Next, Ellida writes about the house she lived in. She said it was owned by the coal company. The multi-story buildings housed six families each, and they had nicknames such “Red House” and “Ash House”. Ellida and her family lived in the “Aske husen” or “Ash House”. Unfortunately, the records only show these home by number, not by name. And it’s hard to tell which six are grouped together, they are just listed in numerical order.
Ellida and her family lived in house number 131 out of a total of 554 all together. This seems like a pretty big coal operation to me! She also said her father was a blacksmith at the mine. He sharpened tools and in his spare time, he made horseshoes and knives and did metal repair. As I mentioned last time, his stated occupation was a “stoker” so certainly he was indeed associated with metal work of some kind.
Ellida was very proud of her name and said she was the only girl in the village that had the name “Ellida”. She said it was a Viking name and associated with a magical Viking ship. This is really true! It is associated with the Norse myths about Frithiof the Bold.
She mentions in passing that another sister was born when she was two years old. This is true – we see in the record book that Hulda Lovisa was born in 1884.
Ellida writes very fondly about her sister Ida. She even suggests that Ida prevented her parents from allowing Ellida to be adopted by another family. She says that Ida emigrated to America in 1886 thanks to a ticket from an uncle. The family legend is that the uncle was none other than Christian Pearson! More about that next time.
