#52Ancestors-Week 37-Closest to Your Birthday: Olaus Hansson

I wrote a blog post about my great-great grandfather Olaus Hansson that can be seen here: http://suesresearch.blogspot.com/2015/02/plowing-through-olaus-hansson-52.html

Olaus was the closest ancestor that I found whose birthday came nearest to mine.  He was born on the 27th of December in 1849, 100 years before me.  (Obviously, his gravestone has the incorrect date of birth.)

I have to admit to not having very good feelings about Olaus, based on reports from his daughter, Ingrid, my great-grandmother.  Olaus left the family in Sweden in 1888, never to return, despite leaving a wife and six children to fend for themselves.  Olaus arrived in the United States with a destination of St. Paul, Minnesota. Upon arrival he went on to North Dakota where he lived until his death in 1925.

Ingrid only saw him once after he left, when he came to Peoria, Illinois to visit in 1911.  By that time, five of his children had emigrated to the United States and four of them lived in Peoria.  One of his daughters had died by then.

from Olaus' obituary in the Crystal Call newspaper (from Crystal, North Dakota):

"About two weeks ago he packed his trunk and shipped it back to the old home at Peora (sp), and had intended to go back there for the remaining months of the winter but sickness overtook him before he could get away.The body was shipped to Peora (sp) for burial on Tuesday."

Interesting that those in North Dakota were under the opinion that Peoria was Olaus' "old home".  He never lived there and only visited there one time.  But apparently he wanted to be buried there.

My great-grandmother, Ingrid, refused to pay anything for his funeral, stating that had been "on the outs" for a long time.  She apparently she still had hard feelings toward him.  And while I tend to judge him rather harshly for leaving his family and never either bringing them to the United States or returning back to them, I have to remind myself that one never completely knows another persons circumstances.  Ingrid once told her granddaughter that "She (Ingrid's mother) was the meanest woman I have ever known."  So maybe Olaus had his reasons for leaving and never returning?  I hope that he at least sent money home for the family, but I don't know.