At left is a modern map of Nykarleby, Vasa province, Finland. The town is situated on the west coast of Finland in an area known as East Bothnia. In 1975 the rural communes of Munsala, Jeppo and Nykarleby were incorporated into one town. Today it has about 8,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom are Swedish-speaking. Click here to see Munsala Church and other Scandanavian churches in the areas from which my family comes.
My grandfather, Anders Victor Johnson ("Vic"), was born Anders Viktor Johansson Gästgifvars in 1885 in Munsala parish, Finland. The name Gästgifvars is a "farm name" --often the surname for Scandanavians. It means "innkeeper" and evidently there was once an inn on the farm. Click here to see a map of the Nykarleby area, annotated by genealogist Pär-Erik Levlin, that shows where Gästgifvars is located.	If you're interested in Swede Finns (ethnic Swedes from this area of Finland) in the US, click here for the Swedish Finn Historical Society's home page.
Victor Johnson in Duluth, 1909 Click here to see Victor Johnson's ancestors. Click here to read article about Granddaddy Johnson.	According to my mother, the inspectors at Ellis Island couldn't get a handle on my grandfather's name and asked him what his father's name was. "Johan," he answered. "Fine, said the inspector, "You'll be Johnson." That was 1902 when he left the port of Hango on the s/s Polaris bound for Duluth on the first leg of his journey.  S/S Polaris (in the ice)
Looking at these pictures of East Bothnia today, I'm not surprised that so many emigrants went to Michigan and Minnesota. The shoreline above looks just like Lake Superior--as my sister says, she can just see Granddaddy building a fire for coffee in a rock crevice.
Granddaddy was the youngest of 10 children. Kristina Sofia Johansdotter Gästgfvars, 1867-1953 Mara Lovise Johansdotter Gästgfvars (married Karl Andersson Frilund), 1869-1954 Anna Britta Johansdotter Gästgfvars, 1870-1887 Sanna Kaisa Johansdotter Gästgfvars, 1872-1893 Johan Henrik Johansson Gästgfvars, (married Maria Mårtensdotter Nylund) 1874-1899 Johanna Elisabet Johansdotter Gästgfvars, 1875-1893 Isak Otto Johansson Gästgfvars, 1877-1908 Erik Willhelm Johansson Gästgfvars, 1879-1918 Ida Amanda Johansdotter Gästgfvars, 1881-1887 Anders Viktor Johansson Gästgfvars, (married Emma Lovisa Andersdotter) 1884-1957	I know very little about his siblings. Many, it seems, died young. Only two besides Granddaddy married and had children. I know the names of Johan's children, but that's all. I have information only on the children of Mara Lovise whose Frilund descendents still live in the Nykarleby area. Villhelm is supposed to have gone to the US and died in Los Angeles.
Granddaddy gave Duluth as his destination when he left Finland, but I don't know exactly when he arrived or what he did there at first. I don't know when he met my grandmother, though they were married on 5 June 1909 and entered their names on the roll of the First Covenant Church in Duluth's West End. The aerial bridge always symbolizes Duluth for me. Granddaddy used to take me there to walk along the piers which extended out into the lake with a lighthouse at the end of each to guide incoming boats. It was especially dramatic in bad weather when the water in the channel churned up and fog horns blared. I used to be afraid one of the big ore boats would crash into the concrete. Granddaddy would wave at the men on desk and tell me about how he used to work on ore boats, though I'm not sure whether he worked in the ship yards or on working boats, perhaps both.	The aerial bridge and the lighthouse at the entrance pier. Duluth Central High School; my mother finished there in 1928.
There was a high wooden bridge over a gorge and creek just across the railroad tracks from my grandparents' house in the East End. The creek was Congdon Creek. We'd walk over it to get to a grocery store or to Bridgman's ice cream parlour. When I was older, I found friends in the neighborhood and we played in the gorge.	Duluth photographs courtesy of Dennis O'Hara of northernimages.com.