Bruno and Emma Dahlgren

Bruno and his wife Emma Charlotta Johansdotter

Bruno was the youngest of six children born to Anders Andreasson and Maja Jonsdotter in Gestad, Älvsborg, Sweden. Getsad is next to Sweden's largest lake, Lake Vänern, which is rich farm land known for its excellent oats.  Local oats were exported to London for horse feed.  Bruno's family were well-to-do farmers in Gestad for centuries.  The family farm, named Skerrud, was passed down through out the years from father to son.  Eventually, many farms in Sweden became too small to subdivide between sons.  The Anders Andreasson family farm was sold during this time and all of his sons had to develop a craft to support themselves.

Bruno's mother died when he was thirteen and the following year he left for Gothenburg to learn the trade of tailoring.  He may have learned his trade from his uncle, Peter Andreasson, who worked as a tailor in Gothenburg.  Bruno's brothers chose careers in stone masonry.  Peter moved to Stockholm and worked in a quarry.  Lars moved to Västernorrland and worked in the Sundsvall area. (Sundsvall burned to the grond in 1888 and was rebuilt with only stone. Its nickname is Stenstaden - Stone City.)  Bruno had one other bother, Anders Johan, who worked in several stone quarries and had a few run-ins with the law.  His final whereabouts are unknown.

Bruno met his wife, Emma Charlotta Johansdotter, in Lidköping.  It is thought that she also worked in the sewing trade.  Perhaps that is how she and Bruno met.  Bruno and Emma married in 1886 and had their first child, Agnes Maria, the following year in 1887.  That same year, they left for America and settled in Brooklyn.  In 1888 Alexander Napoleon, also known as Alexius, was born in Brooklyn,New York.   Shortly, after Alexander's birth, Emma's brother Johan came to stay with them until he could find his own place in Brooklyn.  Two more of Emma's siblings came to the United States, Gustav and Anton.  Johan worked in construction and started a successful construction company.  Sadly, both Anton and Gustav died young.  

Bruno and Emma had one more child, Axel, in Brooklyn before moving to Southington, Connecticut.  They struggled financially, moving from place to place to live.  Bruno and Emma had three more children in Southington - Andrew, Elsie and Anna.   Agnes died from diphtheria, and Axel and Andrew died from scarlet fever within a week of each other while the family lived in Connecticut.

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MORE TO COME....

Headstone Project

Jan, Linda, Lisa and Paula
Kinzua Bridge - July 2012

During a recent visit to Bradford to see family and work on family research, we discussed what we wanted to do as a  memorial for my father, William Dahlgren who passed away 12 July 2012.  We decided the finest way we could memorialize all of our parents would be to learn about our ancestors and place makers on the graves of those past family members without headstones.  Check this blog for stories about your ancestors and updates on the headstone project!

Grandma Iva Pearl Dahlgren grew up in the area around the Kinzua Bridge.  She and her siblings went to a one room school house in the area and depending on where they lived, they would have to cross the Kinzua Bridge to get to school.  Legend has it that grandma, her brothers and sisters had to learn to walk along the rails and climb down on the trestles in case a train came before they crossed!