Uncle Anton

My mother never told me about her half-brother and the scandal surrounding his life.

————

It hangs on the wall behind the piano, the large photograph of my mother’s family taken in 1904. My mother, the baby, sits on my grandmother’s lap. My grandfather, Adolf Johansson, holds a toddler, an uncle I never met. Six children occupy this large formal portrait, along with their parents. Eleven would be the final number of Adolf and Ida’s surviving children. Little Sara would die in infancy. And then there was Anton.

As I was growing up, thousands of miles from my mother’s Swedish homeland, I would sometimes hear about Anton. “Who is he?” I would ask, and my mother would say, “He is my half-brother.” “How is it that you have a half-brother?” I would ask. “My mother was married to another man before she married my father.”

Who was that man my mormor—my mother’s mother— was married to? I never asked, but I wondered. What happened to him? Did he die?

Years later my aunt told me the truth. “Your grandmother was not married when Anton was born.”

The mist of over a hundred years now separates me from Anton’s birth in a country more than three thousand miles away. I imagine Ida as a young and desirable woman. In my photograph she is not smiling, but no one smiled those days in photographs. Mormor had a toothache that day, my mother said, so her face was swollen. Still I imagine.

It is 1896, and Ida is nineteen years old. She walks through the woods looking for the blueberry bushes she knows will have juicy fruit. A hand reaches out from behind a tree and grabs her arm, and she gasps. It is Karl Gustav, the eldest son of Jonas Jansson, whose prosperous farm lies next to Ida’s home.

“Karl Gustav, what are you doing?”

He tightens his grip on her arm. “I mean to have you.”

“Nej, nej, Karl Gustav, I must go!”

He touches her breast, and she backs away. “Nej!” she screams.

“Ja! Ja!” He laughs and grabs her other arm. She screams as he tosses her on the soft ground. It is painful but soon over. Karl Gustav stands up and says, “Stop crying. The next time will be more pleasant.” Ida rolls over and gets to her feet. She is sobbing. There would be no blueberries today. What would she tell Mor and Far?

My Uncle Anton was born nine months later.

Or perhaps it happened in another way: One day Ida tells her parents she is going to pick blueberries. She grabs a basket and skips away from the house down a path. She pinches her cheeks to make her complexion more vibrant. She straightens her skirt and runs her tongue around her lips. Soon she will be meeting Karl Gustav.

Ida’s family was poor, and Karl Gustav’s family was not quite rich, but rich enough so they would not have anything to do with the Håkansson family. Karl Gustav would see Ida in church. Her family sat in the back, but Karl Gustav’s family occupied their own pew in front. Sometimes he would wink at her. She would give him a furtive smile back. But today she hoped she would be able to give him a bold smile, and he would kiss her.

She walks through the woods, swinging her empty basket back and forth. She starts to sing an old song. Suddenly two hands shield her eyes, and a familiar voice says, “Ida, I knew you would come.”

“Karl Gustav, I was just going to pick blueberries.”

“Nej, nej, you were coming here to meet me. You knew I would be here.”

She turns into his arms. “I didn’t know, but I thought you might be." She smiles and puts her face up to his as they kiss.

“A lovely day it is, a lovely day to love you, min lilla Ida.” He takes her by the hand and walks deeper into the woods. Soon they come to a little clearing. The pine trees give off a brisk, clean scent. Karl Gustav gently lays Ida on the ground. “My love, you are all I want.”

And so my grandmother let him do what he wanted to do.

She was unwilling, or she was willing, but in any case she did not marry the father of her first child. I imagine Ida telling her parents that she was going to have a baby.

“Who is the father?”

“Karl Gustav. He forced himself on me.” Or perhaps she said this: “Karl Gustav. He wants to marry me.”

“He will never marry you. His family is above us. They barely greet us in church. It will never happen.”

“But it must happen. What will I do? How can I have a baby without a husband?”

“We will find you one.”

The man I have named Karl Gustav would not or could not marry Ida. He no doubt married someone else, someone closer to his exalted station, if, in fact, my musings are in any way true.

This much is true, or partially true. My great-grandparents began their quest to find a husband for Ida. They found him: Adolf Johansson. Again I imagine what happened. A hardworking farmhand, Adolf labored on the Janssons’ farm. Tall, with dark brown hair and a flowing mustache—for so he appears in my photograph—Adolf lived on the farm, taking orders from the Janssons, plowing and sowing and reaping, pulling weeds, repairing fences, tending to

the horses and cows and goats and pigs. He liked getting his hands dirty, and he liked the satisfaction of a job completed and done correctly.

My great-grandfather saddled his horse and went looking for Adolf Johansson. He found him at the end of a field, repairing a fence.

“God dag, Adolf. I have something to ask of you. This is a difficult situation. My daughter Ida is going to have a baby. I don’t know how this happened. She needs a husband, and I think you could use a wife.”

“A wife? How can I support a wife? I am a poor farmhand. Why can’t she marry the baby’s father?”

“That is impossible. He will not marry her. We will give you 1000 kronor, if you marry our Ida. She works hard, and she is healthy. She will be a loyal wife.”

“Ja? That many kronor to marry your daughter?

“Ja, Adolf. Wouldn’t you like to buy your own farm? You don’t want to just be a farmhand, do you?”

“My own farm? Ja, I would like that.”

“My daughter would be a help to you. She is strong.”

“Have you asked her? Is she willing to marry me? We hardly know each other.”

“Ja, she is willing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ja, I am sure.”

“Well, if Ida is willing, then so am I. But the child--I do not think I want to raise another man’s child.”

My great-grandfather looked tired and old. He sighed. “All right. I do not want my grandchild to be in an orphanage. My wife and I will take care of the baby. The baby will live with us.”

Perhaps it happened that way, but this I know to be true: My grandfather, Adolf Johansson, was able to buy a farm near Asarum in the province of Blekinge in southern Sweden. My great-grandparents did give him 1000 kronor when he married my grandmother. He called the farm Björnamåla and married Ida Sofia Håkansdotter on March 20, 1897. Adolf was thirty-four and Ida twenty-two.

My Uncle Anton, the child without a father, grew up in his grandparents’ home. In time he married and had children. Perhaps someday I will meet those cousins, Anton's children, and their children. But will I ask them about their father and their grandfather, the black sheep of the family? Perhaps.

Anton's half-sister, my mother, was ashamed of him. She did not want to talk about him. She did not like to think about him.

I think about him.

By Anita G. Gorman

From: United States

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