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Anna Sofia Jørgensdatter Normann (Larsen)
B. February 24, 1864 - Ibestad, Troms, Norway
M. August 12, 1888 - Sivert Larsen - Trondheim, Norway
D. February 20, 1940 - St. Joseph, Berrien County, Michigan
Anna was born to Jørgen Normann Jørgensen and Ingeborg Kristine (Kirstine) Ellingsdatter on February 24, 1864 in Ibestad, Troms, Norway (see graphic with extended family tree and maps below). There is a mystery I can't figure out. Anna is in the 1865 census with her parents and siblings. However, Anna was living with another family in Breidvoll, just south of Ibestad, in the 1875 census and is listed as a "foster daughter." Meanwhile, Jørgen and Ingeborg were still alive and had a census listing of their own that year without Anna, but all the other children??? See the two censuses below. I seem to remember Grandma Ackerman telling me that Anna was a foster child, but I always assumed her father and mother had died. Did she runaway, sent to help these people, or was she abused and left - I don't know? All the other children are listed with Jørgen and Ingeborg's household. If she was working as her foster dad's maid or servant at 11 years old that would be listed as such in the census record.
Anna had her first son Karl (Carl) in Östersund, Sweden, on October 22, 1886. She was not married and was listed as a seamstress. Mom wrote how great of a seamstress Nana was so it makes sense she learned the skill from her mother. According to the Swedish immigration records, Anna moved from Northern Norway (Hamnvik) to Östersund on November 8, 1887 with a child. However, Karl's birth record in Sweden states she lived in Östersund when he was born in 1886. She lived with shoemaker Peter Mathias, his wife, Juliana Jönsdotter, and their two children while in Sweden. It is interesting that she married a shoemaker - Sivert.
She moved from Östersund, Sweden, to Trondheim on May 17, 1888 while she was pregnant with Alexandra (Alice). She married Sivert on August 12, 1888 in Trondheim. She gave birth to Alice four months later on Christmas Day 1888. Either, they already knew each other from when she lived across the border in Sweden, or Sivert is not Alice's father either. I have never heard anyone mention that before. Anna and Sivert had three more children, including Rose (Nana), Lydia (Aunt Lil) and Ingolf (Norm) - see below.
According to Grandma Ackerman, Anna, Sivert, and Nana had a nice life in Norway, including live-in help. Anna and the children were happy there and did not want to immigrate to the U.S. However, Sivert had the wanderlust, like so many of our relatives. Sivert traveled around Norway (according to Lars' grandson) and even sailed to Africa (according to family oral history) in search of a new place to live. Sivert visited Chicago in 1906 looking for a new start in the U.S. On advice from a friend he met in Chicago, he went to Harbert, Michigan where decided to buy the farm on Youngren Road on October 15, 1906 from Loetta Atkin for $1,500. To see the sale as recorded at the Register of Deeds for Berrien County click here. Sivert had grown up on a farm and was looking to start over with a new life as a farmer in the United States.
Sivert sent for Anna, Alice, Rose, Lydia and Norm in the spring of 1907, Carl chose to stay in Norway. Anna and the children sailed to New York aboard the Hellig Olav ship arriving on May 14, 1907 - click to see photos of the ship. They had taken a train from Trondheim to Kristiania (which was Oslo's name when they traveled in 1907, it was renamed Oslo in 1925, back to its medieval name). Nana was seasick all the way across the ocean, I don't recall if Anna was also.
Most of what we know about Anna and her family's life during this time comes from the newspaper "The Acorn," which was published in Three Oaks but had sections for various nearby communities, including Harbert. See the article list below. A few interesting tidbits from the newspaper: Nana and Addie went to St. Joseph for the day in November 1908, five months before Grandma Ackerman was born - see Genealogical Mystery Page. Anna fell ill in December of 1913 but recovered around Christmas. Sivert was kicked by a horse in his right shoulder in 1917, the same year Norm and him each bought brand new Ford Touring cars. In June 1918, Grandma Ackerman stayed with Anna and Sivert a couple of times (we know that Grandma spent numerous days and weeks with her grandparents but these are the times reported in the Acorn). Both Sivert and Anna survived the Spanish Flu in the fall of 1918 - the first year of that awful pandemic. In June of 1919, Sivert took his family to Benton Harbor in his Touring car, I know today that is no big deal but in 1919 there were no freeways and most roads were dirt.
Anna and Sivert paid off the mortgage to Ms. Atkin on October 15, 1917, click here to see record. They sold the Youngren Road farm on September 21, 1921 for $5,000. They lived in St. Joseph for a couple of years and then moved to Decatur Township, Michigan and bought a 40-acre farm in 1923, adding another 40 acres a couple years later. Norm bought 40 acres right next to them in 1925. They both leased their land for oil and gas drilling in 1927. Anna and Sivert sold 40 acres to Norm in 1928 as he was getting too old to farm full time. His health was failing at 72 years old and he had a stroke in the winter of 1933. Grandma Ackerman came to live with her grandparents to take care of him for a few months that year but Sivert's health was so bad that he moved to Chicago to live with Norm that summer, and he died on November 5, 1933.
After Sivert died in 1933, Anna remained on the farm in Decatur and spent time in Harbert and St. Joseph with Nana and Aunt Lil (Lydia). On January 12, 1940 Anna sold the farm in Decatur and moved in with Aunt Lil in St. Joseph above the old Troost Bros. Furniture store while she was having a new house built in Harbert. She died of a brain hemorrhage caused by a stroke on February 20, 1940, a few days from her 76 birthday. Her death certificate age is inaccurate. Aunt Lil reported the death and changed Anna's birth date by three years, from February 24, 1864 to 1867, she even changed the date on the gravestone. According to Grandma, Mom and Aunt Patty, Aunt Lil was vain and was constantly misrepresenting her age. Nana did not want to fight her over the gravestone and just let it be. Further, all three feel that Anna was not in good enough health to go on the long walks that Lil took her on in St. Joseph which hastened her demise.
Note: in Anna's family tree continued below that her 3rd Great Grandparents are the same (Jørgen Svendsen & Anna Larsdatter Hinspeter). That is not an error. Jørgen and Anna had four daughters and two sons. Two daughters (Pernille & Jonetta) married different men and then had children, and then their children had children who married each other and had our great-great-grandmother Anna Sofia Jørgensdatter Normann. The county (Troms) they are from is large in area but very small in population. It was not uncommon for descendants to marry each other somewhere down the line.
This is the line of our family tree that can be traced back to the Viking era (@600-1100) through Anna Larsdatter Hinspeter (BTW, that's 45 generations!). See the graphic below.
Records, Herald Press & Acorn Newspaper Articles About Sivert and Anna:
Anna Birth Record - February 24, 1864
Anna Norway Census 1875 - Foster Daughter
Jørgen, Ingeborg and Family Census 1875 - Pt. 2 Livestock - No Anna
Sivert & Anna Marriage Record - August 15, 1888
Anna and Children Immigration Pt 1 & Pt 2 - May 14, 1907
Sivert Buys Farm in Harbert (Acorn) - November 16, 1906
Rose Larsen and Addie Dolph Visit St. Joseph (Acorn) - November 8, 1908
Anna Sick (Acorn) - December 18, 1913
Lil Stays with Anna and Sivert (Acorn)- June 13, 1918
Anna Entertains Daughter Rose, Lil and Sal (HP)- June 27, 1918
Sivert and Anna Recovering from Spanish Flu (HP) - November 1, 1918
Sivert and Anna Visits Relatives in Three Oaks (HP) - January 20, 1919
Sivert Takes Family to Benton Harbor in Motor Car (HP) - June 26, 1919
Sivert and Anna Sell Farm in Harbert - September 21, 1921
Sivert and Anna Purchase Land in Decatur Township - 1923
Anna Death Certificate - February 20, 1940
Anna Slideshow
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Family Tree Continued:
Viking Blood (click to enlarge)
Troms (Jørgensdatter, Jørgensen, Ellingsdatter)
Troms Birth Locations: Anna Jørgensdatter (Ibestad), Jørgen Jørgensen (Dryøy), Ingeborg Ellingsdatter (Keiprød). All of Anna's ancestors came from the various islands and villages in Southwestern Troms.
Troms, formerly Tromsø, is located above the Artic Circle and therefore is very cold in the winter with no sunlight for about a month and 24-hour sun in parts of the summer (midsommars). It was the poorest part of Norway for centuries relying entirely on the sea. It is sparsely populated with small villages dotting a very rugged coastline. Because of the harsh winters and mostly barren land Norwegians from this area were quite hardened and like their fellow northern Swedish and Finnish neighbors had a ruddy skin tone as noted in Anna's description at Ellis Island as she was entering the country. They also note that Anna is partly blind in one eye. See below - click to enlarge. To see the full record of their immigration at Ellis Island click here or visit Anna or Rose's page.
Pictures
Anna's Husband:
Sivert Larsen
B. August 25, 1861 - Grytens, Møre og Romsdal, Norway
M. August 12, 1888 - Sivert Larsen - Trondheim, Norway
D. November 5, 1933 - Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
Anna's Children
Karl (Carl) Gustav Antonius Normann*
B. October 22, 1886 - Östersund, Jämtland, Sweden
M. ? - Dorethe With - Hamar, Norway ?
Children - Arne (Sept 21, 1911), Carl (Sept. 26, 1914), Harry (Jan. 2, 1918)
D. January 8, 1960 - Norway
*Father unknown - Not Sivert
Alexandria Lennora Viktoria Larsen
B. December 25, 1888 - Trondheim, Norway
M. September 15, 1908 - Carson Hutchinson - LaPorte, Indiana
D. April 19, 1910 - Harbert, Michigan
Rosa Avilda Larsen (Dolph)
B. September 9, 1891 - Trondheim, Norway
M. September 23, 1911 - Adonijah Dolph Jr. - St. Joseph, Michigan (Divorced 1921)
Children - Lillian (April 1, 1909), Sylvia (Sal) (May 22, 1911)
D. June 10, 1963 - Michigan City, Indiana
Lydia Borghild Larsen (Aunt Lil)
B. September 9, 1891 - Trondheim, Norway
M. ? - Harry Beresford - Kansas ? (Divorced)
M. ? - Daniel Denman - ?
Children - Harry Beresford (Feb. 25, 1910)
D. February 3, 1979 - Berrien Center, Berrien, Michigan
Ingolf Norman Larsen (Uncle Norm)
B. December 15, 1893 - Trondheim, Norway
M. ? - Hannah Larson - Chicago, Illinois (Divorced)
M. January 7, 1932 - Anna Jacobus - Chicago, Illinois (Divorced)
M. ? - Florence - Florida (Divorced - 1951)
M. November 1952 - Jesse Clara McCluer - Lake Worth, Florida (Divorced)
D. July 25, 1975 - Garland, Dallas County, Texas
Uncle Norm was an interesting person and intersected our lives in a real way. He was married four times and had no children of his own. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I from July 29, 1918 through February 4, 1919 while still not officially a citizen of the United States. He applied for, and was granted, citizenship in 1922 based on the fact he was a soldier. Click here for his application and here for citizenship document. In the application, he explains his army service as a private in the 2nd Provisional Regiment, Spruce Division and denounces his Norwegian citizenship and King Haakon VII. I have a huge photo of his WWII unit that must be almost 4' long, you really can't make anyone out in the photo, but I've kept it because of its history. I also have some photos of his service in the Army below. The Spruce Division was responsible for securing wood. They were stationed in Vancouver, Washington, across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. The photos are most likely from his training camp.
Norm was quite industrious and had homes in Chicago, Florida, Texas, Harbert and Decatur over his life. Norm learned farming from his dad Sivert and helped him on the farm, later they owned farm land together in Decatur. Norm also did construction work, was a piper fitter (1920 census) and was an upholsterer (1940 census). One of Norm's homes was in Bradenton, Florida, near Nana's winter home for many years. Grandma Ackerman lived with Norm and his wife in 1930 when she was working in Chicago, he lived in Roseland (South Chicago). The photo above is taken in Roseland next to his house.
We remember Norm for bailing us out with a big loan when our car engine crashed in Sparks, Nevada, in July 1965, on our way back from California. In either 1966 or 1967, he came up to our place for Thanksgiving. I remember it well because he was a Dallas Cowboys fan, and we watched the football game while he was there. I think he influenced me into becoming a Cowboys fan.
Norm died at 82 years of age on July 25, 1975 in Garland Texas, in Dallas County. Charlie Scovern is the one who made the application for him to have an Army marker for his grave.
Norm's photos: 1) 1920s, 2) Norm and Nana (Rose), 3) Norm 1960s, 4) Norm Gravesite, 5) Norm in Uniform at training camp, 6-9) Photos from Norm taking most likely at training camp
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