The Emigrants

 Within twenty or so years after Samuel Petersson left Småland in 1849, four of the remaining six children (one had died), followed the same route to America.  Lars Johan, 33 years old when he left with his wife, Johanna Sofia Svensdotter and three children (five more were born in the U.S), was one of them (1866).

   By the 1860s, emigration was almost a way of life for Smålanders, and the flood of humanity would continue to gush for half a century. At least one-quarter of the more than 1 million emigrants from Sweden in the period after 1860 came from Småland. Like Lars Johan they were primarily landless workers and small farmers. Things had worsened considerably as a tripling of population since 1750 meant tillable land became more and more scarce, resulting in ever more destitution and periodic famine conditions (there were three crop failures during this period). Population growth was a result of three factors mainly: Swedish men were no longer cannon fodder in the many wars before 1814, the introduction of potato strongly amplified the food supply and health conditions improved reducing infant mortality and death from disease. For Carol’s ancestors it was starve and die, or leave for America.

Iconic image of emigrants facing the ocean in Karlshamn, on the south eastern Swedish coast. Karl Oscar and Kristina from Wilhelm Moberg's books, The Emigrants are memorialized here.  Kristina longingly looking back to the land she is leaving, Karl Oskar looking forward to the land he is heading towards. 


   Emma Hagberg and her family were also among those leaving, in 1868 when she was four years old. They ended up in Kansas where she met Johan Oscar Emil Cedarholm. Johan Oscar, his father (Johanna Sofia had died in 1875 a few days after her 10th pregnancy brought forth a child stillborn) and five siblings had also moved there. By at least 1870, they were ‘Cedarholm,’ different from the name they left Sweden with (it was not unusual for Swedes to change their names after leaving). Marrying in 1889, Johan Oscar and Emma would become Carol’s great grandparents.

The now barren spot that had been Carol's great grandmother Emma Hagberg's home, a small plot in the forest rented from the church. The sign says 'Oxhagen' designating its location not far from where Lars Johan was born. We were only able to find this isolated spot with the help of Emma's great great niece, Yvonne Lundell. 









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