The children of Samuel and Anna, part 4

 Many of the addresses that appear on the records of the Backman family in Salt Lake City have become the victims of modernization: a transportation hub, a freeway route, an interchange. I wanted to visit Jeremy Street to see if William Jacob Backman's home remained. Even the addresses had changed by that time, Temple Square no longer serving as the coordinate maker it once was. 

William Jacob Backman, like his father was a metal worker. Sometimes a tinsmith - a tinner, having his own shop. Or as reported in his death certificate, sheet metal work. Nearly all of Samuel's children settled in the same quarter of the city. Just now I want to say it was the Fifteenth Ward, and will post my correction if needed. They were building a new city. Skilled men were in demand. 

From the records I find William was successful. 

With his first wife Edith Louise Gill (married 1890) he had eight children, of whom three died as children or infants. Edith herself passed away in 1925. William married a few years later Mary Ann Haywood, a widow.

When William Jacob Backman passed away in Salt Lake City in 1943 he was 75. The cause of death attributed to carcinoma of the stomach, after twelve years. He and Edith are buried in the Salt Lake City cemetery.

Anna Wilhelmina Backman, Annie, was the first daughter of Samuel C. Backman and Anna Andersson. She adored her sister who was born shortly before the move across the United States and who passed away shortly after arriving. Annie's daughter Ivy Peterson Otteson has provided a wonderful biography which is posted as a  memory in Annie's www.familysearch.org profile. 

Annie had three daughters: Bertha Eugenia Malmquist, who died at age two. Gertrude Johanna Nilsson (Americanized to Nelson) and Ivy Olea Peterson. 

All reports declare Annie's intelligence and gift for caring. She studied, as a young divorcee, to become a teacher, trained as a midwife, outlived four husbands and her first two daughters. 

My grandfather, Ralph V Backman spoke of her fondly and of her husbands judiciously. But I was pleased to learn more about her as personal tributes became more readily available. I cannot drive through Spring City, Utah without Anna W. Backman Malmquist Nilsson Peterson Billington Jensen crossing my mind.