town of Homestead, Wisconsin, where the Ekekqvist's settled and homesteaded.

 This is a view of the Ekekqvist farm from above.

 The house itself was quite large. 

Emil, Ivan, Andrew, Ellen, Julia, Ida, Louisa, Teckla and Willard

According to the page from the Bible, these were Emil Reinhold; Gustaf Willard; Andrew; Augusta Eleonora; Juliana; Ida Charlotta; Lovisa; Theckla Matilda; and Ivan Valdemar.

Andrew and Lovisa Ekekqvist

Andrew Ekekqvist

Louisa is seated in the middle. The others are unknown at this time.

 Ellen Krans' obituary.

The Missing Bible Page

When Loraine Krans Larson visited Norene and me last week, she said it was too bad there wasn't much information in the Swedish Bible of Louisa's she had given me when she visited last year.

I told her that when Nancy gave the Bible to Audrey Krans Carlson, she first removed the page of "Births" from the Bible, and put it in her family photo album that went to Ruth Ann when Nancy went to the Medicare facility.

Ruth Ann was nice enough to borrow me the album which I used to put together the Lundwall Family DVD, and I had all the photos saved on an external hard drive when an older Mac computer went to one of my adult kids. He got rid of anything he didn't want on the computer as all my "good stuff" was saved on the external hard drive. When I went looking for the dvd to make some copies for one of our cousins -- guess what -- the hard drive was toast.

My son Bob was able to copy one of the dvd's for that cousin; but it wasn't until last week that I asked him if he could make a couple more copies and download the photos for me from Nancy's album. He kindly did that and I now have all the photos in my possession again. The album went back to Ruth Ann several years ago.

As it got to the end of the page, the writing got smaller and smaller and smaller. Marlin's birth is barely on the page!

Notice also that the births listed in Louisa's beautiful writing have the last name written as "Ekekvist" with the Swedish spelling.

You can make the photo of this page larger by clicking on it. 

The Bible probably stayed with Teckla since Louisa lived with the family from Teckla's marriage to Oscar until after Marlin was born.

I'm going to attempt to put all of Nancy's photos up in the next couple of weeks so you can copy what you want from these. There are a lot of photos, however! We'll see how this goes.

And finally, Norene's first session of chemotherapy went well today.

Tidbit of Information

I have a 5th cousin, once removed, on my mother's side who lives in Negaunee. She sent me an interesting sentence in an email today, "You have probably checked the census for the whole gang...in 1940, Margaret was listed twice....once in Palmer, and again as lodgers with Mac Kranz (Chicago, Cook, IL, USA) , and they were employed as waitresses in a hospital. It's unusual for people to be caught twice by the same census."

I went looking for this because I hadn't seen the 1940 census from Chicago -- only the one from Palmer. 

From this, I discovered that Violet and Margaret had worked 52 weeks in 1939 as waitresses in a hospital there, and made $560 each -- and that Mae Krans, their cousin, moved in with them and worked 12 weeks as a waitress in the same hospital and made $120 in 1939.

They lived at 738 Briar Place, which must have been a very large apartment building. 

Violet and Margaret remained in Chicago, but Mae returned some time after that to marry Roy Frederickson and they lived in East Kingsford. When Jerry and I lived in Iron Mountain. Mae babysat for me when I worked for the Iron Mountain Chamber of Commerce. 

Funny how one sentence can help us find so much information. I do have the pdf file for the census sheet if anyone is interested -- I can't upload a pdf file here. Thanks again to Midge in Negaunee! 

I did a google search on the address and it is still an apartment house among many other apartment houses, which have recently been renovated in Chicago.  

738 W Briar Place, Chicago Apartments Description

The Brennan is a fully renovated, historical landmark building. Located on a beautiful tree-lined street in East Lakeview, this elevator building offers studio, large studio, 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom units. These sunny apartments offer condo-like amenities - new kitchen cabinets and countertops, microwave, dishwasher, updated bathrooms and large closets with closet organizers. Laundry available in building. Free basic cable TV and internet. You will be steps away from three of the areas major commercial arteries - Halsted, Clark Street and Broadway Avenue. These major streets contain a majority of the neighborhood's restaurants, retail shops and public transportation lines.

This is where Margaret and Violet lived when they first went to Chicago, and where cousin Mae Krans joined them. 

Interesting Web Site

One of my friends in Marquette sent me a link to the Q107-WMQT Radio web site, and Jim Koski's 107 things to love about Marquette County that you might enjoy.

     http://www.wmqt.com/107reasons.htm

Lots of information and fun things to read in the left side bar as well. You will have to copy and paste the website address though. Guess you can't link from this blog.

Another scanned photo

Doug has asked me to scan family photos on my mother's side for him, and this photo was among the photos he set aside for me to scan.

Another photo from our family picnics -- this one is Nancy and Eugene.

Nancy and Eugene

Three very dissimilar photos

I still have all kinds of photos to go through, and I've been focusing on my mother's side of the family for a couple of months. Discovered much information that may or may not be valid. It seems that the records in the Upper Peninsula weren't very good in the late 1800's. (There are much better records in Iron Mountain, and even better records in Florence County in Wisconsin.)

I discovered that my great-grandmother was Christina, and by backtracking through other information, am almost 100% positive her last name was Aronson and she was the sister of August Aronson who settled in Escanaba. It's like putting together a giant puzzle and missing half of the pieces.

August may have emigrated to Michigan from lower Sweden in 1877, and Christina followed in 1883. My grandmother was born in 1885. Something happened, and my grandmother's father remarried a few years later and they had five more children. I've been unable to find a death record (or any other kind of record other than she is listed as Christina Nelson, mother, on Albertina's birth record.) I remember some of the Nelsons and they visited us when I was young up until I was a teen. Unfortunately, I didn't know much more and didn't ask any questions when there were people to give me answers.  There are a million Nels Nelson's as well, and quite a few in the Upper Peninsula so his ancestors are impossible to track.

Then there is the mystery of why or how Albertina moved from Palmer, Michigan, to Hibbing, Minnesota, a few years before my grandfather Karl Ferdinand Backstrom immigrated to Hibbing.

At any rate, the first photo is Lloyd's graduation photo.




The second photo is of Roger and Karen, along with their daughter Susan.




The third photo is of my mother, Margaret Backstrom Lundwall taken in Hibbing about the time she met my father. 

Good Morning

Some of you already know that Norene was scheduled for surgery for a complete hysterectomy on Friday, March 29th and they suspected it could be ovarian cancer. 

 

We received bad news and good news.

 

When the surgeon went in, she discovered that it is a pervasive form of cancer. They removed a liter of fluid, but didn't remove anything else but a small biopsy since the tumor is infiltrating everything. This was sent to the pathologist immediately. The cancer is Stage 3. She has probably had this for 6 months to a year.

 

The good news is that the cancer is gynecological in nature and it is chemo sensitive, which means that they will start chemotherapy asap, and if, as expected, the cancer shrinks (chemo can normalize the surfaces of organs and allow removal of the disease) -- they will do a follow-up surgery to remove the cancer.

 

Plans are now to have her recover from this surgery and in 3 or 4 weeks, they will begin chemotherapy.  The treatments will occur every 3 weeks for a total of 6 times. After that, they will do the surgery again.

 

This is one of those "weird" cancers that the doctor sees only a couple of times a year. The doctor stated there is an 80% chance of responding to treatment. She also said that she had an 81 year old patient with the same type of cancer. After chemo they were able to remove the cancer, and she is still cancer-free several years later.

At the present time, her first concern is when she can drive! 

If you would like Norene's address, please contact either Sue Delago or me. 

Ward and Lloyd in summer of 1955

Doug and I were looking at photos tonight and found this photo of Ward and Lloyd in Stambaugh. It's a wonderful photo and we wanted to share it!

Ward and Lloyd and Ward's new Packard!