The Strindin Family

              The Strindin family, in Sweden and in America
In the late 1800s it was not easy to be a
travelling actor
BY KERSTIN JONMYREN
Some years ago in Swedish Ameri-can
Genealogist (2010:1) I told about
a Swedish actor, Edvard Strindin,
the leader of a theater company
which was touring in Sweden during
the last decades of the 19th century
together with his family. There is
more to add.
First some details to
repeat:
Edvard Strindin was born on 27 Aug.
1842, in Sundsvall city, in the north-ern
part of Sweden. On Aug. 6 1870,1
as a rather young man, he moved
south to Stockholm intending to start
a career as an actor. He was a very
good-looking young man and ob-viously
had a talent for acting, too.
There in Stockholm he met a young
girl who surely was as interested in
theater as he was.
On 27 August 1870, Edvard mar-ried
Johanna Charlotta Adolfina
Andersson in Hedvig Eleonora par-ish,
Stockholm.2'3 The bride was
born on 15 October 1849, in Maria
Magdalena parish, Stockholm.4
Edvard Strindin was noted as an
actor in different records, and I have
found him on the staff of a Stockholm
theater company in 1902, performing
in a play by the famous Norwegian
writer Henrik Ibsen. Newspaper
clippings from Stockholm's Statens
Musikverk show Edvard in a com-pany
with Svenska Teatern from
1898-1907. On this occasion he is
acting in a play by August Strindberg
about the Swedish king Gustaf Vasa.
Most of the time after his marriage,
however, he would have been touring
all over Sweden and Finland
Edvard Strindin.
together with his acting wife. Their
first child, daughter Hilda Julia
Catharina was born 28 Dec. 1871 in
Viborg, Finland,5 but she died in 1872
July 27 in Jakob parish, Stockholm.6
The Strindin couple had children,
one after each other, in 1872, 1873,
1874, 1875, 1876, 1879, (probably)
1880, 1882, (probably) 1883, 1884,
1885, and 1888 (all listed in SAG
2010:1:21). During a period of 16
years Johanna gave birth twelve
times, most of the time while she was
out touring with their theater com-pany.
She would have been almost
constantly pregnant during her
acting period.
Being on the road was surely
laborious for all touring actors of the
time, travelling by railway, by horse
coach, even by horse and carriage or
Hanna Strindin.
walking: in snow, hail, rain, and sum-mer
heat. The actors were adults
anyway, but imagine how such trav-elling
would have affected newborn
babies. So, most of the Strindin
babies died, one after the other, all
under the age of one. Three of the
Teater i Karlstad.
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1879 kl. >/s 8-101/. e. a».
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E. STEISDIS.
Wermlands lans tidning 20 May 1879.
8 Swedish American Genealogist 2015:1
Johanna Catharina Andersson, nee
Pettersson, mother ofHanna Strindin.
children managed to survive child-hood,
just by chance as it seems:
numbers 5, 11, and 12 in the row.
The family background
Edvard Strindin's father was a sea
captain in Sundsvall, the main city
of Medelpad district, situated on the
coast of the Baltic Sea in the north
of Sweden. Edvard's grandfathers
had been merchants in the area. The
Strindin name was originally taken
by a man coming from Strinne vil-lage
in Bjartra parish in Vaster-norrland
Ian, (the famous Swedish
writer August Strindberg had his
roots there too).
Johanna (Hanna) Charlotta Adolf-ina
Andersson was the daughter of a
civil servant, Per Gustaf Andersson,
and his wife Johanna Catharina Pet-tersson.
Per Gustaf was born 26
March 1818, and worked as a janitor
at the Stockholm Magistrates Court
(Rddhusratt). He died 11 July 1889
of heart failure in Adolf Fredrik
parish in Stockholm. In his estate
inventory7 his daughter Hanna Strin-din
and her husband Edvard are
mentioned as well as Hanna's sib-lings.
His widow Johanna Catharina
Andersson, nee Petterson, was born
22 Nov. 1826. Sometimes she worked
as a midwife, and survived her hus-band
until she died of old age on 18
Sep. 1916 in Engelbrekt parish,
Stockholm.8
The surviving children
Three Strindin children survived
their childhood: Anna, Per, and Ka-rin,
but their first years would hardly
have been happy ones.
From her early years Anna stayed
with her grandparents, Hanna's
mother and father.
Per was sent to a farmer in Oster-haninge,
close to Stockholm, as a fos-ter
child. The farmer had some six
foster boys in his house all the time,
boys who surely were to help at the
farm as they arrived.
Karin was put into an orphanage
in Stockholm which was run by the
Swedish church with a pastor as a
manager.
However hard this may seem, it
allowed the children to survive
childhood and grow up.
In America
1) Anna Emilia Katarina was born
on 29 Dec. 1876, in Jakob parish,
Stockholm, according to her birth
record. Still there is a note telling of
her being baptized just two weeks
later in Jonkb'ping city, some 300 ki-lometers
away. Could such an im-mediate
journey of mother and new-born
child really have been possible
in those days, and in the middle of
the winter? Such a trip seems almost
insane.
Already at the age of 16, Anna left
Sweden for America. She immigrated
on 22 Dec. 1892, to Lynn, MA. Many
Swedish girls were employed as
housemaids when newly arrived over
here, and according to what I have
read, they were looked upon as re-liable
and good workers, so they had
no problem getting hired. In 1900
Anna was noted as a servant of a
family Stone in Winchester.
2. Per Erik Gunnar was born 1
Aug. 1885 in Stockholm. When he
was 19 years old, in 1904, he left
Sweden for Boston, and then came
to Winchester, where he had his sis-ter.
There he had different kinds of
jobs, but never managed to feel satis-fied.
After a number of years he went
back to Sweden and to Stockholm,
although he never managed to live a
happy life here either. He died un-
Anna Strandin Miller.
married on 11 Mar. 1957 in Gustav
Vasa, Stockholm.
3. Karin was born 16 Aug. 1888 in
Adolf Fredrik parish, Stockholm. She
immigrated to her sister in Win-chester
in 1907 at the age of 19. Like
her sister, who started her life in
Winchester as a maid, she was hired
by a city family. The reason is un-known,
but obviously her employers
considered Karin mentally disturbed.
They arranged for her to be sent to
an asylum - and there she was to stay
locked up for decades.
All this is open for
questions?
What on earth did these parents
think, when their babies died one
after the other? Why was Hanna not
staying with her newborn babies in
their flat in Stockholm where the
couple stayed between their tours?
Also: Why did the parents not take
care of their children themselves,
those few who survived their first
years?
We do not know, but let us look
upon this in a hypothetic way: It is
easy to imagine that acting was Han-na's
life, that her acting part was
necessary in their theater company,
or both. The theater always was her
first priority.
Were the parents alcoholics? Alco-holism
was very common at the time,
in Stockholm particularity. Yes, they
Swedish American Genealogist 2015:1 9
could have been.
Another idea: Karin was diag-nosed
with mental problems. Her
mother could very well have had
those problems too.
If you are suffering from a bipolar
disease or depression, it may perhaps
still be possible to perform as an
actor. You know exactly what to sing
or say. But to take care of a family is
something else. Little babies were the
responsibility only of the mothers,
not of the fathers, in those days.
Well, all this is speculation. Ob-viously
the parents found it better for
their children having other people
take care of them - those who sur-vived
their first years. We also have
to add that six years of school was
mandatory for all children in Sweden
in those days, and that was not pos-sible
to combine with a touring life.
Although Edvard Strindin probably
had received some higher education
in Sundsvall, there is no sign that he
tried to arrange for something sim-ilar
for his children.
The happy end of this
tragic story
Anna found a good man from Swe-den,
Karl Gustav Moller, (Ameri-canized
to Miller) born 2 Nov. 1877
in Malmo, Sankt Petri parish, he died
Dec 25, 1946 in Woburn, Massachu-setts
The couple had four children.
Anna had a healthy mind, but she
had a fragile body and unfortunately
died when her children were very
young, on 3 Dec. 1919. Her fragility
may very well have been a result of
her childhood.
When Anna's children were grown
The only Strindin grandchildren: Back
left is Axel Edward Theodore (Ted) Moller,
born on 3 November 1901 in Woburn, MA.
The girl is Dagmar Amelia Johanna
Miller, born on 5 September 1905 in
Beverly, MA. My father, Carl Victor Hugo
Moller, is front right and born on 8
January 1904 in Woburn, MA. Left front
is Walter Gunnar Miller, born 19 De-cember
1909 in Woburn, MA.
(Picture from Carl Miller, San Diego, CA,
U.S.A.).
they went to see their aunt Karin in
the mental hospital and found her
surprisingly mentally healthy, so
they helped her to get out of there
and live a normal life, which she
accomplished in the end.
All of Anna Miller's children grew
up and lived good lives in Massachu-setts.
All of them had descendants,
too; there are quite a number of them
today.
Hanna died in Stockholm on 17
July 1920 in Gustav Vasa parish.
Edvard died 15 June 1921 in Maria
parish, also in Stockholm. No one
knows if they had any contact with
their children in America, or knew
of the grandchildren there.
Now, during the last years, Anna
Strindin's grandson Carl Miller has
come in contact with his distant
cousins of the Strindin family in dif-ferent
parts of Sweden. He and his
wife have been invited to visit them
in Sweden and they are all enjoying
a very good friendship and family
contacts.
Endnotes:
1) Hedvig Eleonora BIa:17 (1869-1870)
Img. 171 / Page 270. Moving-in
records.
2) Hedvig Eleonora EIb:2 (1833-1872)
Img. 119. Banns.
3) Hedvig Eleonora EII:6 (1862-1878)
Img. 126. Marriages.
4) Maria Magdalena CIa:13 (1834-1854)
Img. 320 / Page 630. Births. [Note that
the father is recorded with the wrong
first name.]
5) Hedvig Eleonora CL26 (1870-1872)
Img. 199 / Page 367a. Births.
6) Jakob och Johannes FIa:5 (1853-1872)
Img. 484 / Page 473. Deaths.
7) Stockholms radhusrdtt l:a avdelning
F1A:715 (1889-1889)Img. 8690/Page
524. Estate inventory for Per Gustaf
Andersson.
8) Engelbrekt FI:3 (1915-1919) Img. 550
/ Page 51. Deaths.
Kerstin Jonmyren is a Swedish
genealogist living in Nykoping,
Sweden. Her e-mail is
<swedgenco@home.se>
_____ •.. • ,
Nisswa-stamman, Scandinavian Folk Music
The annual Nisswa-Stamman takes
place in Nisswa, Minnesota.The fes-tival
is located in the Nisswa area,
15 miles north of Brainerd, Minne-sota
on Highway 371. Nisswa is about
a 2 1/2 hour drive north of Minnea-polis/
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The festival takes place 12-13
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The program includes fiddlers
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Search for videos on Youtube
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Links on page 30.
10 Swedish American Genealogist 2015:1