Titanic: 109th Anniversary (Part II)
To commemorate the anniversary of Titanic’s sinking last year, the Times-Record published a 3-part series detailing the lives and legacy of the Chaffee family. Herbert and Carrie Chaffee, at the head of a powerful farming force in the Red River Valley, were on board, and Herbert didn’t come home.
This year, we’re learning about other Titanic victims and survivors entangled with North Dakota’s history. Part 1, printed yesterday, focused on the stories of Titanic survivor Ole Abelseth and victim Johannes Nysveen. There are three more to know about: Gustaf Johansson, Oskar Hedman and Karl Dahl.
Karl Dahl
Karl Edvart Dahl (Charles Edward) was born in Norway in 1866, one of eight kids. His father, Nordmand, was a fisherman and trader. In 1892, Dahl left his hometown, parents and seven siblings to emigrate to Australia, where he worked in carpentry. While he was living in Australia, various siblings left Norway for America to make their homes. His sister Wilhelmine and her husband Iver Baardsen emigrated in 1904 and settled in Barnes County. In 1905, another sister, Anna, also emigrated to America and settled in North Dakota, marrying a man named Martin.
As time passed, Charles felt the need to experience the comforts of home and family for a while, so he left Australia en route to Norway. However, as he reached London, his heart was pulled toward his mother and siblings in North Dakota. That’s why he booked passage on Titanic. He boarded at Southampton as a third-class passenger, headed for a final destination of Fingal, Barnes County, to see the family members he hadn’t in more than two decades.
Dahl found himself outside, standing on the steerage deck around 9:30 p.m. on April 14, 1912. He and the others on the deck noticed a shift in the weather, the nighttime becoming bitterly cold in just an instant. Some passengers mentioned that chill might be indicating that the ship was in the vicinity of icebergs. Dahl wasn’t concerned, and he retired to his cabin around 10 p.m. and fell asleep.
“At about 11:30 that night, I was awakened by a terrific jar of the ship and was thrown from my bunk,” Dahl later told a newspaper reporter. “I was dazed for a time and lost no time in getting on deck. I noticed 20 or 30 tons of ice on the Starboard side forward that had been broken off the iceberg when the ship struck.”
Dahl hurried back to his
and nieces/nephews in North Dakota, and he spent time with them as well as others in the state and in Minnesota. After that, he spent almost two years traveling before returning to Norway in 1914. Dahl reportedly had a son with a woman named Kristine Helgesen, though the two never married. In 1916, Charles Dahl and Hansine Kristine Pedersen were married and moved to live in Oceania, Australia. Dahl passed away in February 1933 while in Norway and is buried there.
According to North Dakota Department of Health Records, Carlota, Charles’ mother, died in December 1925 in Barnes County and was buried in a Valley City cemetery, though any record of her burial site continues to elude this writer.
Gustaf Johansson Gustaf Joel Johansson was born in 1879 in Sweden. His father, Johan, was a landowner, and Johansson made a living in his early years by doing farm work. It was the agricultural pull of the Midwest that put Johansson aboard the Titanic, en route to America. A man named Emil Andersson, living in Sheyenne, North Dakota, had been sent Johansson his ticket for third-class passage aboard Titanic. Johansson, 33, was traveling to Sheyenne to work in farming.
When he boarded Titanic in Southampton, Johansson was joined by a man he knew, Malkolm Johnson, who was also a third-class passenger. Known as “Sever,” 33-year-old Malkolm had been living and working in Minneapolis for a good number of years. He’d been in Sweden attempting to buy a farm where he could settle down for good, but he’d come up empty and was returning to Minnesota.
It’s not known what Johansson experienced the night of the sinking, since he and Malkolm were both killed, but as a small consolation to their families, their remains were recovered.
The possessions recovered with Johansson’s body—which was unidentified when taken back to Halifax, Novia Scotia—included a diary with Emil Andersson’s name and address in it. The New York consulate wrote to Andersson and asked the North Dakota man for details on who the young Titanic victim was. Emil wrote back: “[Gustaf] Johansson had no relatives here in US and he had never been here before. He was on his way to Sheyenne N.D. I have sent him the ticket myself. Malkolm Johnson, who also died was also acquainted.”
Other personal effects of Johansson’s, including $26, an empty wallet and a pocket comb with mirror, were sent to his father in Sweden, and Gustaf Johansson was buried in Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, on May 10, 1912.
Oskar Hedman
Oskar (Oscar) Arvid Hedman was born in July 1884. He left his native Sweden for America in 1905 and settled in Beach, North Dakota. He remained in that area of North Dakota for a number of years. During that time, he farmed his own land about a mile outside of town.
There’s a lot of conflicting information about Hedman’s whereabouts in 1912. Some records indicate that he was a current (or former) employee of a land firm in St. Paul, Minnesota. Others say that he was working as a real estate broker and farmer in Bowman. Wherever his home base was, he was headed back there in April 1912 aboard the Titanic. He’d been in Sweden and was returning to the states with a group of immigrants who hoped to settle in America.
Hedman boarded Titanic at Southampton and made his way to the crowded third-class cabins. It’s not known for sure if Gustaf Johansson, a Titanic victim who’d been heading to Sheyenne, North Dakota, was sharing the cabin with Hedman; however, it is certain that Johansson’s companion, Malkolm Johnson, was in the same cabin as Oscar Hedman. Both Johansson and Malkolm perished in the sinking.
Hedman was sleeping in his cabin when Titanic suffered its fatal blow. He said there was no severe jolt when it happened, but that the unusual rumbling roused him.
“I probably would have remained in my berth and paid no attention to it had it not for the commotion which I heard a few minutes afterwards.”
He went up on deck to see what the commotion was about, but officers ordered them back to their cabins. He and a man named Carl Johnson retrieved lifebelts and decided to get back up on deck. As they went, water was already coming into the hallways in steerage. (Note: Carl Johnson’s true identity is not known - a Karl Jansson and a Karl Jonsson, both Swedes, survived Titanic’s sinking, but it’s not known if one of them was the man with Hedman that night. )
When Hedman and Johnson emerged on deck, they found lifeboats being lowered.
“In the front part of the ship, we found great heaps of ice,” Hedman said. “My pal said he thought the boat would sink as he had seen a couple of other such jams.”
Officers with guns roped off the area where women and children were being loaded onto the lifeboats, their male relatives bidding them farewell.
“Husband and wife were obliged to part; sister and brother, father and daughter were forced to leave each other, each realizing that it was doubtful they would ever again see each other,” Hedman later recalled. “It was a sight that no man will care to witness a second time.”
As he stood with his friend, Hedman witnessed flares being shot into the sky, which Johnson told him were signals of distress. That’s what told them both that Titanic was surely going under. As the water rose on the deck, Hedman peeled off his coat and jumped with Johnson as far from the ship as they could. Hedman was a good swimmer, but he found it difficult to stay afloat in the icy waters.
He heard a boiler explosion and saw the steerage deck—then jammed with 3rd class passengers—gave out and all the people standing upon it fell into the gap, which seemed to go all the way to the bottom of the hold.
“I do not believe they lived long enough after that fall to suffer a great deal,” Hedman said. “As I remember it, the water rushed in on them immediately. For a moment the cries of the steerage men and women came up from the hold, but only for a moment.”
Trying to keep from drowning in the freezing ocean, Johnson grabbed something that floated by and told Hedman to grab onto it.
“It proved to be a dead man inside a life preserver,” Hedman said.
When the pair of men got close to one of the lifeboats, Johnson reached up to grab onto it. Those inside the boat pushed him away, and Hedman saw him disappear under the surface of the water (it’s not clear if this man did or did not survive).
Hedman clung to the dead man for about a half-hour. Around that time, he was nearing another lifeboat, and passengers inside shouted at him, asking if he was able to row. Whether or not he was a rowing expert, Hedman saw it as his chance to survive, and he told them that he could. It turned out that the lifeboat’s officer had fallen overboard and they needed a man to help row the boat holding some 40 women and 3 men away from the wreck.
There is another, very different, account that Hedman gave. In that version of events, Hedman had been helping women and children into lifeboats on the deck of the Titanic before being asked if he would step in and help row the boat (one of the officers, apparently, had gone overboard and the boat needed a replacement “leader”).
In yet another account, Hedman reports having jumped into the lifeboat as it was being lowered, thinking that “If [the officers] are going to shoot me I’ll just die faster.”
Somehow, he ended up in one of the lifeboats and survived the tragic sinking that more than 1,500 others did not.
When Hedman disembarked Carpathia in New York, the Women’s Relief Committee gave him $10 to help him get where he needed to go. Hedman sent a telegram to St. Paul, asking his employer (current or former) to write enough money for him to take the train back to Minnesota. They sent the funds, and Hedman began his journey back to the Midwest.
He arrived in Chicago on April 25, continuing on to Sioux Falls, where he visited the woman he would later marry and then heading to Bowman.
On April 25, the Bowman County Pioneer published a story about Hedman:
“Nothing has been heard from him since he landed in New York, or as to how many of his party were saved, but he will doubtless soon be in Bowman. His friends in Bowman will be glad to learn that he is safe.”
On May 9, the Bowman County Pioneer announced that Hedman had arrived in Bowman. May 9 article.
“Oscar Hedman… arrived here yesterday afternoon… and since then has been kept busy receiving the congratulations of all his friends upon his escape from death in the Titanic disaster… Mr. Hedman does not seem anxious to talk of his experience. Many heroes went down, but some were saved, and Oscar Hedman was one of them. He says he has had enough of the ocean and never expects to trust himself to it again.”
In November 1912, Oscar Hedman married Julia Mathilda “Tillie” Anderson, of Sioux Falls. After that, he began to train as a chiropractor in North Dakota, and in 1920, they relocated to Onida, South Dakota. There, Hedman practiced as a chiropractor for many years. He became well known and well-liked in the community, affectionately nicknamed “Doc.”
Oscar died in 1961 and is buried in Onida Cemetery.