Another Pleasantville Interlude (~ 1930)

Way back in September 2012, I wrote a post entitled Summer in Pleasantville 1933. I had one photo of Gerda, posing on some kind of brick terrace, and with 'Pleasantville 1933' written on the back. And another of her in a garden with two little boys, which looked like it might be from the same time and place. I knew Gerda was working for Estelle Manville-Bernadotte and her husband Count Folke Bernadotte (from Sweden) at the time. I also knew Estelle's parents lived in Pleasantville; and furthermore, that Folke Bernadotte represented Sweden at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair - which made it likely that the whole family had been to the US that summer - lady's maid/housekeeper Gerda included.

Over the years that followed, I had emails from two or three people who happened to come across my blog posts in their own internet searches to do with Pleasantville, and who could confirm - in one way or another - that those photos of Gerda were indeed from the Manville estate.

One of those emails, received in July 2014, got put aside because I had little time just then for my family research projects. I happened to find it again the other day, and realised that I never got round to adding those photos to the blog. I have remedied that now, in a post that I decided to "back-date" to 2014: Hi-Esmaro, Pleasantville - Again. One photo shows the house in 1925; the other is from 1978, shortly before it was demolished.

On second thought, I'll include these photos here, too 
- for comparison with some more to follow below...

After I had finished that back-dated blog post yesterday, I was flickering through Gerda's photo album agian. It's a very challenging collection, because not only are the photos very small, and some of them of poor quality - but they have also been firmly glued into the album in no particular order, and with no notes or dates whatsoever. (And as the separate album pages can't be removed, scanning the images is tricky, too.)

Now, with that 1925 image of the Hi-Esmaro estate fresh in mind... Suddenly another photo in the album jumps out at me. Surely this looks like it could be from Hi-Esmaro as well - from another angle?

I'm guessing Gerda is the one in the middle.
And then surely, the photo below shows the same three ladies:

And then I suppose this photo could be from there as well
(even if it could also be somewhere else)

And perhaps this one?

Sepia Saturday: Snow

This photo is from my grandmother Sally’s photo album.
I don’t know who the people are, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of man-drawn sled anywhere else!

This is from grandma Sally’s photo album, too. I recognise Sally on the right in the trio, and I’m pretty sure it’s her half-sister Hildur on the left, but I don’t know who the girl in the middle is. The man walking towards them could be Sally’s brother Nils, there’s something slightly familiar about the shape of him. My guess is the photo is from the late 1920s. The road is probably in the neighbourhood of the family farm where they lived until 1930.

Here we have Nils to the right; I don’t know who the man on the left is. The photo is from my grandfather Gustaf’s album and he dates it to 1923, when both he and Nils were in military service.

The last two photos are from Gerda’s album (my grandmother’s older half-sister). The photo above is one of the few in her album that has any place and/or date attached. I don’t know which Oakhill, though (does anyone recognise the building in the background?) or what exactly she was doing there.  Correction (26.1.2014): I just found the answer in an email from last year from my relative Bengt who has been filling in some details in Gerda’s history for me. This Oakhill is not in the United States at all (as I assumed, knowing that Gerda travelled a lot) but in Stockholm, Sweden! It was built in 1910 for Prince Wilhelm and his wife Maria Pavlovna. However, they got divorced in 1914 (big scandal), so who lived there in 1921, I don’t know. Since 1926 it’s been the Italian Embassy in Sweden. (There’s no end to the things one learns by blogging!) But according to my relative, there is a document with illegible signature among Gerda’s papers, indicating that she did work for someone at Oakhill in Stockholm in 1921.

Browsing through her album again today, looking for more winter pictures, I also found this one, which had pretty much escaped my notice before:

There is no note of time or place attached to this one – but I now feel pretty confident that it’s from the Manville estate in Pleasantville, New York, in the early 1930s. The link will take you to a previous post of mine from September 2012, where I discuss the possibility of that stone wall belonging to that estate – and why.

Moreover: Between that post and this one, in September 2013, I received an unexpected email from a Swedish woman now living in Pleasantville, who came across my blog post when she was trying to find out something about the history of this very estate. (How extraordinary is that?!) She was able to confirm that while the house itself is no longer there, the stone wall surrounding the property still is:

I’ve been meaning to do a separate blog post about Sofia’s  email and photos, but as I have been taking a bit of a break from the family history research lately, I haven’t got round to it. Finding yet another photo including the wall today reminded me! I’ll get back to it, I promise. For now I just include one of her pictures, for comparison. There is no doubt in my mind now that it is the same wall.

Linking to:

Sepia Saturday: Unknown

“All lovers of old photographs are familiar with unknown people, unknown families and unknown places, we all have them in our collection, and Sepia Saturday 165 provides an opportunity to give them their moment in the limelight, not because of who they are but because of who they may be.”

Among my old family albums there is one with lots of unknown faces and places in it. I think it probably belonged to my grandmother’s half-sister Gerda – one of the “cast” in this blog. There are some photos of her in that album, and some of family members I recognize; but also many people I don’t know at at all.

The first photo is the very first one in the “unknown” album. I think the woman in the middle may be Gerda herself. Further on in the same album I found the other photo from the same room. Different occasion. Three people seem to be the same. Two are different. No Gerda.

It’s looks like a rather stylish house, doesn’t it, with that ornamented fireplace?

I’m thinking maybe a family she worked for… And kept in touch with afterwards??

To sum up what I know about Gerda so far:

She emigrated to America in 1902 (at age 21), worked as a servant at a few different addresses in Chicago for about 10 years (one of those positions was in the household of a rather prominent man in Chicago, dr Otto L. Schmidt – she is registred as servant in his house in the 1910 US population census). Around 1913 (age 32) she was back in Sweden, at least for a visit. But she continued to travel in Europe during the first world war and in the 1920’s. From a relative I learned that she worked as lady’s maid/travel companion to rich English ladies.

In the 1930’s and onwards (age 50+), she was housekeeper to the family of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte (of the royal family) and his American wife Estelle Manville-Bernadotte. Folke and Estelle got married in 1928, and made their home in Stockholm.  (Possibly Gerda worked for Estelle or the Manville family even before the marriage. Among old photos there is also a press cutting of a photo from the wedding, cut from an American magazine.)

Folke Bernadotte was tragically assassinated in 1948 in Jerusalem. Gerda (then 67) remained with Estelle Bernadotte, I think for the rest of her (Gerda’s) life – which was a long one, as she lived to be nearly 92. Estelle eventually married again, but that was not until the same year Gerda died, 1973 (and Estelle herself was 69).

What do you think? Is the woman in the middle the same as young Gerda to the left, and old Gerda to the right?

The photo to the right shows Gerda wearing a royal medal.  When did she get it? I’m guessing in connection with her 75th birthday, 1956. And/or 25 or 30 years of service to a royal(ly connected) family. Mid/late 50s anyway, as she’s sitting in my grandfather’s chair which got for his 50th birthday in 1954. And it was he who took that photo.

I’ve not been able to find any list of old medals on the internet, only more recent ones given to famous people. Gerda, in spite of the medal, belongs to the Unknown.

Sepia Saturday: Young Lad with Bicycle

It took me a while to find them in the old family albums, but here are two photos of my dad in his boyhood, first with a tricycle rather small for him, then a bicycle a bit big for him… I’m not sure exactly how old he was in either photo but he was born in 1931.