Prompt #39 (Sep 24 - Sep 30): "Unexpected Sorrow"- Sara Abrahamson
Sara Abrahamsson 1915-1945 was the third child and middle daughter of Gustaf Abrahamson and Hanna Emanuelsdotter, a grand daughter of Robert Albin and Anna Karolina Abrahamson. Unmarried, she worked as the Östra Frölunda telephone operator until her untimely death at sea. Her older sister Gunhild told her story to their nephew Ingemar Majholm who recorded her words.
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"The Östra Frölunda telephone exchange situated in the northern wing of Stommen was being overhauled in Oct 1945. Sara, who was the operator, got three weeks off. She somehow received the opportunity to make a round trip to England with a cargo ship.
SS Dagny was a Swedish cargo steamer which was on route from Lake Vänern for Lowestoft, the easternmost harbor in England, with a cargo of wood. Sara probably embarked when it passed Gothenburg and was going to work her way over and back again.
She served as a helper to the ship cook, an elderly lady who made her last shift before retirement. Oct 14, 1945, the ship collided with the British former troop, then cargo, steamer Empire Rapier and the elderly cook, now badly injured got stuck on board ship.
The injured lady, as well as the seamen, urged Sara to go to the lifeboat immediately, but she lingered with the dying woman in order to try to help her. It has been told that things then went very quickly and the vessel sank before Sara managed to escape.
Her grave, the SS Dagny, lies on 34 - 38 m depth, position 54.15N-06.13E
Three weeks earlier, Sara had attended the wedding of her brother Seth and Anna-Lisa, in Vikarbyn, Dalecarlia. They now had moved into their little apartment in Stockholm. Knowing nothing about Sara's journey to England, they opened the newspaper in the morning and read that a vessel SS Dagny had sunk in the North Sea. Two casualties were named, one of which was Sara Abrahamsson, Hid. In dismay, understanding nothing, they called Gustaf and received the terrible news.
Gunhild has told how Gustaf, not a man used to show feelings, cried bitterly this day at the loss of his dear daughter. 20 years earlier he had lost her beloved mother, being left alone with four young children, Sara being the next youngest.
The exact date not known, but some time after the accident, the captain of SS Dagny visited Gustaf to tell him about what happened in the last minutes of the life of his daughter. The captain had been deeply impressed by the unselfish love of this young lady, who had risked her life to give help and comfort to a dying lady, defying the others urging her to go on board the lifeboat and save her own life."
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my first cousin once removed
Sara Abrahamson
born: 29 July 1915: Östra Frölunda, Ålvsborg, Sweden
died: 14 Oct 1945: 34-38 m depth, position 54.15N-06.13E
aboard the Dagny in the North Sea
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.
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