Maria Elisabeth Smeds
Maria Elisabeth Smeds, daughter of Jakob Herman
Mattsson Smeds and Greta Mickelsdotter Fagernäs, was born 30 August 1884 on the ancestral Smeds
estate in Soklot in the parish of Nykarleby, Finland, a place that would continue to be her home
throughout her childhood, as it had been home to several generations of Smedses. She was the
third of six children, second among the girls.
The family might have been bigger still, but Maria’s mother caught a cold that deepened into pneumonia, and she died in early 1891. Maria was only six years old, so it could easily be said that her greatest female role model over the course of her childhood was her paternal grandmother Lisa Jakobsdotter Pörkenäs Smeds. The latter had been an important part of Maria’s life all along as a family member who lived right next door as part of the household of her older son, Erik. Now Lisa shifted houses to live right with Herman and his six youngsters. Unfortunately Lisa passed away in the summer of 1897. Maria had not quite turned thirteen. Fortunately the third of the three adult women she had been raised among was still in place, and she would survive for many years further. She was Erik’s wife Brita, who though she did not move in with Herman as Lisa had, was nevertheless close at hand to provide meals, oversight, and nurturance. Her example was to prove consequential, as Maria would eventually play that same sort of role to children whose biological mother had died young.
By the time Lisa died, Maria’s elder brother Jakob had already left home to become an apprentice to a goldsmith in Jakobstad, the larger town several miles north of Soklot. (In modern times, this community is often referred to by its Finnish-language name, Pietarsaari.) This was part of a progression that would see all six kids launch from home, typically doing so before turning eighteen. Maria’s older sister Augusta was next, departing in the year 1900 to move to the city of city of Vasa. Maria was next. The parish registers, the so-called husförhör volumes, reveal that Maria left home 21 December 1901. She moved to Jakobstad, as her big brother had. He however was no longer there. He had emigrated to the United States, following in the wake of some of Greta’s relatives, and was now based in Eureka, CA. In the spring of 1904, two more members of the family, Augusta and Vilhelm, would do likewise. Jakob’s example was now a precedent. Maria accepted this and was ready to take her turn. She returned home to spend one last interval at Soklot. The husförhör entry indicates she came back 9 May 1904, about six weeks after Vilhelm had made his exit. She would remain about six months. Her precise departure date is not known, but it must have been in either December, 1904 or January, 1905.
(Below right is the church Maria attended in Jakobstad.) Maria’s intention was to proceed all the way to Eureka. This would be precisely what her father and her two youngest siblings, Axel and Amanda, would do two years later. However, on the ship crossing the Atlantic, Maria met the man who was to become her husband. In deciding to be part of his household, Maria’s destiny took a huge “left turn” and caused her to reside three thousand miles away from the other members of her birth family for the rest of her days.
The man she met on the ocean liner was Carl James Amos
Johnson. He appears by all three of his given
names depending on the source. His surviving grandchildren, when asked in 2018, indicate he was best
known as James, but that would appear to be a preference he demonstrated in his later years and may not
apply to the period when Maria first knew him. He will be called Carl for the rest of this biography so
as to better distinguish him from his eldest son. Carl was Norwegian, born 10 March 1869 in or near Oslo
back when that city was still known as Christiana. His parents were John Jorgenson and Maria Karolina
Narvesen, i.e. Carl was a Johnson because he observed the Nordic naming tradition and used a surname
derived from his father’s first name. Raised in Norway, Carl came as a young man to the United States,
his journey taking place either in the late 1880s or in the first part of the year 1890. He soon
established himself in Berlin, Coos County, NH. One of the main industries of the region was paper
production, and Berlin was a pulp-mill town. The major employer was Berlin Mills, owned by the Brown
family. Many of the employees were immigrants. It was only natural that Carl went to work there, eventually
establishing himself as one of the engineers maintaining the steam equipment.
In 1894, twenty-year-old Hannah Erickson arrived in Berlin from Vaasa, Finland, travelling in the company of her stepmother Johanna Lindahl Erickson. The two women were joining Hannah’s father, Michael Erickson, who had come to America in 1888, and now that he was a naturalized U.S. citizen, could sponsor the rest of his family. It didn’t take long after Hannah’s arrival until she and Carl met and grew to like each other. Soon a pregnancy was underway. The pair were wed 27 September 1895 in Berlin. First child James John Johnson was born 8 April 1896.
Carl and Hannah took their time expanding their family. Given the tendency in their era to have babies at quick intervals, the pace may be a hint that Hannah’s heart had been weakened by a rheumatic fever in her childhood -- or something of that nature -- and was not well equipped to endure the strain of pregnancy. Second child Handey Emil Johnson was born 1 January 1900. Hannah made it through that ordeal okay. Ironically, it was the baby who did not thrive. At five months, he developed an infection due to teething problems. He died on the tenth of June. The next pregnancy, though, was more than Hannah could deal with. She managed to give birth to a healthy daughter, Mary Alvilda Johnson, but the labor, which appears to have lasted two days, overtaxed her heart. Hannah died 26 July 1903, just three days after Alvilda was born.
Carl was now a single father. His son James was by then old enough to go to school and it appears Carl retained primary custody of the boy. However, for the time being, Alvilda was raised by her grandparents, Michael and Johanna Erickson, who lived in the same neighborhood as Carl. A longer-term childcare solution was needed. Carl’s search for a wife took him all the way back to Norway, where he perhaps hoped to convince a sweetheart of his youth to consider the prospect of a life in America. His mission did not succeed. He was still unattached when he met Maria Smeds on the voyage home.
Maria was delighted to find a fellow traveller with whom she could speak. Carl had learned Swedish while married to Hannah, and furthermore was even accustomed to hearing a Vaasa-region accent. They were so taken with each other that by the time they reached port, they decided to marry. Maria never made it out to California. She settled with Carl in Berlin, where the wedding was held 6 February 1905. (Shown below left is a postcard of Berlin that happens to have been printed in 1905.)
Early in her stay, Maria Americanized her first name to Mary,
though like her sister-in-law Maria Rautiainen Smeds, she sometimes used Marie. It was just one of many changes.
Becoming a stepmother was of course one of the big transformations in her lifestyle. Soon she discovered what
it was like to be a biological mother as well. Daughter Esther (nicknamed Esta) Johnson was born 1 June 1906.
Births followed at a steady every-other-year pace until her brood was complete. Thelma Johnson was born 2 May
1908, and Walter Johnson 8 March 1910.
Mary did not have to be self-conscious that her native tongue was not English, nor be embarrassed about having an accent. Berlin was a polyglot place, and not just because of the Scandinavian presence. Language diversity had been the rule from Berlin’s earliest days. Located against the White Mountains, Berlin is only sixty miles from French-speaking Canada. Even now in the 21st Century, nearly two-thirds of Berlin’s population speaks a dialect known as “Berlin French.” She would eventually even have a son-in-law whose first language was French.
As far as can be determined, Mary and Carl lived in the same house throughout their marriage. If they did ever live elsewhere, it was a brief period at the very beginning of their time together. All records from 1910 onward show them in the same residence at 232 Denmark Street. Shown below right is a photograph of four-year-old Walter Johnson in the yard of that residence in the mid-1910s.
In mid-October, 1916, eight-year-old Thelma caught diphtheria. She fought it for four days only to succumb on the twenty-second of the month. Carl had endured the loss of a child before, but it was new kind of heartache for Mary. Further, the tragedy came on the heels of another transition. James John Johnson had married his sweetheart Dagmar Henrikke Nielsen the previous Valentine’s Day. Mary’s home was now much emptier than it had been at the beginning of 1916 -- though not as empty as it might have been because Alvilda was now part of the household, her grandmother Johanna Erickson having passed away in early 1915.
Life was secure for the family through World War I and into the early 1920s. Carl’s job situation was dependable, with Berlin Mills dominating the paper/pulp industry of all New England, though in 1917 the owners felt obliged to rename their firm The Brown Company because anti-German sentiment was high, and customers too often reacted negatively to paper products they feared had been manufactured in Berlin, Germany. Mary became a (step) grandmother during this period as James and Dagmar became parents of children Frances (in 1917), Raymond (in 1918), and Winefred (in 1922). Alvilda married local boy Allyre Joseph Gagne in 1921. That marriage would go on to yield five kids (not counting a stillborn daughter). Fifteen to twenty years after coming to Berlin, now in the second half of her thirties, Mary may well have been anticipating growing old as the matriarch of an ever-increasing clan, all close at hand, enjoying the steadiest of situations. But change was in the wind. In 1923, James and Dagmar left Berlin, and did so in a big way. There were paper mills in many parts of the country and James found one that wanted him all the way down in Louisiana, which is where the couple would remain for over two decades. Then in 1928, at age eighteen, only two months after graduating from high school, Walter took off for Eureka, where he went to work at the dairy owned by Mary’s sister Augusta and brother-in-law Fred Malm. While Walter would move on from Eureka after a few years, he would never again live anywhere but in the Far West.
For the time being, the girls stayed. Alvilda’s family grew.
Her husband Allyre was employed by The Brown Company. Esta graduated from high school in 1924 and went on to become
employed as a food preparer in The Brown Company commissary. Mary’s child-rearing phase was coming to a close. With
“extra” time on her hands, Mary expanded her involvement in the society life of Berlin as a hostess, cook, and
all-around volunteer. An article from a 1926 issue of The Brown Bulletin -- the newsletter of The Brown
Company -- includes her name among the homeowners deserving special mention for the flower gardens they had
planted as part of a company-sponsored civic effort to beautify the front yards of the town. Alvilda was another
of those who received a commendation, complete with a photograph of her yard. Alvilda’s two surviving daughters
still recall (in 2018) the beauty of the roses in those yards.
The Great Depression slammed Berlin hard. The Brown Company went into receivership. Though the doors were kept open and rolls of paper continued to be shipped, lay-offs became common, turning the mood of the community grim. Carl and other long-standing employees were retained, but various friends and neighbors of the Johnsons had no choice but to move away. Esta was soon among those who departed, echoing the examples of her brothers. She went to Detroit, MI, and for the rest of her life was based either in the city or in one of its suburbs. Esta and Mary remained emotionally close, but naturally things were not as they had been while Esta had still been at home. Mary must have felt the absence sharply. She did at least get to be a “local grandmother” figure to Alvilda’s kids. This bond was however not expressed as often or as tenderly as it might have been. Mary and in particular Carl both possessed the classic Scandinavian attitude that “children should be seen and not heard.” Alvilda tended to shelter her youngsters from grandparents they viewed as “scary.” Moreover, the interpersonal dynamic between Alvilda and Mary had a Cinderella versus her stepmother quality. When Alvilda had still lived at home, she was the daughter burdened with the drudge chores while Esta was the “real” daughter whom her mother tended to spoil. The ambivalence was deep enough the two households didn’t even get together for holiday feasts.
In 1940, Carl retired, having been with Berlin Mills-The Brown Company for fifty years. Mary was only fifty-five and it is likely she would have endorsed a change of venue to, say, Louisiana or California, particularly because Walter and his bride Joyce West were now settled in San Francisco. But Carl was comfortable where he was. Move to a place where it never snows? Unthinkable. And so the retirees stayed in Berlin. This continued to be the case even as James and Dagmar relocated to southern California just after World War II.
Once Carl was retired, he and Mary did not have enough funds to just kick back and enjoy old age, but he was no longer the sort of employee anyone would hire because he had developed a heart condition. He did have one thing he could do in his home workshop, though. He made snowshoes. He became renowned for it -- a “best snowshoe maker in Berlin” sort of reputation. Still, this was an avocation, bringing in a limited amount of money. It fell to Mary to be the breadwinner of the household. She did so by selling Avon beauty products.
Carl’s heart gave out for good 22 February 1948. For the second time in less than a decade, Mary faced a potential turning point and could have relocated or otherwise wrought a very different set of circumstances for herself. By this time even Alvilda was no longer Berlin-based, having as a divorcée moved to Boston. However, as near as can be reconstructed, Mary chose to remain where she was, except that she made some visits outside New Hampshire. For example, she went to see Esta in Detroit. In particular, she was sure to have gone there in May, 1948, just three months into her widowhood, in order to be present when Esta wed second husband Sterling Osborn Ness.
Mary made at least one far longer trip. In the autumn of 1949, Mary finally made it out to California. Naturally she visited with her sons and their families, but she also made a point to see her surviving siblings Jack, Billy, and Amanda and their families in Reedley. She was accompanied by Esta, who in turn was accompanied by her new husband, as well as by her stepdaughter, Margaret Ness, age nine-and-a-half. Sterling was a department-store Santa Claus and put on his suit to entertain the Smeds kids and neighbor children, and was forever remembered for what a good job he did in the role.
Nephew Alfred Smeds recalled in the 1980s that Mary passed away in 1955. Al was known for his sharp memory, but it is possible he got the year wrong. Confirmation has so far not been possible through public records, in part because the name “Mary Johnson” is so common it essentially is useless as a search parameter. Alvilda’s youngest daughter, when asked in 2018, said she did not recall the year but that she did remember that Esta came from Detroit to take care of Mary when she slipped into her final decline of health, so apparently Berlin was the place of death.
Esta died in 1970 in Detroit. Walter Johnson and James John Johnson lived out their final days in southern California, the former passing away in 1978 and the latter in 1969. Alvilda Johnson Gagne remained in Boston until at least 1975. She was the long-lived one of the family, making it all the way to the spring of 1991 before breathing her last at a hospital in Lowell, MA.
This group photograph was taken on the farm of Roy and Mildred Smeds during the 1949 visit to Reedley. The four men left to right in back are Billy Smeds, Jack Smeds, Charley Strom, and neighbor A.A. Westerlund. Left to right in the front standing row (the row immediately behind the squatting younger members of the family) are Mildred Smeds, possibly Fred Malm, Mary (Smeds) Johnson, Marie (Rautiainen) Smeds, Amanda Strom, Annie Smeds, Mildred (Malm) Lieber, and Opal Smeds, with an unidentified boy, possibly Kyle Lieber, off to the far right by the car. Left to right squatting in front are Esta (Johnson) Ness, Bob Quinney, Lillian Quinney, Alfred Smeds, Gayle Jost (the toddler), Erwin Jost, Frances Jost, Walter Johnson, Jo Smeds, and Joyce (West) Johnson.
Children of Maria Elisabeth Smeds
with Carl James Amos Johnson
Thelma
Victoria Alvilda Johnson
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