Carl Alexander Rivers

https://www.alaskahistory.org/biographies/rivers-carl-karl-alexande...

Oulu Tuomiokirkkoseurakunta > syntyneet, 1880-1886 > 55: vuosi 1881 joulukuu syntynyt Oulussa.

Karl Alexander Joensuu was born in Oulu, Finland on December 17, 1881. He immigrated to the United States in 1901, and was probably accompanied by his mother, Magdalena. They settled in Brainerd, Minnesota because Karl’s older brother had previously settled there.The Northern Pacific Railway was first headquartered in Brainerd and, later, moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. After Karl became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1906, he changed his name to Carl River. He later changed his name to Rivers because in school his daughter called herself Lily Rivers and he also preferred that name.

In 1903, Rivers married his first wife, Hilma (Hilmar) Maria Matinson Selkala, who was also a Finnish immigrant. She was born on December 29, 1882, in Humppila, Hame, Finland, to Juha Matinson Selkala and Eva Karoliina Matindr. Their son, Conrad, was born about 1905 but later died from measles at the age of thirteen in Fairbault, Minnesota. On February 11, 1907, their second child, Lillian “Lily,” was born in Superior, Wisconsin. About 1910, another son, Kullervo, was born, but he lived only three days. By 1910, the Rivers family was living in Ault, Minnesota, about 160 miles northeast of Brainerd, where Carl worked as a “car repairer” for a railroad, probably the Northern Pacific Railway.[