Johannes Branch

Johannes was the first child of Peter and Catarina, born 28 August 1834 at Källehult, Algutsboda. He moved to Ekeberga where he was a farmer and also worked as an auctioneer. He married Johanna Charlotta Johannesdotter and they had ten children - Emma, Anna, Karl, Sara Lisa, Pehr Axel, Nanny, Frans, Otto, Oskar & Knut. Charlotta died of tuberculosis in 1887 at the age of 46 and Johannes died in 1889 at the age of 55.

Their daughters Emma and Lisa married two brothers, Per Johansson and Frans Johansson, who were farmers from Pukabergsmåla, Oskar parish. Emma gave birth to five children (two emigrated to the U.S.) and Lisa gave birth to four children (one emigrated to the U.S.).

Emma was very clever at writing poetry. In 1952, when the first reunion was held at Rostock, Emma was 87 years old. For that first reunion she wrote the Rostock Ballad. This ballad is about her grandparents Peter Samuel and Catarina and their children. Twelve verses of very good poetry:
Rostock Ballad (In English)
Rostock - Visan (På Svenska)

Their daughter Anna married Elof Petersson who had a farm in Brinkabo, Vissefjärda parish. They had three children. Anna tried to keep in close contact with her sisters and brothers because their parents died at a rather young age.

The photo shows Anna's youngest daughter Ragnhild as a candidate for confirmation at Vissefjärda church in 1918. Ragnhild later became a teacher and lived with her husband and three children in Torsås, Kalmar county. When the reunions started in 1952 she was a member of the family committee representing the Johannes branch. Ragnhild had a narrative skill and used to tell her family about life on the farm at Brinkabo - on Sundays the family went in a horse drawn cab to the church at Vissefjärda where every farm in the parish had their own stable in the church stables. In the winter season they had sleigh rides with the jingle of sleigh bells and torches on the sleighs...

After retirement from farming Anna and Lisa together with their husbands bought houses in Nybro and lived a quiet life of gardening and croquet-playing. Emma, who became a widow as early as 1915 lived her later years with her oldest daughter Ella in Malmö.

Their fourth daughter Nanny died at the age of 17.

When Johannes and Charlotta died, their five youngest sons, Pehr Axel, Frans, Otto, Oskar and Knut, were quite young (Otto died as an infant). The youngest, Oskar and Knut, were brought up by their elder brothers and sisters. However, Oskar felt that his brothers and sisters decided too much for him so he ran away from home when he was a teenager. He was never found and was declared dead after a number of years. But Anna never believed her brother was dead. Every Christmas Eve, as long as she lived, Anna would look out the window and say "I wonder where Oskar is tonight!" The years went by and then one summer night in 1950 there was a knock at the door of the home of Ragnhild, Anna's daughter. Standing on the threshold was an old man who said he was Oskar and he wanted to see his nieces and nephews. He stayed with Ragnhild and her family for a few days and he had a long story to tell. He had spent his life in the north of Sweden peddling door-to-door and had built up a successful business over the years. He had now retired to his house in the little northern village of Stråtjära. Some years later, Ragnhild and her husband Sture visited Oskar in Stråtjära. When he died in 1962, his will specified that all his money was to be given to charity. Pehr Axel, Frans and Oskar had no children. Knut married Anna Maria Jansson and they had one child, Tor.

 

Their oldest son Karl Johan and a friend, Carl Israelsson, left for America from Malmö, 31 May 1888. After a five week journey they arrived in California. After arriving in the U.S., Karl Johan changed his name to Carl Johan Sandberg. He got a job with a farmer who had many children, so he could learn English. He stayed there for about a year and then started working in the lumber industry in the Arcata area on the north coast of California. In 1895, after seven years in the U.S., he returned to Sweden with the $2000 he had saved. When he came home to Ekeberga, the family farm had been sold and his brothers and sisters had moved away. He stayed one year with an uncle where he met his future wife Maria Klara Kjellander. He bought a farm for 5000 kroner and they were married and had ten children - Nelly,
Ingeborg, Erik, Karl Ivar, Sigrid, Ella, Sven, Lennart, Berta and Inga Britta. Karl Ivar emigrated to South Dakota in 1920 at the age of 17. Sven followed his brother to South Dakota in 1926.