As a Community
So, what happened when they came to the United States?
The Lundquist family from Skaraborgs län, Sweden, settled first in Jefferson County,
Iowa, where other Swedish immigrants were living.[1]
This made it easier to communicate, conduct business, and attend church with
others who spoke the same language. Children brought up in these Swedish
communities also spoke Swedish, at least in the home, as they probably attended
school where English was spoken. The men may have learned English in order to
conduct business in the larger town or county seat, and to become a citizen and
vote.
Later, the Lundquists moved from Jefferson County to Montgomery County, Iowa, to another Swedish colony called Halland Settlement. It is now known as Stanton and still has descendants of those first Swedish families.[2]
As a Secret Code
Another Swedish family, the Nilsens, came from Jönköping
län to the east coast of the United States. They, too, hung out with other
Swedish folks by attending Swedish Mission churches in Hartford and Cromwell,
Connecticut, Youngstown, Ohio, and Sheffield, Pennsylvania. One brother, who
was a minister, traveled west, stopping in Harcourt, Iowa, before setting at a
Swedish colony in Hilmar, California.[3]
This family, too, spoke Swedish at home and in the community. The second generation also spoke Swedish at home, but did not pass the language down to their children. My mother-in-law, a third-generation child, stated her father hated not knowing English when he started school. So, he was not going to have his own children experience that embarrassment and trouble. However, her parents spoke Swedish in the house whenever they did not want the children to understand their conversation. Swedish became a secret code.[4]
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| Marriage church record in Swedish |
Churches Tied the Community
My own German ancestors lived in Joliet, Illinois and the church was their community. The Sieverts were from Posen and
attended St. John’s German Catholic Church. The congregation in this church was
full of German-speaking families. Four Sievert siblings and others from Posen
attended this church, as well as their offspring.[5]
Mass was conducted in German for many
years until early 1900s when anti-German sentiment was on the rise.
The same happened with the Swedish churches. As the older generation died off and the younger, third generation didn’t learn Swedish, services in the Swedish language also died out. Even the name of these Swedish Covenant churches changed as well, and are now part of the Evangelical Covenant Church.[6] One is more likely to find services in Spanish than in Swedish.
I know nothing of the Irish. Did they speak Gaelic when they arrived? Or did they quickly switched to English, perhaps a language they also knew a little? The early census records do not have columns asking about language before 1900, so by the time that question is asked, they had been in the country many decades.
[1]
1870 U.S.
census, Jefferson Co, Iowa, pop. sched., Lockridge, p. 145b, dwelling 304,
family 298, Andrew Longquist, NARA M593, roll 399.
[2] 1880 U.S.
census, Montgomery Co, Iowa, pop sched., Scott, ED 148, p. 375b, dwelling/family
45, Andra Lundquist, NARA T9, roll 357. See also Gracious Bounty: The Story
of Stanton, the Halland Settlement, Claus L. Anderson, (Stanton, Iowa: The
Stanton Viking, 1952).
[3] "Seventieth
Birthday of Pastor Observed," Turlock Daily Journal, 27 June 1935.
[4]
Recollections of Thelma (Nilsen) Gorrell, told to author.
[5]
Two sons (Johannes & Vincent) and two daughters (Eva & Henrietta) of
Christoph Siewert & Anna Ewald arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1850s. Also,the
sister of Vincent’s wife, Susanna (Wilhelmine) also came. All of the American-born
children were baptized at St. John’s.
[6] The
Evangelical Covenant Church, https://covchurch.org/.
My husband's parents came as children from French-speaking areas of Canada to Maine. Since the families worked in the mills with other Canadians and attended church with other immigrants, the language held on for a generation. My husband spoke French until he started school and in the 1950s learned English. His mother spoke English with a French accent all her life.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by. Isn't interesting to think about what languages our ancestors spoke?
DeleteVery interesting post! My Scottish ancestors, the Ranneys, settled in Middletown, Connecticut, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cromwell! I wish I knew something about their use of their language and English.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. I image that they spoke English with a strong Scottish accent.
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