Jöhanna Sophia Björk

1850s–1860s

Born 23 August 1851 at the croft of Stabäck, Nävelsjö parish, Jönköping County, Sweden, to Per Johan Björk and Eva Christina Svensdotter.

1870s

Married the grenadier Sven Johan Svensson on 1 March 1873 and moved to his soldier's croft, Lönsås, in Bringetofta parish. Children Ella, Anna, Charles, and Augusta were born.

1880s

Children Frank and Jennie were born. Left Sweden with her family in August 1884, living in the Midwest and Tacoma, where more children were born.

1890s

Moved to a rented place near Shelton, Washington, in April 1890. Fell ill that summer and died in Shelton on 9 September 1890.

From Nävelsjö to Shelton

Johanna Sophia Björk was born on August 23, 1851, at Stabäck, a croft on the Åhult Trullagård farm in Nävelsjö parish, Jönköping County, Sweden, and baptized two days later. Her parents were Per Johan Björk and Eva Christina Svensdotter. She had an older sister, Christina; a younger sister, Emma, who died as a baby; and a youngest sister, Emelie, who also emigrated and died in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1944.

Johanna lived at Stabäck until her marriage on March 1, 1873, to Sven Johan Svensson, a newly recruited grenadier of the Småland Grenadier Battalion, and a few days later she moved with him to Lönsås, his soldier's croft in Bringetofta parish. Her children were Ella, born in January 1873, two months before the wedding, and then at Lönsås Anna, Charles, Augusta (Meghan's 2x-great-grandmother), Frank, and Jennie. Food was often short; Augusta remembered raw potatoes eaten like apples as a treat.

On August 15, 1884, the family left Lönsås for America. Their years in the Midwest are only partly known, but a son, Edward, was born about 1886, probably in Wisconsin, and a daughter, Annie, in Tacoma in 1888. By 1890 they were near Shelton, Washington, as the Swansons, and Johanna was known as Sophie. A baby, Merlin, was born and died that year. In April 1890 the family moved to a rented house and orchard down the bay from Shelton, where she set up the carpet loom she had brought from Kansas and made rag carpets. That summer she fell seriously ill, and in August her husband moved the family into town. After a month confined to bed, Johanna died of consumption on September 9, 1890, at thirty-nine, and was buried at Shelton Cemetery. Her husband died seven months later, leaving their children orphaned; eleven-year-old Augusta was taken in by a Shelton family.