"They Want To Stay Here." Olivia, Calhoun County, Texas. Circa 1910.

Carl Johan and Hulda Bostram Damstrom surrounded by family and neighbors. Texas 1910.

In the year 1900, Carl Johan Damstrom and his wife, Hulda Bostram Damstrom, came to Calhoun County and settled a short distance north of the tiny community of Olivia. It had been 7 years since the Swedes had begun to move to the area with the enthusiastic encouragement of Reverend Haterius (who had long since gone back to his home in Galesburg, Illinois.) It had been six years since the August 1894 founding of little Eden Church, which in all that time had had no resident pastor.

            With the blessing of the congregation, Carl Damstrom took up the job of pastor. The church founders had started writing on the first page of the church record book, listing out their congregation record: the births and deaths, the confirmations, the record of where each person had come from, and gone to, the place they had been born and when they were received into the congregation.   Pastor Damstrom turned back a page to the bank pages at the very beginning of the record book and there he wrote the record of his own family, of himself and each of his family members.

            Out from the names of his wife and eldest daughters, he added a small extra note, one odd little sentence. “They want to stay here," Carl Damstrom wrote, perhaps unconsciously.

            The Swedes in Texas book tells us that the Damstrom journey had been a long one.  Born in 1838, Carl Johan had come to Moingoina, Iowa from Dalarna Sweden in 1868. There, just 2 years later, he met and married the 16 year old Swedish immigrant, Hulda Bostrom. Her family had come to Michigan from Värmland, Sweden in 1864. Soon Carl and Hulda were living near the present day Ogden Iowa where Carl organized a Lutheran congregation called Swede Valley. The Damstroms moved their growing family to Kansas, and then to Beeville Texas. By 1900 and their move to Olivia, Hulda had borne thirteen children and lost five them. The family had moved numerous times. She and her eldest daughters were ready to stay in one place.

People in this picture: Carl Johan and Hulda Bostrom Damstrom are, of course, the older couple in the center of the picture. There are a number of people in this picture who can be found in other blog photos and posts. There standing on the left in the back – you will see the younger Hulda Damstrom seen earlier helping draw water from the well (and look for her young helper from that picture as well.) Also present in this picture , the ever cheerful Miss Emma Wilson last seen sitting on the ox cart seat and also reading a letter with young Hulda on the porch at the Damstroms. In the center of this picture, look for Ellen Cavallin Peterson who has come to visit and is not now milking her cow. (That may be her husband standing slightly to the front and left of her.) Also, Amy Paulson’s friend, “the washerwoman” is sitting in the very front on the left.  Since I am posting these while my research is still in progress, I will continue to add and correct identifications and information as time goes on.

Identifiers:

Negative: Paulson213

Place: Olivia (Calhoun County) Texas

Date: Circa 1908/1910

People:

Carl Johan Damstrom (1 Aug 1838 – 23 Feb 1928; emigrated from Dalarna Sweden in 1868)

Hulda Carolina Bostrom Damstrom (24 Feb 1854 – 15 Sept 1928, married 18 Jul 1870; emigrated from Värmland, Sweden in 1864)

Hulda Damstrom (01 Apr 1880 to 17 Jun 1967)

Ellen Cavallin Peterson: (2 Feb 1877 – 19 Feb 1948)

Emma Wilson (20 Apr 1885 – 29 Dec 1921)

Sources

Eden Church Records, Olivia Texas. Accessed at and with the assistance of staff of the Swenson Swedish Immigration Center, in Rock Island, Illinois.

The Swedes in Texas in words and pictures 1838-1918 a historical-biographical work collected and published by Ernest Severin edited and compiled by Dr. Alf. L. Scott, Pastor T.J. Westerberg. Edited and Overseen by publisher J.M Ojerholmf.” The original title in Swedish is “Svenskarne i Texas i ord och bild, 1838-1918,”  translated by Christine Andreason, 1994. I used the web edition “Swedes in Texas in pictures and words” 2007, scanned and edited by David Borg, 

O.M Nelson, Swedish Settlements in Iowa: their founding and development and some of their noted men and women.  (nd., n.p.) Available on the web at: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gwgustaf/library/Sett/sbok_toc.htm

Olivia Cemetery, Texas at findagrave.com