Ranae's Swedish-Chicago Heritage: Anna Lovisa Andersdotter Bruzelius 1842-1933

Jul 17, 2018

Anna Lovisa Andersdotter Bruzelius 1842-1933

A great but surprising find. Today I noted on the immigrant ship manifest of my great uncle Håkan Patrik Källman that he had stated his aunt as his connection in America. No name just "aunt in Worcester, Massachusetts". I went about searching for who this aunt may be. This aunt now in America could be head of a line of additional cousins in the U.S.

I began by listing all of grand uncle Håkan Patrik's (and my grandfather Richard's) aunts and immediately eliminated those that I had verified had died in Sweden. I began to research his aunt Anna Lovisa Andersdotter. I only had a date of birth on her so perhaps she was the one?

No, she lived married and died in Sweden according to an Ancestry.com family tree of a Swedish man. I had doubts though if this was the same Anna Lovisa. There were photos of his Anna Lovisa, her husband and family, well dressed in their studio portraits. Photographs taken as early as the 1860's. Those photos were expensive. Anna Lovisa and my great grandfather Carl Teodor came from a poor family, their father a tenant farmer. My own grandfather had had an even poorer childhood and no photos were ever afforded for his family when they were young. My Anna Lovisa wealthy?

I dug deeper and found documents/ records confirming that this Anna Lovisa was indeed my families Anna Lovisa, no doubt about it. How did this poor farm girl do so well? Anna's husband was a lawyer. A lawyer close to thirty years older then she. Even with the period clothes and severe mid-19th century hairdo you also can see from her portrait that Anna Lovisa was quite a beautiful woman. Oh yeah, I think Anna Lovisa was perhaps a 19th century "Trophy wife"!