Generations Project: The Wallin's (Petterson's)
This side of my family is from my paternal grandmother's line. The Wallin's joined the Church in Sweden around the turn of the 19th century. Carl Gustaf Wallin was born in born 1863 in a small village called Eggby. Carl Gustof joined the military in 1880. He was born Carl Gustof Petterson, but when he joined in the army in Sweden, there were so many Petterson's enlisted, they changed his name to Wallin. He served in Varnhem as a soldier in #8 Royal Vastgota Regiment. On 21 Nov 1884 Carl married Charlotta Karolina "Lotta" Andersdotter. They had 11 children and 7 of them grew to adulthood. Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to the Pettersson home in about 1895. The Church had been established in Sweden since 1853. Johannes and Margareta, Carl's mother and father listened to their message, and they may have sent the missionaries to share their message with Carl and his family too, since the Church records show that Johannes, Margareta, Carl and Lotta were all baptized in June 1898. |
| Johannes and Margareta Petterson |
Their daughter, Elizabeth wrote, “When I was five years old the first missionaries came to our home. Their names were Erickson and Olsen, from Logan, Utah. My folks got baptized in 1898. That was about two years after the first missionaries. My father's parents were baptized at the same time. After that the missionaries tried to tell them to come to Utah, but it didn't seem very easy because dad had been in the Army for seventeen years. He quit the Army after he joined the Church. I don't know what kind of work he was doing. Just odd jobs here and there.” My great-grandmother, another daughter, Hilma said, “I can remember Dad coming home one night. Mother had been reading aloud in the Book of Mormon. Dad listened and said, ‘Well that sounds true.’ That was a pretty good explanation of what the Book of Mormon was talking about. He figured right then that it was good, of course in Sweden the worst thing they could call you was a 'Mormon'. They all thought that was a terrible thing. We just loved it when the missionaries came over. They were always so nice and we kids later loved them.”
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| The Wallin's |
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| Helen and Carl Wallin |
I wonder if Helen and her father had this photo taken to send back to the family in Sweden during their separation, which, lasted just under 2 years.
Meanwhile back in Sweden, Lotta was torn about leaving her elderly mother who was losing her sight. Her mother insisted that she should go take care of her family in America. (Phase 2) Lotta and the 4 youngest children departed on the 22 March 1907. The other two girls, Elizabeth and Hilma, remained in Sweden. Elizabeth was working, and Hilma was staying with the grandparents. They had auction sale to sell everything before they left Sweden. Apparently the crossing was rough, and the entire family became ill, except Carl, Jr. , a young boy who liked to make mischief who "had nothing to do and nobody to holler at me. I was free! What a glorious time! As far as I can remember they [my family] were sick a majority of the time on the way over here. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done..." A favorite family story tells how Carl stole several smoking pipes to show his father, then threw them overboard when he was afraid of getting caught.
After arriving in the US, they took the train to Utah. Enoch records, "I remember the first banana that my mother bought for us when we were on the train. We didn’t peel them. We thought we were supposed to eat them, peelings and all. They weren’t very good!...They gave us some tomatoes one time too and we didn’t like them either.”
In Salt Lake, one day Carl ran into a missionary from Pleasant Grove who asked him if all his family was there. When he learned that two daughters were still in Sweden, he offered to loan what money was still needed to pay their passage. (Phase 3) On 15 Nov 1907 the two sisters, Elizabeth and Hilma, began their adventure as follows: ”It took us three weeks to get here. We were two days on the North Sea and we landed in Hull, England. We went from there on the train to Liverpool. That took about half a day. Then we took a boat from Liverpool. We were on the boat thirteen days and landed in Canada. Dad had bought our ticket on the ‘South Pacific’. We didn’t go with the missionaries or anyone we knew, because Dad bought the cheapest tickets he could find. We landed in Quebec or St.John, Canada.” (Lizzie) Hilma described it this way. “We left Gothenborg on a Friday. We were supposed to leave at one o'clock but we didn't leave until six that evening. It was a beautiful evening. The North Sea was clear and still.” Now back to Lizzie’s version.
“From there we took the train on into the United States. I don't remember how many days we were on the train. We had a wonderful trip. Of course, being able to feel well on the trip helped...We went from Denver to Salt Lake straight through. The date was December 8, 1907. About 9 o’clock Dad came on his bicycle. Of course, we hadn't seen Dad for two or three years. We recognized him though and were glad to see him. We walked home to the house where they were living. Mother had only been gone about nine months so that hadn't been so long. They were all excited looking for us girls.”
Hilma must have been happy to get there. She said that she hadn’t slept well on the journey because she was too nervous. She stated that she liked to stay up late and sleep in but Lizzie was just the opposite.
The family lived in Murray, UT for about 8 years, from 1905-1913.The younger children attended school. Carl worked at a smelter but he wanted to farm . He had started buying 40 acres of ground in the Strawberry Valley. The family moved to Riverton, UT where Carl got a job in a carpenter shop there. During this same time he had gotten a letter from his daughter, Elizabeth who had married and was living in Idaho. She told them about homestead land that was to open up soon. The homestead program that the government offered gave a person an opportunity to live on 160 acres of land. There only requirement to live on the property for several years, and make improvements, and then they could pay a small amount to own the property. 160 acres sounded like a dream come true to Carl. The family ended up on a homestead in Idaho’s Pocatello Creek area.
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| Carl and Lotta |
Sometime after 1930 when it was too much work to upkeep the farm, Carl and Lotta sold their homestead and bought a place in Pocatello. In later years, Lotta needed a wheel chair to get around in but it was Carl who died first 20 Jan of 1947 at age 83. They had been married for 62 years. Lotta passed away about 6 months later on 5 Aug of the same year at age 87. Both are buried in the Mountain View Cemetery at Pocatello. They had stayed true to each other and the faith that they had embraced all those years before.
posted by Austin @ 8:04 PM
1 Comments:
I'm glad you're enjoying learning about your ancestors...I bet they're enjoying seeing you enjoy your new favorite hobby as well! :)
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