August Ekburg
(Edited by Gus’s grand nephew Charlie Ekburg)
August (Gus)Ekburg was born in Malma, Sweden in 1869 (d.1950). Gus emigrated to the States in 1891 initially settling in Alamosa then Silverton, Colorado. He and his brother moved to La Plata City sometime before 1897.
Gus married to a lady named Mary Syrene Grahn on April 12, 1901, in Pueblo, Colorado. Nine months later Mary gave birth to their only child Elvira Ekburg (1/6/1902) in Silverton, Colorado.
We do not know what work or industry Gus or his brother Charlie engaged while in Silverton, nor do we have stories or documents telling us how Gus or Mary made it to La Plata City. We know through family lore that Gus and his brother Charlie worked in mining and helped other miners with their annual assessment work.
Gus and Charlie were hard-rock miners and located the White Di’Mond lode claims in the summer of 1897, sometime after they had located the Black Di’Mond mining claims. These claims were in the California Mining district, adjacent to Little Kate mine and near the Tomahawk mine in the Basin Creek basin, in the La Plata Mountains, Colorado. The White and Black Di’Mond mine portals day-lighted at over 11,000 feet in elevation near Diorite Peak.
Mary Syrene Grahn Ekburg died during the 1917-18 Spanish flu epidemic. Her official death certificate states she died from a stroke, which was not an uncommon diagnosis, a condition produced by flu sysmptoms. We have only a few images of Mary.
In 1929, 12 years after Mary’s death, Gus took a second wife named Signe (Vic) Kronlund, a widow who reportedly had lost her husband in an accident a few years earlier in Illinois. Signe married her first husband, named John Erik Kronland in Chicago, Illinois, producing a daughter named Fekla Signe Mae Kronlund. Gus and Signe married on April 5, 1929, in La Plata County, Colorado; Signe’s daughter Mae lived with them until Gus’s death in 1950. No stories exist in my memory or in family archives about how they met.
Gus acquired a home and lived in La Plata city, Colorado. Later, after his daughter Elvira’s marriage to Arvid Alexander, another casehardened Swede, Arvid moved from Silverton to work at the Black Di’Mond mine, prompting Gus to acquire a second home. Gus and Signe owned three houses in La Plata City, the “Red House”, “Blue House”, and the “Square House”. All three houses exist today (2020), only two, the Red and Square, are owned and maintained by the Alexander family.
Gus purchased the “Red House” from the Gold King milling co., and moved it to La Plata City giving it to his daughter Elvira as a playhouse. The Alexander family added to it over the years converting it to a livable cabin.
Gus lived in the canyon (Blue House) until his death in 1950. Signe and Mae stayed in the Canyon until Signe’s death in 1955. After Signe’s death her daughter Mae left the area, moving to Finland in 1955. Mae passed in Aug 2005 in Vasa Finland.
Records show Signe buried Gus in the Greenmont cemetery Durango, Colorado, but because of poor marking and record keeping, we can’t find Gus’s exact grave site, just the general area. We are investigating a small anomaly regarding Gus’s burial site. According to Greenmont records, Gus’s grave is in the older part of the cemetery where according to attendants, they have not added new graves for many decades. Signe died in January of 1955 and is buried (somewhere) in Greenmont Cementery, Durango, Colorado.
We are investigating the possiblity that Gus, Mary and Signe were buried in proximity, in a family plot in the older part of Greenmont Cemetery.
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Mary Ekburg, Sister to Gus, Charlie and John
Mary Ekburg (Grahn) Gus’s first wife
Signe Ekburg (Kronland) Gus’s second wife.
All images copyright Ekburg Family Archive.
