Little Girl Lost No More!

The Missing Childhood Likeness of Malla (Vigesaa) Larson

My concerted efforts as photo detective continue in the hope of teasing out the identities of more family members from unidentified stashes of the past.  The many photographic treasures that once belonged to my great grandparents, Ole Martin and Malla (Larson) Johnson and other family members, included several Victorian-era cabinet card albums and stacks of loose carte-de-visite images, as well as other assorted prints.  At first, the task of identification seemed daunting.  Some likenesses were easily recognizable, and fewer still were actually labeled on the back.  But, more often than not, a labeled photograph displayed the name of the recipient of the photograph, and not the subject--a common trap to be wary of during the photograph identification process.

I reasoned that somewhere among all of the family mementos, there had to be an image of my great grandmother, Malla (Vigesaa) Larson (1868-1948), as a young girl.  After all, she was the owner of much of the collection I have been trying to identify, and it seems unlikely that her parents would not have had an image or two taken of their youngest child at some point.  But, until recently, the earliest known photographs of Malla were taken around the time of her wedding in 1886, when she was 19 years old.  After cropping and enlarging the faces of many people among her old photograph collection, encouraged by a measure of success, I finally turned my attention to the little dark-haired girl on the carte-de-visite image shown below.  As soon as I zoomed in on the little face, I had that old familiar feeling:  "I know her!"

An unexpected find:  a photo of my great grandmother, Malla (Vigesaa) Larson, at age 5 or 6 (ca. 1874).  The original image is unlabeled except for the photographer's stamp on the verso.  A decorative frame has been added to the image for this post, which is not part of the original carte-de-visite.

What had not been apparent from the small card-like photograph became quite clear while observing the girl's face, zoomed in great detail.  I was immediately convinced that I had found the childhood photograph of my great grandmother, at last.  Everything matched:  the perfectly oval face; the large, clear blue eyes (left eye a little larger than the right); the deep brown, finely textured hair; a slight cleft in the chin (a Larson family trait); the shape of the eyebrows, nose, and ears, and more.  Even the dark, satiny dress with ruffles that she wore in the image was reminiscent of Malla's dark wedding dress with cascading ruffles down the front.  The two dresses look as if they could have been designed by the same seamstress--probably Malla's mother, Kjersten (Stroemstad) Larson.

Verso of the above photograph

I then investigated the photographers listed on the verso of the image.  Malla's family relocated from Coon Valley, Wisconsin to Chippewa County, Minnesota when Malla was a very young child, in about 1870, or shortly thereafter.  The location displayed on the photographers' stamp was a perfect match, since one of the nearest towns to the Larson farm in Chippewa County was Granite Falls.  But, when consulting the Directory of Minnesota Photographers on the Minnesota State Historical Society's website, I discovered a problem.  Olson and Steward (listed in the "Galleries and Studios" section), operated as a team in Granite Falls only between 1884-1886.  Malla was born in 1868, and the photograph of the little girl in question could not have been taken as late as 1884, when Malla would have been at least 16 years old.

Olson and Steward

Locations:
     Address: Granite Falls, Minnesota
       Dates of operation: 1884-1886
Decades Worked in Minnesota: 1880s


But, hold on!  A photo detective does not give up that easily!

Further investigation into the individual members of the Olson and Steward team led me to believe that the carte-de-visite image of the little girl was still, indeed, my great grandmother, Malla, but that the image was a copy of an earlier image.

H. L. Olson was a Norwegian-born photographer who kept his own photography studio in Granite Falls, Minnesota from 1881-1883.  In fact, the images taken of Malla during her teen years (top row in the collage below, #3 and #4), were both taken by H. L. Olson.  His business partner from 1884-1886, C. A. Steward, kept his own studio in Granite Falls during 1886-1887, and often advertized that any image could be copied cheaply.  It is my opinion that Malla's parents arranged to get a copy (or copies) of her childhood photo in time for her marriage in February 1886.  If this were the case, then the carte-de-visite image of Malla at about age 6 was taken in about 1874 by an unknown photographer, and the original image was later copied and reproduced by Olson and Steward between the years of 1884-1886.  

Even with this logical assumption, I could not rest on my laurels and say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the photo was of Malla.  I had yet to consider that Malla's eldest daughter, Cora Johnson (Moen), was very similar in appearance to her mother.  I scrutinized a known photo of Cora as a toddler and compared it to photos of her as an adult, and compared them both to the probable image of young Malla in the dark dress.  Though many facial features were the same between the two little girls, I noticed a difference in the upper lip, in particular.  Cora had the same large blue eyes as her mother, but her upper lip was more curved, much like her father's side of the family.  Cora also had no cleft in her chin, unlike Malla.  In addition, Cora was a towhead at age 2-1/2, and it is unlikely that her hair would have changed from light blonde to dark brown in just 3 or 4 years.  Adding to the evidence was Cora's birth year.  She was born to Malla Larson Johnson in 1891, several years after Olson and Steward produced the carte-de-visite image of the little girl with the short dark hair.

Cora Johnson (Malla's eldest daughter), age 2-1/2.

Close-up of Malla Larson as a little girl, ca. 1874.

Cora Johnson Moen, at about age 40.

I was only completely satisfied that I had made the correct determinations after creating cropped close-ups of positively identified images of Malla from her adulthood, and then pairing them with cropped close-ups of "newly discovered' images taken during her early years.  The results are evident in the collage below, which shows Malla's development from about age 5 or 6 through her early forties, as the mother of ten healthy children.

Little Malla has been accounted for.  I hope that my many Johnson and Larson cousins will be as thrilled as I am!

(Click on photographs to enlarge).  This photo collage is of Malla (Larson) Johnson from childhood to middle age.  The bottom row of cropped facial shots are from positively-identified images of Malla that have been passed down through family members.  The top row consists of photos that I have recently identified as Malla from unmarked photographs collected through various family sources.  TOP ROW (left to right):  1) Malla Larson at age 5 or 6, Granite Falls, MN; 2) From a tin type photograph in a Johnson family album, ca. 1882; 3 & 4) Carte-de-visite photos taken at about the same age in Granite Falls, MN--note that she is wearing the same dress in both photos, but with different hairstyles, ca. 1881-83.  BOTTOM ROW (left to right):  5) Cropped image from Malla's marriage certificate with Ole M. Johnson in 1886; 6) Cropped image from wedding photograph with Ole M. Johnson in 1886; 7) Cropped image from Johnson family portrait, ca. 1907, Fosston, MN; 8) Cropped image from Johnson family portrait, ca. 1910, Fosston, MN. 

Peek-A-Boo, Malla, We Found You

Malla Larson, at about age 16,
 ca. 1884 (this is the earliest
known photo of my great
 grandmother). 

Every family historian knows how maddening it can be when a source cannot be found to prove data that is well known by the family.  Some people call that a "brick wall," but you could also call it just plain frustrating.  Several family historians approached the problem of finding a birth or baptism date for my maternal great grandmother at different times, with no "proof" found other than what was written in the family Bible.

Malla (Vigesaa) (Larson) Johnson always told her family that she was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin on April 20, 1868.  One thing I soon realized about my Norwegians ancestors is that they assumed major landmarks would stick in people's heads better than too much detail.  So, rather than specifically identifying where she had been born, Malla simply referred to nearby LaCrosse.  The trouble is, no birth or baptism record was forthcoming using the standard searches.

It was apparent that we had to go right to early church records, if any existed. Through collaboration with a cousin-in-law who is writing a Larson family history, it was determined that Malla must have grown up in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, a stopping-off place for many early Norwegian immigrants.   We had found proof of other family members living there, but nothing about Malla relating to Coon Valley.  She was still a child when the Erik and Kjersten Larson family relocated to Chippewa County, Minnesota and began homesteading.  We also knew that the family would not have attended any church other than Lutheran, which narrowed down the possible records.

It turns out that records for the Upper Coon Valley Lutheran Church in Wisconsin are only available in one place:  the LaCrosse Public Library.  I knew that if we were going to find anything on Malla's birth data, it would probably be on microfilm from that library.  Unhappily, I could not access the microfilm via interlibrary loan, so I began calculating how many years it might take before I could personally visit LaCrosse.  Too many, it seemed.

If we are patient enough, sometimes good things have a way of just happening (continual networking doesn't hurt, either).  I was just now contacted by a cousin-in-law, Nancy Larson, who has been working on a family history of our branch of the Larsons.  She made a new internet contact about whom she said, "It turns out she lives in Wisconsin. Turns out she works at a genealogy library, specializing in Norwegian research."  My cousin's new contact, after accessing the church records of interest on microfilm owned by the ELCA Archives (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), came up with the following information:

#19 - Molla (Malla) b. 20 April, 1868, bap. 22 May, daughter of Erick Larsen and Christine Olsdatter, witnesses Sven Pederson, Engebret Sinbakken, Anne Jensdatter, Johanne Bredesdatter

Source:  ELCA Film #29 Upper Coon Valley 1868 Baptisms 1868

Ah!  Our search for Malla Vigesaa Larson's proof of birth has ended, with special thanks to a sympathetic professional and fellow researcher somewhere in Wisconsin.  I guess my trip to LaCrosse can wait a little bit longer...

If you are having a difficult time finding data for any Lutheran-American ancestors, try the research information and services available at the ECLA Archives, as specified on their webpage regarding Genealogy and Microfilm.  When doing family history research, ECLA Archives staff recommend first checking census records, naturalization papers, city directories, or related sources, before considering congregational records, especially if you are not certain your relatives were Lutheran.