Found Among the Archives
A vibrant piece of family history highlights the lives of Swedish Immigrants during the Spanish influenza
Ihave a hobby that I know many others also share, learning about family history. I wrote to Our Canada several years ago about an amazing trip I brought my siblings on to a village in Sweden where some of our ancestors came from. I taught myself some Swedish beforehand and continued to practice, wanting to improve my proficiency to help with my research in the Swedish archives, and hopefully, to some day visit Sweden again and be able to speak more fluently. All of this led to a different project.
I discovered through a book titled Swedes in Canada, Invisible Immigrants that my greatgrandfather Pehr Ringwall was a regular writer for a Canadian Swedish newspaper published in Winnipeg, called Canada Posten. It served as a connection between Swedish immigrants scattered across mostly Western Canada and the U.S. One section of the paper was for readers to share what was happening in their community. It was here Pehr most often wrote.
Elinor Barr, the author of the Swedes in Canada, told me that I could access Canada Posten on microfilm, and I discovered that I could borrow these through inter-library loans. I scanned each issue, looking for Pehr’s letters or other articles of interest, then copied them to a USB drive, brought them home and translated them. The process took about a year!
Pehr Ringwall emigrated from Överhogdal, Sweden, with his young bride Gölin first to North Dakota, then to Red Deer Lake, near Ferintosh, Alta., to homestead in 1900. He wrote about 90 letters between 1911 and 1933, mainly about what was happening in their community and at church and within the family. He often talked about Alberta’s ever-changing weather. I especially loved glimpses into their family lives. Jultiden (Christmastime) often gave fun details on how they celebrated.
There were also snapshots of world events and how they affected the community. With our current pandemic changing the way we live, it is eerie to read of how there was a pandemic and restrictions put in place almost exactly 100 years earlier. The Spanish flu was the deadly enemy then and there were far less tools to help those who became sick. I’ve included an excerpt from one of his letters (at right). It is interesting to read there were mixed opinions on the wearing of masks then as well, although less was known about droplet transmission.
This project has really made me feel like I knew my great grandfather, and has given me a greater appreciation for the early settlers to Alberta. It was also fascinating to read the many news articles of life in those days. There were glimpses of history, such as increased worry about Hitler’s actions in the early 1930s and lots of interesting advertisements as well. I just wish I had the time to translate more of the paper than I was able to. I did put together a book of the translated letters, along with some of the photos of the ads and news clips, for my family. It was a daunting project but one that I feel all the richer for. I also improved my Swedish in the process—in a far more interesting way than just doing a language course!