Well, no. According to her birth record (which, by the way, no one had found prior to me finding it because it was believed she was born in a different parish in Stockholm) she was christened Helena Albertina Josefina Engström.
When she moved to the US she was simply known as Josephine. So that's what I will call her.
I'll be honest - this one is hard. When I think of all of my other great and great-great and great-great-great grandmothers who I have researched and reflect on all of their hardships and trials - lack of control over their own lives, legal corporal punishment (beatings) from fathers and husbands, shame from pre-marital pregnancies, death of multiple children, death of a spouse, hunger, poverty, etc. - life for many of them, as hard as it was, pale in comparison to the lived experiences of Josephine.
She was born on 19 February 1855 in the Maria Magdalene Parish in Stockholm. She would have been christened in the grand and glorious Maria Magdalene Parish Church.
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| Maria Magdalene Kyrka |
Josephine's father, Carl Johan Engström, was a tradesman (a journeyman carpenter maybe? - it's really hard to decipher). She had one sister 3 years older named Maria Charlotta Carolina and a brother 3 years younger, Carl August. Along with her mother, Anna Charlotta Lundberg, the family of five lived in the same area of Stockholm pictured in my previous post (here). Keep in mind the Engström family lived there at least 30 years prior to the photos being taken, so there were probably fewer buildings and houses, more farm land, and the structures would have appeared much less run down.
Since Stockholm had primarily been an agricultural community in days past, the city was still delineated by farm names. The Engströms lived in a house located on a former farm called Fatbursbrunnen.
A young artist, Josabeth Sjöberg, who lived in Fatbursbrunnen between 1847 and 1855, created watercolor depictions of her 12-meter by 12-meter rented room as well as what she saw outside her window.
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| Josabeth being visited by Dr. Fabian Levin |
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| Josabeth can be seen in the open gable window looking out over Fatbursbrunnen. Several details tell of the time period: all women wear headgear, a woman carries water with a yoke over her shoulders, a man pulls a handcart, a street musician is playing his instrument, and the children walk along the path, the boys first and then the girls. |
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| The view from Josabeth's window on a winter day. |
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| The same perspective as the winter scene. The fact that it is early summer can be seen by the lilacs in bloom. |
In August of 1859 the family moved to the next farm over. The original farm name was Bergsgruven Större. There was a street within the farm called Pilgränd. The house the Engströms moved into was identified as Pilgränd 8. Again, keep in mind the photos would have been taken several decades after the Engström family lived there.
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| Pilgränd 8 |
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| Pilgränd |
Perhaps their former house was drafty, damp, and unhealthy. Perhaps they believed it was infected with the disease. With lungsot - tuberculosis. Maybe they felt that moving - even a very short distance away - would make a difference. And maybe it would cure them. But according to the historical record, on the very day they moved to Pilgränd 8, 7 yr-old Maria Charlotta Carolina died of lungsot. Fair warning - that devastating loss was only the beginning of what this family would be forced to endure. During the 1800s approximately 25% of all deaths in Sweden were due to tuberculosis. Poor housing conditions, lack of proper hygiene, and small living spaces were some of the factors that contributed to the devastating spread of TB. Tuberculosis caused not only disease and death but created extreme social and economic challenges. TB-infected families suffered from social branding and were often treated as outcasts. When the key provider of a household would contract the disease and was no longer able to work it would often cripple the family financially. It wouldn't be until 1882 when Robert Koch would make a significant discovery which would control the spread and death toll resulting from TB.
Perhaps I need to rethink my assumptions regarding their move. Maybe they were no longer able to pay rent on the former residence as their head of household was no longer employable. 5 1/2 months following the death of Marie Charlotta Carolina, in January 1860, Carl Johan - the father, the husband, and the breadwinner - also died of lungsot. Five yr-old Josephine had lost two members of her family - so far.
Perhaps I need to rethink my assumptions regarding their move. Maybe they were no longer able to pay rent on the former residence as their head of household was no longer employable. 5 1/2 months following the death of Marie Charlotta Carolina, in January 1860, Carl Johan - the father, the husband, and the breadwinner - also died of lungsot. Five yr-old Josephine had lost two members of her family - so far.
By October 1860 Josephine's mother, Anna, was too sick to care for her two remaining children. As was protocol at the time, Anna, being infected with the disease, was separated from her children and admitted to the hospital while Josephine and 3 yr-old Carl August were taken to a "barnhus". A children's home. An orphanage. A note written next to Carl August's name in the priest's record indicated that he was also expected to die. He held on until 25 March 1861.
Josephine had lost her father, sister, and brother to lungsot. Her mother was hospitalized with the same disease. It's unclear to me exactly when her mother died - it could have been in 1867 or maybe as late as 1873, but I do know that Josephine never saw her mother again.
Helena Albertina Josefina Engström had lost her entire family.
Swedish society addressed the needs of orphaned children differently in the cities than in the rural areas. In the rural areas of Sweden, the local parish would take charge of children in need, most often finding (via auction) a foster family within the community to take the child in (much like what happened to Magnus Hallman). Parishes in the cities had larger budgets but also, generally, had greater needs. Beginning in 1624 the king required every city and province to provide a children's home for orphaned children. When the Stockholm children's homes would become overrun, children would be sent to other orphanages or families throughout the country.
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| Orphaned children outside a Barnhus in Stockholm |
On 11 May 1861, a month and a half after the death of her brother, Carl August, Josephine's time at the barnhus was up. She was sent to Skabersjö, a small village near the southern tip of Sweden more than 600 km from Stockholm to be in the care of Pehr Björk. She had endured more pain and loss in the first six years of her life than many people are subjected to over decades. I don't think we have to be able to read Swedish to understand and decipher Josephine's reality - her "new normal" - as documented in the official paperwork.
From the time her case was settled, it took 4 days for Josephine to be logged into the church records in Skabersjö. She settled in with Pehr Björk and his wife, Boel Pehrsdotter. For the next decade, and then some, she would be identified in the records of the church as "Barnhusbarnet (children's home child) No. 412".
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