Utflyttade och Inflyttade: Moving, Out and In, Samuel

Samuel Christian:

An 1861 convert to the LDS Church early in that faith’s presence in Sweden, Samuel began earnestly the preparations for migrating to North America, and Utah. Samuel’s third son, Gustave, in his autobiography speaks of his father being gone long hours during the “work week” and then, on Sunday keeping long hours in church service. The autobiography I refer to here, I have tried to transcribe and download to my tree on www.familysearch.org as a memory/document in Gustave Hilmer Backman’s profile.

Using the Household Records of Sweden on ArkivDigital, we see that Samuel left home and returned, perhaps getting training in the interim. His parents were supported by the parish; a trades skill would have augmented the household’s purse. Later, leaving again when it was his turn to start a family, Samuel married a young woman from - using that same database – a few pages away. I cannot tell how close by the two families were, but Anna Johanna Andersdotter was indeed only a few pages away in my research.

Samuel and Anna were not alone in leaving farmsteads for the cities. After marriage, they found themselves in Göteborgs Karl Johan parish. Here Samuel worked as a tinner and they lived in a two-room residence. They would move, over time to accommodate Samuel’s work, with children being born in various parts of that city. Gustave, tells us he was born in Masthugg. One home was a combined venture with other Mormons, hoping to parley a portion of their incomes into sufficient means to “gather” with the saints in Utah.

This would finally come to fruition in the later 1870s, when two sons would be sent off while they could still go on half fare: Gustave in 1877, traveling with John Peter, Samuel’s brother, and William later in the same year, with a returning LDS missionary. Samuel, Anna, George, Annie and Bertha followed in 1878. They settled in the 16^th Ward of Salt Lake City. Records of this ward include Samuel’s siblings, John August, Axel Emanuel, Maria Carolina and John Peter.

Bertha died after a measles outbreak within a few months of arriving. Anders came in 1880. I have learned that Sven A. Christiansson, Inger Sofia’s son passed away in this ward, in 1885.

Family life continued much as it had in Sweden, once everyone got here. Samuel found work in the shops of the U. C. railroad, in which he was a foreman; as well as in major community projects, notably making copper spires on the LDS Salt Lake Temple (LDS Biographical Encyclopedia). A 1903 Salt Lake City directory has the advertisement: “Samuel C. Backman, TIN and COPPERSMITH” with spouting, roofing and all kinds of repairing done at the lowest prices, as well as plumbing, steam and gas fitting. “SATISFACTION GUARENTEED.”          

Both the LDS Biographical Encyclopedia and Pioneers and Prominent Men have profiles of Samuel c. Backman, the former noting that he was “an active elder of the Fifteenth Ward,” and further, that a year after joining the LDS Church he had been ordained to the office of Priest and then of Elder, adding, “He had presided over the Göteborg branch for four years and preached considerably in that neighborhood.“ Samuel was ordained a High Priest prior to his death.

He emigrated in 1878, coming on the steamship “Nevada” leaving Liverpool June 29, 1878, and arriving in Salt Lake City on July 18, 1878. A good description of this vessel is given in Ships, Saints and Mariners, An Encyclopedia of Mormon Migration, by Conway B. Sonne. More can be found by the same author in Saints on the Seas.

Anna Johanna Andersdotter – Anderson, in the American record – was born May 13, 1830 in Myre, Grinnerod Parish. Her parents were Anders Andersson (b. 1801) and Marit Svensdotter (1797); she was the middle of seven children.

Anders, Gustave, George and William all worked while living with their parents, and Anna took in lodgers, as she had in Sweden. Annie remained at home until her first marriage, to one of those lodgers.