September 2020 - Augusta's Journey

6. Sofia Antoinette Eugenia (Eugénie) Björkman

St Jacob’s Church in the center of Stockholm is a landmark. Built in the 1600s, it has a beautiful red color and a green roof. Today it is famous for its music. I have walked by the church many times, too busy to take the time to sit down and listen to one of its free organ or choir concerts. But on a sunny day in the spring of 2019, I am following in Augusta’s footsteps which leads me to St Jacob’s Church. Almost to the day, 175 years earlier, on 12 May 1844, Augusta received her first communion in this church. She was one of the 166 teenagers (74 boys and 92 girls) who had gone through the bible studies and had passed their oral exam.

I sit in the pews trying to imagine what it would have been like to see all 16- or 17-year-olds and their families fill the church. In 1844, Abraham Zacharias Petterson was the pastor – a prominent preacher who was in high demand for memorial speeches and sermons. And the organist was Gustaf Mankell who later became a professor and member of the Royal Music Academy. But I don’t think he can top the organist playing today. His final organ piece is Bach’s Tocccata and Fugue in D Minor. It is mind-blowing.

For each parish in Sweden, there is a library of church records – births, baptisms, confirmations, etc. The best place to find Augusta’s friends in Stockholm is to look at the records of confirmations and first communions. Some parishes list them alphabetically but in St Jacob’s parish, Pastor Petterson has listed them first by gender and then by his perception of their importance – based on their family names and their fathers’ professions. Augusta is listed as number 10 out of the 92 girls. I decide to find out more about the first 20 girls on the list.

During the coming weeks, I will share what I have found. Today’s girl is #6 Sofia Antoinette Eugenia Björkman.

Sofia Antoinette Eugenia Björkman

Sofia Antoinette Eugenia went by the name Eugénie. She was born on 8 January 1828 in Sala. Her parents were Axel Ulrik Björkman and Maria Antoinetta Norlin.

Axel Ulrik’s father, Bengt Magnus Björkman, was an industrialist and one of Stockholm’s wealthiest in the early 1800s. He owned several large estates around Stockholm: Nacka, Farsta, Görväln, Skälby, Jakobsberg, and Bromsten. Today, they are all names of Stockholm suburbs.

Eugénie had three younger sisters and two younger brothers. They lived in Stockholm at Regeringsgatan 36. That is where the iconic department store, NK, is located today. But wait, wasn’t there where Augusta’s other friend, Augusta Holmqvist lived? After searching in several different archives, I realize that Björkmans owned the house while the family Holmqvist rented a large apartment in the house. And their next-door neighbors? It was the Salomon family who Augusta also was acquainted with.

The view from Holmqvist's apartment, the corner of Hamngatan and Regeringsgatan — The view from Björkman’s house at the corner of Hamngatan and Regeringsgatan

So while they were living in Stockholm, they also lived at Görväln at times, maybe during the warmer months. The beautiful manor house with its view of Lake Mälaren must have been a lovely place to spend the summers. One of Eugénie’s siblings, Axel Fredrik, was actually born at Görväln on the 13 October 1833. He inherited the manor house when his father died in 1855 and raised his family there.

Görväln – the manor house owned by Sofia’s father and then brother (by Fredrik Wilhelm Alexander Nay, 1822-1883)

Eugénie married Ludvig Teodor Almqvist in 1851. He was a politician, a member of the Supreme Court, and a Minister of Justice. Eugénie and Ludvig had one daughter and four sons. Their daughter, Lina, was born 17 August 1852 at Görväln. She would later marry Erik Gustaf Boström who was the Swedish Prime Minister between 1891 and 1900 and then again between 1902 and 1905.

In 1856, Ludvig Teodor bought Älgö, a farm on the island Selaön close to Strängnäs. This is where they lived even though Eugénie had in 1855 inherited a country house, Kallhäll, which she and her husband owned for 19 years.

So, when Eugénie was listed as Number 6 by Pastor Petterson, he knew that she was one of the wealthiest girls in Stockholm. Who were the top 5 girls, and why?

Read more about the family Björkman (in Swedish): http://runeberg.org/millionar/5/0151.html

Marie-Louise Forsell writes about Mamsell Eugénie Björkman in her diary.

Carolina Wester’s family at Loddby and the accident in August 1831

It is a beautiful, late-summer Sunday. The Wester family at Loddby has attended church and listened to Pastor Mobeck’s sermon about the importance of rest and of keeping the Sabbath. Now they are back at Loddby and that is what they are doing. At least the women, resting. The three young men have decided to go fishing. The matriarch, widow, and owner of Loddby, Carolina Wester, and her daughter Caroline are sitting in the sunny parlor downstairs.

Sofia Ulrich is upstairs with the younger girls: Ulla, Ida, and Lotten Wester. They are sitting by the window, talking. Through the trees, they can see the sun glitter on the bay and the small rowboat in the distance. Sofia can’t tell if it is Berndt or Carl or Markus who is rowing. They are too far out on the bay. Suddenly there seems to be some commotion in the boat – is someone standing up? Then things happen fast. For a split second, it looks like the boat is listing, and then, with horror, she realizes that the boat is capsizing.

Lotten Ulrich’s diary, 1 September 1831

“Today, we received very sad news, that little Markus Wester has drowned at his mother’s Loddby and that both Berndt Forsgrén and Ulla’s fiancé Hülphers almost drowned as well. Poor Tante Wester who has just lost a beloved son in such a horrible way, and poor Caroline! Imagine losing one’s brother and fear for one’s husband’s life, especially as she is still ill, for it has not even been two weeks since she gave birth at Loddby to a baby who died the following day, and such a more heartfelt loss as they have been married for 3 years without being able to have any children, something they really wanted.

Poor Ulla, who lost a brother and was close to have her fiancé perish. She was with her sisters, Ida and Lotten, and my aunt Sofia upstairs and saw from the windows the little rowing boat capsize. They hurried down and sent a boat to the rescue, but the distressed men were several hundred meters from the shore. Berndt was about to take his last breath when the boat reached them. Young Hülphers, who was swimming towards the shore carrying Markus on his back, was completely exhausted and when the help reached him, Markus was already dead in his arms. Because of all the water he had swallowed and the horror he had experienced, he had passed out and died.”

The Owners of Loddby

Augusta’s brother-in-law, Gustaf Lejdenfrost, bought Loddby from Caroline Wester in 1832 and Augusta moved to Loddby in 1835. Augusta lived at Loddby with her mother, brother, and Lejdenfrost until she married. But who were Caroline Wester and all the persons named in Lotten Ulrich’s diary? And who was Lotten Ulrich?

Lotten Ulrich’s Diary

Lotten Ulrich (1806-1887) and Edla Ulrich (1816-1897) lived at the Royal Palace in Stockholm where their father, Johan Christian Henrik Ulrich, was the secretary to King Carl XIV Johan. The two sisters’ diaries were published in Systrarnas Ulrichs dagböcker by Margareta Östman. When the king died in 1844, the family had to move to Norrköping (close to Loddby) and Augusta’s best friend in Stockholm, Lotten Westman, encouraged Augusta to get acquainted with the two sisters.

Geneology and Relationships – For those who are interested…

Sofia Vilhelmina Ulrich (1798-1866)

Who was Lotten Ulrich’s aunt Sofia Ulrich? She was indeed one of Lotten Ulrich’s father’s sisters (there were 9 children in the family). Sofia was born in Norrköping and in 1831, at the age of 33, she was living with the Ulrich family at Loddby. How was she acquainted with the Wester family? We don’t know.

Carolina Wester (1786-1875)

The matriarch, widow, and owner of Loddby, Carolina Wester, was born Heitmüller. In 1807, she married the 34-year-old widow, Markus Wester (1773-1820), who owned the ironworks at Molnebo. Together, they had 8 children.

Daniel Kristian (1808-1813)
Kristina Hedda Karolina ”Caroline” (1811-1891)
Karl Erik (1813-1864)
Lovisa Ulrika Maria ”Ulla” (1814-1886)
Aronina Arvida Gabriella ”Ida” (1815-1886)
Markusina Charlotta ”Lotten” (1816- 1839)
Markus (1817-1831)
Hjalmar (1819-1824)

Just a side note about names. I have never seen the names of Aronina and Markusina before. But just as the female versions of Christian, Carl, and Joseph are Christina, Carolina, and Josephina, I guess one can add “ina” to any male name – Aron and Markus become Aronina and Markusina.

Caroline Wester (1811-1891)

Kristina Hedda Karolina ”Caroline” was the oldest daughter in the family. In 1829, she married Berndt Gustaf Forsgrén (1799-1888) who was a silk and clothing merchant in Stockholm. His store was located at the excellent address of Stortorget 1 in the Old Town, right across from the bourse. In the summer of 1831, Caroline must have stayed with her mother at Loddby for the birth of her first child. And now she had lost both her baby and her brother. It could have been even worse. She could have lost her husband too in the boating accident.

So how did life turn out for Caroline and Berndt? According to the census records in Stockholm, the couple had 9 children and, in 1845, the family lived at Stora Nygatan 22. Berndt Forsgrén was very successful and became extremely wealthy. One of their daughters, Carolina Elisabet, married Erik Swartz (b. 1817), and their son, Carl Swartz, became Sweden’s prime minister in 1917.

Berndt Forsgrén also had a successful brother, merchant Carl Robert Forsgrén (1797-1853). He married Sofia Ulrich’s younger sister, Anna Eleonora Lowisa (1805-1853) in 1826. Their granddaughter was Anna Whitlock, a famous woman’s right advocate and suffragette who founded a modern school for girls in 1878.

Ulla Wester (1814-1886)

Lovisa Ulrika Maria ”Ulla” was 17 years old in the summer of 1831. She was engaged to textile dyer Carl Abraham Hülphers (1806-1860), the young man who tried to rescue Markus Wester. Ulla and Carl married in 1833 and had one daughter, Sofia Karolina Lovisa (1835-1885). Sofia married Johan Gustaf Swartz (1819-1885) in 1854.

Interestingly, the daughters of the two sisters, Caroline and Ulla Wester, married the two brothers Swartz (Erik and Johan).

Ida Wester (1815-1886)

Aronina Arvida Gabriella ”Ida” married Frans Adam Björling (1801-1869) in 1842. It was his second marriage. Ida did not have any children but she was a stepmother to her husband’s son, Carl August Theodor. The family owned and lived at Slagsta, an estate south of Stockholm.

Lotten Wester (1816- 1839)

Markusina Charlotta ”Lotten”, the youngest daughter in the family, had a short life. She did not marry and died in Norrköping at the age of 22 from dysentery (Swedish: rödsot).

The image of the 3 men in a rowboat is from a larger painting by Josefina Holmlund (b. 1827):

https://digitaltmuseum.se/021046500729/roddtur-pa-fjorden/media?slide=0

Tableau Vivant and Olof Södermark

Last week, Kerstin shared the travel diary of 10-year old Ernst Salomon. In the summer of 1841, Ernst and his family were visiting Särö, a fashionable spa on the Swedish west coast. In his diary, he describes the activities at the spa. Besides the bathing, they went for walks, picked seashells, and went horseback riding. In the evenings, the guests took turns hosting dinners and entertainment. There was usually a program of music and singing or dancing. They also played parlor games. One of those was Tableau Vivant. This was a common parlor game in the 1800s and is described in several diaries and letters from this time.

Tableau Vivant

Tableau Vivant was something like Charades. In Charades, a person will silently act out a word for the other persons to guess. In Tableau Vivant, the actor/actors will stage a scene from a play or a book or a poem or of a famous painting. The audience then has to figure out what the scene depicts.

Rosalie Roos, who was born in Sweden in 1823 and traveled to the USA in 1851 to become a governess, describes in her memoir how she introduced this game to the family she worked for and how much fun they had in searching for costumes and props to create the tableaux vivants.

The Tableau Vivant at Särö in 1841

Back to Ernst Salomon and his diary. On the 5^th of August, Ernst wrote:

“Beautiful weather. In the evening, Baroness Berzelius, Mrs. Edholm, and Countess Virsén hosted le goûter (the tasting; dinner). Between the dances, 6 tableaux vivants were performed that were pretty successful. They were:

A Scene from Lalla Rookh

Candlelight by Rembrandt

Pastoral Concert by Södermark

Fortuneteller scene by Teniers

A Scene from The Pirate by Walter Scott

Saint Cecilia by Carlo Dolci

The 6^th one featured spiritual singing behind the curtains.”

First, I was amazed at the choices for this quiz-type game. If you belonged to the class who visited this spa, these were the authors and painters you were supposed to be familiar with. And even 10-year-old Ernst thought the game was a success.

I decided to find the images that they were supposed to stage. Here it goes:

1. A Scene from Lalla Rookh

Lalla Rookh was a very long poem written by Thomas Moore in 1817. It was a romantic, orientalist tale about a Mughal princess. The poem was very popular in the early 1800s.

2. Candlelight by Rembrandt

I assume that this could have been Rembrandt’s painting of a student at a table by candlelight

Student at a Table by Candlelight. Rembrandt, 1642.

3. Pastoral Concert by Södermark

Let’s skip this one to the last.

4. Fortune-teller Scene by Teniers

David Teniers the Younger painted a lot of fortune-teller scenes, but they were all similar.

Mountain Landscape with a Gypsy Fortuneteller. David Teniers II. 1644-1690.

4. A Scene from The Pirate by Walter Scott

Walter Scott wrote The Pirate in 1822. It was translated to Swedish in 1827. I should probably add it to my reading list.

The Pirate. Illustration from the 1879 edition.

5. Saint Cecilia by Carlo Dolci

Saint Cecilia at the Organ. Carlo Dolci, 1671.

3. Pastoral Concert by Södermark

So let me return to Number 3, Pastoral Concert (Swedish: Landtlig Concert) av Olof Södermark.

Olof Södermark was a fantastic Swedish portrait painter. He had painted members of the royal family, and he was in high demand by the Swedish elite. He had also studied with the premier portraiture painter in Europe, Franz Xaver Winterhalter. In the fall of 1841, he would return to Sweden from Rome and settle down to do portraits. Within the next two years (1842-1843), he would actually paint the husbands of two of the women who had hosted the dinner and the tableau vivant. Baroness Berzelius’s husband was the famous chemist, Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Mrs. Edholm’s husband was Erik af Edholm, the king’s private doctor.

Jöns Jacob Berzelius painted by Olof Södermark 1843

Erik af Edholm painted by Södermark 1842

But did Södermark also paint landscapes and other genres? The problem with Södermark is that only a few of his paintings are in museums or other public places – portraits like those of the royal family or of famous people like Jenny Lind. To find his other works, one has to look for what has been sold at auctions.

The only “landscape” painting I have found is Fishing on the Pier (Swedish: Fiske på bryggan), painted in 1838. I would love to learn about the history of this painting. Who are the people in the painting?

Fishing on the Pier. Painting by Olof Södermark 1838

I am sure he also painted “A Pastoral Concert”, but how would I search for it? Google is of no help. I decide to search for Södermark in Swedish newspapers between 1832 and 1838. Maybe someone would have written about the painting?

Bingo! A journalist (Orvar Odd) at Aftonbladet wrote about the paintings exhibited at the Salon of The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1838. Södermark had 3 paintings accepted.

“Mr. Södermark is exhibiting 3 paintings; two portraits and a genre painting showing three children, the oldest being a girl playing the mandolin, the next one playing castanets, and the youngest, a boy with curly hair, using all his strength blowing into a bagpipe. It is a charming piece, this last one. The shapes and the colors are so southern European and opulent, full and glowing, it’s alive, it’s vibrant! Mr. S. undoubtedly possesses, to a greater degree than any of our other painters in his genre, the art of making his characters come alive.”

This has to be “A Pastoral Concert” and as he painted it in Rome, the scene is probably from Italy. I do wish I could still find an image of the painting. I did find another small painting he did in Rome – a sweet painting of two Italian girls.

Going back to the Tableaux Vivants, I wish someone could have described how they staged these six scenes. Maybe they were common scenes for this form of entertainment – pretty easy to stage: An exotic princess, a student with a candle, 3 children playing some instruments, a fortune-teller, a pirate, and a saint. I wonder what paintings or books or films we would pick today for this game?