Age Differences

 

It’s not unusual to be attracted to and marry someone who is several years older OR several years younger than we are. It is true today and was true hundreds of years ago when our ancestors were alive and making their arrangements to marry.

In Sweden, all couples, starting in the late 1600’s, needed to meet with the local priest, go through the banns (3 weeks of announcing their intention to marry in the church), and arrange for the traditional gift giving. During these meetings, the priest often entered his “notes” about the couple including who was vouching for each person.

A widow or widower could not remarry until the assessment and divisions of their previous “estate” were legally resolved. But that was normally done within about 3 months of someone’s death.

The gift giving sometimes included the man’s commitment to a morgongåva, a gift that was similar to a dowry and compensation for the bride's commitment to the marriage and household improvement. The wife would receive the morgongåva after the death of her husband. It was a way to help the widow continue for some time until she could find another man to marry or a stable household with a relative. This practice ended sometime around the early 1800's. 

As you might guess, a widower was more able and likely to marry again and to marry a much younger woman, both for the stability it brought to her life, but also her ability to give birth to additional children. An older widow, unless economically stable, might have more difficulty remarrying. It's why I see many of our widowed female ancestors living in the poor house or living with one of their children, but not remarried.

Let's look at a few of these May-September marriages in our family line.

Olaus Fredricsson is my 3rd great grandfather, father to Gus and John Linn. Olaus' family had been well off, and Olaus, his wife Catharina Johansdotter, and their 8 children, lived very comfortably at Dodringshult in Ingatorp Parish, Jonkoping County.

Dodringshult Farm in Ingatorp Parish

At some point, Dodringshult was for sale. Some of the description includes: Forest property in Northern Småland. The property is located about 20 km from Eksjö and about 10 km North of Bruzaholm. The area has about 572 hectars of which 533 are productive forest land.  Well-developed forest road network. Good hunting opportunities.

When Olaus died at the age of 44, Catharina was forced to move from her beautiful home down a dirt road to a small shack called Vastra Lund. She had her youngest 3 with her, while the older children had gone out working as drangs or pigans on other farms. How would Catharina live and provide for her children long term? We don’t know if she was bequeathed a morgongåva. We do know that she would have received half of the net proceeds from Olaus’ estate. But how long that would last is unknown. One way to assure she had food on the table and a roof over her head was to remarry.  Catherina was almost 45 years old when she married Johannes Jonsson who was 28 years old. He moved to Vastra Lund after his marriage to Catharina. While this is confusing, it does lend support to their probably not knowing each other well, or at all, when they married.

Anders Fogelqvist is my 4^th great grandfather on the Linn side. He was born in Uppsala county in 1744 and married Anna Marie Lundeberger in 1775. His bride was born in 1730, making their age difference 14 years. This couple had no children, and when Anna Marie died in 1790, Anders married my 4^th great grandmother, Lisa Lagerstrom, who was 21 years his junior. He liked being with women both much older AND much younger! But Anders himself was a great catch. He was a master hatmaker who also worked for the king’s artillery.

When my second great-grandfather, Olof Olofson, remarried, his new wife, Brita Rask, was 20 years younger. Olof was born in 1837; Brita in 1857. In an earlier post, we saw how this couple probably did not know each other before their marriage in Iowa in 1880.

The few options available in these very small, rural parishes, the need for stability, additional children, comfort, and yes, love, found our ancestors remarrying soon after the loss of a spouse. And, in many cases, these remarriages were between two people who might be separated by many years. Selfishly, I’m so glad they did remarry as I’m a descendent, in many cases, of a second marriage.

 

RELIGION OF OUR SWEDISH ANCESTORS

We think of many Scandinavians as being Lutheran, but there is much more to learn about religion in that part of the world.

Before the 11th Century, Swedes worshiped the Norse pagan gods. It was not centralized or formalized, meaning that each village or territory practiced its own customs and religious practices. Normally that included sacrifices and food rituals.

Christianity gradually gained a foothold in Sweden and by 1060 Christianity (Roman Catholicism) was firmly established throughout most of Sweden. When the Protestant Reformation came to Sweden, it became a political tool used by the king to secure control over the church and its assets. The King, Gustav Vasa, proclaimed a state church with HIM as the head. From the 1530’s until 2000, Sweden has been Lutheran with the Church of Sweden (Svenska Kyrkan) as the state church.

The Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan) is Evangelical Lutheran and has its secretariat in Uppsala, a city that has been the center of the Swedish church since the Middle Ages. The Church of Sweden has been separated from the state since 2000, which means that Sweden no longer has an official state church. While most countries in the world have no official religion, Sweden is in fact the only Nordic country without a state church, as Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland have all retained theirs.

On October 28, 2018, I posted about the Jansonites, a small group of people who lived in and around the area where Maude Olofson Linn’s ancestors were from. Below is a brief quote from that article:

Erik Jansson, along with many Swedes in the 1840's, became disenchanted with the state church, its rules, and the oppression they felt. Erik Jansson became a leader of a movement that rebelled against the state-run Lutheran Church. Meeting in secret in various homes to hear Jansson speak, the group lived in fear that they would be found and arrested. As the group of Jansson followers increased, a plan was made to flee to the United States, to establish a colony where they could worship freely.

 

Members wishing to join Erik Jansson, and the group known as Janssonites, sold all of their belongings and put the proceeds into a common fund used to transport followers and to establish their American colony. The first settlers, around 1,500, arrived in Henry County, Illinois, in 1846 and bought 60 acres, establishing Bishop Hill as their home.

 

You can read more about this short-lived colony of fanatics, some have referred to it as a cult, that demonstrated the extent to which some Swedes would go to in order to have freedom of religion.

Some of us know about the Swedish tradition of Lucia, one of the non-religious highlights before Christmas which is celebrated on December 13. It is named for Saint Lucia who was killed for her religious beliefs. Today, it is a local custom celebrated in homes and in villages. A young woman in white enters a dark room with a ring of light on her head, symbolizing bringing the light into the darkness of winter on the Winter Solstice. She carries food that symbolizes her bringing food to the persecuted Christians.

Midsummer is a celebration on or around the Summer Solstice. Greenery, maypole dancing, and great smorgasbords are part of the celebration. Rocky and I were in Sweden once during Midsummer, and the food spread at the hotel was tremendous with every kind of herring one could imagine. Rocky tried them all. I did not!

Today, few church services are held, and the churches are often locked. A pastor is responsible for multiple churches and holds a service on a rotating basis at the various churches in his assigned area. Attendees today would have to drive to a church a few miles from their home church if they want to attend church on a regular basis.

Today, Sweden is considered to be one of the world's most secular nations, with a high proportion of nonreligious people.

While holidays that we know to be based in religion might still be celebrated, there are few, if any, religious rituals. Swedes simply celebrate the day itself.

There are also non-religious ‘name-giving’ ceremonies (namngivningsceremonier) for infants, with the aim of celebrating the arrival of a new child without the religious overtones of a christening.

The churches are architecturally interesting. Below are a few pictures we have taken of the churches of our ancestors:

 

Ingatorp Church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Malexander Church

 

Farila Church

 

 

                                                    Amot Church

Ulrika Church

 

 

 

 

 

The churches above were places of worship for our ancestors:

Ingatorp: church attended by Olaus Fredriccson and his family, including our Gus, John, and Peter Linn.

Malexander: the church that Elin Andersson's family would have attended.

Farila: church in Galveborg County that the Olssons and Olofsons would have attended.

Amot: church attended by John Barquist and his ancestors and family.

Ulrika: church attended by Gus Linn and John Linn before they immigrated to the United States.

When our Swedish ancestors came to the United States, most of them continued to meet regularly in homes until a church could be built. The services were in Swedish with Swedish Bibles and Swedish hymns. And this practice of being in the Swedish language lasted for many years.

John Linn was an ordained minister and started many churches in Iowa and surrounding states. According to his Dayton Review obit on 23 May 1907, he was converted to the M.E. church in Hardin County and entered the work of the ministry. In 1868 he was pastor at Rockford, Geneseo and Galesburg, IL. In 1874 he was presiding elder of the District of Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. 

Our Swedish ancestors were faithful servants, protestants with some remaining Lutheran, but throughout their lives, they practiced their faith.

Roy Hagerty Rinquist Update

 

On May 23, I posted about the Hagerty boys who were adopted by 3 different families. Roy Oscar Hagerty was adopted by William Rinquist and his wife Charlotte Linn Rinquist.

Below is some additional information I have found about Roy:

An obituary from an unknown newspaper source in Miami states that Roy O. Rinquist, 82, of 8981 Sunset Dr., Miami, passed away Thursday. Mr. Rinquist was a native of Kansas and had been a resident of Miami for the past 18 years. His Philanthropic services to the Veterans Hospital for which he was awarded a 3,000 hour volunteer pin and to Post No. 67 of the American Legion who honored him with the "Award of Merit" and a life membership bears tribute to his outstanding services. He is survived by his wife Hilda. Friends may call 7-9 pm Friday Lithgow 150 St. Chapel, 15011 W. Dixie Hwy.

 

Two items stand out for me in this obit:

 

1. Roy’s philanthropic services to the Veterans Hospital and the American Legion. The pins were given for various levels of volunteering, starting at 300 hours. Roy was clearly a very active volunteer for the Veterans Hospital in Miami.
2. He was survived by a second wife, Hilda whom he married two years after his first wife Olivia passed. Hilda must have loved men! She had 5 husbands altogether, counting Roy Rinquist.

 

 

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