Lind Q&A

“The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a goodly heritage”

                                                                     Psalm 16:6               

Q: From whom does our family take its name?

A: During the early 1800’s in Sweden, most children took the first name of their father and added either “son” or “dotter” for daughter.  Both Svante and Anna Kajsa had fathers named “Lars”, so when they met, they were Svante Larsson and Anna Kajsa Larsdotter.  Shortly before their marriage, Svante, enlisted in the military to provide a house, or soldat torpet, for a few days work each week, and continued work at the Dagsnas Estate.  He was given the military last name of Lind, so then he became Svante Lind.

Q: Where did Svante and Anna Kajsa grow up?  

A: Svante’s family for many generations worked on farms near Edsvara Sweden, in the Skara Diocese or Region of the Swedish Church (Lutheran).  He was born just south of Edsvara at Simmarstorp.  Anna Kajsa, whose mother came from Varnhem, the location of an old religious center and monastery, was born just outside Skara at Larstorp.  

Q: Where are these places in Sweden?

A: There are several large lakes in Sweden, Lake Vanern and Vattern, dividing the South of Sweden into North and South, East and West.  Skaraborgslan, as it is called, is in the southwest corner of this divide.

Q: Did Svante and Anna Kajsa have siblings?

A: Svante had four older sisters, an older brother who died as an infant, and a twin brother, who also died at a young age.  Svante lost his mother at age 4, and his father at age 11.  His older sisters were 5-12 years older, and had gone on to work at larger farms, and he became an orphan.  Anna Kajsa had older and younger brothers.  Her father lost his farm, died when she was a young girl, which ended her formal education, including music, and when of age began work on larger farms.  

Q: What is the Dagsnas Estate?  Where is it?

A:  This is the large private estate south of Skara, on the west shore of Lake Hornborgasjon.  This is where Svante found a job as a coachman, working with the horses.  Anna Kajsa, after several positions in larger farm/homes in the upland area north of Skara, secured a job here in the kitchen, and as a maid to the lady of the estate.  Anna Kajsa was known for her singing voice and sang for Dagsnas guests from behind a doorway to the kitchen.  Svante and Anna Kajsa were married in March 1856 at Dagsnas, with the help of the Estate owner and his wife.

Q: There are cranes on Lake Hornborgasjon during annual migration. Why is this of interest to our family?

A: The Platte River near Kearney is also known as a flyway for North American sandhill cranes. There is a water feature that lies just west of the Lind Homestead and other family farms that most certainly benefit from the crane arrival in the early spring, and must have struck a note of connection with the Dagsnas area they once called home.

Q: Do we have relatives still living in Sweden?

A: going back to 1903 and earlier, American relatives have gone back to visit and help other Swedes come to America.  Some still live near Skara and Esdvara, many have moved to other parts of Sweden; some we have lost touch with, and some also moved to America.  Anna Kajsa’s younger brother moved to Phelps County after retirement to be near his Larson relatives.  We continue to learn about our distant relatives and their family’s history.  A Lind Cousins Trip in 1988 to Sweden connected many of us with Svante’s sibling families. Some American Lind cousins have lived, studied, and even moved back to Sweden.

Q: When did Svante & Anna Kasja come to America?

A: Large families, lack of opportunity and strict religious practice, caused many people to immigrate to America, beginning in the 1840’s.  By 1869, the Lind’s had moved several times, to military torpets, or houses provided by estates or villagers to their military conscripts.  The Lind Family now numbered seven, and the most recent home near Vanga, lacked enough land for farming to support them.  Svante decided to move to America, to find new opportunity.  He was 36, did not read or write well, and yet was determined to venture west.  On foot, by sail/steam ship, and train, periods of being lost, and loosing his belongings, he managed passage to his eventual destination, the Happy Hollow Mine in Hampton IL.  A letter, slowly written, after hard work, retiring debt and saving for his family's passage to America, asked Anna Kasjsa to sell the cow, loom and other household items. After arranging for the first tickets, he was expecting a prompt family reunion, but the first tickets never arrived.  Anna Kajsa and their five children, Lovisa, Johannes, Thure, Matilda and Emil, after surviving those 3 years and disdain for Svante leaving his military assignment, joined their husband and father on June 17, 1872.  With a second set of tickets now in hand, the journey was much more traditional, for those days.  This was before Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, so their entry to America was through the Battery/Castle Garden at the tip of Manhattan Island.

Q: How did the Lind Family get to the Phelps County Nebraska prairie?

A: By 1879, the Lind Family had grown by two, with Ida and Augusta being born in Hamption.  New lands were opening up for homesteading in places like eastern and central Nebraska with expanded railroads providing plots of land interspersed with government lands, to foster development.  Groups of Swedish immigrants were settling along the new railroad lines in the Platte River Valley, and surveying added definition to the lands in the Nebraska Territory.  On March 17, 1879 Svante and Emil age 12, took a train spur south from the Hampton area, via Galesburg, to Ft. Kearney and the area land office. Their boxcar was carrying 2 horses, 2 cows, several wagons and farm implements, and off-loaded near there.  As Aunt Ida describes, the wagon ride for Svante & Emil to stake their claim, past the trees lining the Platte, gave way to sand hills, and then the barren prairie.  The site chosen was 18 miles south and west of Kearney.  The next day, Anna Kasja, Ida age 6, and Augusta age 1 1/2 followed, via Galesburg by train to meet the returning wagon, and travel over unbroken prairie to the Lind Homestead on March 19, 1879.

Q: We talk about Six Branches at Family Gatherings, and how we are connected.

A: The five children born in Sweden and two in Illinois are seven, but the second oldest, Johannes or Johnny, did not marry or have children.  An infant son, Otto, died shortly after birth at Hampton IL in 1875.  One other infant son, Carl, was born and died in Sweden.  These infants are listed in the 5oth Wedding Anniversary Booklet from March 24, 1906

Q: Are we still connected to Hampton and Moline Illinois?

A: Many relatives were born or raised near Hampton, within the wider Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa.  First Lutheran Church, Moline was the first faith home for our family.  The first two children of Lovisa and AA Gustafson, who died as infants, are buried in the Hampton Cemetery.  Quite a few of the family have attended Augustana College, Rock Island and/or the Augustana EV. Lutheran Seminary, that was on the Augustana Campus.  The Rock Island campus was established in 1875, and Matilda worked for some professors and other families in the Moline area.

Q: Did they really raise their children in a sod house?  

A: There are many examples of sod houses, or soddy’s, in Sweden.  We don’t know for sure what the Lind soldat torpets were like.  We do know that their first home together in Hampton was a log cabin, and then a wood-framed house.  Supplies were loaded on the lumber wagon for their first family trip to their home on the prairie, to build their sod house.  The first Fridhem Church, several miles away, was also a Soddy, built in 1879.  Ida, the second youngest who could remember the first trip out to Nebraska, wrote in her memoirs about young Augusta playing in the tall grasses around their sod home on the prairie.  The Lind sod home, also served as a temporary school for the neighbor children.  

Q: What was important to these early Nebraska pioneers?

A: The family, church as an extended family, and a personal faith that valued hard work, loving and helping your neighbor, education and music.  In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Lind cousins visiting for the summer, would often sit in Sunday School classes mainly of cousins, and cousins of cousins. Year’s later, due in part to many Reunions meeting on a Lutheran college campus, Lind cousins could also reconnect as fellow college students.

Q: How many Linds are there now, and how many generations?

A: There are over 1900 direct Lind cousins.  Due to the movement of families and changes in many family traditions, keeping records up to date has been a challenge. We still find ways to keep connected and keep our Lind Family Tree as current as possible.  Let us hope that new technologies and a continued appreciation for our family, can keep this going.  We are entering the eighth and ninth generation, which began in 1856.

Q: Where can I learn more about our ancestors?

A: With new technologies and new discoveries, we are making an effort to preserve and make available memoirs, books, stories, and previously unknown documents, for your use.  A new Website, FB Group, email blasts, the space at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege NE, Fridhem Lutheran Church in Funk NE, and more, will keep our history alive.  Gratitude to those who preceded us, telling our common story.

Q: When and where did the first Lind Reunion take place?

A: The first reunion of all branches of the Lind Family was held August 27, 1950 at Fridhem Lutheran Church in Funk, NE.  The events of the day took place in the sanctuary and on the lawn surrounding the church in the afternoon.  It was a hot day; there were many clergy cousins involved in prayer and testimony.  Many men were also wearing wool suits, even though it was August, on the prairie.  Driving there was mainly on two lane roads, and there was no air conditioning in cars or most buildings. 

Q: “Fridhem” is an unfamiliar name- is it Swedish?

A: Yes.  Fridhem is Swedish and means “Home of Peace.”  After the hardships our Swedish ancestors had been through to get to America and finally to Nebraska, their haven of peace began in homes, and a larger sod church with flat, hewn wooden benches.  But they were now home, to a land of promise and opportunity, mixed with hard work.  A second church home, in time, a wooden structure, was built.  As final alignments were done of US Route 6 and the railroad, the Funk community, it’s stores, school, elevator and post office, was built 2 miles from the Fridhem Church, parsonage and cemetery. Our forefather AA Gustafson (Anna Lovisa's husband) was asked to “move” the church and place it on a new foundation in the Funk community itself.  He accomplished it, using several horses, support timbers and many sets of wheels, over a mostly dirt country road.  The church still stands today as a testimony to our religious and familial ancestors’ faith and trust in each other.  

Q: What was the frequency of Lind Reunions, and was it always at Fridhem?

A: Over the years, it moved from a Sunday afternoon gathering to a weekend event, with the goal of every fifth year returning to the Funk area.  The Reunions were held every year, requesting that Lind cousins, as hosts, extend “invitations” to welcome the family to their particular area.  Well into the 2000’s Lind Reunions were held every year, in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, California, and Colorado. 

A highlight of many reunions was the passing of the Golden Wedding Anniversary Cane and Ring to direct female and male descendants of Svante and Anna Kajsa.  A church service, often lead by relatives, meals, a variety of activites, family business, and free time to reconnect, filled the reunion weekends.

With families being more dispersed, affects of Covid, aforementioned changing family patterns and the passing of many key participants, we have paused our traditional yearly Reunions.  Thanks to willing family members, for ensuring the passing forward of the Golden Wedding Anniversary Ring and Cane to the oldest daughter of daughter and son of son.

Q: At reunions, and many family funerals, I remember hearing “Children of the Heavenly Father.”  Why is that?

A: That song, or hymn, dates from the mid-1800’s in Sweden, and has been special to a lot of Swedish people for many years.  A Swedish woman named Lina Sandell, after her father drowned in Lake Vanern near Skara Sweden, wrote the words.  For many years this song has been important to our family faith tradition and has been sung at each reunion.  In the newest ELCA Lutheran Hymnal, the first verse is written in Swedish.  Many older family members still remember the Swedish verses from childhood. and can sing them in four part harmony!