Axel Smeds

Axel Smeds, fifth child and youngest son of Jakob Herman Mattsson Smeds and Greta Mickelsdotter Fagernäs, was born 13 July 1888 on the ancestral Smeds estate in Soklot, parish of Nykarleby, Finland. He grew up on that property. When he was only two and a half years old, his mother died. In the wake of that tragedy, his paternal grandmother Lisa Jakobsdotter Pörkenäs Smeds moved into the home to help her widower son raise his six kids, who consisted of not only Axel but his four older siblings and his younger sister Amanda. Lisa died in 1897. Herman chose not to hire a governess, nor did he remarry. Instead he was able to count on the help of his brother Erik’s wife Brita, who lived immediately next door.

Axel is not known to have had a middle name. However, a 1917 Eureka, CA city directory includes the middle initial “A.” It is probably a mistake. No other record shows that initial. No sources whatsoever include a full middle name. Like most of his birth family, he was short in stature. In his case, that was 5'5" tall in adulthood, which was even a bit shorter than his father and brothers. (He towered over his sisters, though.)

By 1906, all of Axel’s older siblings had moved to America. Upon turning eighteen, Axel became eligible to be snatched up in the Russian Army draft. Having no wish to go to Siberia and fight the Empire of Japan on behalf of a regime his people held little love for, he made plans to leave for America as his brothers had done. His little sister Amanda decided the best time for her to emigrate would be in his company, and Herman Smeds, who would otherwise have been left on his own back in Soklot, came along as well. Their decision to go was made easier by the fact that Jakob Smeds, aka Jack Smeds, the eldest of the siblings, had been in the United States for five years and had just become a naturalized citizen. Jack was therefore able to act as sponsor for his family members. The three travellers departed Soklot 26 November 1906. They went to Liverpool, England, where they boarded the liner Ivernia 11 December 1906 for the transatlantic crossing. They arrived in Boston 20 December 1906.

The cross-country train trek brought them to San Francisco, where Jack and his wife Annie were based. After a late celebration of the winter holidays at Jack and Annie’s home, the newcomers completed the final, shortest, leg of their journey in order to establish themselves in Eureka, CA. That was where Jack had spent his first few years in the U.S., and it was where the other two California-based members of the family, Augusta and Vilhelm (Billy), were still in residence. Axel’s first job was probably in the lumber industry, this being the usual employment option for new immigrants to the region. This placed Axel either out in the forest harvesting trees or at one of the big sawmills such as the Hammond Lumber Company’s operation on the western side of Humboldt Bay. Amanda, meanwhile, moved into the dormitory on the second floor of the Hammond Lumber Company cookhouse, where she worked as a waitress.

In terms of family members Axel’s main pal for the year 1907 was his brother Billy, and this in turn meant he spent time with Billy’s good buddy Charlie Strom. The latter individual was from Strömnäs and Jakobstad. Both of these locales are situated very near Soklot, and Charlie was quite possibly someone the Smeds boys had known before coming to America, meaning Charlie was not only Billy’s friend, but Axel’s, too. If not, Charlie had come into the fold in Eureka, perhaps because he and the Smedses were all from the same small corner of the world and felt a connection simply by being in proximity with one another so many thousands of miles from their mutual place of origin. They would surely have encountered one another at the gatherings of the Order of Runeberg lodge, if not in other contexts. Regardless of the history of their bond, they treasured it once it existed. Evidence of their camaraderie is demonstrated by the photo shown at right, taken in 1907. The fact that this image exists means the trio booked time at a professional photography studio, which was expensive for their modest means, and such sessions were typically motivated by a desire to document a close association. Axel is the young man in the middle, slightly to the rear. Billy is on the left. Charlie is on the right.

The three men did not get to be each other’s comrades of the forest for long, though. Jack Smeds had purchased farmland just north of the small town of Reedley in Fresno County, part of a budding agricultural colony of Finns. Jack hired Billy and their father to develop that acreage. As a consequence, Billy and Herman left Eureka at the end of 1907. They never returned. In 1908, in the wake of a lumberworkers union strike that had gone sour, Charlie Strom also vanished from the scene, if only temporarily. He made an extended visit back to Jakobstad. These departures could be said to be life-defining for Axel, because he fell back on his remaining mutual-support relationships. His primary connections were of course to his sisters, Augusta and Amanda, but by extension, also to Augusta’s new husband, Isak Alfred Malm -- better known in years to come as Fred Malm. He was another immigrant from Ostrobothnia and member of the local Order of Runeberg lodge.

Fred Malm was an enterprising fellow, and not content to be just a wage-earner. As a new immigrant, he did not have an easy time “setting himself up,” meaning that at first he had to do a little of this and a little of that while developing professional contacts and building up investment capital. For example, he and Augusta ran a boarding house for an interval. But gradually Fred began to get more and more work as a carpenter and contractor. Axel is almost certain to have been a right-hand-man during the earliest of Fred’s construction projects, especially during the period from mid-1910 to mid-1911 when Fred’s other main helper, his brother Victor, was gone with his wife on a visit back to Finland. Axel lived in the same building with, or next door to, Augusta and Fred in 1911-12 just after the boarding-house gig, when Augusta was employed as a cook at a restaurant in Eureka’s waterfront district. Amanda also lived with the Malms, helping care for the couple’s young daughter Mildred, no longer subject to the almost slavelike conditions at the lumber company cookhouse.

The afore-mentioned restaurant and the apartments in which the family members lived were part of a building that also housed the commercial storefront of Donald C. McDonald, a building-materials and hardware merchant. Axel began working for Mr. McDonald as a driver. A year later, he was promoted to clerk. This was a good, secure job, and Axel held on to it. He did not, however, completely stop devoting time to helping Fred with his contractor gigs -- he simply had to do so as a sideline, “moonlighting” as it were. Axel did not continue to live in the building, though. He moved along with the Malms and Amanda to 3024 Williams Street. This spot was probably where Fred was engaged in another building and/or repair project -- his brother Victor and family established themselves next door.

During these early years of the 1910s, Axel went by the name Axel Smith. Amanda also used Smith during this same period. Apparently they felt it was easier to do so than to constantly correct the acquaintances and customers who heard “Smith” even when he said “Smeds,” a problem that plagues members of the family even to this day. Both siblings resumed using Smeds by the middle of the decade.

(Shown at left is the building that housed the D.C. McDonald store and which still bears the business name. Erected in 1904 and now recognized as one of the city’s historic structures, it was the first commercial building in Eureka to be made of concrete walls. Most previous commercial buildings had, logically enough, been constructed of such materials as redwood lumber. Contractor hardware and supplies continued to be sold at the site until 1960. Today it houses the Sister Friends Jeans clothing store. Photo taken by Elliott Smeds 4 June 2012. Alas, at the time of that photo session, research had not yet revealed that the other part of the building was where Axel, Amanda, and the Malm family lived, and that it was home to the restaurant where Augusta worked.)

With the secure job came greater freedom to determine the course of his life. Accordingly, Axel established his own place independent of the Malms, moving by no later than the first part of 1914 into a rental at 2410 Albee. The move was not a complete break from family, though, as Amanda came along, sharing the place and undoubtedly seeing to the “female” responsibilities such as cooking and housekeeping.

Big changes for both siblings would unfold in 1915. For one thing, Axel became an American citizen, taking his oath of office on the thirteenth of May. His sponsors were Oskar Nilsen and Alex Jacobson. For another, Amanda married Charlie Strom in October -- eight years after she had first met him at the Hammond Lumber Company cookhouse. The newlyweds headed off to begin their married lives as farmers in the Reedley area. Billy was still there, having acquired his own acreage. Right at that point, Jack Smeds finally gave up his career as a jeweller in San Francisco and moved down to Reedley permanently. It is an open question whether Axel would have eventually succumbed to the lure of Reedley as well, given that it was so clearly becoming the surrogate Soklot. Axel didn’t live long enough for that question to truly be answered. In the short term, he was committed to staying in Eureka. Among other things, it was where his girlfriend was.

That girlfriend was Ina Marie Jacobsen, who took Amanda’s place as woman of the household at 2410 Albee. She would soon become Axel’s wife. She was best known within the family simply as Marie. She was from Finland, born 16 June 1888 -- meaning she was almost exactly the same age as Axel. Jacobsen is the Danish spelling of the name and so she probably was actually a Jacobson (and in the old country, a Jakobsdotter). She is very likely to have been a sister of Alex Jacobson, Axel’s citizenship sponsor. Marie had immigrated circa 1912 from her home city of Gamlakarleby in Central Ostrobothnia. One of Finland’s great ports, Gamlakarleby is usually known today as Kokkola. It has a prominent history. In the early 1600s, Gamlekarleby was considered to be the richest city in all of Finland due to its shipbuilding industry and the tar trade. Marie had therefore originated from a spot only twenty-five miles northeast up the coast from Soklot. This was very near where Axel’s grandfather Mickel Simonsson Haga was from, and there may have been kinfolk influence in the way Axel and Marie met. One possible intermediary was Alex Jacobson/Jakobsson. He is likely to be the same fellow as Victor Alexander Jacobson, who appears in the 1910 census boarding in Eureka with the widow of Leander Fagernäs. The latter individual, Leander Fagernäs, who had died back in 1902, was one of the relatives who had paved the way in terms of family emigration, settling in Eureka more than a decade before Jack Smeds arrived. Leander was a first cousin of Greta Mickelsdotter Fagernäs Smeds.

Research has not turned up Axel and Marie’s wedding date. It is likely they were not wed until after the birth in the summer of 1915 of their first child, Clarence Axel Smeds, known as Kelly. They may not have wed until 1916. Marie gave birth to a second son, Howard Jacob Smeds, in 1918.

In 1917 or so, Fred Malm managed to obtain enough financing to build enough houses to fill an entire (small) city block along L Street in what was quickly becoming the southern inland residential section of Eureka. The idea was to sell a number of the houses upon completion in order to cover the expenses, and then rent others for a while, selling them later as the neighborhood became more desirable and the available homes fewer, meaning Fred could ask more for each one he sold. This was a plan that ended up working out very well for the Malms, providing the funding needed to buy a large dairy farm south of town, which would be where Augusta and Fred would live out their lives. (The last of the dairy acreage would remain in family hands until 2006.) Among the houses built in 1918 was the one at 2719 L Street. Axel and Marie and their boys moved in, enjoying bargain rent because they were relatives, no doubt providing them with a better set of living quarters than they could have afforded on Axel’s clerk salary.

2719 L Street was to be Axel’s final home. The great influenza pandemic struck. Whereas most diseases do their worst damage among elderly folk and children whose immune systems are weakest, the so-called Spanish Flu claimed many, many victims from among the population of robust young adults, in part by turning their vigorous immune systems against them. Axel made it through the initial onslaught that swept the country in the winter of 1918-1919, but he was not so lucky the following winter. He died 13 March 1920 at only thirty-one years of age. His remains were interred at Ocean View Cemetery in Eureka.

Marie stayed in Eureka. She continued to reside at 2719 L Street. Fred Malm sold off the other houses he had built on schedule, but he hung on to that one and continued to rent it to Marie because he couldn’t bear the thought of forcing Axel’s sons to have to leave the only home they could remember. Thanks to that sentiment, Kelly and Howard were able to grow up in the comfort and security of those same familiar walls.

In the second half of the 1920s, Marie married Frederick Brundydge Lee, a divorced man twenty years her senior. Inasmuch as he had not truly settled in Eureka until then -- he had been staying at the Monte Carlo Hotel, where he was employed as a clerk -- Frederick moved in with Marie and the boys at 2719 L Street. Frederick was the father that Kelly and Howard knew as they came of age. Given how young Howard had been when Axel died, Frederick would be the only father he could remember. That said, he was not well-liked by either Kelly or Howard, and not by the Malms, either. The simple, heartbreaking reality is, Axel was the “good” parent, the one who would have provided the boys with the sort of full-tilt nurturance they deserved. Marie was not the best mother. Kelly moved away as soon as he was old enough to join the Navy, and came back in 1941 after his first hitch only long enough to help Fred Malm refurbish the house at 2719 L Street so as to finally sell it. Howard took a little longer to leave Eureka, but once he did, he moved thousands of miles away and did not come back to California until after his mother was dead.

Marie technically became a stepmother of Frederick’s four children, but they were all grown by the time of the wedding and none came to Eureka when Frederick moved there in the first half of the 1920s. For the most part, they remained in or near San Jose, CA, the place Frederick and first wife Harriet Smutz had called home during the final years of their marriage. Marie therefore barely got to know these stepchildren and never interacted with them on a day-to-day, year-round basis. Frederick, born 6 September 1868 in Battle Creek, Calhoun County, MI, had been raised in Washington County, KS. He and Harriet had continued to make Kansas their home until the early part of the Twentieth Century. Frederick had over the course of his life been a farmer, a street car conductor, a worker at a San Francisco bed factory, and then a hotel clerk, but at about the time he wed Marie he began a long-term career as a barber. He continued to pursue this occupation right up into his early eighties, not retiring until about 1950. In his old age he was also a clergyman.

Frederick Lee passed away at home 15 June 1955, five years into his retirement. Marie survived him. She died 30 November 1957 in a hospital in Eureka. Apparently she was unwilling to choose one husband over the other when making burial arrangements, and now the grave at Ocean View Cemetery and its stone marker are shared by Marie and both Axel and Frederick. (He was often known as Fred and is shown as Fred on the gravemarker. He is referred to by the long version of his name through most of this biography so as to distinguish him from Fred Malm.) (Shown at right is that marker, photographed by Dave Smeds 31 March 2010. Note that it is broken in such a way that Marie’s name would appear to have remained Smeds, as if Axel’s ghost had reached out and declared that he and only he had been her “real” husband.)

Axel and Ina Marie host a visit from Jack and Annie Smeds in late 1918 at their home at 2719 L Street in Eureka, not long after the house was constructed. Lined up left to right (zoomed in on in the view below) are: Mildred Augusta Malm, Lillian Anna Smeds, Axel Smeds, Ina Marie Jacobsen Smeds holding infant Howard Jacob Smeds, small boys Clarence Axel “Kelly” Smeds and Lawrence Jakob Smeds, both seated high up on a tall end table draped with a lace tablecloth, Jakob Herman “Jack” Smeds, Anna Gustava Rautiainen Smeds, Isak Alfred “Fred” Malm, Augusta Sofia Smeds Malm, and Sylvia Alice Smeds.

Children of Axel Smeds with Ina Marie Jacobsen

Clarence Axel Smeds

Howard Jacob Smeds

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