M.001.03 - The New York Entrance to the Holland Tubes
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| The New York Entrance to the Holland Tubes, New York City © American Photo Service. Inc. |
"The Holland Tunnel is a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River. It connects the New York City neighborhood of SoHo in Lower Manhattan to the east with Jersey City in New Jersey to the west. --- Construction of the Holland Tunnel started in 1920, and it opened in 1927. At the time of its opening, the Holland Tunnel was the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in the world. --- The Holland Tunnel was the world's first mechanically ventilated tunnel..." [Wikipedia]
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| Published by Manhattan Post Card Co., New York, N.Y. |
To: Herr Gustaf Emanuelson*, Storegården, Fristad
From: Gerda (Stockholm 31.12.29)
Käre bror! Ett gott nytt år! Jag ringde till Elin igår, det är visst detsamma med Oscar. Jag tänker resa dit en dag. Elin ville att jag skulle komma innan någon annan o se vad jag tycker. Kära hälsningar, Gerda. [Tack för kort! - skrivet upp-o-ner på framsidan]
Dear brother, Happy New Year! I called Elin yesterday, it seems to be the same with Oscar. I intend to go visit them [soon]. Elin wanted me to come before anyone else and see what I think. Love, Gerda. [Thanks for the card! - written upside-down on the front]
Another New York postcard from Gerda to Gustaf, showing recent architectural progress in the US since the first decade of the century, when sister and brother were both living there.
This card is the only one I have from 1929, and like the one from 1928 (cf. previous post), this one too was not posted from New York, but from Stockholm, on New Year's Eve. So it does not really tell us what Gerda had been up to during the past twelve months. But, assuming that she was indeed already employed by Estelle and Folke Bernadotte, she may have spent at least part of 1929 in New York. According to Shelley Emling's biography A Forgotten Hero: Folke Bernadotte, Folke's father-in-law wanted him to get familiar with American business life, and...
"...for six months, Folke went to work at Lee, Higginson & Co., an investment bank in New York, where he got a crash course in the proverbial corporate ladder as he moved from one junior-level job to another.”[Emling, Shelley. A Forgotten Hero: Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish Humanitarian Who Rescued 30,000 People from the Nazis (p. 52). ECW Press. Kindle Edition.]
At New Year, Gerda is in Stockholm, though. And from the message on the postcard, it seems that things are not well with Oscar - older brother of her and Gustaf. Oscar's wife (Elin) is obviously worried, but also seems not quite sure what to think, as she has asked Gerda to come and give her opinion. That sounds to me like perhaps Oscar had had a stroke or something of that kind. However, Oscar is the one of Gerda's brothers that I know the least about. I know he was born in 1872, and from postcards I have learned that he and his family moved to Norrköping. But checking the family tree, I see that I don't have the year of his death. (Note to self: put that on the list of things to look into.)
Before that, in September 1928, the eldest brother, Carl (born 1870), at Storegården in Fristad, Västergötland, had passed away.
Gustaf (born 1878), had moved back to Storegården in 1918, and after Carl's death, took over the reins there. In 1929, his step-mother and her children were still living there as well - but wouldn't be for much longer. In 1930, his three half- and step-siblings would be getting married and move away (and their mother Selma too). Gustaf remained living at the farm at least through the 1930s, though. (If he was able to stay on there for the rest of his life, I'm not sure, as I have no postcards from the 1940s. But when he died in 1952, he was buried in Fristad.)
Storegården, c. 1929: Mother Selma; Hildur and her fiancé Olle; Sally and her fiancé Gustaf T (my grandparents-to-be); and Gustaf ... er... whatever surname he was using at the time...
(Missing: Youngest brother Nils, and his fiancée Carin.)
"What's in a Name"?
As mentioned in the previous post, at some point after moving back to the farm in Fristad, Gustaf changed his last name back from Ekman to Emanuelsson, and then to Samuelsson. Since I have no postcards from the earlier years of the 1920s, until 1928, I'm not sure when exactly he decided to drop Ekman. But (based on Gerda's postcards) between 1928-1930 (possibly starting earlier) he seems to have used the name Emanuelsson, but from 1931, switched to Samuelsson.
The story behind the name-changes, as I've heard it:
The most common practice in the late 1800s and early 1900s was that children, both male and female, inherited the father's surname, as family name. Earlier in history, the practice was that children were given a surname based on their father's first name. (When looking back in family history records, at least among farmers, you will find chains of names like: Sven Larsson was the son of Lars Svensson, who was the son of Sven Larsson, who was the son of Lars Svensson, who...)
All of Samuel Emanuelsson's children originally inherited his surname Emanuelsson, though - with one exception: Gustaf. The story beind that is that at his christening, by mistake, the surname Samuelsson was entered into the church records. And so he officially got stuck with a different surnamne than all the rest of his brother and sisters. (What he called himself, or usually got called by others, I don't know.)
Some time in their youth, though, Gustaf and three of his older siblings (Oscar, Ester and Gerda) decided to take the shorter surname Ekman. (My guess is that this was probably after the death of their mother, or in connection with their father getting remarried - to my great-grandmother Selma.)
I don't think there was much bureaucracy involved back then in changing your surname. There were so many people with "-son" names that I think it was even encouraged. (For one thing, I know the army found it confusing to have too many Andersson and Johansson and whatever, so they often just gave new soldiers a different surname, if they didn't come up with one themselves.) The oldest brother, Carl, who took over the farm after his father, kept the name Emanuelsson, though. (And the oldest sister, Emma, was probably already married at the time.)
Oscar, Ester and Gerda kept the name Ekman throughout their lives. Why Gustaf dropped it after moving back permanently to the farm, I'm not sure. Maybe he found it easier when reconnecting with the past, to just be an Emanuelsson again. As for why, in the 1930s, he ended up going the "full circle" back Samuelsson, I'm again not sure. Perhaps there was some legal aspect to it after all, with that being his name in the church records. Anyway, the name on his gravestone was also Samuelsson.
Linking to: Sepia Saturday 616
"I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events --- but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable." - George R. R. Martin
(Saknas: Nils och hans fästmö Carin)
”Jag har en bred känsla av vart historien är på väg: Jag vet hur det slutar, jag vet hur det kommer att gå för huvudpersonerna, och jag vet de viktigaste vändpunkterna och händelserna --- men inte nödvändigtvis varje svängom och kullerbytta längs vägen. Det är något jag upptäcker under skrivandets gång, och det är det som gör det roligt att skriva." - George R.R. Martin
What an interesting family...and just look at that photo with your grandparents as young people! That's fascinating. Name changes make finding records so hard.
ReplyDeleteAgree that name changes are tricky when trying to track people's history. My grandfather changed his last name too as an adult, from his father's '-son' name to his mother's (they weren't married); and her father in turn had changed his when becoming a soldier.
DeleteInteresting to see that vintage post card of the Holland Tunnel. I love that you were able to trace Gerda's travels through a biography of her employer and his time in the U.S. Also nice to see that family photo and put faces to the names.
ReplyDeleteThanks Molly. I have few photos from before the 1920s, but a bit later on someone obviously got a camera... The problem is still that most photos have no notes of who and when, and have been put into albums in no special order. This group photo I date to 1929 because 1/ my grandparents got engaged in 1929 and 2/ Carl, who died in 1928, is not in the picture.
DeleteAs always a thoroughly interesting post. Gustaf changing back to the name listed on church records most probably did it for a legal reason of some sort. The Holland tunnel postcard is very interesting. I, however, do not like tunnels. If they're short and I can see the other end, okay. But if I can't see the other end I get nervous. That applies to any kind of long tunnel or subway - whether it goes underwater or not. But underwater would be worse, I think.
ReplyDeleteI like George R.R. Marin's quote about writing. Exactly so! When I write, I have an outline of how the story will start and how it will end (more or less) and a few things in the middle. But regardless of what I mean to have the characters do (or say), they eventually start doing things on their own and I simply have follow them. I thought maybe it was kind of crazy when I first started writing, but then I read a book by a much-published author who, in effect, said exactly the same thing. And now I see George agreeing to it, too. It IS an interesting anomaly. :)
Thanks LaN. I was searching for "twist and turn" quotes and the George R.R. Martin one struck me as "spot on" - also for this blog, and reading and writing about the old postcards. I knew some facts about Gustaf and Gerda beforehand, like that they emigrated to America but returned, and that Gerda continued to travel a lot and ended up working for the Bernadotte family - but I've discovered so much more "in the course of writing" :)
DeleteThanks for another interesting post on Gerda's story and for explaining the Swedish tradition on names. It gets very confusing to follow the bewildering variety of national name conventions, and gets worse when names are translated, particular with cultures that place the surname first in name order. Are full middle names often used in Swedish to distinguish father from son? And are there series of forenames like Lars Svensson Jr., Lars Svensson II, Lars Svensson III, etc.? With English/American names some families alternate first and middle names with the generations and it can be terribly confusing to find the right person.
ReplyDeleteMike, I think using numbers to distinguish between generations here is usually reserved for royalty. (Our present king, for example, is Carl XVI Gustaf - implying that as far as our records go, there were 15 kings namned Karl before him.) Senior vs Junior (or Swedish equivalents thereof)* are often used for nobility and famous people - but I suppose also in private family contexts. But when a son is named after the father, I think that within the family, 'Junior' often ends up being called by some nick-name instead. When doing family history research from official records, that rarely shows up, though!
Delete* Swedish: d.ä. = den äldre = the older = senior
d.y. = den yngre = the younger = junior