52 Ancestors in 52 weeks - #7 "Outcast" - Everett Aaron Abrahamson

  Prompt #7 (Feb 12-Feb 17): "Outcast" - Everett Aaron Abrahamson

New Britain, Connecticut 1903:

Pastor John Eric Klingberg, a man of poor means himself, saw the need of the homeless children of New Britain and began a mission to those children that continues to this day.

"The first step in the founding of the Klingberg Home was an impulsive one. A policeman came to the young clergyman one night and told him three tiny children, whose mother had left them, were alone and hungry in a shack at the edge of town. "I dressed the little fellows,” Mr. Klingberg says, “and brought them home, where my wife received us with tears in her eyes.” At the time he was earning only $16 a week and living with his wife and their two small children in a crowded tenement. “We just prayed, and trusted in the Lord for help,” he says."

Rev. John Eric Klingberg at the
"Children's Home"

Everett Aaron Abrahamson, our cousin, grew up in the Children's Home of New Britain. In the 1930 census I find him living there where he stayed until he was 16 years of age. At that young age he went to work as a farm hand. When he applied for the draft in 1942 he wrote his next of kin to be his employer. He never married or had a family of his own. He died at 53. Truly an outcast.

The first clue I found of Everett's existence was his baptismal certificate. He was born in New Britain June 16, 1920 and baptized December 12, 1920 in the First Lutheran Church of New Britain. No father was mentioned. His mother was unmarried Alma Charlotta Abrahamson, my grandmother Lydia's cousin. His sponsors were his maternal uncle Luther Abrahamson, Luther's wife Agda and a man named Carl Lindberg.

The next year his mother married Carl Lindberg. They had two children together and all documentation seems to say the family had a pretty good life together. His mother and half brothers obituary mentions him. His stepfather's obituary does not. His obituary includes his half-siblings names. All of the Lindbergs knew he existed but I would bet his grandparents and extended family in the US and Sweden did not.

Now I know that I have no right to judge the decisions my family made a century ago as I truly do not know ANY of the extenuating circumstances but the mother/grandmother/woman in me questions, WHY?

    WHY would Alma leave her boy in a home?

    WHY would his uncle Luther and aunt Agda not take him in?

    WHY would the man who married his mother and stood as his Godfather at least not take him in, if         not give him his name?

They left him in the Klingberg Children's Home.

WHY?

my second cousin once removed

Everett Aaron Abrahamson

1920 - 1974

From Amy Johnson Crow, a genealogist, far more experienced then I. "The data that we've accumulated in our genealogy software and in our binders and folders doesn't do a whole lot of good just sitting there. We need to do something with it." Each week she sends out a prompt to share a bit about an ancestor, collateral relative, or family friend. 

for an interesting read about Rev John Klingberg and his children's home
click ↓
"The Home that Prayer Built"