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).