Fearless Frontiersmen
These Swedish immigrants overcame countless hardships to plant deep community roots
My greatgrandmother Brita Maria Anderson came to North America from Buxåsen, Sundals-ryr, Älvsborg, Sweden, in the 1880s. Her journey was long and complicated: She married twice, but both her husbands died when they came to America seeking a new life for their families. After these tragedies, Brita Maria married her first love, Aron Anderson. When they had met years before, her parents had disapproved of him and would not allow the marriage, and he went away to the FrancoPrussian War.
After they reunited and were married, Aron and Brita Maria immigrated to Dover, N.J., on April 1, 1887, from Sweden, where Aron had worked in carpentry in railway car shops. The couple endured illness and the deaths of two children; they also lost their home and were anxious to make a fresh start. So Andrew, Brita Maria’s eldest son from her first marriage to August Andreasson, went to Alberta in 1893 to scout out a new place for them to live.
Andrew, then 23, joined by Andrew Lindblum and another friend, explored the present Malmo area, choosing a homestead between Battle Lake and Red Deer Lake, and then returned home. Aron stayed with his job in New Jersey while Brita Maria left for Alberta in the spring of 1894. Six children went with Brita Maria on the trek—katie, 16; George, 14; Hannah, 11; Millie, 7; Eric, 3; and Tekla, 2—and she was expecting another.
The family travelled with Mrs. Lindblum and her children, two boys and one girl, ages 6, 7 and 16. Journeying by train, they went from New York to Montreal and on to Winnipeg, where they stopped for supplies such as clothing, dried food staples, a spinning wheel, a weaving loom, wool carding equipment, a butter churn and settings of eggs, which were guarded carefully all the way. The journey from Winnipeg to Wetaskiwin took more than a week by train.
Andrew and a friend met the travellers at the end of their train ride and took them by oxen and lumber wagons across the Battle River to the homestead. The cabin Andrew had arranged to have built was not yet finished, so they were taken in temporarily by their only neighbours at that time, Olav Save and his family. The Lindblums took up a homestead nearby. Brita Maria and the two older children cut logs and carried them to build a small shelter to stay in while their cabin was being finished. Brita Maria’s baby Sarah Alberta was born in June of that year, with Mrs. Lindblum acting as midwife.
HOMESTEADING
Using oxen to pull equipment and tools borrowed from the Saves, Brita Maria and her family put in a crop. They bought a horse, hatched chickens and paid $30 for a cow—the first in the area. Their beds, straw mattresses, tables and chairs were handmade from willow wands, and they carefully tended a flourishing kitchen garden.
For sustenance, they shot game, including grouse, ducks, rabbits and geese, and ate grain they planted and fish they caught in Battle Lake. Water came from a well they dug. A barn, erected with help from friends, housed the horse and the cow, along with young pigs purchased from a neighbour, Mr. Phillips. (The two oldest children had carried the pigs in a sack across the frozen lake, even fending off a pack of hungry coyotes interested in their cargo.)
The Hedlunds soon joined the little community, settling to the northwest of the Andersons. The neighbours cleared nearby trees so the homesteads were visible to each other, and they agreed to hoist a white flag whenever there was an emergency or a message.
The beautiful, rolling
countryside boasted rich, black soil and plenty of trees, such as poplar, cottonwood, willows and birch. Wildlife abounded: deer, bear, coyotes, wolves, foxes, lynx and even a few buffalo. Several bands of Indians still used the old buffalo trails and they often camped overnight on the Anderson land, carrying their belongings on travois of poles trailing behind horses.
Brita Maria became a pillar of the community, organizing gatherings and worship across all denominations. The neighbours met socially to sew, enjoy picnics and take part in community fishing trips. George travelled miles that first year to obtain a Christmas tree, which they decorated with ornaments brought from New Jersey.
Two winters went by in the new homestead. Then, in the heat of early fall in 1895, a fire consumed the Anderson crop and hay harvest. Brita Maria was forced to buy grain to feed her animals. Faced with hardship, she returned to New Jersey in the early spring of 1896. Her daughter Ann was born in Dover that fall, but in March of 1897, her child Sarah Alberta died. Around this time, Brita Maria received a letter from Mr. Swanson, the immigration agent, asking her to return to Alberta, as schools had been arranged and conditions were improving. In April, the family set out for the homestead with Brita Maria again at its head. On the journey, baby Ann became ill and Brita Maria herself was unwell. Soon after the family settled in May, little Ann died, and Brita Maria was too ill to attend her baby’s funeral.
Slowly, the community grew, adding a post office. Mrs. Mclaughlin, the area’s first teacher, gave lessons in the Saves’ home until the Star School was built in 1898, just about a mile from the Anderson homestead.
The first church in the district was a Lutheran denomination near Battle Lake. Brita Maria was an ardent church worker and helped with fundraising. Neighbours fellowshipped with the New Sweden church until 1898, as distances were great and there were many obstacles to overcome, such as fording the Battle River and several creeks.
New arrivals to Malmo eventually decided they wanted a church of their own. Previous to this, meetings had been held in the small log cabins. Minutes in the Ladies’ Aid book, 1897, read: “As a group of friends who gathered from house to house, I took it upon myself to ask the young bachelors if they would give 25 cents each to buy wool, that we might have a Ladies’ Aid to spin yarn and make stockings, mitts, etc., and we might thereby raise money to buy lumber and windows for a meeting house. The first meeting produced no results, as only one lady came. So, we decided to have another, and then we decided to work and I became chairman— Maria Anderson.”
Aron was able to join his wife and family in Alberta in 1900, working in Calgary and sending money home. There were no doctors in the area then, and Brita Maria acted as midwife and practical nurse for the whole community, spending a great deal of time travelling to assist the sick. She became well-known in the area and was held in high esteem, even earning recognition from the Swedish government for her nursing skills.
Between 1916 and 1920, Eric Anderson bought the farm from his father. Brita Maria and Aron continued to live in the district until they died—brita Maria in 1923, from Bright’s disease (kidney failure), and Aron in 1947—leaving dozens (now hundreds) of descendants. They are buried next to each other at Water Glen Cemetery in Alberta.