Who was Marianne who wrote that short, sweet poem in French? The handwriting is impeccable. She didn’t include a last name or a date. Of course, with such an uncommon name in Sweden in the 1840s, there would have been no need to include a last name. Cecilia would have known who it was. But among Cecilia’s friends, there was no one named Marianne.
It wasn’t until I read a poem that someone had written for Cecilia’s funeral in 1846 that I saw the name, Marianne. One stanza of the poem read:
Shed no tears, grieving Father! Forlorn mother, weep no more. Among myriads of souls, still, Cecilia smiles at you. And in all the fates of life, twin angels with each other, follow you until death. It’s her, and Marianne!
(Original text:
Derför gråt ej sorgsen Fader! Arma moder, gråt ej mer, bland de frälstas myriader Än Cecilia mot er ler. Och i livets alla öden Tvenne englar med hvarann, Följa eder intill döden Det är hon, och Marianne!)
Maria Amalia Emma Mariana Koch
Cecilia had a younger half-sister, Maria Amalia Emma Mariana, called Marianne.
Cecilia was born in 1828, to Michael Koch (1792-1869) and his first wife, Johanna Amalia Fröding (1801-1830) on their estate, Vågsäter, north of Uddevalla on the Swedish west coast. Cecilia’s mother had died in childbirth in 1830, leaving her husband with 2-year-old Cecilia, a 1-year-old son, Carl Simzon, and a newborn baby, Michael.
As was common practice, Cecilia’s father remarried. He and his second wife, Emma Wilhelmina Iggeström (1809-1891), had 4 daughters and a son. The oldest of these children was Marianne, born at Vågsäter on April 15, 1834.
1844
In the spring of 1844, Cecilia’s friends were writing poems for her memory album. She was just finishing her studies in Stockholm. Marianne was 10 years old and presumably being taught at home – maybe with her 9-year-old sister Clara. Her two older brothers and her 8-year-old brother Arthur had a private teacher who lived with the family.
And then there was little Ida, who was 3 years old and everyone’s favorite. But soon there would be one more baby in the house.
1845
Bertha Isabella was born in March of 1845. By the summer, the little kids could play outside and it was so much easier to travel and visit family. Visiting a spa, like Gustafsberg, which was close enough to Vågsäter, was for those who wanted to socialize. This was the summer that our Augusta and some of her family members visited Gustafsberg. It was a good place to look for a suitable young man to marry. You can read about her visit here. Augusta didn’t keep a diary at this time so we don’t know if she and Cecilia met up.
In the fall, Augusta was back home, and Cecilia might have been staying with her former teachers, the Edgrens, at Morup parsonage. As winter approached, childhood diseases spread. In late November, scarlet fever was circulating and Marianne got ill. Was she the only one among the children who got a sore throat, fever, and headache? Marianne didn’t respond to any remedies they tried – trying to soothe her throat and lower her fever. She was seriously ill. On December 5, she succumbed to the disease. She was only 11 years old.
Marianne was buried in the Koch family cemetery on a peninsula by Vågsäter. In June last year, Kerstin and I visited the private cemetery. It was a beautiful day and a serene place.
The Koch family cemetery
1846
Cecilia was buried in the same private cemetery in October 1846. She died from measles at the age of 18.
Lovisa (or Louise) Edgren (born Dethmar) was a beloved teacher. Unfortunately, there is not a single portrait of her. When the family Edgren’s private school for girls closed in 1844, the students kept in touch with each other and with their former teacher through letters, reminiscing about this wonderful time in their lives.
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 and place and it takes me back to the happy times when I was educated by them; when a smile and a friendly word by Mrs. Edgren sent me to the seventh heaven. Tell her all this, and say that if in the future, whether I get ever so happy or unhappy, I will never forget them. Oh, when I just think of them, I get overly joyous.”
Lovisa Dethmar was born in 1802 at Reckenburg, an estate close to Anholt in southwestern Germany close to the Dutch border. Her father, Friedrich Wilhelm Dethmar, born in 1773, was the pastor in Anholt and a writer. Lovisa had at least two sisters, Eugenia, born in 1806, and Adelheid Clementine Therese, born in 1809. One sister moved to England.
When Lovisa was young, she was sent to Dresden to study. She was already a great artist and good at playing the harp. During her studies, she got interested in the works of the Swedish poet Atterbom and decided to visit Sweden. It is fascinating that a pastor’s daughter, in the early 1800s, was sent away to study so far from home. Dresden was famous for its architecture and art treasures and maybe she was sent to Dresden to study art? Or did she study literature? The fact that she traveled to Sweden because of an interest in poetry shows signs of independence and determination. Maybe it was these personality traits that made her such an engaging and loved teacher.
This is how I image Lovisa Dethmar in Dresden. Kerstin and I saw the painting there during our Augusta journey through Europe. The painting “Woman on the Balcony was painted in 1824 by Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869)
It was in Sweden she met her future husband, Johan Fredrik Edgren. He was an educated man and also a pastor. They were married in Anholt in 1838 and then settled in Stockholm. Lovisa’s sister, Eugenia, decided to join them and the same year, the family opened their private school for girls in Stockholm.
The school closed in June of 1844 when Pastor Edgren was appointed pastor at Morup’s parish on the Swedish west coast. As the girls in the school bade farewell to each other and the Edgren family, Cecilia got many cards for her memory album. But from some correspondence between Augusta and Lotten Westman, we believe that Cecilia actually stayed with the Edgren family in Morup after the school closed in Stockholm.
IMG-7922
Lovisa Edgren wrote her greeting to Cecilia in her native German. The owner of Cecilia’s Memory Album kindly provided me with a translation of the German text to Swedish. The English translation is my own.
In Swedish: “Endast det rika sinnet älskar, endast det fattiga begär.” (Schiller)
In English: “None but the wealthy minds love; poor minds desire alone.”
(The quote is from Friedrich Schiller’s Liebe und Begierde:
Recht gesagt, Schlosser! Man liebt, was man hat, man begehrt, was man nicht hat; Denn nur das reiche Gemüt liebt, nur das arme begehrt.
In Swedish: “Dig, min Cecilia, blev ett så rikt sinne givet, även oss har det glädjat att leva tillsammans med Dig. Förhoppningsfullt var den korta tiden även för Dig ej förgäves ödslad. Detta önskar längtansfullt,
Din trogna väninna L. Edgren”
In English: “You, my Cecilia, were given such a rich mind, we too have been delighted to have you with us. Hopefully, the short time was not wasted in vain even for You. This wishes longingly,
Your faithful friend L. Edgren”
IMG-7930
Lovisa Edgren’s 38-year-old sister, Eugenia Dethmar, also wrote to Cecilia.
In Swedish: “Dig ledsagar genom det vilda livet ett nådigt öde; Ett rent hjärta gav dig naturen, O! giv det så rent tillbaka!
Giv att världen möter dig så vänligt som du möter den, giv att hon dig gör vad du gör henne, så kan du bara bli lycklig.
Detta önskar dig din väninna E. Dethmar.”
In English: “A merciful destiny shepherds you through the turbulent life; Nature gave you a pure heart, Oh! give it back so pure!
May the world treat you as kindly as you treat it, may it do to you what you do to it, then you can only be happy.
I pick a random page out of Cecilia’s memory album.
IMG-7936
This one has a handwritten poem with the word Kärleks (Love’s) emphasized in larger letters. The page is signed with what I interpret as S. F. En. I am not sure about theS, but what else could it be? I wreck my brain; are there any friends of Cecilia and Augusta whose last name is En (it is a proper Swedish last name) or starts with En? I check the lists of confirmation friends, school friends, members of the secret orders – the Innocence and the Amaranth – that Augusta belonged to. I find nothing.
I then take another approach. I check to see if the poem might have been written by someone else and published. It takes some playing around with Google, like changing the preferred language and searching on various parts of the poem. It works and I find the source!
Literal translation:
Oh how I would want to be (for wishing is allowed)
The flower, lush and lovely which sits there on the turf
How I would face the sun and happily open my purple mouth
To imbibe power, light, and warmth out of God’s Well of Love
The poem appeared in a book Lyriska toner (Lyrical Tones) by Wilhelmina and was published in 1843, the year before Cecilia received the handwritten page for her album. The title of the poem is En ung flickas önskningar (The Wishes of a Young Woman) and what was copied was the first of the poem’s five stanzas.
There is an introduction in the book, written by the pastor in Clara parish (1825-1831), Frans Michael Franzén. Besides being a pastor, Franzén was also a famous poet. I can see why Franzén was moved by Wilhelmina’s poems. He wrote similar poems that also ended up in girls’ memory albums. And even the bishop in Stockholm, Johan Olof Wallin, wrote poems that were likewise copied.
At the time, women writers often wrote under a pseudonym, and Wilhelmina simply published under her first name. Later, when she became a rather famous author and translator, she used her real name, Wilhelmina Stålberg.
That is when it hit me. The handwriting of the poem in Cecilia’s album looked like that of an older person. It was definitely not written by someone of Cecilia’s age, someone who had perfected their cursives, dipping the quill in the inkwell and making beautiful letters. If this was a poem that was known by pastors, could S. F. En belong to the clergy?
The answer was staring me in the face! En could mean that the last name started with E and ended withn, not starting with En. Cecilia and Augusta attended Edgren’s school, founded and operated by Pastor Johan Fredrik Edgren and his German-born wife, Lovisa Carolina Wilhelmina Dethmar. And the initials were J. F. and not S.F. Pastor J. F. Edgren had written the poem for Cecilia before she was leaving Stockholm in June of 1844.
Pastor Edgren later became important in Augusta’s life. He officiated the wedding between Augusta and Adolf Nordwall in Morup’s parsonage. I wonder if she also got a poem or if he recited any during the wedding ceremony.
Rosalie Emelie Augusta Söderholm, our great-great-grandmother whose writings were our inspiration for Augusta’s Journey, was ranked 10 out of the 92 girls who were confirmed in St Jacob’s parish in May of 1844.
If you have followed Augusta’s Journey, you probably already know Augusta. But if you are new to our project, here are a few lines about Augusta Söderholm.
Augusta was born in Slaka parish outside Linköping in 1827. She was the youngest child of Anna Catharina and Johan Petter Söderholm. When her father died in 1835, Augusta’s brother-in-law, Gustaf Lejdenfrost, took care of the family at his estate, Loddby, outside Norrköping.
Augusta Söderholm
In the fall of 1841, 14-year-old Augusta was sent to Stockholm to get a first-class education. She would learn French, German, and some English, and she would meet families in high society. Augusta moved in with the Edgren family who ran a private boarding school in St Klara’s parish in Stockholm.
In 1844, Augusta also had to study for her upcoming confirmation. She was living in St Klara’s parish but we know that she was confirmed in another parish in Stockholm – St Jacob’s parish. Why?
Augusta’s close friend, Cecilia Koch, had also come to Stockholm to study. Both were confirmed in St Jacob’s parish. Was it a joint decision? Did they choose St Jacob’s parish because it was led by Pastor Abraham Zacharias Pettersson, a well-liked and respected pastor? Or did their parents’ have a personal connection with Pastor Pettersson? Or did the families with the highest status in Stockholm live in St Jacob’s parish? What seemed to be unique for this parish was that the pastor listed the children according to their perceived status. So for girls like Augusta and Cecilia, who were sent to Stockholm as teenagers to get educated and making their debut in society, this was probably the parish with the “right” families.
Augusta continued to study in Stockholm for one more year, now in a school run by Miss Andriette Frigel. During this year, she boarded with the family of Baroness Jaquette Ribbing.
After having studied in Stockholm, Augusta returned to her country home at Loddby and kept in touch with her friends in Stockholm. In the summer of 1847, she and her mother made the memorable journey through Germany down to Prague which she chronicled in her diary. After their return, she continued to write in her diary about how lonely she was at Loddby.
But in January of 1849, she returned to Stockholm to spend the social season going to balls, theatres, and concerts. She was 22 years old and she wrote in her diary about her suitors and her exciting and carefree life.
Then in July, she was back home at her “calm, quiet home.” Her brother had contracted tuberculosis and by the end of the year, Augusta was bedridden and coughing. For the rest of her life, she struggled with the disease. But she found love, a man who appreciated her intellect and who didn’t mind debates. Adolf Leonard Nordvall was a doctor of philosophy who also wrote wonderful love letters. They married in 1853 and had a daughter (our great-grandmother) in 1854. Their happiness didn’t last long – Augusta died a year later at the age of 28.
Cecilia Koch was ranked 7 out of the 92 girls who were confirmed with Augusta in St Jacob’s parish in Stockholm in May of 1844.
Two months earlier, Augusta had received a letter from her mother Anna. Augusta had been attending Mrs. Edgren’s school and boarding with the family Edgren, but now the Edgrens were moving to Morup on the Swedish west coast. Augusta and some of her classmates would be transferring to a school run by Miss Andriette Frigel. As Augusta would not board with her new teacher, the letter from mother Anna instructed Augusta to inquire about new boarding arrangements for the coming fall.
Loddby the 23rd, Saturday evening
My beloved child, I have now written to Mrs. Edgren and asked her where and with whom I shall let you stay; we will see if she knows a suitable place for you if you need to remain [in Stockholm]. It is truly a great sacrifice of me to let you stay up there for another year, I need you so much at home.
…It would be helpful and fun for both of you if Cecilia Koch made sure that she came to the same place as you – tell her that. Now ask Mrs. Edgren to find a good place for you and I will take care of the agreement when I come up. By the way, ask how much Miss Hellberg charges and find out what kind of person she is and with what kind of people she socializes, and if she can bring out into society those in her charge. It is very important to find a place that has a good reputation and where people are known for their honorable character. If you can find a place where they daily speak a foreign language, that would be good for you. Tell Mrs. Edgren that. If she knows of such a family and they could take you in, that would be very good. I think she knows many foreign families.
…Write to me soon and tell me what you know, also what Mrs. Edgren has said about you remaining in Stockholm if she thinks that’s what you should do. On Wednesday, I sent you your black everyday dress – I hope you have picked up the package. I hope you like it. There were also a pair of black silk gloves.
God bless you my own child and make you as happy as your mother wishes.
Well, Augusta did find a suitable family to board with – the family of Baroness Jaquette Ribbing. Not a foreign family but certainly one that met all the other wishes regarding reputation, character, and high society.
But what happened to Cecilia Koch who Augusta’s mother mentioned in her letter? And who was she?
Cecilia Koch
Johanna Cecilia Mary Lovisa was born on February 14, 1828, to Michael Koch (1792-1869) and his first wife, Johanna Amalia Fröding (1801-1830) on their estate, Vågsäter, north of Uddevalla on the Swedish west coast. The Koch family was a powerful and wealthy family in Uddevalla. Michael Koch was a major in the navy. He had even sailed to the West Indies. Later in life, he would live in Uddevalla and contribute to the establishment of a cotton mill and a railroad.
Cecilia’s father, Michael Koch. Painting by Pehr Södermark
Cecilia’s mother died in childbirth in 1830, leaving her husband with 2-year-old Cecilia, a 1-year-old son, and a newborn baby. As was common practice, Cecilia’s father remarried. He and his second wife, Emma Wilhelmina Iggeström (1809-1891), had 4 daughters and a son. The children Koch (those who survived to adulthood) had interesting lives and married well.
Cecilia’s stepmother, Emma Wilhelmina Iggeström. Drawing by Maria Röhl, 1839.
Attending Schools in Stockholm
When Cecilia became a teenager, it was time to send her to Stockholm where she would get a good education, be introduced into society, and attend balls and concerts with the unspoken aim of meeting some suitable and eligible young man. Augusta, who was a year older than Cecilia, had likewise been sent to Stockholm in the fall of 1842. Augusta was boarding with the Edgren’s but Cecilia was living somewhere else and just attending classes.
When Augusta started in Miss Frigel’s school in the fall of 1844, we don’t know if Cecilia was still in Stockholm. Augusta studied with Miss Frigel during the fall of 1844 and the spring of 1845. Then she moved back home to her mother at Loddby but stayed in touch with her friends through letters. There is a letter from Lotten Westman in Stockholm to Augusta, written on October 20, 1846, that mentions Cecilia:
You sent me greetings from Cecilia Koch. When you write to her, please send my sincere greeting. She is like a bright spot from our school days. I only knew her for a short time but I liked her so much. Greet her a thousand times. She is such a fortunate girl who gets to be with Mrs. Edgren. She must be so loved by all of those around her. My aunt had heard about it when she was in Varberg.
Does that mean that Cecilia didn’t continue studying in Stockholm but instead moved to Morup to continue studying with the Edgrens? It certainly reads that way. And it sounds like she was still living with the Edgrens in the fall of 1846.
Measles
The next letter that mentions Cecilia is from Augusta to Lotten Westman in January of 1847
Yesterday, I received a letter from Major Koch’s wife. Enclosed was the ring that Cecile always wore and which contained a lock of her hair. It was a dear memory of the untimely deceased childhood friend. She was too perfect to live here with us and, therefore, she also left us young. It was very thoughtful of Mrs. Koch to remember me.
Oh no, Cecilia died! I checked the newspaper and found her obituary. It stated that Cecilia had died at an age of 18 ½ years on October 23, 1846. She died peacefully at Vågsäter. I check her death certificate. She died from measles.
Measles epidemics were common and most started in coastal towns before moving inland. Gothenburg was one of those cities. A provincial doctor in the town of Vänersborg summarized the measles epidemic on the west coast of Sweden in 1846 as starting in the province of Bohuslän and arriving in Vänersborg at the end of October. It spread mainly through the schools and by December, most homes had reported cases.
Maybe Cecilia contracted measles while in school in Morup and died later at home? Morup is located on the coast, south of Gothenburg.
The 1846 measles epidemic was one of the worst in Gothenburg in the 1800s. Young children who had not been exposed during previous epidemics were vulnerable and around 10% of the young children in the city died.
I am back to reading Lotten’s letters. Lotten, Augusta’s friend from school, wrote long letters to Augusta, updating her on the latest gossip from Stockholm.
“You have to tell me if you once in a while get letters from Mrs. Edgren. Let me know how she and her husband and children are doing. Emma Almroth has had 4 letters from Mlle. Dethmar and also answered them.” (Lotten’s letter to Augusta, Stockholm, May 6, 1846)
Mrs. Edgren and her husband operated a school for girls in Stockholm between 1838 and 1844. Some students, like Augusta, boarded with the family Edgren. Mrs. Edgren was from Germany and her sister, Mlle. Dethmar, also lived with them.
Gossip About Engagements
“My dear, there are so many engagements here. At Mlle. Frigel’s school today, Ebba Almroth stated that Mlles. Schwanand Sjöstedt (the oldest) were engaged but with whom she didn’t want to say. It may well be true, but you know how girls gossip about engagements in Mlle. Frigel’s school.”(Lotten’s letter to Augusta, Stockholm, May 6, 1846)
When the Edgren school closed in 1844, many of the students, including Augusta, transferred to Mlle. Frigel’s school.
So who were the two girls, rumored to be engaged?
Mlle. Schwan must have been Elisabeth Schwan, born in 1828. She married Knut Cassel in 1850.
Mlle. Sjöstedt must have been Augusta Sjöstedt’s older sister Ophalia Carolina Göthilda, born in 1826. She married Georg Julius von Axelson in 1850.
If they both married in 1850, would they really have gotten engaged in 1846? Maybe the rumors were not true at all.
But who were Augusta’s and Lotten’s friends – Emma and Ebba Almroth? From Lotten’s letter above, it is clear that they first studied with Mrs. Edgren and then with Mlle. Frigel, just like Augusta.
Emma and Ebba Almroth
The view from Almroth’s apartment at the corner of Klara Västra Kyrkogata and Stora Vattugränd.
To find Emma and Ebba, I start with the 1835 census records in Stockholm. I find the Almroth family right away. Emma Almroth was born in 1829 and Ebba was born in 1831. They also had an older brother, Nils Leo, who was born in 1824.
The family lived at House No. 11 on Klara Västra Kyrkogata, a block away from Mrs. Edgren’s school.
The father, Nils Wilhelm Almroth was a professor of chemistry, a good friend of Professor Jacob Berzelius, and the director of the Swedish Royal Mint. On his Swedish Wikipedia page, there is also a sentence about Emma and Ebba:
“Their daughters Ebba and Emma Almroth traveled during the Crimean War and worked as nurses under the supervision of Florence Nightingale during the siege of Sevastopol.”
Really!
Was it true? Yes, but with the exception that they were not nurses but rather Christian volunteers.
I remember very little from my history classes about the Crimean War and what Florence Nightingale actually did. Time to read up on the Crimean War. Thanks to the Christmas present from my son this year – a massive book on 100 years of European history from 1815 to 1914, I find what I need. Thanks Jonas!
The Crimean War and Florence Nightingale
The Mission of Mercy: Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari. Painting by Jerry Barrett, 1858.
The Crimean war started in the fall of 1853 and ended in February 1856.
Russia, wanting more influence over the Balkan and ultimately access to the Mediterranean, invaded what is now Rumania, which was then under Ottoman control.
Together, France and Britain saw the Russian expansion as a threat to the trade route to India, the power balance in the Mediterranean, and the control over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In March of 1854, Britain and France joined the Ottoman Empire in declaring war on Russia.
France and Britain decided to attack Russia by invading Crimea. The aim was to destroy the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, thus reducing Russia’s naval power in the Black Sea. This strategy was also advantageous as France and Britain could easily send troops and supplies by sea. There were, however, additional military attacks on Russia elsewhere. For example, British warships entered the Baltic Sea and bombarded Bomarsund’s fortress on the island of Åland which at the time was under Russian control.
Detail showing Florence Nightingale, some other women, and a wounded soldier.
The Crimean war turned out to be a war where more soldiers died from disease than from battlefield wounds. It is estimated that out of the 258,000 soldiers who died during the war, 148,000 or 57% died of disease. Hospital conditions were horrific and the British military hospital in Scutari (Üsküdar) was overcrowded with sick and wounded soldiers. The London Times had a local correspondent who wrote about the incompetence of the staff and the outbreak of a cholera epidemic. Back in England, one of those who reacted to the news was 34-year-old, Florence Nightingale. On the 21th of October 1854, she and a staff of 38 volunteer nurses left Britain for Constantinople (Istanbul).
The book starts with a description of Ebba’s childhood:
“My father was the Director of the Royal Mint and also held the position of Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military School at Marieberg near Stockholm. He was generally acknowledged to be one of the leading scientific men of his time in Sweden. …
My mother died when I was ten years old. My grief was so great that I wished earnestly to follow her, I felt so lonely. …
My father took great pleasure in the education of my sister and myself. We attended the school of Frau Edgren, a German lady, wife of an excellent Swedish clergyman.
My school days were very happy. The teachers in Frau Edgren’s school did all in their power to instill the noble ambition into their pupils of a desire to excel in their studies.”
I almost jump out of my chair when I read Ebba’s description of Mrs. Edgren and her school! A published eyewitness account of Mrs. Edgren’s school!
Ebba’s biography continues with the events following her father’s death.
A note in the local newspaper about the Almroth sisters leaving for the Crimea. (Linköpings Tidningar, 20 JAN 1855.
A French pastor visited the sisters and invited them to visit the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud in Lausanne, Switzerland. They left Stockholm in May 1854. In Lausanne, they met a British couple, the Rev. Dr. Blackwood and his wife, Lady Alicia Blackwood, who invited them to England. And so, in August of 1854, the sisters traveled with the Blackwoods to England. The same fall, Dr. Blackwood was appointed as Army Chaplain for the Hospitals of Constantinople and Scutari – the Crimean war hospitals. Ebba and Emma Almroth decided to accompany the Blackwoods and help out with the work among the sick and wounded. They left on the 6th of December 1854 and sailed from Marseilles to Constantinople where they arrived a few days before Christmas. Florence Nightingale and her staff had arrived just a month earlier.
The hospital in Scutari received wounded soldiers from the Crimea. In her book, Ebba describes how they visited the sick and dying but could do little for them. Many had frostbites with resulting gangrene which led to their deaths. The sisters helped the soldiers write their last letters to loved ones at home.
Florence Nightingale. Colored Lithograph by J. A. Vinter. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
Florence Nightingale also asked Lady Alicia Blackwood and the Almroth sisters to look after the women and children who had accompanied the soldiers and lived “in the most abject misery” in dark cellars next to the hospital – around 260 women and babies. Ebba writes about some of the women that she overheard conversing in Swedish.
“I found there some Swedish women who informed us that they had accidentally been carried off with troops from the Åland Isles by the steamer which they had gone on board to bid farewell to some soldiers to whom they were betrothed.”
Ebba’s book, which is available online and written in English, is fascinating. It describes the sisters’ daily work during the war but also Ebba’s life after the end of the war. Once peace was proclaimed, the sisters and the Blackwoods took a steamer from the Bosphorus to visit Crimea and see the battlefields. They returned to England on the 6th of July 1856. Later, she married the Rev. C. H. H. Wright, a distinguished Hebrew and Oriental scholar. His work as a chaplain took them to Dresden, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Belfast. They raised five sons, one of whom became a prominent immunologist – Sir Almroth Edward Wright.
Lady Alicia Blackwood’s Book
Lady Blackwood’s drawing of the hospital at Scudari.
Throughout the book, she also writes about Emma and Ebba.
“At that time two young Swedish ladies – Emma and Ebba Almroth – were staying with us, who, equally eager to be useful, at once expressed their wish to accompany us.”
“Ebba Almroth had for some time studied the Turkish language, with the Armenian characters, which are easier than the Arabic; this frequently enabled her to speak with some of our native neighbors. She and her sister Emma, therefore, visited the Turkish school, kept by an old Imam in part of the mosque close to us.”
“Thus ended our Eastern sojourn; and before closing this narrative, it remains to state that our two Swedish friends, Emma and Ebba Almroth, so frequently mentioned, were both after our return to England happily married to clergymen.
Emma Moved to India
Emma married The Rev. Henry Bagnell, who had been the chaplain at Scutari during the time of the cholera epidemic. He later obtained an appointment as the Chaplain of Nagar in India. Emma is mentioned in the Mission Field, 1883:
“The Chaplain of Nagar, Mr. Bagnell, aided most zealously by his wife, who set herself to learn Mahratti for the express purpose of being useful for Mission work, was very anxious to evangelize the natives.”
The Edgren’s census record for 1844. Girls boarding with Mrs. Edgren includes Augusta.
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 Adèle, Mathilde, and Elise were now boarding with Mlle Frigel.
Mlle Frigel’s census record for 1845. Adèle, Mathilde, and Elise are now boarding with Mlle Frigel.
Adèle’s life story was chronicled in a previous blog. Who were the other girls, the sisters Biel and Josefine Stenbock?
Mathilde and Elise Biel
Mathilda (Mathilde) Carolina Sofia and Emilia Elisabeth (Elise) were sisters. Mathilde was born in 1830 and Elise in 1832. They also had an older brother, Fredrik August, born in 1829, and a younger brother, Carl Axel Hugo, born in 1833. Their father was German-born Christian Friedrich Biel and their mother was Augusta Mathilda Hasselström.
Christian Friedrich Biel and his business partner, Johan Albert Kantzow, started in 1808 the company Kantzow & Biel, one of the largest export and import firms in Stockholm. The company was also a major exporter of iron to the US. In 1824, Kantzow and Biel petitioned the US Congress regarding import duties levied on their iron shipment:
Journal of the House of Representatives of The United States, Being the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress, Begun and Held at The City of Washington, December 6, 1824, and in the Forty-Ninth Year o the Independence of the United States.
When Christian Friedrich died in 1839, Kantzow continued running the company.
So why did Mathilde and Elise’s mother decide that the girls should board with Mrs. Edgren and then with Mlle Frigel when she and the children lived in Stockholm? Being a widow with 4 young children who needed schooling might have been difficult. And as the family could afford it, it might just have been more convenient to have the girls live with their teacher.
It is also possible that she was not in good health. She died in 1847, at the age of 44. The cause of death was listed in church records as “wasting” (Swedish: tärande).
So what happened to Mathilde and Elise later in life?
Mathilde Biel
Björneborg
Mathilde, or Matilda, married Olof Nordenfelt in 1852. Olof was born in 1826 at Björneborg in the province of Värmland. When his father died, he inherited the estate and its ironworks. He became chamberlain at the royal court in 1860 and a member of parliament in 1867. They had 9 children and many grandchildren. Mathilde died in 1888 at the age of 57.
Elise Biel
Svanå
Elise, or Elisabet, married Victor Edman in 1850. Victor was born in 1813 in Stockholm and this was his second marriage. His first wife died following the birth of their second son. Between 1856 and 1870, the family lived at Svanå in the province of Västmanland. Victor was the majority shareholder and manager of the Svanå ironworks. Today, Svanå is a conference center and
Emilia Elisabeth (Elise) Edman, born Biel. Photograph by Robert Roesler. Privately owned.
In 1870, the family moved to Stockholm. They bought a house in the same block as where Elise and her sister had lived with Mrs. Edgren! The house was just around the corner from Mrs. Edgren’s school. They also rented a small farm, Edeby on the island Lovön.
In 1875, Elise and Victor celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary and Victor surprised Elise with a gold bracelet consisting of seven linked medallions, each containing a photograph. The photographs were portraits of Victor, in the middle, and his six children – two from his first marriage and four from his marriage with Elise. In 2017, the bracelet was gifted to the Nordic Museum in Stockholm by Victor’s great-great-grandson and namesake.
Elise also had her portrait taken by Robert Roesler who in 1877 opened his photography studio on Drottninggatan 29 C in Stockholm.
Elise died in 1907 at the age of 75.
Josefine Stenbock.
Torsjö
Josefine belonged to a very old, noble family in Sweden. Her full name was Baroness Josefina Albertina Charlotta Fredrika Lovisa Stenbock. Her name appears in documents as Josefina, Josefine, Josephine, and Josephina – spelling variations were very common in the 1800s. She was 6 years younger than Augusta, born 7 May 1833 at Torsjö estate in Skåne. Her father, Count Magnus Albert Carl Gustaf Arvid Stenbock, was a chamberlain at the royal court and had also been an adjutant to the crown prince. Her mother was Countess Jeannette Margareta Hamilton. Josefine had an older brother and three younger siblings. Her youngest sister Sophia was born in 1843. According to genealogy websites, all of them were born in Skåne. It thus made sense that Josefine was sent to a boarding school in Stockholm.
In 1857, Josefine married Chamberlain, Count Jacob Fredric Theodor Uggla. With the marriage, she became a countess. They had two children, Margareta Charlotta Johanna Fredrika born in 1858 and Carl Otto Knut Teodor born in 1859. Sadly, her husband died in 1864 at the age of 34 and interestingly, he died in Dax, a small town in south-west France. Dax was famous for its hot springs and was the first established spa in France. Did he have tuberculosis? Did Josefina travel with him?
Josefine’s son, Carl Otto, emigrated to America and took the last name of his maternal grandmother – Hamilton. He became a captain in the US army and participated in the Spanish-American War. He married, had 6 children, and died in 1933. According to genealogy sites, he was also an artist (painter).
Josefine also did not live long. She died in 1881 at the age of 48 in Copenhagen.
My illustration of how I imagined the three girls looked when reading in Mrs. Edgren’s class.
Little Women. Illustration by Frank T. Merrill. 1880
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 touch with Augusta after they had both finished school in 1845. She updated Augusta on the latest gossip.
I thought that if I could learn more about Augusta’s friends, I might be able to get the pieces of the puzzle and figure out which school they all attended.
What I never realized was that the answer was in plain sight in some of Lotten’s letters – Mademoiselle (Mlle) Frigel. I even quoted it in my blog about Augusta’s friend, Adele Peyron:
“Yesterday, I was visiting Mlle Frigel and she always asks about you and sent her warmest regards. Adèle Peyron also sent you many greetings. Erica Degermann and I are invited to Mlle Frigel on a final ball on Tuesday.” (16 April 1846)
On 18 December 1845, Lotten writes:
Your greetings to Mlle Frigel and the girls have already been conveyed.”
It was that sentence I reacted to. It wasn’t a mother and her girls that Augusta was sending greetings to – it was a mademoiselle and her girls. Didn’t that sound like a teacher and her girls?
How would I find out?
Googling Frigel + Stockholm leads me to a famous composer and professor of music theory. He was during the late 1700s and early 1800s Sweden’s most renowned music theorist – Pehr Frigel (1750 – 1842). He married Maria Charlotta Palmroth (1766-1797). Did they have any unmarried daughters that could have been teachers?
More googling.
They had three daughters: Beata Helena Charlotta (2 December 1790 – 26 November 1855), Andriette Christina (21 September 1795 – 6 October 1882), and Margareta (who died in infancy). Either Charlotte or Andriette could have been a teacher – or both.
Charlotta Frigel
I start looking for Charlotta. The first place I search is the digitized census records for Stockholm. I only find P. Frigel in the 1835 census records and, sure enough, it is Pehr Frigel. He, his daughter Charlotta, and a “cleaning woman,” are listed at the same address. Andrietta must have been living somewhere else.
What happened to Charlotta after 1835?
Now I search the Royal Library’s digitized newspapers for any mention of Charlotta. There are two hits.
The first one is in the Daglig Allehanda newspaper of 17 July 1840, noting that “by the Royal Majesty” Charlotta and her sister Andrietta and 8 other girls have been granted the right to be legally independent (Swedish: “att vara myndig“). Unmarried girls could apply for this right but it wasn’t until 1863 that women automatically were granted this right at the age of 25. Of course, if they married they lost this right and their husbands became their guardians.
The second notice about Charlotta is her death notice. It states: “Death in the provincial towns: Mademoiselle Beata Helena Charlotta Frigel at Aske Manor in Uppland, 26 November 1855, 65 years old.”
Did she become a private teacher in some wealthy family?
“From my 4th year, 1813, I still vividly remember two events: a funeral for a merely one-year-old little brother, and the arrival of a teacher, Mademoiselle Charlotte Frigel, for my sisters. I can still vividly see her looks and clothing in front of me as if it was just yesterday.”
It is a long memoir, but very interesting, about his family’s extensive travels in Europe over several years, their health issues, and their deep religiosity.
I look up the sister who Charlotta, at age 23, was hired to teach in 1813. Johanna Vilhelmina (Mimmi) was 6 years old. Two years later, a second daughter, Maria Carolina Matilda, was born.
I don’t know how many years Charlotta stayed at Aske and whether she was living there or just visiting when she died in 1855.
Her name appears with three different spellings: Andriette, Andrietta, and Andréetta. In the census records, she is listed as the head of the household with the title of “sekreterardotter”, daughter of a secretary. Her father, Pehr Frigel, was the permanent secretary of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He was also a secretary in the Royal State Office.
Mlle Frigel’s census record for 1845.
Digitized census records of Andriette’s household exist for the years 1845 and 1870. I first pull up the image for 1845. I can hardly believe what I see.
I have found Augusta’s school! Andriette Frigel is Mlle Frigel in Lotten’s letters!
“Undersigned, daughter to the late secretary in the Royal State Office, Pehr Frigel, and through the Royal Majesty’s graceful resolution of 19 June 1840 declared legally independent, maintains a boarding institute for girls.”
The girls boarding with Mademoiselle Frigel are listed as Adelaide Peyron, Mathilda Biel, and Elizabeth Biel. All three had boarded with Mrs. Edgren the year before (in addition to Augusta and Josefine Stenbock).
Google street view of where Mlle Frigel had her boarding school in 1845.
And where did Andriette live? In 1845, her address is listed as the block named Blåman, House No. 8 or, according to the new numbering system, Drottninggatan (Queen Street) 53. I enter the address into Google Maps and smile. Of course, I know where that is. It is a clothing store – Indiska. Every time I am in Stockholm, I check out their sales. So this is where Augusta went to school during the fall of 1844 and the spring of 1845. And it is very close to where she was living, boarding with the Ribbing family. That place is now a Starbucks Café close to the Central Station. Of course, the locations are the same, not the houses. Soon I will be able to lead walking tours through Stockholm in the footsteps of Augusta. We will meet at Starbucks!
So what happened to Andriette later in life? There is one note stating that she was an artist – something I have not been able to verify. I search the digitized daily newspapers again and find her death notice. She died in Stockholm in 1882 at the age of 87.
Pehr Frigel’s Funeral and Jenny Lind
Which brings me back to Andriette’s father, Pehr Frigel. He lived to be 92. His funeral in 1842 was grand, to say the least. The daily paper wrote about the music that was performed and the solo artists – including Jenny Lind. She was only 22 years old and belonged to the same parish as Pehr Frigel. She would soon become world-renowned.
A note on Pehr Frigel’s funeral (Daglig Allehanda, 10 December 1842)Jenny Lind in 1840
Augusta and her friends listening to Mrs. Edgren outside the Edgren School
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 that they might marry well – that is, moving up in society or at least have a comfortable life.
Several came from other parts of Sweden as Stockholm was the optimal place to study and make connections.
They were boarding with relatives, upper-class widows, or teachers in boarding schools.
This week, I have found Erika Degerman. Who was she?
Christina Erika Degerman was born on 5 October 1829.
Erika’s parents. Like many parents, they had great hopes for their daughters. They also had the means to send them to Stockholm to get a good education.
She was the daughter of Erik Degerman (1782-1867) and Fredrika Dorotea Lindgren. Erik Degerman had, at the age of 25, inherited the ownership and management of Degerfors ironworks close to Piteå in northern Sweden. Presumably, Erika was boarding in Stockholm in order to get an education and socialize, just like Augusta. We don’t know where she lived. All we know is that she received her first communion in 1846 in Klara church, so she must have resided in that parish. Maybe she also went to Mrs. Edgren’s school?
Erika’s husband, Carl Helmer Hampus Mörner.
In 1850, Erika married Carl Helmer Hampus Mörner, a nobleman and lieutenant, in her hometown of Piteå. They became parents of two daughters and three sons, but had only 2 granddaughters. One of those, Dagmar Salén, became the first Swedish woman to win an Olympic medal in sailing. Together with her husband, Sven Salén, they took bronze in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
There seems to be an interesting family saga to be discovered for each of Augusta’s school friends!
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 and place and it takes me back to the happy times when I was educated by them; when a smile and a friendly word by Mrs Edgren sent me to the seventh heaven. Tell her all this, and say that if in the future, whether I get ever so happy or unhappy, I will never forget them. Oh, when I just think of them, I get overly joyous.”
In the fall of 1845, Lotten and Augusta are discussing their previous teacher, Mrs Edgren. Both girls have finished their education and now keep in touch by writing letters. Many letters mention Mrs Edgren. At what school did she teach?
Googling Mrs Edgren (Swedish: Fru Edgren) doesn’t help. There was another famous Mrs Edgren in Stockholm in the latter half of the 1800s (see footnote), but she was younger than Augusta. And no Mrs Edgren shows up in searches in city or national archives. It is frustrating – I know she existed, but there is no record of her.
This is where creative thinking might help. Why was a married woman a teacher? A married woman might only have resorted to teaching if she was a widow. And her husband must have belonged to the upper class if his wife was educated enough to teach in a private school. Could he have been an officer in the army? That could explain Augusta’s family’s connection with the Edgrens. My search has to widen.
Two nights in a row, I read everything I can find about Edgren families in Sweden – genealogy discussion groups and the like. The second night, my search takes me to a digitized book about Swedish families, published in the 1800s, with genealogy of a family Edgren from Åmål, Sweden. I read about the sons, Johan Fredrik and Per Adolph, who were educated in Uppsala. Suddenly, in the middle of the page about Johan Fredrik’s life, I read the following:
“Pastor Edgren … started in 1838, together with his wife, a larger, very famous educational institute for girls in Stockholm; was, according to the speech at his funeral, an accomplished man of the world and one of the diocese’s, not to mention the country’s, most educated priests.”
I have found Mrs. Edgren!!!
It is past midnight and I have to get a glass of wine to celebrate this victory and to slowly read all the details I can now find about Mrs. Edgren.
The paragraph about Pastor Johan Fredrik Edgren continues:
Johan Fredrik Edgren in 1833 by Maria Röhl
“Married 29 May 1838 in Anholt, The Rhine Province, Germany, with Lovisa Carolina Wilhelmina Dethmar, born 9 September 1802 at Reckenburg, … dead 30 January 1853 in Morup’s vicarage.”
Now I dive into church records, digitized newspapers from 1838 – 1844, and archives of building permits.
Pastor Johan Fredrik Edgren was born in Åmål in 1797, studied in Uppsala and got is his PhD in 1827. He then became a pastor in Stockholm and a private teacher in the af Ugglas family at Forsmark. In 1832, he became a chaplain in the army’s “Andra Lifgardet”.
Edgren’s School: 1838-1844
On 20 August 1838, the following ad was placed in the newspaper Daglig Allehanda:
Miscellaneous
At the beginning of October, the undersigned aim to open an educational institute for a small number of girls, where teaching will take place from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm in Science, Languages, and Drawing, and during two days a week, from 3 pm to 5 pm in handicrafts. The tuition is 80 Rdr or 100 Rdr Banko for a year. The location is Stora Vattugränden.
Fr. Edgren (Batallion Chaplain) L. Edgren (born Dethmar)
Stora Vattugränd, N:o 3.
In 1842, the address of the Edgrens, and presumably their school, is House No. 12, Stora Wattugränd – close to Clara Church.
Augusta started school in the fall of 1841. One could presume that this is the school she attended until the summer of 1844.
In February of 1844, there was an official bulletin in the daily papers announcing the appointment of Pastor Edgren to vicar at Morup’s parish in the province of Halland. That meant, they had to close the school and move from Stockholm to the west coast of Sweden. I search Morup’s church records and find that they were registered as becoming members of the parish on 1 July 1844.
And that put’s Augusta’s mother’s letter of 23 March 1844 in a new light. She was probably searching for a new school and new lodging for Augusta if she was to continue her education in Stockholm in the fall of 1844 (which she did):
Loddby the 23rd, Saturday evening
“My beloved child, I have now written to Mrs Edgren and asked her where and with whom I shall let you stay; we will see if she knows a suitable place for you if you need to remain [in Stockholm]. It is truly a great sacrifice of me to let you stay up there for another year, I need you so much at home.
… It would be helpful and fun for both of you if Cecilia Kock made sure that she came to the same place as you – tell her that. Now ask Mrs. Edgren to find a good place for you and I will take care of the agreement when I come up. By the way, ask how much Miss Hellberg* charges and find out what kind of person she is and with what kind of people she socializes, and if she can bring out into society those in her charge. It is very important to find a place that has a good reputation and where people are known for their honorable character. If you can find a place where they daily speak a foreign language, that would be good for you. Tell Mrs Edgren that. If she knows of such a family and they could take you in, that would be very good. I think she knows many foreign families.
… Write to me soon and tell me what you know, also what Mrs. Edgren has said about you remaining in Stockholm, if she thinks that’s what you should do. On Wednesday, I sent you your black everyday dress – I hope you have picked up the package. I hope you like it. There were also a pair of black silk gloves.
God bless you my own child and make you as happy as your mother wishes.”
*Lotten was living with Miss Hellberg.
Augusta’s whereabouts in 1844-1845
In November 1844, we know that Augusta is still studying in Stockholm and is now living with the family of Baroness Jaquette Ribbing. Not a foreign family but certainly one that met all the other wishes regarding reputation, character, and high society.
There are no records of her schooling from this time, but based on correspondence, it seems like she studied in Stockholm through the spring of 1845.
Another school to find!
What happened to Mrs Edgren and her family?
The Edgren family consisted of Mr and Mrs Edgren and their 3 children:
Carl Gustaf Julius Edgren was born in 1839, received technical training, and later worked in various industries in Scotland, England, and Sweden.
Albertina Amalia Sophia Theresia Eugenia Adelheid Emilia was born in 1840 and married a medical doctor, Professor Adolph Kjellberg.
There is a much more famous Mrs Edgren: Anna Charlotta Edgren (1849-1892), born Leffler. Anna Charlotta and her 3 brothers grew up in an intellectual home in Stockholm. Their father, Johan Olof Leffler, PhD from Uppsala, became a teacher and principal of boy schools in Stockholm. Anna Charlotta got her early education at the Wallin School, married Gustaf Elias Edgren, and became a famous writer. She later divorced him and married an Italian mathematician. Her oldest brother, Gösta Mittag-Leffler, became the first professor of mathematics at Stockholms Högskola (which later became Stockholm University) and started the Institute Mittag-Leffler.
Anna Charlotta’s father-in-law, Per Adolph Edgren, an army medical doctor, was Pastor Johan Fredrik’s younger brother. So Anna Charlotta’s husband’s aunt was Augusta’s teacher, Mrs Edgren.
