Windh/Freise/Maurstad genealogy - Person Sheet
Windh/Freise/Maurstad genealogy - Person Sheet
NameOtto Alfrid WINDH
Birth14 Feb 1886, Norra Rörum, Skåne, Sweden
Death18 May 1947, Yellowstone Township, McKenzie County, North Dakota
EducationChurch records show he left the parish in 1903.
ReligionClick Otto’s name for notes, camera icons for photos.
OccupationRancher in northwestern North Dakota
FatherOlander Persson WINDH (1852-1934)
MotherCecilia SVENSDOTTER (1855-1937)
Misc. Notes
The church record books in Norra Rörum, Sweden, say that Otto left the parish on March 14, 1903, to come to North America. He would have been only 17 years old.
But the website called Ellis Islands Records (created in April of 2001) shows that Otto WIND and his brother Carl entered the United States on March 13, 1908, sailing from Liverpool, England, to New York on the Lusitania. He was listed as single, 21 years of age (born in 1887, not 1886), and a resident of Norra Rörum, Sweden. So when DID he first come to North America?
A photo taken by Anderson Studio in Groton SD in 1903 clearly shows Carl, Oscar and Otto. (Click the little camera icon by Otto’s name to see it.) And a 1905 census card shows Otto WIND living in the Putney post office area north and west of Groton, SD. So that’s evidence that Otto DID come directly to South Dakota when he left the parish in 1903 and that he traveled again from Sweden to South Dakota in 1908. Family lore has said that neither Carl nor Otto ever returned to Sweden.
The 1910 census shows Otto was living in South Dakota. But in 1918 he filled out a WWII draft card for Valley, Montana, and stated that Carl Windh of South Dakota was his closest relative. He lists Montana as his permanent address. The 1920 census shows he was living in Montana.
In December of 2015 a search through LDS locates census documents of 1930 and 1940 showing Otto Wind (in 1930) as a farmer living on his own farm in Yellowstone Township, McKenzie County in the northwest corner of North Dakota, right on the border of Fairfield, Montana. He was 42 years old, born in Sweden in about 1888, came to the Us in 1902, and is single. He has an 8th grade education. The 1940 information is the same except he is now Otto Windh and married to Rena Windh, who was born in Vermont in 1868 and has a 12-grade education.
In a letter he wrote Sven Windh in 1949, Lloyd Person spoke of meeting his Uncle Nils in Stockholm for the first time. As a child in Canada, Lloyd had been told several times by his Uncle Otto of an incident with Nils that was very unflattering to Nils. After visiting Nils, Lloyd was convinced Otto was "not only wrong but a liar."
A letter dated June 15, 1950, from a lawyer in Fairview, Montana, to Carl Windh, Jr., in Tacoma, Washington, speaks of Carl inheriting $15.66 as one of Otto Windh’s heirs. Fairview is in eastern Montana right at the border of North Dakota.
If the character named Uncle Anders and assumed to be Otto in Lloyd Person’s novel “Minby” is true to life, Otto was a heavy drinker and may have died in an alcohol-assisted fall down a flight of stairs. In materials from Marion Bowman one can read 15 interesting pages excerpted from Lloyd’s book. Otto is seen as a devil-may-care sometimes-cowboy bachelor who lived in Glendive, Montana, a favorite uncle who could tell endless tales of his scurrilous escapades . . whom no woman would have and who spent more time in jail than out. Otto’s character dies in a drunken fall down a flight of steps, breaking his neck when he refuses to cushion his fall by dropping two cases of beer he’s carrying. However, in 2014 John Windh tracked down a copy of “Minby” and found no character named Uncle Anders, though the hard-working and honorable main character, a blacksmith in what is clearly Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, is Oscar Persson.
But the website called Ellis Islands Records (created in April of 2001) shows that Otto WIND and his brother Carl entered the United States on March 13, 1908, sailing from Liverpool, England, to New York on the Lusitania. He was listed as single, 21 years of age (born in 1887, not 1886), and a resident of Norra Rörum, Sweden. So when DID he first come to North America?
A photo taken by Anderson Studio in Groton SD in 1903 clearly shows Carl, Oscar and Otto. (Click the little camera icon by Otto’s name to see it.) And a 1905 census card shows Otto WIND living in the Putney post office area north and west of Groton, SD. So that’s evidence that Otto DID come directly to South Dakota when he left the parish in 1903 and that he traveled again from Sweden to South Dakota in 1908. Family lore has said that neither Carl nor Otto ever returned to Sweden.
The 1910 census shows Otto was living in South Dakota. But in 1918 he filled out a WWII draft card for Valley, Montana, and stated that Carl Windh of South Dakota was his closest relative. He lists Montana as his permanent address. The 1920 census shows he was living in Montana.
In December of 2015 a search through LDS locates census documents of 1930 and 1940 showing Otto Wind (in 1930) as a farmer living on his own farm in Yellowstone Township, McKenzie County in the northwest corner of North Dakota, right on the border of Fairfield, Montana. He was 42 years old, born in Sweden in about 1888, came to the Us in 1902, and is single. He has an 8th grade education. The 1940 information is the same except he is now Otto Windh and married to Rena Windh, who was born in Vermont in 1868 and has a 12-grade education.
In a letter he wrote Sven Windh in 1949, Lloyd Person spoke of meeting his Uncle Nils in Stockholm for the first time. As a child in Canada, Lloyd had been told several times by his Uncle Otto of an incident with Nils that was very unflattering to Nils. After visiting Nils, Lloyd was convinced Otto was "not only wrong but a liar."
A letter dated June 15, 1950, from a lawyer in Fairview, Montana, to Carl Windh, Jr., in Tacoma, Washington, speaks of Carl inheriting $15.66 as one of Otto Windh’s heirs. Fairview is in eastern Montana right at the border of North Dakota.
If the character named Uncle Anders and assumed to be Otto in Lloyd Person’s novel “Minby” is true to life, Otto was a heavy drinker and may have died in an alcohol-assisted fall down a flight of stairs. In materials from Marion Bowman one can read 15 interesting pages excerpted from Lloyd’s book. Otto is seen as a devil-may-care sometimes-cowboy bachelor who lived in Glendive, Montana, a favorite uncle who could tell endless tales of his scurrilous escapades . . whom no woman would have and who spent more time in jail than out. Otto’s character dies in a drunken fall down a flight of steps, breaking his neck when he refuses to cushion his fall by dropping two cases of beer he’s carrying. However, in 2014 John Windh tracked down a copy of “Minby” and found no character named Uncle Anders, though the hard-working and honorable main character, a blacksmith in what is clearly Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, is Oscar Persson.