Why Rockford?

When I first began researching the Larson trip in 1938, most of the destinations made sense. There was Walter’s family in Mobile, Alabama, which explained why they detoured off the planned route to go there. There were Jane and LaMar in Bakersfield and Alex in San Francisco. In between those stops there was sightseeing and touring. I knew all these people and had information in my mother’s files with dates and names and stories, and my brother Sam had done a fair amount of research on each. But when I saw that they also made a detour up to Rockford, Illinois, I was baffled. Who was there? Why would they visit? All of Frank’s 11 children were accounted for and none of them had lived in Rockford.

When I couldn’t figure it out easily I busied myself working with Sam researching the other family members that I knew were directly connected to my great grandfather Frank. I wanted to find out as much as I could about each of the travellers and those they visited so that I could fill in the blanks and tell their stories in the years leading up to and including the 1938 trip. The previous blog articles reflect some of what I learned during the months leading up to my October launch.

As October 1 got closer and closer, the Rockford mystery took on more urgency and I couldn’t put it off any longer. I needed to know what the connection was. I knew I would be limited in the amount of research I could do while on the road, so one day I decided to bite the bullet and do the deep dive to (hopefully) find the answers to my burning questions. 

It wasn’t easy, and required pouring over my mother’s (and other relatives) handwritten notes on pages in the files that didn’t seem connected to much else. The random name “Skoog” appeared here and there, along with the name “Wood” and “Eskil.” These names were associated somehow with Frank’s sister Mary, about whom we knew very little. Once I figured out that skoog or skog is the Swedish word for “forest,” “wood,” or “woodland,” I knew I might be onto something. Several members of the Larsons changed their names to more English-sounding names when they emigrated, and I thought perhaps Mary’s Skoog branch had done the same.

While Mary Wood is too common to be useful in a name search, Eskil is not. Bingo! When I searched for Eskil Wood, all kinds of hits popped up, and most were in Limestone, New York and Rockford, Illinois. I got very excited when I confirmed that Eskil had indeed moved to Rockford from Limestone. I had the connection!! That opened up a treasure trove of information that led me to quite a bit of information about not only Eskil, but also his siblings, his children and his parents. The blanks started to fill in here and there, and while still incomplete, I now have enough information to explain who was in Rockford in 1938 and why the travelers went there.

The Rockford Branch

Mary Larson (the Swedish name would have been Larsdotter since she was a girl) was born in 1856 in Redslared, Sweden, and was five years older than her brother Frank (my great grandfather and 1938 traveller). When Frank, John and Will decided to come to America in 1881, Mary was already married to August Skog (Wood) and busy having children in Sweden. They lived with Mary’s parents, Lars and Anna, so when her three brothers left, followed by Linus a couple of years later, Mary was the last remaining sibling left at the family home.

Eskil, born in 1882, was the first of Mary’s children to get the itch to leave for America. No doubt he had been hearing all his life about his cousins and uncles in western Pennsylvania and New York because we know there was a fair amount of communication back and forth between Frank and John and their relatives in Sweden.

In 1900, as soon as he turned 18, Eskil left home and went straight to Limestone where he joined his Uncle Frank and Aunt Emma and became Eskil Wood, leaving behind his Swedish name Skog. Apparently, Eskil left a sweetie behind in Sweden. Selma arrived in 1901 and she and Eskil were married in Limestone in February 1902. Eskil’s older sister Hulda, born in 1880, also came to the U.S. around that same time and she and Gustof Peterson were married in Limestone in May 1902.

For some reason that isn’t entirely clear to me, both Eskil and Hulda, together with their spouses, relocated to Rockford, Illinois, probably in 1903 shortly after they were married. As far as I know there were no family connections there, but there easily could have been other connections from their parish in Redslared, Sweden. It’s also possible that their spouses had relatives there. Rockford was definitely a destination point (one of many throughout the northern midwest) for Swedes emigrating to the United States, and there were plenty of jobs and an immediate Swedish community waiting for them. In 1906, once Eskil and Hulda were settled in their new community, their parents Mary and August joined their children in Rockford. They brought their two youngest children, Olga and Gustaf, with them.

Mary and August had a total of 9 children, but only 6 were still living in 1910 after they had moved to Rockford. According to that year’s census three children were still at home: John (19), Olga (16) and Gustaf (13). It isn’t clear when John made the trip over, and there was another child Charles who may have stayed in Sweden. In 1910 Eskil and Selma and their four-year-old son Paul were apparently living in Denver, Colorado, but by the 1920 census Eskil’s family had moved back to Rockford, where they remained for the rest of their lives. I have no idea why they went to Denver or why they came back to Rockford, but the census records are clear that they were there for a short time, presumably seeking their fortunes and apparently not finding them.

Over the years Mary’s branch of the family would grow and become entrenched in the Rockford community. Eskil and his brother Gust both registered for the draft during World War I, as did Olga’s husband Claus Swenson.  One of Rockford’s major employers in the early 1900’s was the National Lock Company, which was started in 1903 by three Swedish immigrants, and grew to such an extent that at its height the company employed one-fourth of Rockford’s working residents. The plant was located just a few blocks from Eskil’s neighborhood, and Eskil worked for the company for over 30 years.

Eskil and his wife Selma had 6 children, but only Elmer would have been living at the house in 1938. In 1927 Eskil lost both his mother Mary (October) and his 13 year old son Ernest (August). Ernest died from some sort of heart trouble and I imagine that his sudden death must have crushed not only Eskil and Selma, but the rest of the family in the area as well. Sadly, this was not the first time they had lost a child. Their son William died in 1905 at age two shortly after they had moved to Rockford. Even more tragically, Eskil would lose another son, Carl, in a drowning accident in 1944. Carl was 26 and working with his father at the Rockford Screw Products when he died.

Frank’s sister Mary (Eskil’s mother) died in October 1927. Her first husband August had died quite a few years earlier, and she had married a man named Nels Larson. As an interesting side note, Nels met an untimely death in 1928 when he was stoking a fire in his home on a cold April evening. Apparently impatient due to the cold, he poured more kerosene on the smoldering embers, which exploded in a fire bomb and quickly spread to the rest of the house. According to the news reports, his body became “a human torch,” and he ran out of the house, “stunned and bewildered” as he grappled with the heat and flame. A neighbor who saw what was happening rushed over to try to help but was too late. Nels died in his front yard before the ambulance could arrive. It is news stories like this that lead to other relevant information that helps me tie breadcrumbs together. In this article I learned that Mary had died a year earlier, that Eskil was Nels’s stepson, and that Mary had indeed remarried after her first husband August died. I also learned how dangerous it could be living and surviving during that era. It is unlikely that what happened to poor Nels was an isolated event in those times.

The 1938 visitors must have been able to stay with Woods (Eskil), Petersons (Hulda) or Swensons (Olga) while in the area because there were no motel charges for those dates on my grandfather Fred’s ledger that he kept so meticulously. I’m so glad I was able to follow the breadcrumbs to Rockford and discover the reason for that visit! The New York Larsons were definitely close to these Rockford relatives as evidenced in the photos in other scrapbooks that depict Eskil in Limestone several different times over the years.

Rockford in 1938 and 2023

During the height of Swedish immigration at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, large numbers of Swedes settled in Rockford, Illinois. Even through the 1920’s they were easily the largest ethnic group in the city. One of the reasons Rockford was a popular place for Swedes to settle was the presence of the furniture-making industry there. Known as skilled woodsmen and carpenters, employers likely actively recruited settlers to the area. Besides making furniture, the city also became known for manufacturing locks, machine tools and heavy machinery, sewing machines, pianos and clocks. The companies Eskil and his son Carl worked for, American Lock Company and Rockford Screw Products, are two good examples of the type of large manufacturing enterprises started in the early 1900’s that put Rockford on the map as a major manufacturing hub.

Today, Rockford is a charming old town with very strong working class roots. There are shells of numerous manufacturing plants all around the older neighborhoods where Mary and her children lived in the early and mid 1900’s. The Swedish influence in the area is also very obvious, with many Lutheran churches within relatively short distances of each other and many Swedish street and business names. There is a Scandinavian cemetery (which used to be the Swedish cemetery) as well as a very active Swedish Historical Society, which was established in 1938.

Another interesting Rockford tidbit was Camp Grant, which opened south of the city in 1917. Thousands of soldiers received their training for World War I at this camp. The camp was deactivated in 1921 when the war ended, and in 1924 became a training center for the National Guard. During the Great Depression, it served as the base of operations for a Civilian Conservation Corps unit from 1933-1935. In the 1940’s, Camp Grant was reactivated as a U.S. Army base where German prisoners of war were held between 1943 and 1946, at which time the camp was permanently deactivated.

I was fortunate to arrive in Rockford on the very day that the Swedish Historical Society was celebrating their annual St. Lucia Day children’s concert at one of the local Lutheran churches. Of course I had to go!

An extra bonus while I was in town was the Swedish Christmas market, also an annual event. Vendors sell their Swedish-themed items and Christmas decorations, and for $10 you could have an authentic Swedish pancake breakfast. Of course I had to have the breakfast! It was delicious. Thin pancakes (more like crepes) topped with lingonberry jam, butter and syrup. Lingonberries are very Swedish and I enjoyed them on my pancakes. I also bought some bread and met Jim and Lauren Killam, who make and sell Swedish-themed wooden creations. I was happy to find a local artist who was also Swedish at the market and so of course I had to buy something! We chatted a bit and I told them about my trip following the Larsons’ trail to California and back, including the stop in Rockford. I’m sure I must have many relatives still living in Rockford (maybe I was surrounded by them both at the church and at the market!) so I left Jim one of my bookmarks just in case…

On the Road from New Mexico to Rockford

I began this article a few days ago while sitting in my van in the parking lot of the American Legion post in Springfield, Missouri. Those folks were kind enough to allow me an overnight here on my way through Missouri via Marthasville, where I took a small detour to spend some long-overdue time with Jay’s Aunt Toosie and her daughter Kim. Marthasville is west of St. Louis and near Washington, Missouri, which sits right on the Missouri River. Washington also happens to be the one and only place in the world that still manufactures corncob pipes. Why is this important you ask? Well, it actually isn’t important at all in the great scheme of things, but it was great fun visiting the factory and buying some pipes. After all, they have been making their pipes since the 1800s and boasted some famous people as regular customers (Mark Twain and General Douglas McArthur, to name two).

While visiting Toosie and Kim we also spent some time in St. Charles, Missouri, where Toosie grew up and Jay spent many holidays at his grandparents’ home. We visited the cemeteries where his relatives are buried and I sprinkled some ashes on the sites.

Before driving to Missouri I had a fabulous time in New Mexico for two weeks. My week in Albuquerque with my sister Carol (see Starting for Home) was followed by several nights of exploring on my own (with overnights in the parking lots of breweries and alpaca farms). I became quite interested in the history of the pueblos in the area, the conquest by the Spanish, and the arrival of the white settlers. The combination of all those ethnic and cultural influences makes for a very interesting mix of people and history which I found fascinating. I ended my solo explorations by joining my brother Daniel and his family in Santa Fe. They were visiting their friends (who are now my friends) Dee and George for Thanksgiving. Dee and George were gracious enough to let me invite myself to their Thanksgiving feast, and then they offered me their couch for the four nights I was there. (Let the record show that I had been fully prepared to stay in the van, but Daniel suggested that Sadie and I might be more comfortable staying in the house. Santa Fe elevation is over 7000 feet - the area is known as the “high desert” for a reason - which means that the nights this time of year can get down into the teens. LET ME REPEAT that I had planned and was fully prepared to stay in the camper, but when presented with the option of a warm house and a flush toilet, well… what would you choose???)

The four days in Santa Fe included a trip to the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, which we found at the top of a mountain after a stunningly beautiful drive. The museum contained quite a bit of information about the Manhattan Project and Robert Oppenheimer, as well as the research that has continued there since the original labs were built in the 1940’s. I learned a lot, and it was quite sobering to see exact replicas of both “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” on display. So small and yet so incredibly destructive! Robert Oppenheimer is considered a hero whose success in building the atomic bomb detonators is credited with accelerating the end of the war in Japan. I myself am conflicted about the legacy of the project and the bomb, and whether it really added any tangible benefit to the war effort. I am unconvinced that the bombs were a necessary next step in the war, but then again, I’m certainly no expert and my opinion on the matter probably adds little value to the debate.

Although I’m not Catholic, and actually not religious in any traditional sense, I nevertheless found Chimayo an interesting and beautiful place. Lots of shops with local art and religious artifacts to buy, and the area is also known for a nearby restaurant that attracts people from miles around. This was a fairly remote region of New Mexico but the restaurant was packed. It did not disappoint, nor did the village itself. I picked up some holy dirt to hedge my bets on my journey home. (the dirt is holy because it is located in the exact spot where a miracle occurred concerning a particular crucifix that was found there and refused to be relocated, always returning to its spot at Chimayo). My brother Daniel and I also lit a candle in the small church to remember our loved ones who are no longer with us.

Thanksgiving Day itself was a hustle and bustle of togetherness and food. I met some very interesting people and conversation was lively and engaging. The food was delicious, and the turkey and all the fixins’ kept us well fed through the weekend. I left feeling that I had added to my family, such was the warmth and depth of friendship that developed over the four days. Thank you to Dee, George, Charles, Beckett, Giselle, Rebecca and John for showing me the best side of Santa Fe hospitality! The art that was everywhere as well as the shops downtown was icing on the cake.

When I left Santa Fe I had several long driving days as I made my way to Rockford. Highlights included:

• Palo Duro Canyon State Park south of Amarillo, Texas, where I spent a night. Gorgeous and unexpected, this canyon is a big crevice in the earth in a place I least expected: the flat plains of the Texas panhandle. Driving along one sees nothing but flatness, and then suddenly the earth just opens up into this unbelievably stunning display of geological history. If I hadn’t been camping I would have totally missed it as it is about 30 miles south of Amarillo and you’d never know it’s there unless you’re looking for it. Definitely worth a visit whether you are camping or not. Lots of natural beauty, lots of hiking trails.

• Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I visited the site of the famous “Black Wall Street” Massacre in 1921. Sobering, to say the least, and a reminder not only of where we have been as a country, but also that there is still much work left to do in order to overcome the legacy of so much racial hatred that has occurred over such a long period of time.

• Claremore, Oklahoma, Will Rogers’ home town (I knew this because my grandfather Fred had noted it on his map). There is a monument and museum at the site where he and his family are buried. I knew Jay appreciated good satire and wit, so I visited the site and sprinkled some ashes.

• Chain of Rocks Bridge, which my relatives crossed in 1938. It used to be a toll bridge and became the main route to cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis when Route 66 was realigned in 1936. At that time there was an amusement park nearby and the approaches to the bridge on both the Illinois and Missouri sides were beautifully landscaped and attractive to tourists. Over the years the bridge got replaced by a big interstate, the area around it degraded and it was almost destroyed. It was eventually saved and declared a national historic site. The distinctive feature of the bridge is a 30 degree turn in the middle of the river, an engineering necessity at the time in order to construct it all the way across the river. It is now only a walking bridge, but Sadie and I hiked about halfway across and I tried to imagine my relatives driving on it so many years ago.

Next Steps

My visit to Rockford was a great way to end my two-month journey following the trail of my Larson relatives. I have one more day of driving and then I’ll be home in Ann Arbor for the holidays, basking in the glow of my hearth as I wait for the cold winter to set in. I’ll first need to unload and clean and winterize the camper before I do any serious basking, but once I’m settled in I’ll be mulling over my future both short and long term as I relax in one place for the next few months. Another road trip? More blogging? Maybe a book? What about that banjo? - I kind of want to get it out and start practicing again. Back to pickleball? And of course my dear friends and family to reconnect with when I get home.

Thanks for taking this journey with me - I will be writing more after I’m home to wrap up the 1938 Project trip, so stay tuned! Anybody’s guess what comes after that!