Thelma Victoria Alvilda Johnson

Thelma Victoria Alvilda Johnson, daughter of Maria Elisabeth Smeds and Carl James Amos Johnson, was born 2 May 1908 in Berlin, Coos County, NH. She was baptized the following seventh of June at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Berlin. She was only the fourth grandchild of Herman Smeds to come into existence and was among the few he might have lived to see -- though it is likely he never saw this particular granddaughter because he was by then living in California and there is no mention of family members bridging the three-thousand mile separation for visits until long after Herman had died.

Unfortunately Thelma’s life was cut short by diphtheria at only eight-and-a-half years of age, so there is very little about her with which to fill a biography. She can be said to have enjoyed a secure life, all of it spent in the same home on Denmark Street, attending St. Paul’s and the local public school when she was old enough, and playing and studying with the same group of children. The town was at a steady point in its fortunes, with most of the male heads-of-household employed at the local paper mill -- something that was the case with her own father.

Her date of death was listed here as 22 October 1916 for many years, but that was an erroneous date that sprang from a death index and was actually the date she was buried in the city cemetery. Thelma actually died on the twentieth. She passed away at home.

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