Anders Martinus Anderson
Anders("Andrew') settled in Duluth and married Lena Myrvold Johansen, a cousin from Norway. They had five sons and one daughter: Leonard, Axel, Julius, Harold, Hartley and Ruby, in addition to two children who died as infants. Other than Julius, their children all married and have descendants throughout the midwest. Anders owned a plumbing business in the Duluth area and accidently drowned in 1905. Nicolai Andersen
Following his move to Tacoma, Nicolai (Nick) met and married Hannah Mathison, my grandmother Gertie's sister. They had two boys: Lawrence and Alvin, who my father called his 'double-cousins' since their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters. The two families lived near each other in the same area of Tacoma.
Until his death in 1911, Nick was a planerman at the Wheeler & Osgood Company. He got into financial trouble some time before his death, however, including having several debts and losing a home that he had been purchasing on the installment plan, through his inability to make the payments. Despondent, he kissed his wife and children goodby on July 3, 1911, and went out "...for a little while." He never returned and his body was discovered two months later, in an area that is now part of the Allenwood Golf Course. My father recalled that a policeman then rode to their home on his horse to tell them that Nick had been found dead. Although suicide was suspected, the death was officially listed as being of unknown cause. Johannes Andersen
Johannes ("Jim") is remembered as having stuttered badly, which family tradition holds was as a result of having fallen into a well when he was a child. Perhaps because of the stutter, Jim never married.
We probably know more of Jim's daily life than any of his siblings for he was a prolific letter writer and many of his letters and postcards have survived. In 1908 he wrote to his sister Christine that he was in Cheyene, Wyoming, on his way to Denver. In September of that year he wrote a short note to his neice, Cleo Broberg, from Randall, Kansas. By 1910 he had obtained a job at a sawmill across Lake Washington from Seattle ("15 cents on the steamer"). By 1911 he was in Missoula, Montana, and he had a job at a shingle mill in Tacoma by 1917. Later letters were postmarked in Eatonville, Washington. In 1931, Jim wrote from Snohomish, Washington, saying that he had been in Kansas for 10 or 11 years, but would prefer to go to Iowa, around Council Bluffs. "But it is tough for work now", he wrote. Jim wrote a long letter to a niece in Duluth on December 15, 1941, this time from a ranch in Woodenville, Washington. He had just returned from a visit to Duluth, and expressed concern about the war with Japan. He quit the Woodenville job in 1943 and began working at a farm in East Stamwood, Washington. He was now 67 and receiving a pension of $40 a month. In 1947 Jim moved into a 3 room apartment in Seattle that he shared with his sister Christine, then widowed. It is not known when he died but a letter from him to one of his relatives in Norway was written in 1949, when he was 73. Kristine Andersen
Following the family's move west from Kansas, Kristine (Christina) lived in Tacoma for a few years, then in Seattle throughout the rest of her life. She married Peter Erik Broberg in about 1920 and had six children: Carol, Percy, Josephine, Nora, Junette and Carrie.
Either divorced or widowed, Christina then married Manley Ole Linback and had one more daughter, Cleo. Late in her life she shared her home with her brother Jim (above). Christine died in Seattle in 1951, leaving a large number of descendants in Washington, Oregon and California.
Kristian Andersen
Kristian (shown at left with his mother) worked for many years in a sheet metal shop in Seattle but little else is known about him other than that he began to be called Chris and was married to a woman named Izetta. They are not believed to have had any children. Chris died December 7, 1960.
On a personal note, I deeply regret that my parents lost touch with our Andersen aunts and uncles. Several, including Chris, Christine and Jim, were living only 35 miles away from us during the time I grew up. As late as 1949, when I was finishing High School on Vashon Island, only 15 miles away, they were writing letters to their relatives back in Norway. Even later, I had returned to Tacoma to work at KTVW, and again a few years later came back to work for IBM at McChord AFB, without any knowledge that Chris, at least, was still living in Seattle. Despite living so close, I did not learn of their existence until 40 years later! What an opportunity I missed to learn more about my heritage.
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