George Olsen is my generation's great, great grandfather.  He was father to Clara (and Florence) who married James B. Thorsen.  He was grandfather to Bano/Blanche, Alice and the six brothers.  He was great grand-father to Don, Wally and Nancy Lawder, and great, great grandfather to our generation of cousins.

We mostly think about Emily Olsen, George's wife, but this obituary from 1906 gives a detailed story of his life and accomplishments.

From the Wicker Park Eagle 1906 (Chicago)

Obituary.

The funeral of Geo. Olsen, 36 Le Moyne Street, was held on Tuesday, January 16, interment being at Graceland.

Geo. Olsen of the firm of Geo. Olsen & Son, contractors and builders, was one of the old, extensive, and active builders of this city, although he commenced on a small scale in 1857. He has erected hundreds of structures, partly in full and partly in carpenters’ and joiners’ work only. He began in the fifties, according to his own designs and drawings, the building of cottages, two and three story frame buildings, and continued up to about 1867. In 1868 he designed and built one of the first brick buildings on Milwaukee avenue, a block of six stories and flats, corner of Huron street and Milwaukee avenue, 140 feet front (one-half belonging to himself); also several other brick and frame buildings on that avenue and other streets, principally in the northwestern part of the city. He designed and build the first stone-front building on Milwaukee avenue at the intersection of Peoria street, the Bohemian Turner hall on Taylor street, scores of two story brick houses for Col. Augustus Jacobsen, and several for Geo. H. Severson.  After the great fire he concluded as a business matter to let the architects do the designing, so as to stand a better chance for competition.

Mr. Olsen was born in Denmark February 25, 1825. He came to the United States in 1854 and after six weeks voyage in a sail vessel landed in New York. He worked at his trade there a short time, then went to Boston where he worked eight months in a cabinet shop and was also then employed in the great Chickering piano works. From there he came to Chicago in April,, 1855, but not liking it here remained but a few months, working at home building and in an ice box factory. He then went to Madison, Wis., worked at cabinet and house building till October, then to New Orleans, working there during the winter of 1855 and 1856 in a shipyard and cabinet shop. Thence to St. Louis, Mo., working there about three months at house building and cabinet work, and finally arriving in Chicago again May 10, 1856. In June, 1857, he began contracting for buildings. In 1859, owing to a general stagnation in all trades, he engaged in manufacturing and wholesaling liquors. In the spring of 1869 he went to Memphis, Tenn., and established a factory and sales house of mineral waters. He was very successful for a time, but the rebellion in 1861 sent him back to Chicago again, which from that time was his permanent home. He learned his trade as a joiner and cabinetmaker in Denmark. He served five years as an apprentice, worked seven years at his trade in Copenhagen, and most of that time attended a technical institute in the evenings, were drawing and mathematics were taught and instructive lectures were given. In 1859 he married a Danish lady named Emily Miller. The same year he became a Free Mason. He has been for many years a member of the Builders’’ and Trades Exchange, the Carpenters’ and Builders’ Associations, and several other societies.

He is survived by two sons, Viggo F. [the ‘son’ in the firm Geo. Olsen & Son] and Edwin Olsen (district manager Bankers’ Endowment Association) and three daughters, Mrs. H. T. Grund [Anna], Mrs. J. B. Thorsen [Florence] and Mrs. C. E. Faye [Dagmar]. He was 81 years of age. “

From a Xerox copy of the newspaper belonging to Aunt Alice [Thorsen] Taylor.

The lost cousin, Alice M. Lawder (1912-?)

Don, Wally and Nancy Lawder had a cousin they never knew, Alice Lawder, named after their shared grandmother, Alice [Van Houten] Lawder, Papa's mother.  Cousin Alice was born one hundred years ago today, April 26, 1912, in San Antonio, Texas.  Her parents were Charles Vernon Lawder, Papa's half brother and his wife, Swedish-born Anna [Nylander] Lawder.  Charles was the first child of Papa's mother, Alice Van Houten, and her first husband, Alonzo Lumbard, but both Lumbard children took on the Lawder name after their mother remarried.  

At the time of Cousin Alice's birth in 1912, her parents Charles and Anna lived south of the Texas border where he was an experienced staff foreman in the gold mine in Hidalgo de Perral, in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico.  It seems likely that they traveled to Texas just for the birth of their daughter since they returned to Chihuahua to live.  Papa's mother Alice treasured a black and white photo of Charles (whom she called "Vernie"), Anna and their daughter.  She wrote on the back of the photo in pencil "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Vernon Lawder and their two year old girl, Alice, in the back yard of their home in Mexico City.  Please return [photo] to Mrs. Alice Lawder, 1109 E. 65th St., Chicago." [I'll post this photo as soon as I re-find it!  Sorry.]

Did Papa ever know of his niece's birth?  Don, Wally and Nancy never knew of her existence.  Even the memory of Papa's half-brother was hazy to them.  His brother was 11 years older than he and may have not stayed in his mother's house past his mid-teens.  Charles, b. 1878, was one of two children from Alice Van Houten's first marriage, Mary, later known as "Aunt Dot" to Don, Wally and Nancy) was born in 1881, both in Delaware Ohio.  They would have experienced a violent home life with their abusive father before Alice successfully sued for divorce in 1884.  Papa remained very close to his half-sister, Mary (Dot) throughout his life, wrote her loving letters and supported her in her later years as a widow in Chicago.

Charles died of pneumonia while in Mexico in November 1917, age 40. [Aside:  the news of Charles' death was reported in a Chicago newspaper and the notice mentioned his mother Alice Lawder, a Chicago resident.  This article was seen by Alice's own half-sister, Mary (Mamie Van Houten Dawes).  Mamie Dawes and Alice Lawder hadn't been in touch for twenty years.  They discovered that they had been living only 3 blocks apart in Chicago for a decade!]  Charles' wife, Anna, filed the form to report his death to the embassy (online at Ancestry.com).  Anna had to wait six months for a passport to return with her 7 year old daughter Alice to Kansas City where Grandmother Alice and her son Donald (Papa) were still living, Papa then a reporter for the Kansas City Star.  Or at least, Anna said she was heading for Kansas City on her passport form in 1918.  Did she ever contact her mother-in-law, Alice?  Did she go to Kansas City?  We find her in 1930 living with her 18 yr. old daughter Alice in Newark, New Jersey, less than 50 miles away from Papa, Bano and their 3 children in Greenwich, CT.  Was there any contact between them?  Alice Maria [Nylander] Lawder never remarried, worked as a "servant" according to the census, and lived a long life.  She died at the age of 101, still in Newark NJ in 1978.

And what happened to her daughter Alice, the "lost cousin"?  She would be 100 years old today.  Maybe the 1940 census will give us the next clue.  If she married and changed her name, she's harder to find.

Papa in 1921

"Papa in 1921   taken overlooking Lake Michigan where we had a summer house at Lakeside, Michigan".  Words on back of photo probably written by Blanche/Bano.

Dressed to be adorable, Papa as a toddler.

Here's a photo of Papa, Donald Lawder, Sr., taken in Paola, Kansas in 1891 perhaps.  Papa was born in Paola, and lived there from his birth in 22 Sept. 1889, until 1895 when he moved with his parents, Alice VH and Paul Lawder, his step-sister Mary (aka Aunt Dot)  to Kansas City, Missouri. Notice that he still had all 10 fingers...

Portrait of oldest Olsen children, Viggo, Anna, and Clara, mid-1860s

Who remembers this group portrait from Bano's?  Or Mom's apartment in the corner behind the palm tree?  Mom knew that one of the girls was Clara, her grandmother, but I only realized the identity of the others recently.  The portrait is done in charcoal in the mid-1860s of the three oldest children of George and Emily [Miller] Olsen.  The Danish-born couple had met and married in Memphis, TN in 1859 and moved to Chicago as the Civil War was starting. They seem to have been pretty prosperous from the start (portraits already!). And the children came quickly.  From left to right, the children are baby Viggo (b. 1863), their firstborn Anna (b. 1861), and 2nd daughter Clara Estella (b. 1862).  [Their sister, Dagmar, mentioned in the previous post, wasn't born till 1866.]

Clara died of the flu or grippe, at the age of 29, leaving her husband James B. Thorsen and their four children, Blanche (Bano), Alice, Mitchell, and George).  Two years later, James B. married a still younger Olsen sister, Florence (b. 1871), who had four more children and was "Grandmother Florence" to Nancy, Wally and Don (and some of my generation who remember her).

Anna Olsen (later Anna Grund) had several children all of whom Aunt Alice kept track of.  The one my sisters and I remember is "Aunt Elinor" [Grund] Reynolds.  Viggo we don't know much about at all (yet).  He married (Hattie) and had a daughter Harriet and made his living working in construction with his father.

History of Mom's treasured Danish coffeepot

A hand-written note inside tells the story.  The note is from Dagmar Olsen Faye to her niece, Blanche Thorsen Lawder (our Bano).

“Chicago, March 9, 1940

My Dear Blanche,

When I visited Petrea  ….berg in Copenhagen in Sept. 1892. In serving coffee after dinner, I admired her coffee pot. And she said it had been her Grandmother’s.  Petrea and My Mother [Emily Olsen] were 1^st cousins and both born in May 1837.  When Mother and Father visited Copenhagen in 1895, Petrea gave Grandmother the coffee pot – with the request that she give it to her daughter, Dagmar Faye, with her love.  – Although Mother used it many years, she eventually gave it to me.  – and I have had many coffee parties and dinners when I have used it..   And I can [illegible]…It has given me great pleasure to be able to give it to you – and to know that you are enjoying it.  As I wanted someone to have it that remembered and loved Grandmother in her home.

Lovingly and Sincerely Yours,

Aunt Dagmar

So much of the past is with us

Jill, Nini and I are spending the night at 221 Mass. Ave., and began to look through an old box of papers from Bano and Papa..... many letters and disintegrating clippings.  This letter from Papa to Bano struck a chord.....

[1929, written by Papa, Don Lawder to his wife Blanche in CT.  Papa was in Chicago with his dying mother, Alice Van Houten Lawder]

9:15 pm

Monday

Dearest Blanche-

You may have a wire from me by this time—I mean by the time you receive this.  She is going.  Probably will not last the night.  It is better so. Her mind is now blank. She could only be a helpless, mindless invalid and even that for only a short time.  The clot has been on her brain so long the tissues are dead. While it has been a strain, still some sort of philosophy has kept me up. Still keeps me up and now I can see her pass away with a fortitude I did not possess a week ago.

I was here when she was conscious. I told her I wouldn’t leave her till she was up on her feet again. She knew that I wouldn’t –and I have so much to tell you of our last days together – they were wonderful—full of understanding.

Somehow my mind goes back to when I was five or six years old.  My grandmother was dead, Mother’s mother.  All I remember is seeing her in her casket—and I also remember riding in a hack on the way to the cemetery. I thought to myself, “I hope my mother won’t die until I am old enough to stand it”. I was six years old then.  Well she didn’t. She stayed to the last- stayed until I had built up my philosophy-then she peacefully departed.  I speak of her now as if she were already dead. To me she is. I have no more emotion to give. That side of me is dead—exhausted.

How thankful I am that I have you—love—a home—children- While the old passes, the young come on with their dreams, their ambitions, their need of protection, to take ones thoughts away from the other end of the road of Life. Dear Girl, you are never absent from my thoughts. I hope you haven’t worried. I haven’t written because my brain seemed dull. I couldn’t do more than carry on here—I thought of you, I intended to wire oftener but somehow the power of volition – of action- was not in me. The days dragged on—each very much like the other—it seemed that time stood still and I, with it.

Good night dear. Don’t worry about me. I have the undertaker and cemetery all taken care of. It only remains….. (last page missing).