#52Ancestors-Week 22-So Far Away: Benjta Nilsdotter

This week's prompt, So Far Away, made me think of my great-great-grandmother, Bengte Nilsdotter.  Bengte was born in 1847 in Katslosa, Malmohus, Sweden.  She married Olaus Hansson in about 1872 in Sweden.

Bengte and Olaus had six children, with the last one born in 1887.  The following year, her husband left Sweden for the United States and never returned to Sweden. Bengte died in 1902, at the age of fifty-four.  By that time three of her children had come to the United States, and one had died in 1897.  Bengte also had a brother and sister who came to America.  I wonder if she ever considered coming?



When Bengte died, her husband had been gone for fourteen years. There is no evidence that Bengte's husband or children ever returned to visit her before she died.  America must have seemed so very far away for her.