Our trip to Sweden happened to coincide with a periodic family reunion that centered around descendants of my mother’s maternal, and Gerd’s paternal, grandfather, Viktor Östmark. Viktor, like his father Lars, was a coal worker supporting the then dominant Swedish iron industry. By “coal”, they mean charcoal…the hottest burning form of wood needed to achieve the temperatures required to separate the waste material from the iron rock during processing. Something like 500 lbs of wood was needed to make the charcoal required to produce every 1/2 lb of iron.
Viktor was born in Lövkullen, Dalarna County, Sweden in 1871. His original surname was the typical patronymic version of his father’s name, Larsson (son of Lars). However, according to the family history, Viktor found himself on a job site one day that was awash in Larsson’s, so he complied with the foreman’s demand to change his name…hence, Östmark.
In 1895, Viktor married Elin Jansson, a coal workers daughter, and by 1919 they had 10 children. So you can see, in the days before television, how some people spent their free time! I’m not sure if anyone knows why, but Viktor and Elin named each of their sons starting with the letter ‘F’ and their daughters with the letter ‘E’.
Below is a picture taken in front of a house where the family lived, in Björnhyttan. We’re guessing this photo was taken nearly 100 years ago, probably around 1917. 5 of the children, starting with the eldest Felix in 1923, emigrated to the USA. My grandmother (Elizabeth) and her younger sister Elin (I knew her as Elaine), were among them.
And this is the house as it stands today. A private residence, but protected as a historical site. How cool is that!
In addition to the group from the prior night’s dinner, we were joined by my mother and Gerd’s first cousin Birgit for a day of family history and sightseeing.
From the house, we toured the immediate area to see signs of coal production from years past. This included other historic buildings, remnants of coal piles and even a wolf trap. Sadly, no wolves to be found.
After our tour of Björnhyttan, we stopped by Inger’s son Viktor’s house, originally built by his grandparents, Helge and Ann-Marie Östmark in ????. Helge was Lalin’s son.
Next, we headed to Ludvika.
First stop, the flea market. Nothing like the realization of our common human bond by traveling over 4000 miles and just like home, you see people accumulating more crap, by buying other people’s crap.
From there we visited the Ludvika Homestead and Mining Museum. The homestead was purchased on 1920 on behalf of the local heritage society. It houses numerous artifacts and decorations dating back to the 16th century, including several outbuildings.
Opened in 1938, the Ludvika Mining Museum is a collection of historical buildings, machinery and equipment collected from abandoned mines in the area. It is the first open-air museum of industrial history in the world.
The centerpiece of the museum is a massive water-wheel, that though the use of wooden poles transferred mechanical power for things like drainage pumps and conveyor belts.
The mining of this era utilized compressed air and pneumatic tools. The museum has a wide collection of drilling machines, loading machines, wagons and engines for underground transport.
By now we’d worked up quite an appetite, and headed to a restaurant on the shores of Lake Väsman for a buffet lunch.
For the afternoon, we headed back to Saxdalen…the kids went swimming, while my Mom, Julie and I decided to help earn our keep by limbing and cutting up a tree that had been felled the day before by Erika and Anna’s house. It took long enough that Conor and Skyler helped a bit too when they returned from swimming.
Our efforts were rewarded with cold beer and a Hans-Erik BBQ. Delicious!