Augusta attended Mrs. Edgren’s school in Stockholm from the fall of 1841 through the spring of 1844. She boarded with the Edgren family together with 4 other boarders or “pensioners”: Adèle Peyron, Mathilde Biel, Elise Biel, and Josefine Stenbock. The school closed in the summer of 1844 but the following school year, Mlle Andriette Frigel had taken over at least some of the students and […]
In the fall of 1841, Augusta started school in Stockholm. It was a boarding school run by Mrs. Lovisa Edgren and her husband, Johan Fredrik Edgren. During the summer of 1844, the Edgrens moved and the school closed. Augusta still had one more year to study in Stockholm so what school did she attend in the fall of 1844? Augusta’s best friend Lotten kept in […]
In April 1846, Augusta’s friend Lotten writes to Augusta about a ball she and Erica Degermann (Lotten’s spelling) has been invited to. Erika was one of Augusta’s friends in Stockholm. The picture is slowly developing of the group of friends Augusta had during her teenage years in Stockholm. They were wealthy but not necessarily belonging to the noble class. Their parents invested in them so […]
It’s already August, but what a fun summer Kerstin and I have had. First, we visited places where our great-great-grandmother, Augusta Söderholm, had played as a kid or visited as a young woman, then we spent a night on a steam-engine ship, and then we traveled by both steam ships and steam trains. Back in Stockholm, we visited the city archives to find out more […]
I am reading Lotten Westman’s letter to Augusta, dated 15 April 1846. It is full of gossip about who is engaged to whom, who came to visit, and who talked about whom. There are so many names mentioned – who were they? “Do you know, I find Augusta Sjöstedt just as boring now as when she sat in school with open mouth and read German […]
Lotten Westman’s Letter to Augusta, Stockholm, 18 December 1845. “Lucky Augusta who gets letters from Mrs. Edgren! Greet her a thousand times from me. Tell her that I still worship her as warmly as when I said goodbye to her for the last time, and when I start talking about them, it is always an inexhaustible topic and at those times, I forget both time […]
“Loddby, 8 May 1847 My sweet, dear Lotten! …. It is a really beautiful evening, the bay is calm and clear like a mirror, a few stars shine in the clear blue sky, and I have put an Aeolian harp in the window. Have you ever heard one, Lotten? It is so indescribably melancholic when the wind seizes the strings and creates these sad, melodic […]
I have continued to read the correspondence between Augusta and Lotten Westman from 1845. In the earliest letters, they decide to write each other monthly, but sometimes they write even twice a month. The letters give a glimpse of the concerns of 18-year-old girls who have just finished their education and now have to be content with home life, social life, and prospects of marriage. […]
Well, Augusta only went as far west as the west coast of Sweden. But for two weeks, we are taking Augusta’s Journey to America and exploring the 19th century in Viriginia. We start with a morning stroll in Old Town Alexandria. The town was founded on the Potomac River in 1749 and is a beautiful little town just one metro-stop away from Washington DC’s Reagan […]
Augusta was enrolled in a private girls school in Stockholm from October 1841 untIn 1842, there were two well-known private schools for girls in Stockholm – Wallin’s School (Wallinska Skolan) and Bjurström’s Pension (Bjurströmska Pensionen). Was either one of those the school Augusta attended? And how did a wealthy rural girl end up in a private school for girls in Stockholm? The only record we […]