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Olaf Gustav Berg Född 1876-11-16 i Gravbäck, Botsmark, Sävar (AC). Präst |
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Olof Anton Andersson Tjernberg Berg.
Född 1845-01-22 i Bygdeå (AC). |
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Anders Gustaf Andersson.
Född 1820-11-02 i Brännforssund, Degerfors kbfd (AC). |
FFF Nathanael Anderson. Född 1801. |
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Ulrika Quist.
Född 1842-11-09. |
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Ett översatt avsnitt "Olafs minnen från 1880-talet" ur Earl Matsons självbiografi "Gifted and Lifted" finns på http://larsv.mine.nu/2020/01/13/minnen-fran-1880-talet/
Excerpt from the autobiography "Gifted and lifted", by Earl Matson:
Olaf Gustaf wrote down some brief reflections about his childhood. In it he describes the extreme poverty under which the familylived. He also relates information concerning the spiritual enrichment hismother brought to the family circle.
Olaf writes: Every summer the early frost was their worst enemy. Very often it appeared and destroyed the small crop. This meant little food and difficult hardships during the coming winter. Then they had to go out into the woods and into snow that was often six feet deep, chop timber, saw it into boards and drive it seven, twelve, and sometimes as far as forty miles and trade it for some of life’s necessities. Another source of income was the manufacturing of tar and boiling of potash. Olaf recalls that all of the boys, his father and uncles, had innate intellectual skills. Hear Olaf continue to tell the story in his own words:
I can truthfully say that the Grafback family was a peculiar one. The bothers—there were four—were all known for their thirst for knowledge. One day when my father was preparing to be confirmed, he asked the minister if he could borrow a more explicit explanation of the catechism. A little perturbed, the minister said, “What do you need that for? You could just as well sit down and write such a book yourself.” Another example: When my grandfather, Nataneal, was preparing to be confirmed, the minister asked him if he had learned his Bible stories. To that question he answered negatively. The minister then told him that if he didn’t want to learn the Bible stories he couldn’t be confirmed. The boy then asked if it wasn’t good enough to know the Bible; whereupon he said he was willing to take a test on this book. At the test, he was found to have such a good knowledge of the scriptures that he wouldn’t have to be questioned on the Bible stories.
He goes on to tell that Grafback was thirty-five miles from the nearest church, so the family worshipped there only a couple of times a year. But there was apparently a deep spirituality in the family. On Sundays the family would gather around the Word of God and Olaf”s grandfather served as the minister of the house. The whole family sat very still while he read from the Bible and published sermons. Olaf continues the account of his own parents:
My parents married in the fall of 1872. Both were as poor as church mice. Only four years before, a terrible famine had occurred in Scandinavia. The inhabitants of Grafback then had to leave. They went their separate ways to be able to support themselves. Therefore you can hardly imagine what it meant for a young couple, without assets, with the prospects of acquiring something of their own, to support a continuously growing family. To begin with, they had no house to live in and so they furnished, to the best of their ability, a corner of the barn. There they lived the first year. And there I was born, if I am correctly informed. Grandfather built a new house however and then we could move into the old one.
He then goes on to describe this house:
This little house where I spent my first eight years of life was very primitive. It was in the shape of a rectangle, possibly 12 x 24’. The south part had been interior wall so that the living room itself may have been 12 x 16’. This room constituted the kitchen, parlor, bedroom, everything. In the southwest corner was the en-trance. In the southeast corner was the fireplace. It was build of rough rock, since there was a lack of bricks. There were two windows, one on the northern and one on the western side. The walls consisted of crudely chopped logs. Between the logs they had put moss to keep the severe winters out.
The education the children received was done at home. As a boy, Olaf purchased his first book, a Catechism with money he had earned. He credits his mother with providing the spiritual nourishment in the family. Though she was handicapped in some ways (she was near-sighted), she had one great virtue that overshadowed her defects. Olaf said that she was warmly devoted to her Savior. She sought to bring up her children to be honest and respectable human beings. She prayed often. Again, let Olaf describe her:
Every morning when I awoke, I saw her reading the scriptures by the weak light from the fireplace flames or else she was bowed in prayer. She instilled in us child-ren the highest moral concepts. She kept warning us of sin. Her ideals were always higher than materialism. The last words I heard from her mouth when I left my home the last time were, “Remember, Gustav, that it doesn’t help if one wins the world but loses himself.”
Olaf then adds these words about his childhood:
The memories of my early infancy are sweet in spite of the poverty that prevailed in our home. Mostly, we had enough food. I remember, on one occasion, when we didn’t have a bit of food for more than two days. The reason was a terrible thaw (snow melting) that prevented father from getting home (he had walked to the next village to get food). We didn’t have a lot of clothes, though. Until I was seven years old, I didn’t have a pair of shoes. However, this didn’t keep me inside the cabin during the long winters. We children played and ran in the cold snow. When our feet got too cold, we had to go inside and warm them by the fire-place and then out again.
This family certainly fit the profile of those who for economic reasons finally left Sweden for the United States. George Berg’s research into the family tree indicates that prior to Olaf Anton Andersson’s coming to the new land, he was in jail for stealing food for his family. When released, he changed his name to Tjernberg, which means “mountain lake,” and came to America for a new start. In time all the children came to the United States and shortened the name to Berg.
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Gift.
Lillie Teresa Peterson. 
Född
i Brockton
1886-05-05
i Massachusetts.
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Framställd 2026-07-03 av Lars Östling med hjälp av Disgen version 2023.
Startsida.
Född
1909-08-20.
