Photos of the Andersson family from
Långö 1942–1963
© Photo (with self-timer) Hugo Andersson 1952,
digitized by Conny Andersson 2010
This photo shows me Conny Andersson as a two year old child,
my father Hugo and my mother Greta at harvest in 1952.
Welcome to this website! My name is Conny Andersson. I am a Swede and I
was born in 1950. My parents were Greta Andersson and Hugo Andersson.
First I will tell you about Långö.
Then comes a little story about my parents. As the next subject I will
tell you about the history of the Andersson family from
Långö, and “the
big picture” in a background summary. At last I will introduce
the persons of the Andersson family that appears in the photos.
Långö is situated circa 90
kilometers north-east of Gothenburg
(i.e. Göteborg in Swedish),
and 5 kilometers north of Herrljunga in Sweden. The meaning of
Långö in English is
a “long island”, but it is just a ridge in the landscape.
The ridge is about 400 meters long, with the Vantaberget and Lunnaberg
small farms included. Probably,
Långö once upon a time was
surrounded by wetland. There are signs of that, dating back to the 14th
century AD. Today one can see a creek on the north side and wetland on
the south side of the ridge.
Nowadays, there are 3 small farms situated alongside and on top of the
ridge, that is, the part of it that is named
Långö. There also is an old small
farm with a gray barn and a tiny farmhouse, that is
the Bengtsson's
as we say in daily speech. The first small farm at the lowest part of
Långö is owned by the family
Carlsson/Molin. The next small farm and the
“Bengtsson's” is owned by me. The third and last
small farm was my grandfather Arvid Andersson's place.
Some years after Arvid's death in 1964
his farm was sold and divided
into two parts. The part of the farm with buildings was sold to one
buyer. The other part, the farmland, was sold to another buyer.
Today, the part of the old farm with remaining buildings is
owned by Bo Håman and Arvid's old farmland is now
owned by Christer Johansson at Långöholm.
Photo taken from an airplane in the 1950s, digitized by
Conny Andersson 2010
In the photo above, the red dots mark
Arvid and Amanda Andersson's buildings. The white dot marks
the nice farmhouse that was burnt
down. The green dots mark buildings that are not present in 2010.
The blue dots mark buildings and land that belonged to Gustaf
Andersson (1843–1929) and that were bought up by Arvid
and Amanda in the late 1930s. The yellow dot, in the field to
the left in the photo marks
“Gustaf's
tiny field”, in Swedish
“Gustafalycka”.
My father Hugo Andersson (1908–1984) was an all-rounder.
Primarily, he and his beloved wife Greta Andersson
(1910–1990) cultivated the land belonging to their small
farm in Långö.
Secondary, my father worked in
our forest in the wintertime.
For many years Hugo also brought the
milk of our cows, and the milk from all
the other small farms along the road, to the dairy by a
horse-drawn wagon.
The journeys to the dairy were done all
days in the week, except on Sundays.
Hugo and Greta had long days of
hard physical work in front of them,
each day. Hot, cold, rainy, snowy or whatever days, they had to work from
early morning to late evening. But, I never heard any complaint about
the work they had to do. There was no divide between work and leisure,
it all was about living their lives.
Besides all his work on the farm, my father was a very talented
photographer. He took all the photos that I display at this website.
Hugo composed and took the photos. Then, some day he processed the film,
enlarged the negative of the photographic image, and finally developed
the photographic paper. Sometimes, he sat down on a Sunday afternoon,
coloring black and white paper copies by hand. He did that with a set of
pencils in 25 different colors. A skill that made him into a full-blown
artist. An example is the first photo on this web page (this photo
colored by Hugo's hand can also be seen on
“Photos 1951–1952”).
Hugo married Greta Andersson, the daughter of Arvid Andersson who lived
next door, on December 16, 1944. That day was Hugo's 36th birthday.
Arvid Andersson was at that time remarried to Amanda. Arvid's first
wife, my grandmother Anna (her lastname was Kylén as unmarried),
died in tuberculosis in 1919, when my mother Greta was 9 years old.
However, I always saw Amanda as my real grandmother. I will never forget
Amanda. And, I will never forget the round cakes of bread she baked in the
firewood oven in her kitchen, they were yummy.
© Photo Hugo Andersson 1973,
digitized by Conny Andersson 2009
Amanda Andersson at her 90th birthday on October 11, 1973.
The photo was taken in Sven and Birgit Andersson's house
in Herrljunga. Amanda Andersson died on March 22, 1974.
These six web pages show photos of people from my mother
Greta's side of the Andersson family. The photos
also show people who closely were connected to
Långö in everyday life.
I will introduce them to you in the following text and photos.
The history begins on January 12, 1864 in Dimbo, a small parish
near Tidaholm in Sweden, when Anna Cajsa Johansdotter gave birth to
a son named Carl August. Since Anna Cajsa and Anders Svensson
at that time were not married their son was seen as some kind of
fake by the church. That was a stigma for the parents and their
families. Maybe, that is the reason why I never had heard of
Carl August before July 23, 2017 when I received an email
from Norway that told me about Carl August Andersson and his
life in both Sweden and Norway.
On March 12, 1865 Anna Cajsa and Anders married. That day they
also moved to and settled down in
Långö.
Anna Cajsa Johansdotter was born
in Stenstorp on March 23, 1839. She died on January 13, 1919.
Anders Svensson was born in Eling
on March 9, 1841. He died on September 13, 1921.
Photo of unknown photographer,
digitized by Conny Andersson 2010
Anders Svensson in front of his farmhouse in
Långö, sometime
1920–1921.
At that time, when Anna Cajsa and Anders built up their common homestead,
major changes in the Swedish society were about to take place and
influence the everyday life of the people in
Långö:
-
At the economic level, peasant economy and communitarianism gradually
were replaced by marketization and individualism. A process that started
with Jacob Faggot's thesis in 1741, addressed to the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences (founded in 1739) about the necessity of a major
reform of the agrarian areas in Sweden. That reform was legalized by the
Swedish government in small steps 1749–1783 (storskifte).
Followed by a new reform in 1803 (enskifte). The third reform,
which still forms the Swedish agrarian areas of today, was legalized in
1827 (laga skifte). These three reforms were rationalizations
that tore the old Swedish rural communities apart, and they laid the
cornerstone for economic specialization and industrialism.
-
At the political level, the archaic four estate parliament was replaced
by a “representative” two chamber parliament in 1866. And,
with that came mercantilism and utilitarianism — the ideas of
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873).
Minimal or rather, no intervention at all from the Swedish state in
the lives of the citizens was seen as the best strategy to serve the
common best and encourage production for export.
-
At the social level, the family as the society's smallest unit was
replaced by the individual. The transfer of people from rural to urban
areas was enormous. In 1750 Swedens population was 1.78 million, in 1850
it had increased to 3.48 million, and in 1930 to 6.14 million people.
That is not the whole truth, because 1850–1930 about 1.1 million
more people had emigrated. Of those who emigrated circa 80 percent settled
down in the United States of America. The emigrants took their way
out from Sweden to the USA via Gothenburg in Sweden, Christiania (Oslo)
in Norway or Copenhagen in Denmark. From 1850 to 1930 2.2 million people
moved from the rural areas to towns and cities in Sweden, and 1.1 million
more had left Sweden. In all — 3.3 million people left the rural
areas of Sweden 1850–1930.
-
At the human level, these three points mentioned above, were leading
to increasing poverty for many of the peasants. The old stationary and
rather secure way of living was more or less gone. And, insecurity in
how to survive became a fact for many of the peasant families. The
number of births in the Swedish peasant families increased
dramatically at that time. Maybe, in an effort, to build some
“social” security internally in the family.
Parents had to send their children out from home to work outside the
family. The family did not act as a centripetal unit any more, but as
a centrifugal unit of individuals. In the same manner as in the Third
World countries of today. The Swedish population figures increased,
and increased rapidly. The result was urbanization and emigration.
Social problems in Sweden such as extreme poverty, hunger marching,
starvation and tuberculosis were not uncommon 1850–1950.
Yes, it took 100 years of political struggle to turn poverty and
tuberculosis to wealth and health for the majority of Swedes.
Anna Cajsa and Anders got 9 children.
Only 5 of them survived their childhood. Arvid Andersson, my
grandfather, was their 9th child which is a confirmed fact. At that
time in Sweden, only 3 out of 5 children survived to their 15th birthday.
The life was very rough for the majority of people in Sweden, as is
described by Vilhelm Moberg in his epic about the emigrants.
Anna Cajsa's and Anders's 9 children were:
-
Carl August Andersson (Anders's son) born on January 12, 1864.
Carl August was born in Dimbo parish, near to the small city
Tidaholm in Sweden. At an age of 14 month he and his parents
Anna Cajsa and Anders moved and settled down in
Långö.
Carl August grew up in Långö.
He moved to Skövde in 1882 at an age of 18.
Six years later, in 1888, he moved to
Göteborg, there for some
strange reason he did add Lönnqvist
to his surname, i.e. Carl August Andersson
Lönnqvist. In 1889 he emigrated to
Norway and settled down in Oslo (named Christiania until 1924).
Carl August married Maren Marie Christensen on September 26, 1891 and
they got five children: Carl Eugen, Einar Kristoffer,
Astrid Bergliot, Knut Armand and Eleonore Charlotte. Carl August
was a skilled carpenter,
a journeyman
and probably also
a master craftsman
of furniture. He died in Oslo on May 28, 1916 at an age of 52.
-
Hilma Josefina Andersdotter (Anders's daughter) born on February 23,
1866. She only became 8 month old, before she died on October 8, 1866.
-
Gerhard Andersson born on September 17, 1867.
He was born when his mother Anna Cajsa was 28 years old.
Gerhard moved from
Långö to Brastad,
Bohuslän in Sweden where he
worked as a clerc at a very big farm, Biberg.
When he left Långö is not
confirmed, but that he moved from Biberg to
Långö
on November 11, 1898 is confirmed. Gerhard Andersson died at home
in Långö on February
10, 1900 at an age of 33.
-
Ernst Andersson born on November 12, 1870. He only became 5 days old,
before he died on November 17, 1870.
-
Axel Andersson born on February 8, 1872. At an age of 21 he
emigrated to Norway on November 17, 1893 and lived in Oslo until 1910.
(Axel and his brother Carl August became close friends in Oslo.)
After 1910, as I have been told, he as a sailor went far away
on “the seven seas”. At last, he returned to his birthplace in
Långö from Russia, via
Göteborg. He arrived to
Långö on June 20, 1930.
At that time Axel was a skilled carpenter of furniture. But, he
was sick in skeletal cancer. Axel died on June 28, 1930 at an age
of 58.
-
Unbaptized, male child. This was a stillbirth on January 4, 1875.
In Swedish i.e. “Odöpt, dödfött gossebarn”.
-
Hilma Maria Andersdotter (Anders's daughter) born on September 14,
1876. She only became 8 month old. She died on May 22, 1877.
-
Augusta Charlotta Andersdotter
(later she took Andersson as her surname) born on October 11, 1878.
In her youth Augusta left
Långö and at first worked as a
maid in Göteborg, there she used
Andersdotter as her surname (this is confirmed by the Swedish population
register of year 1900). Later she moved to
Lidköping, where she worked as a
blue-collar worker. Unmarried, and with an “unknown father”,
she gave birth to one child. To be unmarried and to give birth to a child
at that time was a stigma for both the mother and the child. The child
was seen as a fake. Augusta's lovely daughter was born on February
12, 1918. She was baptized to
Margit Linnea Andersson.
As an adult Margit married
Nils Pettersson. Margit and Nils
Pettersson did not get any children of their own, instead they were my
beloved
bonus parents. Augusta died on
February 11, 1964. Margit died in 1980 and Nils in 1998.
-
Gustaf Arvid Andersson born on August 31,
1884. Then, his mother Anna Cajsa was 45 years old and Arvid was the 9th
child she gave birth to. As the youngest son, Arvid took over the small farm
from his parents. Arvid also was a well known and skillful carpenter. He
could be away from home for days to build houses in distant places. Arvid
got two children, that is they who survived their childhood, with his
first wife Anna (her lastname was Kylén as unmarried). They were
Greta and
Alice (Alice's lastname, later, as
married was Johansson). Greta was my mother. Arvid remarried with Amanda
(born on October 11, 1883) after Anna's death in 1919.
Arvid and Amanda
got one child, a son baptized to
Sven. As an adult
Sven married
Birgit, and they
settled down in Herrljunga. Arvid died on June 30, 1964.
The photos on the following five web pages focus on people that related
to the Andersson family and Långö
1942–1963.
Conny Andersson
Last modified: June 22 2018