A Mail Order Bride?

Most of us have options when we are looking for a serious partner. Dating apps, church, school, a bar, a blind date, a person we see at the local Starbucks. But, many of our ancestors came from the smallest of parishes in Sweden, rural areas where options to find a mate were slim. Thus, we often see marriages between people who lived on the same farm, a huge age gap in the couple, or marriages that were arranged or designed to provide stability and shelter. And, there were many births out of wedlock in our family tree.

Brita Margrite Rask was born in Bollnas Parish in Gavleborg County and is the step grandmother to our Maude Edith Olofson Linn. She was born on December 24, 1857, the second of five children born to Olof Rask and his wife Sophia Margrite Kjellander. Olof and Sophia didn’t marry until 1861, when they already had 3 children.

I wouldn’t call Olof Rask a particularly good catch. He was poor, moved a great deal as a laborer, and in one clerical survey is noted as being “defenseless, but basically honest”.

Bringing 5 children into a rather unstable environment must have been difficult for everyone.

•   Eldest daughter Anna Stina, who worked as a servant/pigan, died at the age of 22 of an unknown illness.
•   Second daughter Brita Margrite, who also worked at various farms as a pigan, became pregnant out of wedlock and gave birth to a daughter, Anna Charlotta, when she was just 22 years of age. She and her daughter immigrated to the United States in July 1880.
•   Third daughter Olivia was also a servant girl who followed her sister to the United States in 1881.
•   Fourth child Johanna Marie died at the age of 2 of an unknown illness.
•   The baby of the family was Karl Olof Rask. Karl came to the United States in 1884, lived in Iowa for a short time, married and moved to Yankton, South Dakota, and eventually to North Dakota, where he died in 1930.

We see that the three surviving Rask children all immigrated to the United States. But why? In Karl’s case, he was able to be an independent farmer, owning his own farm by 1910. He married another Swedish immigrant, and raised 8 children. Compared to what his life would have been like in Sweden, the son of two poor parents and no option to be a landowner, he certainly carved out a much better life for himself.

Olivia Rask followed Brita from Sweden to Iowa in 1881 and eventually married my great grandfather, William Edward Olofson. This makes Olivia our great-grandmother but also our step-great-great aunt. Confusing?

Brita’s immigration is interesting. She was living with her parents and raising a daughter in Sweden. How would she have learned about Olof Olofson in Iowa? How could she have met him to know if he would make a suitable life partner? While I have no definitive answer, it is my belief that this was an arranged marriage or a mail order situation for Olof and Brita.

Olof had been widowed sometime between 1871 and 1880, when Maria Barquist Olofson died. He was raising his son William Edward Olofson with the help of his mother Christine, as shown in the 1880 census taken in June of 1880.

Brita and her daughter sailed from Sweden to the United States sometime after July 5, 1880, when we see that they are moving out of Bollnas Parish. The ocean part of the trip would have taken approximately 3 weeks. That puts their arrival on the Eastern shore of the United States around the first part of August 1880. From there, Brita and Anna Charlotta would have taken a train, perhaps a boat and other transportation to Iowa and eventually to Hardin Township in Webster County. Maybe that would have added another month to their trip.

Brita and Olof Olofson married in Boone County on September 9, 1880. It would certainly appear that this couple did not know each other before marrying; or, if they did, it was for a very few days. Looks like an arranged marriage, a mail-order bride, or something practical, if not romantic.

When Brita and Olof married, Olof was going blind. As we saw from a post on July 1, 2018, Olof spent the last 40 years of his life blind. He died in 1924, so he would have been blind around 1884, just 4 years after Brita and Olof married.

Brita Rask Olofson is my step-second great grandmother and also my second great aunt, Maude Edith Olofson’s step grandmother and also her aunt.

Take a look back at the March 11 and March 18 blog posts and also the July 1 post, all from my 2018 year of 52 ancestors in 52 weeks, for more on the Rask family. And then weigh in. An arranged marriage? Or ….

Two photos of Brita Rask Olofson; lower photo is of Olof and Brita Olofson. Olof is blind in this photograph. Love his beard and wish we had that cane and his very cool hat!