Carolina's Story

She was the third of four daughters born to Carl Jacob Kjellander and Margaretha Elisabet Fogelqvist. Born in Stockholm on January 25, 1824, Carolina Jacobina Antoinetta Kjellander started her life, just as our great-great grandmother Sophia Margrite Kjellander did. Happy. Healthy. Cared for and protected. But as we've seen, sadness covered this family. From the death of her baby sister and mother, to seeing her older sister sent out to work as the family struggled, to being put into the orphanage, not just one time, but a second time with her sister Sophia when her father became ill and died, Carolina saw and felt way too much for a 6-year old.

When I wrote an earlier post about the orphanage, I included the registration numbers for both Carolina and Sophia in 1830, but I only followed Sophia because she is my direct ancestor. But now I know what happened to Carolina.

She was first placed in the Stockholm orphanage on March 23, 1830, when the family had difficulties making ends meet. From the following record, you might be able make out her name, the date of entrance, her father's name, and the date she was brought back to her family, January 19, 1831.

But as we know, Carolina's stay with her father and two sisters was short lived. On February 2, 1831, Carolina was placed in the orphanage again, this time with my great-great grandmother Sophia.  The following shows Carolina's record on the left (2227) and Sophia's on the right (2228).

Again, it might be difficult to read, but our Sophia was placed with Anders Gustaf Edberg family in Svedje farm in Hasjo Parish in Jamtland County. Carolina was placed with the widow Brita Larsdotter in Vestenede Farm in Hasjo Parish in Jamtland.

Yes, our 8-year old Sophia and 6-year old Carolina were placed on farms in the same parish about 20 miles apart. Would you think they would know that? Visit with one another? Play and laugh and be sisters? My guess is NO. These young girls were servants, not part of a family. And twenty miles in 1831 was a distance that an orphan who was a servant would not have been given the chance to cover. Perhaps at the parish church? I can only hope so. But there is NO record of these two sisters ever living in the same place. They never showed up together on any record.

So we know what happened to Sophia from an earlier post. But what happened to 6-year old Carolina? It wasn't easy to follow her, but with the help of the Swedish expert at the Southern California Genealogy Society Jamboree recently, we found her and followed her, and here is her story.

Carolina stays with Brita Larsdotter and her family through a couple of clerical surveys, spanning 1831 to 1845, but she was not treated as one of the family. Carolina, along with other servants, was found at the bottom of the page indicating that she was not embraced as a child of the widow Brita Larsdotter, but rather was a servant girl.

I do not find Carolina Jacobina Antoinetta Kjellander in the next clerical survey, and I thought she must have died. But this is where the help of an expert worked. I had tried every person with the last name Kjellander, had tried Carolina Kjellander, had tried other versions and couldn't find her. But the Swedish expert entered "Carolina Antoinetta" into the database, and there she was. No last name, but it was clearly our Carolina.

In the 1856-61 survey, Carolina Antoinetta had moved to a nearby parish, working as a servant for another family. And then, on January 7, 1860, we find that Antoinetta Karolina Karlsdotter (the first and middle names were reversed; and yes, she took her father's patronymic name!)** married Nils Davidsson. Antoinetta was 34 years old, and her husband, the widower Nils Davidsson, was 48.

Nils had two children from his first marriage, but he and Antoinetta Karolina Karlsdotter had two children of their own:

• Brita Greta Nilsdotter, born July 14, 1863;
• Nils Petter Nilsson, born August 3, 1866; died September 17, 1868.

The family did move to other farms with their one surviving child. Carolina, or as she was known as an adult, Antoinetta Carolina Karlsdotter, died on August 6, 1880, at the age of 56. The cause of death was listed as distemper of the stomach. I've tried to find something on what that could mean in the 1880's in Sweden, and the best I can come up with is that it might have been measles.

And so, dear family and other readers, there you have it. From such tragedy in this family, we know that the eldest daughter Christina Albertina married a widower and had two children with him, probably dying in her early 30's. We know that Sophia married Olof Rask, had 8 children, 5 of them out of wedlock, and lived to be 66. And now we know that Carolina (Antoinetta) married a widower and had two children with him and lived to be 56. 

These are not lives wrapped up in a nice, colorful bow. But they are lives worth remembering. These three young girls were forced at a very early age to take on roles as servants. I can only imagine how they must have felt with no one who loved them by their side, how they must have cried at night for their father, their mother, their siblings. To know that they each found love and happiness, that each of the three had children of her own, to know that they were able to create a family, something they must have longed for, makes me feel good about the strength they had.

The Kjellander girls. 

** Patronymic names were common in Sweden until the early 1900's. That meant that a child took as a last name, the father's FIRST name and added "son" for a boy or "dotter" for a girl. We know that the Kjellander family did not follow this tradition but rather used "Kjellander" as the last name for the children. But we see above that Carolina took her father's first name "Carl" and added "Dotter" and became Antoinetta Karolina Karlsdotter for most of her adult life.