Author Description

"This book is a compilation of family letters, primarily from five siblings in the Anderson family. The letters begin in 1880 and continue through the early 1900's. These Swedish letters were discovered in a trunk in an obscure farmhouse in southeastern North Dakota. Upon their discovery, they were given to Eleanor Anderson Aarestad, grand daughter of Albert Anderson. Eleanor then arranged for their translation from Swedish into English. This translation was accomplished by another Anderson family descendant, Myrtle Anderson Sederberg. The letters describe the compelling reasons the Anderson family left Sweden for the unknown frontiers of America. They neither knew the language of this new land, nor its customs and practices. But they had a dream...a dream for freedom, for owning and working their own land, an impossibility in their native land. They had no illusions about the hardships they faced, but they were determined to succeed and this is a story of that grand success. 5/27/21 Between 1850 and 1900, over 1.3 million Swedes (one-fifth of the country) left their homeland for America in an epic wave of humanity. One of these emigrants was a young farm servant no longer content to struggle in the harsh realities of the feudalism of his native country. Determined to fulfill his dream for a different life, Franz Albert Anderson sailed for America in the spring of 1880. Shortly after he arrived in America, he began arranging for his two brothers, a sister and his aged parents to follow. All came separately except for his mother and sister who traveled together. In a compilation of letters discovered in a small trunk in a North Dakota farmhouse and later translated by a member of the Anderson family, this epic journey is vividly described. The letters relate the compelling reasons for leaving Sweden for the unknown frontiers of eastern Dakota Territory (southeastern North Dakota today). These intrepid pioneers knew neither the language nor customs and practices of th