The 95% Baard Johnson

In an earlier post, "In Defense of Character:  Writing With Caution," I wrote about the difficulties of trying to find more information on one of my great great grandfathers, Baard Johnson.  Baard emigrated from Nord-Trondelag, Norway in 1866, with his wife, Thibertine (Bertina), and their two children, Ole Martin and Ellen Julie (Julia).  On July 28, 1872, Baard died from typhoid fever at age 37, a couple of years before fulfilling his homesteading requirements in Granite Falls Township, Chippewa County, Minnesota.  For as long as I've been researching this family, and throughout the process of writing the Johnson family history, I have lamented the empty spot on the family tree where Baard's image should have been.  Perhaps I need lament no more, because I believe I have found, at last, an image of my g g grandfather, or, the "95% Baard Johnson," as I like to call him. Any reasonable doubt can be relegated to about 5%.


 

Likely photograph of Baard Johnson (carte-de-visite size), ca. 1870.
Verso below.

To my early Norwegian-American family, having a likeness of each family member was important due to the uncertainty of life, in general.  During the mid-19th century, photography--the new art--was taken quite seriously.  As surely as family members had their birth and death dates religiously recorded in the family Bible, new photographs were commissioned whenever changes in family size or other milestones dictated the need.  Newly married couples, small groupings of the latest-born children, or entire families would dress in their Sunday finest and sit for the local photographer.  In addition, many Norwegian emigrants had their likenesses taken at their point of departure in Norway, in order to send mementos to anxious family members and neighbors.  Others waited until they had chosen the spot where they wished to establish residency in the U.S., and then proudly commemorated the occasion with a photograph.  So, where was Baard?  Why did no one in my extended family have any photographic evidence of his existence, when even his young wife had a photograph taken of herself in the early 1870s?

The verso of my suspected g g grandfather's likeness shows that "A. Brandmo" was the photographer.  Andreas Brandmo worked out of Montevideo, Minnesota beginning in the 1870s, and he was part owner of the Brandmo and Lodgaard Studio from 1886-1896.  Montevideo was next door to many of my ancestors' homesteads in early Chippewa County, and the photographer's distinctive name shows on the verso of many family images passed down through the decades.  Though A. Brandmo's decorative stamp changed slightly over the years of doing business, this particular verso appears to contain one of the oldest stamps, by virtue of its simplicity, when compared to Brandmo's other stamps.  The paper copy of the verso has a faded pink tint, which barely shows on this online copy.

One dismal, wet afternoon several months ago, while sitting at my desk engrossed in genealogy, I was perusing a stack of small carte-de-visite (2-1/2 x 4-inch) photographs and suddenly felt a figurative light bulb switch on over my head.  I had obtained the photos through a cousin, after having seen them for the first time several years before.  When I began sorting through the stack, I was intrigued that many of the card-like photos were taken by the same early photography studio (Brandmo) in Montevideo, Minnesota, very near to where Baard and Bertina Johnson had set up their homestead.  None of the photographs had identifying markings other than the photographer's stamp.  Yes, my ancestors were guilty of the same lack of foresight as yours:  they knew the people in the photos, so why did they need to label them?  The first time I sorted through the stack, several years earlier, I had quickly picked out the earliest known photograph of my great great grandmother, Bertina Johnson.  It was easy to recognize her distinctive face from other photos of her as an older woman.  Due to her apparent age in the photograph and her residence at that time (near Montevideo, MN), I estimated the photo to be dated between 1870-1875.  None other among the mostly male sea of faces made any impression on me at all, and I assumed most to be neighbors and friends of my Johnson relatives at that time.

However, this particular winter day brought a revelation.  Perhaps it was because I had been studying other Johnson family photographs at the time, and certain facial features were burned into my short-term memory.  Perhaps I was "in the zone," while indulging in one of my favorite hobbies.  Perhaps it was something about the soft light of a gray day filtering the images on the cards in a way that opened my mind to new possibilities.  Whatever the cause, as I held up a photo of one young, blond gentleman, I sensed something very familiar.  (I've learned to not ignore intuition until facts prove otherwise.)  It was also interesting, and unusual, that there were two copies of the same photo:  one in very poor condition, and the other in quite good condition.  I knew for certain that the stack of small photographs had once been in the possession of Ole M. Johnson (my great grandfather, and the son of Baard).  It made sense that if the photo in question was truly Ole's father, then one photo likely would have been displayed or kept in a frame, and thus, became faded over time, while one copy had been put away for safe keeping.  This was probably the missing Baard Johnson!

The first thing I did was to line up the candidate photograph of Baard Johnson with his two children, Ole Johnson, and Julia (Johnson) Larson, along with his wife, Bertina Johnson, in order to compare facial features.  I found that as a young man, Ole had the same fine, lank hair as did the suspected photo of his father, Baard.  The clinker, however, was comparing it to the photo of Julia Johnson (the daughter):  both Julia and the "95% Baard Johnson" had the same bold, squared jawline, combined with a strong chin.  Even their ears were shaped the same!  Convinced, I shared the photographs with some Minnesota cousins who had actually known Ole M. Johnson (Baard's son) personally, and asked them to give me feedback on family likenesses between photos of Ole, his sister, Julia, and the newly discovered photograph of "95% Baard Johnson."  I'm pleased to say that I received several thumbs up.

Although there is no way that I know of to completely prove the identity of the man in the photograph in question, my usually-reliable intuition tells me that the search for my missing great great grandfather has ended.  I'm posting photographs of the entire family here, so that others may judge for themselves.

No matter what the brick wall, there is always hope that it will crumble!


[Photographer information source: Minnesota Historical Society, Directory of Minnesota Photographers, http://www.mnhs.org/people/photographers/B.htm]

Baard Johnson? (father, ca. 1870)





Julia Johnson (daughter, ca. 1888)




Ole M. Johnson (son, 1886)





Bertina Johnson (mother, ca. 1870)

In Defense of Character: Writing With Caution

When researching and writing my Johnson family history a few years back, I came across a conundrum:  how does one diverge all of the important details about a person without being unfair to the person's overall character?

My great great grandfather, Baard Johnson, was as close to a "black sheep" in the family as I could find.  He was also a bit of an enigma.  He died a few short years after arriving in America from Norway, there are no known exisiting photographs of him, and virtually no information about him was passed down through the family over the years.  Most of what I learned about him was gleaned from a Norwegian bygeboker--a local history that included genealogical information about the Grong area of Nord-Trondelag.  Though I centered my family history on Thibertine (Bertina) Olsdatter Johnson, as for her first husband, Baard Johnson, I was not quite sure how to present what little I had discovered about him.

In the late 1850s, Baard Johnson and his father, John Baardsen, worked as cotters on an old and established farm along the Namsen River near Grong, Nord-Trondelag, called Lassemoen.  It was owned in major part by Bertina's father.  When Ole Danielsen Lassemo decided to retired from active farming, he passed  his part ownership of Lassemoen to two of his four daughters--the unmarried ones.  On July 6, 1860, at the age of 25, Baard Johnson married Ole's third daughter, Bertina, at Trones Chapel.  Before courting the diminutive and auburn-haired Bertina, Baard surely must have considered the advantages of having a wife with part ownership in a well-established Norwegian farm, at a time when land ownership was a rare and expensive opportunity.


Bertina Johnson, ca. 1875

Baard and Bertina Johnson had two children while living at Lassemoen:  Ole Martinus Baardsen (my great grandfather), born on August 6, 1860, and Ellen Julie Baardsdatter, born November 22, 1862.  Note that the birth of Ole is a mere one month after the couple's wedding.  It was not uncommon for 19th century Norwegian farm women to be expecting a child at the time of their wedding.  This was because, in part, courtship with parental approval was taken as very serious business and it was expected that a couple would wed once they became intimate.  In addition, traveling pastors were frequently not available due to harsh weather making travel impossible, and couples often had to wait up to several months before a ceremony could be arranged.  However, since little Ole was born at the height of summer, it seems there would have been enough of an opportunity for Baard and Bertina to have been married earlier in the year.  This situation raised a red flag in my mind, as if there had been some indecision about having a wedding at all.

By 1866, Baard and his wife, Bertina, had cashed in their part ownership of Lassemoen to acquire the funds to emigrate to America.  They arrived in Minnesota in June 1866 and spent the first couple of years in Goodhue County, probably staying with friends who had already arrived from Norway, while Baard acquired first-hand knowledge of American farming practices.  In 1868, part of the Dakota (Sioux) lands to the west in existing Renville County was opened up to homesteading by the U. S. Government.  Baard Johnson packed up his family in a wagon and headed out to claim 60-acres near the town of Granite Falls and the Minnesota River, in newly-formed Chippewa County.

After several years of homesteading, Baard Johnson fell ill and died at age 37 on July 28, 1872.  His death certificate indicates that he died of "fever"--most likely typhoid fever, which was a constant concern during hot Minnesota summers, when tainted water sources could infect unsuspecting homesteaders.  Baard was buried immediately beneath a wooden cross on his homestead, but in about 1900, his grave was relocated to nearby and newly created Saron Lutheran Cemetery, in preparation for the sale of the homestead.  Marking his grave at Saron is a sturdy white marble headstone, standing with visual emphasis among a sea of plainer granite ones.

One concern I had regarding Baard and Bertina Johnson's relationship was that during the ten year span between the birth of their second and last child in 1862, and Baard's death in 1872, they had no more children.  Pioneer families usually set out to have as many children as possible, not only because their survival depended upon having enough family members to do necessary work, but also because there was no reliable form of birth control other than abstinence.  Why then, did Baard and Bertina have no more children?

Someone suggested to me that perhaps Baard Johnson had been ill for a long time before his death, but I doubt that Baard would have emigrated from Norway and taken on the hardship of homesteading if he had been ill all the while.  It was only six years between emigration from Norway and death.  Another family member suggested that perhaps Bertina was incapable of having more children, but this theory does not mesh with the fact that she promptly had eight more children after marrying a second husband soon after Baard's death.  The only plausible theory is that Bertina did not allow Baard to be intimate with her for some years.  As a traditional Norwegian wife, she accepted that her place was with her husband, wherever he may go.  But, somewhere along the line, her respect for her husband may have been shaken, and this could have resulted in no more children being born.

I asked as many of my Johnson relatives as I could about Baard Johnson--whether they had heard anything at all about him.  The only one who was able to respond in the affirmative was my mother, who was raised by Baard's son, Ole Martin (Baardsen) Johnson and his wife, Malla, on their farm near Leonard, Minnesota.  My mother does not recall Ole mentioning his father at all, which was a little unusual.  What she does recall is that her grandmother, Malla Johnson, once referred to the father-in-law she had never met as a "crook."  Whoaa!  What exactly did that mean?  I could not ask Malla to explain, since she died before I was born, and my mother knew nothing more about the matter than the brief words that had spilled from her grandmother's mouth one day.

Ole M. Johnson, 1886

In the end, I chose not to document Baard Johnson's memory in quite this manner.  After all, a person is innocent until proven guilty, and Baard could hardly stand up and represent himself at this point.  Family members who personally knew my mother's grandparents, Ole (Baard's son) and Malla Johnson, insist they were exceptionally honest, kind, and hardworking people. But, I also know from my mother that they could be a little critical and judgmental at times, and it is entirely possible that whatever alledgedly caused them to regard Baard Johnson as dishonest could have been based upon a single incident, or even on a misinterpreted action.

Author Sharon DeBartolo Carmack encourages writers to portray their ancestors as whole and sympathetic characters in her book, "You Can Write Your Family History" (Betterway Books, 2003).  Any person who has ever lived has imperfections in addition to good points.  If Baard Johnson did make a mistake (or several), which caused his family to question his honesty, it is not for me to judge him, especially without all of the related facts.

Among the pages of the "official" Johnson family history, this is how I chose to describe a perceived flaw in character or supposed lack of judgment, all at once acknowledging a dicey, but somewhat nebulous concern, while preserving the dignity of Baard Johnson's memory:

...The gap in childbirths is perhaps more adequately explained in terms of emotional strain or an underlying difference of opinion.  Bertina Johnson was known to be of a kind and gentle character, and it is difficult to imagine her turning away from her husband without some kind of provocation.  Still, the reason for the large gap in childbirths remains uncertain.

Therefore, I leave it up to future generations of the Johnson family to draw their own conclusions on the matter of Baard Johnson's character... unless, of course, they happen to read this blog entry!