Nearly Forgotten (#52Ancestors, Week 13)

Nearly Forgotten

Today I'm going to write about my great-grandfather's brother, Andrew Pierson. My great-grandfather was Herman Peterson. There has been discussion in our family about the different last names these brothers had and whether or not their names were changed at Ellis Island. That is addressed at the end of this post. What follows is based on research I have done in Ancestry.com, newspapers and by talking to relatives.

Andrew Pierson seems to be a person who hovered on the outskirts of our family. My dad and his cousins only remember a little bit about their great-uncle: He attended some of the family’s Swedish Christmas Eve celebrations, and toward the end of his life he lived in the “old folks’ home” in Princeton, Illinois. He was forgetful in his later years and maybe had a form of dementia or senility.

Here is what I have found about him in my research. Although his name changes, other things like his birthday and his relationship to his brother do not change.

Andrew Pierson came to the United States under his original Swedish birth name, Anders Hansson. He arrived in New York on March 17, 1900 on the S. S. Campania. He said that he was going to stay with his brother in Princeton, Illinois.

In the 1900 census he was living and working on a farm in Bureau Township, Bureau County, Illinois. He is listed as Andrew Peterson, born September 1877, immigration date 1900.

In 1917 Andrew Pierson became a United States citizen.

In 1918 he filled out a World War I draft card. His name was Andrew Pierson, he was living and working on a farm in Bureau County. He gave his birth date as September 22, 1877, and he listed Herman Peterson as his closest relative.

 

In 1923 he applied for a passport and traveled to Sweden, maybe visited his parents and family there. On the passport his gave his name as Andrew Pierson, confirmed his birth date September 22, 1877, that he was born in Espo, Sweden, lived in Princeton and became a citizen in 1917. His passport application also included a photograph of him, the only one I've found so far.

In 1930 he lived in Princeton and worked as a gardener at the Country Club.
In 1940, he lived in Princeton and worked at a nursery. His brother had the same occupation.

The newspapers say that Andrew attended Pierson family reunions, the family of his father’s brother Carl who came to Princeton in 1893. Andrew also attended First Lutheran Church in Princeton and Lutheran Brotherhood meetings there.

He was in the hospital a couple of times in the 1960s. He died at Prairie View Nursing Home in 1972, several months before his brother Herman.

These bare facts are not a lot to go on. They paint a fuzzy picture of the man. I see someone who left his homeland probably looking for a better life than he had in Sweden. He went to Princeton because family was there. He worked on farms and other outdoor jobs because that is what he knew in Sweden. He went to church. He never married. He didn’t make an impression on the younger generation of his family. I would guess he stayed on the sidelines of family gatherings, but he did go. He didn’t stand out in a crowd. He worked and earned a living for himself.

Andrew, if this is all I ever know about you, it will be enough to tell me that you were a member of my family and you were loved by God. If I find out more about you I will certainly post it here.


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Ellis Island Name Changes

For a long time all I knew about Andrew was the family story: He and Herman (my great-grandfather) came to America at the same time. When they got to Ellis Island someone there gave Andrew the last name of Pierson and they gave Herman the last name of Peterson. I've also heard that Herman changed his name to Peterson because he thought Pierson was too common. I don't believe either one of these is true. The New York Public Library and the Smithsonian Magazine have written articles that debunk the myth of names being changed at Ellis Island. I tend to agree with them.

Andrew Pierson was born Anders Hansson on September 22, 1877. He was born in Sweden and therefore followed the naming conventions of that country. Sons took their last name from their father; his father was Hans, so his last name was Hansson. His father’s father was Per, so Andrew’s father’s name was Hans Persson. It is my guess that Andrew and Herman took their father’s name, thereby following American naming conventions. Herman came to the United States in 1899 and Andrew came in 1900. I don’t know why they ended up with different last names but I don’t think it happened at Ellis Island.

Same Name (#52Ancestors, Week 6)

There's sort of a funny tradition in my dad's family of giving a father's name as the son's middle name. It worked for my paternal grandfather, Harry Nels (Nels was his mother's father's name), and for my dad, Stanley Harry. My parents switched it up a bit with my brother, Stanley Christopher, but he always went by Chris to the family. 

The only other same name in recent memory is my maternal grandmother’s brother Leonard Graf who named his oldest son Leonard, after himself, and his second son John, after his father.

Back row: Leonard, "Young Leonard," and  John Graf; Verna Graf Falk and  Burt Falk, Raymond Smith
Front row: Martha Graf, Peter Smith, Martha Smith, Sarah Falk, Martha Ann Smith, John Graf

What surprised me, though, as I looked through our family tree, are the number of women who named their daughters after themselves: 

My maternal great-grandmother, Martha Bonin Graf, named her daughter Martha.

My maternal great-grandmother’s daughter Marguerite named her daughter Marguerite.

Esther Foley, my maternal grandfather’s aunt, named her daughter Esther.

What’s with all these women naming their daughters after themselves? I didn’t think this was very common but it sure is in my maternal grandmother’s side of the family!

Each mother/daughter pair has an interesting story to tell, but the pair I choose to write about today is the Marthas.

My maternal grandmother was Verna Graf Falk. Her mother, Martha Bonin Graf, immigrated to America from Germany when she was a young girl. As the story goes, Martha’s mother died shortly after they arrived, leaving Martha to take care of her many younger siblings. Her father Herman Bonin remarried and had many more children who Martha helped take care of. I don’t know how, but Martha met a German immigrant named John Graf and they were married in DuPage County, Illinois in 1895. Martha and John’s first child was a son, Leonard, then came Marguerite, Irma, Verna (my grandmother) and Martha. (Irma’s sad story is told elsewhere in this blog).

Martha Graf with her daughters Verna (left) and Martha (right)

Verna and her sister were almost exactly two years apart: Verna was born on Christmas Eve, 1903 and Martha was born on Christmas Day, 1905. Verna used to tell me how disappointing Christmas time was because she had to share a birthday cake with her sister and they didn’t get any special birthday presents because their birthdays were so close to Christmas. Martha seemed to live a bit of a charmed life. Was it because she was the baby of the family, or because she was named after her mother?

Verna Graf

Martha Graf

Here's a story my grandma told about her sister Martha:

“My piano teacher used to come to the house after school, and my sister and I took lessons for several years. It seemed I always had to take mine first, and then Martha would come home and take hers One day, however, I got to take my lesson last, and wouldn’t you know it. While I was roller skating lickety split, the fire engines came by on the way to the Grace Lutheran Church. It was burning ruinously, and every kid likes to see a fire even if it is a church. But poor me, it was my turn to go home and take my piano lesson. My little sister picked up her skates and away she went to see the Grace Lutheran Church burn and the firemen put it out. It was all over by the time I got back. Woe! Is! Me! (I really didn’t have a very good lesson that day either.”

I think that Verna and her sister Martha were close, at least in their adult years, despite the perceived favoritism that Martha received. Martha stood up at Verna’s wedding.

Martha Graf Smith, Verna Graf Falk

Martha had married a man named Raymond Smith and they had two children, a daughter named (wait for it!) Martha Ann, and a son named Peter. Martha died from cancer when her children were fairly young.

Martha Graf Smith and her daughter, Martha Ann

When my mom was born her mother Verna said, “She was named after her own dear self.” I never thought about why she said that until I started writing on this theme—perhaps it was a bit of rebellion against the family tradition of naming children, especially daughters, after their mothers. I’m pretty sure my mom was glad she was a Sarah!

Verna, Sarah and Burt Falk