About 1889 brothers August (Gus), Charlie, John Ekburg immigrated from Malma, Sweden to the United States to seek their fortunes. All the Ekburg brothers, except Johan, were born to Nils Son Anders and Anders Dotter Anna.  Johan’s mother was named Catrina who died a year after Johan’s birth.  August, Charles and their half-brother Johan chose a new surname of Ekburg (oak town) before immigrating to the U.S.  Their  sisters, Mary and Johanna (Hannah) took their father’s name Anderson (Americanized), Mary and Hannah Anderson.  They had a second sister named Hilda, who passed at a young very age in Sweden.

Gus and Charlie eventually lit in La Plata, Colorado and John moved on to California to involve himself in farming. They immigrated with their sister named Mary Anderson/Gullickson and Hannah Anderson who’s last known whereabouts was Seattle, Washington and Escalon, California.

Gus’s first wife was a Swedish girl named Mary Grahn Ekburg; they married in Pueblo, Colorado,  12 April 1901.  Mary, after bearing only one daughter named Elvira, was taken by a stroke during the Spanish enfluenza epidemic of 1918.  Twelve years later, August (1929) married a Finnish widow lady named Signe Kronland.  Signe’s first husband, we discovered, died as the result of an accident in Chicago some years earlier, leaving Signe with one daughter named Mae, who also lived with her and Gus in La Plata, Colorado.

Gus’s only daughter Elvira, married another durable swede in Silverton, Colorado, named Arvid Alexander.  They eventually moved to La Plata City to help in Gus’s and Charlie’s gold mining operation and then to Durango where Arvid worked as a steam locomotive mechanic on the D&RGW.

Charlie married a young Swedish lady named Beda Matilda Albertina Petersson, whom he allegedly found via Swedish newspapers and/or through other contacts, who resided in Denison, Texas.  She and her sisters worked as husas (domestics) for a family named Kingston who owned a drug store.  They married in Texas after an appropriate courting time.  Charlie and Beda born three children, Verner, (b. 1916) Evelyn (b.1918) and Edwin (b.1920).

Beda Petersson was one of ten children born to Johan and Karolina Petersson in Edshult, Eksjö municipality of Sweden.  As best as we know, Beda lived with three sisters in America, Hannah, Augusta, and Emma of all whom we were acquainted except Emma.  Emma was the oldest (b.1865) who immigrated to the States in 1884, working as a hembiträde (domestic),  in Texas.  Four sisters immigrated to the U.S.; sister Augusta Kristina immigrated in 1893 and Emma sent money to Beda and Hannah to make the trip in 1902.  We believe the four sisters lived together in Denison, Texas for some unknown amount of time.  Even though the Ekburg boys and Petersson girls resided in southern Sweden, we have no knowledge that the Ekburg boys and Petersson girls knew of each other in Sweden.

The Ekburg clan lived their lives in the La Plata Canyon, in La Plata City, Colorado and operated a gold mine named the Black Di’Mond  and the White Di’mond located and owned by both brothers.  In 1934 Charlie left the Canyon and moved his family to Durango, Colorado.  Verner remained in La Plata City until his untimely death in 1938 from injuries caused by a mining accident. Gus remained in La Plata City until his death in 1950, after which, his wife Signe remained in the family home with her daughter Mae, until Signe’s death in 1955.  After Signe’s death, Mae reportedly, returned to Finland, where she married, and lived well into the 1990’s.

Gus’s daughter, Elvira and her husband Arvid first lived in Silverton, Colorado, than in La Plata, Colorado before they moved to Durango, where they would spend the remainder of their lives. Arvid was a Master Mechanic servicing the steam engines for the narrow gauge trains that served local commerce and later as a tourist train between Durango and Silverton.

The descendants of these hardy folks have set up this website, not only to share the adventures of these case-hardened Swedes,  along with a plethora of unique photographs, but also in hopes of finding other distant relatives and friends of this family with stories and images to share.

If you have interest in this family, or in the area, please share in these stories and images.  They may give us clues to locations of distant family and friends.  Please share stories form any family you may have from this area.

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Charlie Ekburg

All images copyright of Ekburg Family Archive or Sweet Light Photography (a few images are public domain as noted)