Gertrud Brita (Bertha) Blom

http://www.stenbanken.com/tng/getperson.php?personID=26038&tree=lindh

Emigrated to Minnesota in 1890.

Family legend says Dad's Auntie Gertie did not have any children of her own but played a big part in the lives of at least two of her brother's children. One of them was my father Harold who was born in Saskatchewan in 1914. I once asked him what he knew about his family who still lived in Minnesota. He said "not much other than his Grandmother's name was Christina and that the rest of them were probably a bunch of horse thieves". The whole family kidded around like that. In reality they did not know very much about them and so - like the rest of us - sometimes they resorted to imagination. Just to add a bit of color to their lives I guess.

Here's where it gets really funny. I'm not sure Dad even met his cousin Adele who was the first child Gertie and Erick took in after her mother's untimely death - sometime after 1901. She would have been about sixteen when Dad was born and long gone back to Minnesota when he went to live with Auntie Blom sometime after 1923. Adele was Elias and Sara's youngest daughter aka Gerda V. Lofstrom. Born in Strandquist, Minnesota in 1898.

In 2002, when contacted by letter, Adeles's daughter answered that "Yes this was indeed the Adele Lofstrom we had been looking for and that she had been sent to Canada to live with Auntie Blom sometime after her own mother, Sara Sjodin Lofstrom, died. She said that "Momma never said much about her family back in Canada ... except that as far as she knew they were all a bunch of horse thieves".

I about fell off my chair laughing when I read that. It seems Auntie Blom was the "pig in the middle" of that particular legend. What goes around comes around. Eventually.

1895. Marshall County, Minnesota census. Mr and Mrs A E Blom, having arrived in America 6 years ago, are farming in Lincoln Township. Living with them is a 14 year old boy named A Nils Blom who has been in America for 3 years.

In 1900 there is a Gertie Blom working as a nurse in a hospital in Ramsey St. Paul. The dates are just a hair off BUT our Gertie is missing from the Marshall County census at this time. Instead her mother, Sara Lofstrom, is living with son-in-law Erick Blom. No Gertie in the home? I do not ever remember anyone saying that she was a nurse though?

In 1910 Gertie Blom and her husband Erick are living in Deerwood, Kittson County Minnesota with Adele V Lofstrom age 11 years. Erick is working as a house carpenter and Adele is attending school. Gertie is listed as a housewife.

Gertie and Erick are not on the Saskatchewan census of 1911 but are there in 1916.

Adele had gone to her sister Signe in Seattle by 1915 (Everette School) and does not appear on this census but their sister Selma does - nearby at Waldron. In 1920 Adele is back in Minnesota living with her sister Julia who had also spent time in Saskatchewan. Julia's son was born there in August of 1913. He returned to the US as an infant.

Feb. 1920. Mrs. A E Blom signed Elias's death certificate in Strandquist, Minnesota in the capacity of "undertaker."

My dad, Harold Lofstrom, lived with Gertie and Erick from sometime after 1923 until - about the time - she died in 1937.

Here is my hunch regarding the "unknown ladies" photo I posted. In 1920 Adele is working for a photographer in Minnesota - where the picture was taken - and living with her sister Julia Holmlund. I wonder if "possibly" the unknown ladies are Julia and Adele.

The photo was in an envelope of pictures labelled Leo's family that my sister got from our Mother. It's possible that Leo acquired them after Gertie passed away - there was no one but Leo left in Saskatchewan for Erick to pass them on to when he returned to Minnesota after Gertie's death. It's possible Leo sent them to Dad or that Dad brought them out west himself. He lived with Gertie and may have known these girls - or at least known their story. It's also possible that it is someone related to Leo and his wife or is to Dad's sister Ada Forsberg who also lived in Minnesota. clf