Carlson, Emil Family

CARLSON, NILSON, CARSON, WAGNER, GRUNFELDER

Posted By: Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer
Date: 6/28/2019 at 18:57:50

Emil Carlson Family

"Reflections of Grand River, Iowa 1881-1981"
Clarke Pub. Co. Osceola IA. 1981.

Emil Carlson, son of Elna and Carl Nilson, was born September 13, 1897, in Sweden. Olga Hilda Carson, daughter of Olga and Adam Wagner was born January 28, 1896, in Rowley, Ia., and died June 2, 1978. They were married July 3, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois. They have two children: Wilmer (born in 1927) and Arlene Bernice (born in 1931). They have four grandsons, four granddaughters and one great granddaughter.

In the year 1922, Theodore Grunfelder settled on an 80 acre farm in what is called the Tennessee area of Grand River. He came from Switzerland; and having quite an accent, he was very hard to converse with but was always willing. He will always be remembered coming to town in his team and buggy and calling out to friends. He worked long, hard hours on this farm with his team of horses and remained a bachelor all his life so he had to do his own cooking, etc.

Theodore became very ill in the year 1947 and had friends write his niece, Olga Carlson, who lived in Chicago to ask her to come and care for him. Olga and her husband, Emil, came to see Theodore, only planning to stay a few days and ended up staying six weeks. At the time they came, they ventured at night on at least seven miles of mud road and ended up walking part of the way. This was quite an experience for them. After much thought and discussion, they came to live and care for Theodore until he died in August of 1947.

Having no running water or electricity was a great change in their life style. It, however, filled Emil's dreams of living and working on a farm; but Olga had a hard time adjusting. As time went on, however, she became a typical farm wife, gardening, canning, milking, picking corn, raising chickens and making feed sack dresses. Many people thought they would not last long on the farm, but they lived there, making a good living and many friends until they retired to a nice little home in Osceola, Iowa in 1972. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1976. Olga died in June of 1978, and Emil has carried on alone.

You may have noticed Emil's parent's last name being different than his. It was the custom in Sweden at that time for the children to take their father's first name and add "son" to it thus making their last name. One funny excerpt about Emil: when he came to Grand River, no one could understand him due to his Swedish accent and he got so upset having to repeat himself that one day he asked his family, "Doesn't anyone around this place understand English?"

Copied from "Reflections of Grand River 1881-1981" by Stacey McDowell Dietiker, May 21, 2001