(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.
Identified as "No. 77; Name: Peterson Olga & Annie."
In the 1910 Census, Annie is 56 years old, of Swedish birth, single, supporting herself by taking in laundry. Olga is 17 years old and described as Annie's "Ad[opted?] Daughter"; she works as a stenographer in a lawyer's office. They had a home in Hobart on either Second or Third Street — the margin notes on the census form don't make it quite clear.
From appearances, I would guess this photo to have been taken around that time, perhaps a couples years earlier.
We have seen Annie before — she is second from the right in this photo.
By the 1920 Census, Annie appears to be renting quarters in the home of Carl and Matilda Carlson on Michigan Avenue, still taking in laundry. Olga is not with her. Let us hope she happily flew the nest to start her own household.
[Update — 5/10/12]
From The Melin Family History in Sweden and the United States (1800 – 2010) by Claudia Melin (which you can find in the Melin folder, in the Genealogy file cabinet at the Hobart Historical Society museum), we get this information about Olga Peterson Melin and Annie Peterson — and a recipe for Swedish pancakes, handed down through the Melin family:
(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.
3 comments:
Well, I had to sit down and take a break from the holiday preparations and started researching Annie and Olga. Seems Annie immigrated in 1880, or 1881 from Sweden, where she was born in September of 1853. Olga was born in Ill., her parents were born in Sweden. It would be interesting to know the story of how the adoption came to be. Annie is interred in the Hobart Cemetery (per Find A Grave). She died in 1936. Sad to say Olga seems to have preceded her in death by many years. She married a Horace Brayshaw in 1905. She was 18, he was 21. She died of TB September 3, 1909 and is buried in Oak Woods Cem. in Cook Co., IL. It appears that they had 2 sons, Ellsworth and Harold. Horace remarried a Kate McFadden in 1913, however he died in November of 1916, and is also in Oak Woods. I could not determine what his cause of death was. Sad that their lives were so short, but hopefully they lived them to the fullest and were happy together. In the 1910 census Horace and the boys were living with his mother, a widow. Don't know if she or their stepmother continued to raise them. A lot of unanswered ?? here, aren't there!
There certainly are, especially in light of the 1910 census. If you've got the right Olga, she had died a year before she was listed there. Census-taker's error? Annie delusional from grief??
I'm thinking then that I must have the wrong Olga. Hopefully she met a brighter future!
Post a Comment