Holmquist Family Emigration to America


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by Lennart Holmquist

From the 1800s and into the 1900s tens of thousands of Swedes emigrated to America. Among these emigrants were Holmquist family members and those who married into the Holmquist family.

On October 9, 1878 Menny Holmquist left Sweden for America where she married the mechanic Jon Carlson who was also from Sweden. They both lived in Englewood, a suburb of Chicago, where they started a laundry. About 1900 they moved to Donaldson, Indiana.

On April 15, 1878 Carl Peter Johnsson Holmquist, an' illegitimate' son of Cecilia, who was the second wife of Menny's half-brother Gustav Holmquist, went down to the church on April 15, 1878 and got either his emigration papers or Swedish passport and a certificate for change of address to go to America. He was only 10 years old at the time. We do not know with whom he traveled. Perhaps Carl emigrated with his aunt Menny.

Johannes Holmquist and his brother, August, left for America in 1880 and settled in the Chicago area. They both married Swedish girls. They both had jobs associated with the railroads, and worked with iron. Eventually they also both bought farms in Indiana, but contiued to work in Chicago where the jobs and money were.

Anna [Annie] Holmquist went to or arrived in America April 4, 1882 at nineteen years of age. Eight years later on December 23, 1890 in Escanaba, Michigan she married the Swede Andrew Peter Nelson Andrew Nelson and his brothers were from the northern part of Sweden.

On May 7, 1888 the half-brother of Johannes and August, Johan Holmquist, obtained an exit permit for America. (Johan's wife, Stina, had died in November 1885). Eventually, all Johan's children left for America: Carl (known as Charlie in America, apparently) together with Emma in 1891, Anna in 1892, and Tillie, possibly in 1892 with her sister, Anna.

Emulin [Emma] Sunesson [aka Johansdotter, Johansson, Johnson], the daughter of Johannes' and August's sister, Kristina left Stenbrohult, Sweden for America on March 24, 1891 and was traveling alone. The Swedish record gives her name as Emilia Sofia Johansdotter, i.e., Johan's daughter.

Upon arriving in America or sometime thereafter Emma lived with her mother's brother and his family in Chicago. In Memoirs of William Holmquist, William says:

My parents had two roomers at our home, Mr. Lindstrom, who after a few years left for Suwanee River are to work and we never heard from him, and Miss Emma Johnson, a half sister of Dad's. She also left a few years later, went to New York and married a bricklayer contractor, Mr. Hultgren.

William was mistaken about Emma being his father's half-sister. Johannes had two half-brothers, but no half-sisters. Emma was Johannes' niece.

In America Emma married a Hultgren whom she met in Chicago. They later moved to Brooklyn, New York where she died around 1901. She was about 27 years old.