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paternal grandfather, Per August Sjogren, was born in or
near Ekshared, Varmland, Sweden on May 29, 1870. He was
the youngest child of Per Jönsson Sjögren and Anna
Cajsa Anderdotter. He began work in the sawmill industry and
migrated North to the province of Helsingland. In
about 1890 -1891 he worked on a mill at Hybo, near the
Swedish city of Ljusdal. There he met my grandmother
Anna Bjorkland who had been born February 1, 1876 on a
farm near Ljusdal. They married on June 22, 1891 when
Anna was 16 years old. They had three children, one of
which died very young. the other two were my aunt, Alma
Kristina, born Sept. 12, 1891, and my father, Arthur
Evald.
Hybo, Hälsingland, Sweden, as it is today.
My father. Arthur Evald Shogren, was born October 3,
1902 in Sandarne, a suburb of the city of Soderhamn,
Hälsingland, Sweden. The area where the sawmill was is
now a huge plant of the Arizona Chemical Company, an
American company founded at Camp Verde, Arizona in 1930.
In the spring of 1903 my grandfather emigrated to
America, following in the footsteps of his older
brother, Carl Johan. Carl had become a sawyer and my
grandfather was a millwright. They left behind their
parents and two sisters, Britta Cajsa Persdotter Sj ögren
Skogland and Joanna Persdotter Sjögren Vennerstrand.
They never saw them again.
He traveled first to Gothenberg, Sweden and then to
Hull, England. He then went across England by rail
to Liverpool and on May 19, 1903 left on the Cunard Line
ship "Saxonia."
The Saxonia,
in this picture riding high in the water.
His first stop was Mancelona, Michigan. Mancelona at
that time had a sawmill and several specialty wood
product factories as well as a large iron mill that used
a great deal of wood for fuel.
However he soon went on to Scanlon, Minnesota, near
the city of Cloquet, to work at the
sawmill there. The next fall Anna and the children followed. They
went by rail to Trondheim, Norway and caught the steamer
for Hull. On November 2, 1904 they left Liverpool on the
White Star Line ship the "Oceanic". arriving on November
10 at Ellis Island. Once in the United States they went
by rail to Cloquet.
the Oceanic. when
it was launched in January 1899 it was the largest liner
in the world
Family Picture, taken in Carlton, Minnesota (also very
near Cloquet) in about late 1904. My father, age 2 is
sitting on his father's lap. Next to my father and grand
father is Carl Johan. My grandmother Anna is
behind my grandfather and my aunt, Alma Kristina is next
to her.
My grandfather moved with the sawmill North to
Virginia, Minnesota and later to Spring Creek, Minnesota
on the St. Louis County/Koochiching County line in
Silverdale. When the sawmill moved again across the
country to Oregon he stayed and bought a homestead. He
made his living primarily as a blacksmith, making many
"drays". (large wooden sleds that were used to haul logs
out of the woods on ice roads in the winter.)
Drays in use in the logging industry.
CREDIT: Halvorson, Lewis H., photographer. "Banner
load, Blackduck, Minnesota : biggest load of logs ever
hauled / by Lewis H. Halvorson." 1909.
My father did a
multitude of things. He built the telephone system for
the area (including the switchboard), ran the system,
repaired it, did the billing and everything else that
was required.
For many years he
operated a threshing machine during the harvest season,
hauling the huge machine behind a tractor (for years
one with steel wheels) for miles around. He used to say
that he had chicken every day for four months. Without
refrigeration chicken was the only meat available on the
farms until winter came.
He raised turkeys, (a
thousand of them per year), had a sawmill, and was a
dairy farmer as well. In the 1960's the telephone
company, (The Spring Creek Rural Telephone Association)
was sold to the Continental Telephone Company and for
the first time in his life he became an employee, with
paid vacation. He continued to work for Continental and
their successor companies part time until he was 72.
He and my mother
finally moved out of Silverdale and bought a home thirty
miles away in Cook, Minnesota where they lived for the
rest of their days.
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