Mini-mystery Solved!

I found a mysterious little postcard in my collection yesterday. It is written in Swedish and was sent to my great-grandmother Clara (Brodd) Pearson.

The picture on the postcard is captioned, “Nazareth Home and Immanuel Hospital, Omaha, Neb.” The card is postmarked September 4, 1918.

My initial assumption was that it had something to do with Clara’s husband, my great-grandfather P.W. Pearson. He was likely symptomatic at this time, or at least showing signs, of the oral cancer that would take his life by June 1920. Was he being treated in this Omaha hospital? From previous research, I know for sure that he received radium treatments at the Birchmont in Omaha in the summer and fall of 1919. 

The handwritten Swedish on the other side of the postcard wasn’t too hard to transcribe and translate. I’m not at all fluent in Swedish, but by working with Swedish genealogy records practically daily – and by taking a little Duolingo Swedish lesson every day –  I can find my way around. (Google Translate and Gemini AI were helpful in this effort as well.)

Here’s what I figured out:

I looked for likely candidates for “Carl” and “Maye” in my family tree and sure enough I found them. I believe the writer of the post card is Carl Eusebius Nelson and he refers to his daughter Mae Anna Nelson.

Carl was Clara’s brother-in-law. He was a widower, his wife Augusta Charlotta (Clara’s sister) had died two years earlier in 1916. Here’s a diagram showing who’s who in this little postcard mystery.

So apparently Carl is in Omaha with his eight-year-old daughter. Visiting P.W. in the hospital? Or is something else going on?

The mystery is quickly solved thanks to the archived copies of the Ceresco Courier available through newspapers.com. It took a little bit of fiddling with search terms “nelson” and “Omaha” which are of course sprinkled everywhere throughout the newspaper for this little Swedish-American community. Narrowing the search to August and September of 1918, I quickly found the answer.

From the September 12, 1918 edition of the Ceresco Courier:

C.E. Nelson went to Omaha Tuesday morning, taking with him his little daughter, who will spent [sic] a short time in a hospital there.

So, mystery solved! I do wonder what the reason was for Mae’s little hospital procedure. The postcard makes it sound like she’s in pretty good spirits. Perhaps a tonsillectomy? Did they do that back then? Looking ahead, I see that Mae died young – a heart attack at age 35. Was this procedure somehow related? Who knows.

I’m sure Clara was concerned about her little niece and had asked her brother-in-law to send news from Omaha once the procedure was complete. Thus the reason for the postcard.

I can never pass up the opportunity to scan the news on the rest of this issue of the Ceresco Courier. There’s always other relatives on the page. Sure enough:

Staple and fancy groceries, standard canned goods, bread, flour and all the substitutes at E.C. Hanson’s.

(Edward C. Hanson is my great-grandfather; he owned a general store)

Herman Brodd will soon have his new home ready for occupancy. It is now in the hands of the plasterers. In addition to a new residence, he has a large new barn built with new corn cribs, hog house and chicken house, built on an up to date plan. All his buildings have been decorated in harmonizing colors. Herman has as fine a farm as can be found in Richland precinct and with the new buildings it certainly represents a fine appearance and will cause those passing by to take more than one look at this fine land so well preserved.

(Herman Brodd is Clara’s brother)

If I’m not mistaken, Herman’s “fine farm” is still there – I believe the house is still standing though I’m not sure about the outbuildings. I could only get a partial view from Google Maps street view.

It’s located one mile north and 1.25 mile west from the old Pearson garage.

I bet one of the relatives can fill in the details in the comments below.