Monday, April 19, 2010

Death of a Son-in-Law

It's springtime, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming — let's continue talking about tragic, untimely deaths, shall we?

In this case it was a son-in-law of Henry Chester: Charles Nelson, husband of Henry's daughter Lovisa, the same fellow whom I imagined as a peace-maker after Henry's really bad day; and if indeed he was, that was one of the last good deeds he did on this earth outside his own family, for he then had scarcely eight months to live.

Charles had come over from Sweden Denmark* in 1883. Where he spent his first years in the U.S., I don't know, but by the late 1880s he had the good fortune to land a job working as a farmhand for Henry Chester — good fortune, I say, because in Henry's home he met Lovisa, fell in love with her, wooed and won her. They were married in Chicago on June 9, 1891.

I'm not clear on the sequence of their moving around after their marriage. Charles farmed around Indiana, somewhere in Jasper County, and also in North Judson, Starke County, where the 1900 census found the Nelson family. In 1903 they moved back to Ainsworth because Charles Chester wanted help farming the family acres. In addition to working the Chester land, Charles rented another farm west of Ainsworth. It was here that their fifth and last child, a boy, was born in 1904.

Early in January 1905, the barn on Nelsons' place burned to the ground. The fire was discovered too late to save anything but one cow — twelve others were killed, along with four horses; the fire destroyed all the hay and grain, wagons and harnesses, and everything else in the barn. Though they carried insurance, it must have been a sickening loss, and it may have influenced the decision that soon followed: the Nelsons quit farming and moved to Chicago, where Charles became a teamster. Within a year, that decision would cost him his life.

The angel of death came for him riding a Chicago streetcar. It was mid-afternoon on March 15, 1906, and Charles was driving his team home from a day's work in Whiting, Indiana. Just over the Illinois state line, a streetcar smashed into his wagon. He was thrown to the ground, hard, and suffered internal injuries so severe that within twenty minutes he was dead.

Lovisa must have been devastated. Not only had she lost the love of her life, she was left with five young children to raise — the eldest fourteen years old, the youngest only two.

She brought her husband's body home to Indiana. His 73-year-old father came all the way from South Dakota to attend the funeral. They buried Charles in Crown Hill Cemetery, under a beautiful granite marker.

I don't know exactly how Lovisa got by in the next few years. She collected $1,025 in life insurance (about $22,533 in today's dollars), which would have helped tide her over. I expect her father contributed some support, too; he was pretty well off, and whatever his problems with unrelated people, I have yet to find any evidence that Henry Chester was ever unkind to his own children. Also, Charles had seven brothers and three sisters who might have looked out for his widow, and the 1910 census shows Lovisa living next door to a John Nelson, possibly her brother-in-law. And soon Charles and Lovisa's two oldest boys took on more responsibility; by 1910, at 18 and 16 years old, they both had jobs driving milk wagons.

Lovisa and the children often came down to Ainsworth for visits with her relatives. By 1920, she had come back to Ainsworth to stay, bringing the last two of her children who were still at home. Then her youngest daughter married and moved to Hobart, and Lovisa went with her.

She never remarried, though she lived 60 more years — a whole lifetime — after she lost Charles. When she died in 1965, she was laid to rest beside him.

CharlesandLovisaNelson
(Click on image to enlarge)

__________________________
*See the Comments to this post regarding this correction.


Sources:
1900 Census.
1910 Census.
1920 Census.
1930 Census.
♦ "Barn and Contents Destroyed." Hobart Gazette 6 Jan. 1905.
CPI Inflation Calculator.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 3 Apr. 1903; 24 Apr. 1903; 19 Feb. 1904; 17 Mar. 1905; 6 Apr. 1906; 3 Jan. 1908; 10 July 1908.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 17 Sept. 1909.
♦ "Mortuary Record." Hobart Gazette 23 Mar. 1906.

4 comments:

Matt Nelson said...

This "Charles Nelson" was actually born "K(C)arl Nielsen" in Denmark - not Sweden. To the best of my knowledge, all his siblings and parents settled in Viborg, South Dakota. Why he split off, I don't know. Charles/Karl is the progenitor of this particular line of Nelsons in Indiana; all others preceding Charles/Karl and Lovisa's children are not related.

Just some genealogical context. Love the site!
Regards,
Matt Nelson

Ainsworthiana said...

Thank you for the information. I wondered what his father was doing in South Dakota. But I'm curious; given that all the information about the surviving family members on the 1910 census agrees the 1900 one (which is why I think I've got the right people), did the 1900 census-taker simply make a mistake in writing down "Sweden" as his place of birth?

Matt said...

I've noticed the same discrepancy in the records. I do have emmigration records from Denmark and ship manifests that confirm where Peder and Dorthea Nielsen (and their brood) came from. Nelson family is still in and around Hobart and maintain ties to the "Nielsen's" in SD, so I'm confident we're talking about the same people. Charles was my GG Grandfather and I remember hearing the stories about him getting run over from when I was a kid...

Ainsworthiana said...

Well, that settles it then! I will have to correct the reference to Sweden.