You’ll remember from the April edition of the Walnut Press, that there were two intriguing Swedish inquiries. In Part I, I relayed the inquiry by a researcher in Sweden whose family had come to Jamestown, and how happy I was to be able to provide some answers. Sadly, no photos were found for his family.
At about the same time, we received a call from a local resident who was trying to help her husband discover the meaning of what she thought was a death entry from his Great Grandfather’s Family Bible. The very old (huge and heavy) Family Bibles were handed down from generation to generation and the births, deaths, and marriages were either written on designated pages for each between the old and new testaments or noted here and there inside the covers.
This entry included a paragraph, written in Swedish, when normally the name, birth, marriage or death date were the whole entry. Several people in the community passed on translating it, knowing that an entry made in the 1850’s was a Swedish dialect that they were unfamiliar with. One local member of the Thule Lodge was thrilled to read it in full to the equally thrilled Bible owner’s wife. As it turns out, it was a portion of the Svenska Psalm Boken 1819 #206, Verse 5. Eric Erickson was leaving Sweden for “Amerika” in May of 1880 and although we don’t know the exact circumstances, Eric’s mother, Christina, must have felt that the Bible needed to come with him to his new home. The entry was written by Eric.
In Jamestown, Eric Erickson became a prominent contractor and worked for Beck and Tinkham! He built many of the houses on Lakeview Avenue and Ridgley Terrace.
Enjoy the read!
