Artistic: Henrickson and Strands

This week's prompt is "Artistic." That immediately made me think of something Mildred Strand wrote in a letter to my mother back in February 1981. She mentioned how proud she was of the drawing talent of her grandchildren, especially Ilene, Marvin, Esther and Venon.

On the Henrickson side, there is more artistic talent. Music seems to run in the family. In this article from the local paper, it mentions the local Swedish community celebrating Midsummer in June. The entertainment included songs sung by one George Henrickson, among others. George, and his wife, Malvina, were both organists at the local church. This ability to play was passed on to my grandfather, Raymond Henrickson. My mom recalled being somewhere once and suddenly seeing her dad go over to the piano and start to play a tune. She never even knew he could play!

Artistic talent also exists on the Strand(t) side of the family too. Carl Strand's 1st cousin, George Strandt, who lived in Chicago, became an organist and played around the country. It was exciting when the Show Business cousin would come visit the country relatives in Allegan.  

George was not the only Strandt with musical talent. His oldest son became quite well-known playing jazz organ. 

There are more examples of musical talent on this branch of the Strandt family too. They seemed to get all the musical genes. :)

These are the examples of artistic talent that came immediately to mind. If you have more examples, please share them below. While I, sadly, do not have any artistic talent, I can appreciate it in others. :)

 

You Wouldn't Believe It!

 This week's prompt is "You wouldn't believe it." I've uncovered a lot of surprising things about my ancestors and relatives over the past few years. One of the facts that I really found surprising was when my mom told me that her father, Raymond Henrickson, had surprised her and her siblings by playing a bit of a tune on a piano one day. No one knew that he could even play the piano!  I dug deeper into it.

Raymond Henrickson was the 9th child born to George and Malvina Henrickson. Ray most likely learned to play the piano from his parents. Both Malvina and George played the organ at the local Lutheran church. Malvina had even helped donate money, and traveled to Detroit, Michigan to bring back the first organ for the church. From Allegan to Detroit and back again with a horse and wagon. Ray wasn't the only child of theirs to play. Oldest daughter Selma also is listed in the church records as church organist for a time. I'm unsure if any other of Ray's siblings knew how to play the piano/organ, but I'm sure there must've been others.

After establishing where Ray and his siblings learned to play the piano, the next question is how did George and Malvina learn to play? Malvina already knew how to play the organ when she met George. Her parents, Carl and Ulrika Anderson, had immigrated from Sweden. Carl was a farmer, as he had been in Sweden. Both came from poor families. Carl had worked at a railroad station and Ulrika had worked for many different families as a maid before they met and married. After marrying, Carl farmed. It seems unlikely either family had a piano. Ulrika's parents were both dead by the time she was 7. Perhaps she learned somewhere along the way from one of the families she worked for? 

George Henrickson immigrated from Sweden as a 17-year-old boy. His family also was poor, but his maternal uncles were a bit better off. One immigrated to America in 1869 and became a successful farmer. Another one worked as a tailor in Sweden, and then in America. George also had a maternal aunt who worked as the local schoolteacher. It seems music and dancing seemed to be fun pastimes in his mother's family. I found this excerpt from a letter written by one of his sister's descendants: 

 Karl and Sven George Henrickson were handsome men, several of the Fahnstrom's and the Johnson's were good looking people, also musical and some loved to dance, guess that's something I inherited. Grandpa George and his sons played accordion by ear, Great Uncle Fred's sons, Wesley (Jack) Elmer (Unk) and Leslie (Pete) were very good and played accordion, guitar and banjo for dances.

At this Mid-summer picnic George was enough of a singer to be part of a quartette, singing, so he must've enjoyed it, and had a good voice!

Our ancestors, especially the ones who lived in Sweden, had hard lives. They weren't easy, filled with hard work. Oftentimes working from sunup to sundown. But, I'm glad that they did make time for fun. That they celebrated and sang and danced, with family and friends. 

In the newspaper

This week's prompt is "In the newspaper." I've been able to find out a lot about my various family members by searching the newspapers. Not only are newspapers great ways to find out about weddings and obituaries, but you can also find out if they ran for office, who they had Easter dinner with, or if they visited friends at Camp Custer. I have a subscription to Newspapers.com and that has been a tremendous help, especially with extended relatives who moved to other parts of the country. Unfortunately, the Allegan Gazette, and Allegan Journal have not been made a part of the Newspapers.com family. I did find a way, though. While searching the Allegan Library website one day I discovered that they had digitized the two newspapers and put them online. There was even a search engine! Unfortunately the search results just tell me which issue of the paper my relative may be in. It doesn't show me which article or highlight the name like Newspapers does. Nevertheless, it's been an invaluable tool in helping me research the Strands, Henricksons, Thompsons, and Ashleys. 

For this prompt I went back and searched for Henrickson and popularly misspelled "Hendrickson" again to see what I could find.

We start with June 25, 1915. I've mentioned wanting to know if our Swedish ancestors observed Midsummer festivities in Michigan as they would have in Sweden. Well, I wonder no more. I found this article describing the Midsummer party hosted at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. George Hen(d)rickson.

Allegan Gazette June 25, 1915

Malvina's father, Charles, had passed away in March of 1915, so by June she and George were already living on the farm. This also shows that George must've had a good singing voice to be part of a group that performed. It also shows that Hjalmar Anderson was part of the social circle. Hjalmar would go on to marry oldest Henrickson daughter Selma. 

The next article also concerns Hjalmar, and the Sandahl boys again. In November 1917 we find Hjalmar, Charlie Sandahl and friend Carl Peterson visiting William Sandahl and Martin Swanty at Camp Custer. William and Martin must've signed up to fight in World War I. Interestingly enough, in this same blurb, we also find Carl Strandt and his friend Gordon visiting a school. If that makes any kind of sense to anyone I'd love to know more. Maybe it's a school future wife Mildred Bellingar was teaching at?

Allegan Gazette November 1917

The next mention I find is the wedding of Grace Henrickson to Harold Wall in August 1928. The reception, once again, was held at the Henrickson family farm. 

Allegan Gazette August 18, 1928

 

In the same issue, I also find mention of where Grace and Harold spent time at a cottage with Selma and Hjalmar. 

Our last mention of Selma in the newspapers is when she was celebrated on her 80th birthday. It mentions her long service to the Lutheran church and also that she was church organist for many years. A job her mother once held.

Allegan Gazette November 1980

These are just a few snippets I've found in the Allegan papers. My hope is that one day Newspapers will pick up the Allegan Gazette and Journal as their search engine is so much better, but until then I'll make do with what I have. 

As always, post any questions, comments or additional information down below. Or email me. Feel free to share and repost.

As a side note, Malvina's brother-in-law was Andrew Sandahl, so I'm guessing maybe Charlie and William Sandahl were related to him in some way? I'll have to research and see. 
 

Update. Charlie and William Sandahl were the younger brothers of Anders "Andrew" Sandahl, who married Selma Anderson. Younger sister of Malvina. I also discovered that their father Gustavus Sandahl, was from Slatthog, Sweden. Same parish as where George Henrickson was from. Gustavus also changed his last name from "Johansson" too, to Sandahl. Reason was there were too many Swedish men named Johnson in the lumber camps were he worked. 

Leslie "Les" Roy Strandt

This week's prompt was "music". I've found a few musical ancestors.

Both George and Malvina Henrickson played the church organ. Ray Henrickson and his sister Selma also played a bit too.

On my Thompson side I have a relative who was a drummer in the Civil War. I've also found some distant cousins who were part of a sisters singing group in the 1930's and 40's.

Probably the most famous musician in the family, though, is Leslie "Les" Roy Strandt, of the Chicago Strandts.

Les was the son of George Strandt, grandson of Carl Friedrich Strandt who was the older half brother of our William Strandt. 

George Strandt managed a theater and played the organ. His son, Les, took up the organ too.

Les became known as a jazz organist and played all around the country. He recorded 3 albums. 

I believe that both George and Les visited Carl and Mildred and family. There are stories of the "Chicago" Strandts coming to visit and playing the piano/organ at the farm and telling tales of Chicago and other towns. Their visits must have been exciting.

Here's the obituary of Leslie Strandt

An advertisement for one of his club appearances.