30. April 1 1886

In this letter Jonas Victor is remembering past times when he was home with his parents in Sweden.  He writes about his family in America;  then, ever the farmer/business man, he writes about how things are going on the farm with prices, etc.  He wonders if his parents are alive.  Letters traveled so slowly then.  


Jonas Victor Swenson
Randolph, KS April 1, 1886

Table at Spakarp in 2006

Dear Parents, siblings and relatives.  I wish you everything good.

Now I am sitting to write some lines to you, I  think about the earlier times in Sweden and here.  I think about the years we have been here and it is strange.  It does not seem so long ago since we, with you siblings, were sitting round our parents table.  Now some are passed away, and we who are left are spread far and wide.  It seems only a short time.  While it has been good, it has also been work and trouble.

Dear Jesus, help us, so we are dressed in the just vestment, and that the oil in the lamps will not be missing. I can tell you that in the spiritual life here there are many different sects and there is much friction among God's children, and it seems there is an obstacle for the Lord's thing and work, most believing as God's children and unfaithfulness to the others.  The Lord can transform everything.  It is with His help, we will be preserved in blessedness.

Perhaps you want to know something about how we are.  I say thanks to the Lord that the whole family has good health.  We have moved to another place.  I have leased out part of the old place and we own the rest.  Where we now live, there is work with the railway, which goes over our land and takes more than four acres.  We got $250 for that.  The station will be near us, and in the summer it will be ready.

All our sons are in school except Karl Victor (This is Charles W. who was born one year after the first Karl Victor died at the age of 4 months in 1863 before they emigrated to America.  It was not uncommon to name another child the same name as one who died young.)   He helps me a lot, taking care of the cattle in the cold winter, which has been long and cold.  Hans Ferdinand  (Henry) has been in the town east of us in school.  The others have been in our district's school, which is near us.

The harvest last year was good with the exception of wheat, which we do not use as much.  We have to be satisfied with a small income now.  Everything that the farmer has to sell is at low prices.  I can tell you how you can lose in America.  I and all others sold broom corn for $75-$90.  After everybody had sold, the price went up to $150-$200, so I lost about $1000 for ten barrels.

This year we have one cow and 36 fat oxen.  We have had them getting fat for 6 months.  We have not sold them yet.  The prices are low this year, but the land which cost $10 some years ago, now costs $40-$50 an acre.  That which nobody hardly wants to own costs $10 now.

From here, many people go to the West and take land on a homestead with wood planting.  Some take 180 acres and some 320 acres.  Many get tired and come back.

Gardens prosper quickly here.  If you plant fruit trees, you will have fruit in 5 years.

We have not heard anything from Hans and Lovisa (his sister and her husband who live in America) for a while, so I do not know how they are.  Johan Jaenson from Snararp and his wife and others think they will go back to Sweden.  It they do, we are not sure if they will come back here.

How is it?  I think I owe you, brother Albert, something for the yarn you sent us.  (I am sure Anna Greta knit stockings because My Dad used to tell how his mother, Matilda Swenson Skonberg, knit stockings with fine yarn and very fine wire like needles)  I know that I owe you much gratitude for your troubles, which you have had so many times and the cost for the yarn.  Let me know and I will send money at once.  (I wonder--did they not have yarn for sale at the local store in Kansas?) 


I hope you forgive me for my neglect in sending a letter to you.

I would like to know something about our dear parents, if they are still alive.  How are Karl Magnus and Lotta (Charlotta, his sister) Fredrick and Fia (Anna Sofia, another sister) and children.  Also, how is it in Hamra  (where Anna Greta's family lives)?   I saw in a newspaper that Karl Olson in Hamra had been beaten by bad people in Vimmerby, if I do not remember wrong.

I pay willingly for your letters.

Victor Swenson

29. December 11 1883

In this new letter Anna Greta asks them to send her some cabbage seeds as she thinks Swedish cabbage is better than the American.  Perhaps they grew better in Sweden because of the longer summer days in Sweden's further north location.  There was never a letter in 1877  telling of the birth of their last child, a son named Theodore.  Anna Greta was 41 years old and bore children for 20 years.
Roselyn


Jonas Victor Swenson
Randolph, KS  December 11, 1883

Thanks, Dear Brother for all the troubles you have had for us and thanks for all the letters we have gotten.  Thanks also for the bill of $150.  You have not got a good price for your troubles.  We got a letter from Oskar, if I do not remember wrong.  It is very nice to get letters from you.

I can tell you that we have got a good harvest this year of all sorts.  Our Dear God has been good to us with the harvest and also everything else.  Also, today our Lord keeps his promise.  His grace is new every morning.  Even today we have wakened with health and new strength.  Until now the Lord has helped and will help us in the future.

Anna Greta asks if you can send us cabbage seeds in a letter.  It will be better cabbage from the Swedish seeds.

The next time you write, let us know about our old father, if he can be up sometimes and if he has pain.

I finish my letter with our dear regards to you and your family, our old parents, siblings and relatives, brother-in-law Johan Petter and his family and also to Karl Johan.

Victor Svenson

28. Rune and Irene Elofsson

Rune and Irene Elofsson

It is time for me to acknowledge the co-authors of this blog of Swedish letters.  Let me introduce Rune and Irene Elofsson of Eksjo, Sweden.  Irene is a great granddaughter of Anna Sofia Svensdotter who was the sister of Greta Lovisa  and the Swenson brothers you have been reading about.  This is my favorite picture of them, taken when we had lunch at a place near a waterfall they had visited when they were courting many years ago!

Rune and Irene at Home

Rune and Irene have spent years carefully translating the Letters to Spakarp.  We saw some of the letters in their computer room where they picked up the old faded letters at random and used a dictionary to translate the archaic Swedish script into English.

Our daughter, Susan and I  spent nearly two weeks with them in late summer of 2006.  We had the whole upstairs, and it was lovely.  We slept soundly every night, after a day of touring.  They drove us all around, visiting places the Swensons had lived, churches they attended, and were baptized, and treating us like Royalty all the time with wonderful Swedish breakfasts in their cheerful kitchen.   We ate with the dictionary nearby to use when there was a word we did not understand.

Of course, every morning Irene filled a thermos with hot coffee that we enjoyed with her rolls for coffee stops during our visits around the area.   We also enjoyed visits to the homes of Irene's sister Gun-Britt Fritzon and her husband Sigvard and her brother Gunvar Grevstig and his wife Mona.  As I said, it was the trip of a lifetime, and I was sad when it was time to leave.

The reason we can read these letters is because of the work of Rune and Irene.  Rune is very active in the Genealogy Society of Sweden and has spent a lot of time tracing our families and recording the information for us to have.


Thank you again, Rune and Irene!

26. September 12, 1881

Jonas Victor repays the loan he received.  He mentions Gustaf.  If I am correct, that is a brother who came to visit for about a year and then returned to Spakarp to stay.   Picture above was taken at Spakarp in 1939  
Roselyn

Jonas Victor Swenson
Randolph, KS  September 12 1881

I wish you everything good!  Thanks, dear Brother for the letter I got with the bill for the time the money was with you.  Have you not any outlay for interest?  Thanks to you for your help.  I sent an authorization 14 days ago to the Norwegian counsellor in Chicago and from there to you.

My health is not so well.  I have been sick, but now I am better.  I will try to write, but I have to rest now and then.  I, the maid and Gustaf are at home; the others are on the other land and work with broom corn.  Ten persons are there.

I will tell you something about the weather.  The last winter was the coldest anybody can remember.  Cold prolonged northerly wind until the spring.  Then it was so hot that we got summer at once.  May and half of June were so rainy, so nothing grew.  After that we got hot and dry weather.  During two months, we got only a little rain, so the harvest of grain will be small. The drought and the warm southerly wind blew until yesterday, when we got a little soaker.  It was good for the pasturage.  The harvest last year was the biggest I have ever had.  This year the harvest is the worst since we came to America.  No potatoes, no vegetables, but the oats has been good.

Ander and Kari, Hultet, are here.  They live with Anders and  Kari.  They have better health now than before.  I will now finish with our lovely greetings to you, brother and sister-in-law and children.  Hearty regards to Mother and Father, too.


Yours Sincerely,

Brother Jonas Victor

I would enjoy knowing how the harvest has been there this year--if it grows good in the bog.

27. 1883

In this letter, Jonas Victor tells a lot about his crops, etc.  I wish my Dad, John Victor Skonberg, could read some of these letters about his farming operation.  He would have enjoyed them. Jonas Victor  mentions that their oldest son, Alfred was married.  We do not have a letter telling of my Grandmother Matilda's marriage in 1873--she was 16 and he was 33 and they eloped.  I am sure it would have been mentioned.  By 1883, she had three children.  However, I know that Anna Greta did not approve of her only daughter's marriage to John Skonberg, a recent immigrant from Skona in Southern Sweden, who was the hired man.  He was handsome, gallant and very poor.  She really never forgave her daughter.  In addition I have learned that Skona was for hundreds of years a part of Denmark--not Sweden--and the people there resented being taken over by Sweden in 1600. There are some who still do!   If you look on a map, you will see that Southern Sweden is very close to Copenhagen--just across a narrow Sound.  There is now a bridge between Malmo, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark, and the two cities cooperate on schools, etc.  The land is different, the architecture is Danish and Skona resembles Denmark more than most of Sweden.  Even after all these years, we sensed a certain feeling similar to the North and South after the Civil War--still today!  Anna Greta always looked with disfavor on John Skonberg, though he and Matilda had a long and happy marriage.


Jonas Victor Swenson
Randolph, Riley Country  KS  1883

Grace and Peace to all!

Because it is rainy weather here now, I have time to write some lines.  Thanks for the letters we have got and the last with the registered content.  I see that you have taken much trouble for us.  We are grateful for your help.  When you can, you will take payment for that.  I know that you need time.  There is much to do until everything is sold.  Here they just have an auction.

We are satisfied with the sale in Hamra.  We did not think that we should get something for the cottage.  The 300 Swedish Kr we have written about I know it was never paid, so I do not want to receive anything from them.  It is much better to give in than to fight, because it is just.

The deposited money that you perhaps know is 500 Swedish Kr, will be paid out 6 months after the last persons death with 6 percent interest from the day of death til the paying is done.  I do not remember anything more in Hamra that I need to write about.   (I don't understand what this is all about--perhaps Anna Greta's family has sold their home in Hamra).

I do not have your letters here.  I am not at home.  I am with some people in the place we bought last autumn for $2300.  We lease a farm nearby which I pay $200 for.  We have much to do.  I think we have more arable land to cultivate than it is in Hamra and Spakarp together.  We cultivate mostly grain.  We also had 25 acres of broom corn.  Last year I sold it for $880--the price was high.  It is a lot of work to reap it.  The broom corn has to be dried with no sunshine and rain after it has been reaped.

I will also let you know we have fattened 16 oxen (steers) last winter.  We put them to fattening the first of October.  They were 3 years old and fat.  We fed them as much grain as they wanted twice a day. We have pigs to go among them to eat the rest of the grain.  We had them in a corral where we had running water.  I sold them in February for $1150.  They were sold by weight.  We kept them til the end of March and by that time the price had dropped.  I lost $200.  (My Dad would have said he should have contracted for the price!)  It had never been such a high price before.  Cattle and pigs are bringing high prices.

The harvest was so good that I can tell you that our oldest son, Alfred, married 14 days ago to the youngest daughter of Karl Johan Peterson from Gnost, Rumskulla.  (Her name was Wilhemina Louisa Peterson)

The last autumn we had more than 5000 bushels of grain.  We have 108 cattle, 18 horses, 125 swine, 680 acres of arable land.  We are now a company.  Alfred owns 1/7, Karl Victor (Charles W.)  3/4 of 1/7, but I own $1800 of the company.  We have $1000 debt for the last farm we bought.  Alfred lives on the last place we bought.  We go between us to where the most work is needed.

It would be of interest to know how much bog and fen are cultivated by you and if it grows good, so it is worth it to work there.

Brother, I have told about things which we will leave sooner or later as a treasure which disappears.  We all have an immortal soul, which is worth more than the whole world.  Many Bible quotations follow.  (I wonder if he is feeling slightly guilty about his great success?  He certainly worked hard enough to attain it that he should not feel guilty.)

Now I finish for this time.  We are all well and hope that you have good health too.  We send our kindly regards to you and children, our parents and brothers.

Victor Svenson