Brøndum, Erik

Biography in relation to Skagen

Son of merchant Anders Ericsen Brøndum, 1781 - 1835, and Anne Kirstine Houmann, 1785-1858.

Apprenticed to silk merchant Th. Høyer in 1836 and trained as a clothier in Copenhagen four years later.

Was called home to Skagen, where his mother, the widow Anne Kirstine Brøndum, had inherited her stepfather Chresten Degn's grocery business. He was then apprenticed as a merchant in Frederikshavn for another 3 years. Employed in 1844 in his mother's grocery store in Østerby, which he took over when he became a citizen in 1847 as a grocer en gros and a retailer in Skagen Kjøbstad.

In 1846 he married Ane Hedvig Møller and their circumstances were difficult for the first several years. An impending bankruptcy in 1850 was averted by his father-in-law, Søren Møllebygger, and in 1861 he was appointed chief guardian. In 1859, he was also granted citizenship as a host, and under his leadership and with the efforts of his wife and three children (Chresten Degn, Marie and Hulda), Brøndum's host farm grew in step with the artists' colony in Skagen.

There are few records of him as a person. His relationship with his wife and children seemed complicated. He ran the shop and hotel and, at least in his younger years, was conversational and occasionally entertained himself by playing cards with guests.

Hans Christian Andersen finds Erik Brøndum slightly annoying when he stays in the living room with H.C. Andersen and Christian Uldall in 1859, constantly smoking tobacco and interfering with the conversation.