Oscar (originally Oskar) is the only Windh son to use Person as a last name. He spelled his own middle name as Walfrid, not Valfrid as in the records in the church in Norra Rörum.

Those church records in Norra Rörum, Sweden, say that Oscar left the parish on May 21, 1902, to come to North America. Leaving his fiancee behind in Sweden, he joined his brother Carl, who had come to Putney, SD, in 1901. A portrait taken in Groton in 1903 shows Carl and Oscar and also Otto, who had arrived that year from Sweden. But for some reason Oscar left in about 1905 for Saskatchewan, the first of his brothers to settle in Canada. He may have returned to Sweden for his wife the following year, and brought her back to Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, Canada, where he lived the rest of his life and is buried.

Their first child, Gladys Elvira Person, was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1913 while Oscar and Alma were visiting there.

Oscar returned to Putney to visit his brothers Carl and Sven in about 1927.

It's a mystery why Oscar changed his last name from Person to Windh. By custom, his father Olander Windh was known at birth as Olander Persson since he was the son of Per, just as his wife was named Cecilia Svensdotter, daughter of Sven. But at some point Olander chose Wind (later Windh). It is said that Wind was an "army" name so perhaps he did that when he entered military service, very likely before he was even married. A family story says there were too many Perssons in the army so all were given new "army" names.

Another legend says Olander did army service to support his family whenever he had a poor crop, again probably starting well before he was married at age 25. So he may already have been Wind when Nils, his first child, was born. Olander himself is listed in the church record book as Wind, not Persson, though it's not clear when that entry was made.

A more prosaic family legend has it that Oscar Windh, living in South Dakota in about 1905 and engaged to his girlfriend back in Sweden, got a young girl pregnant and fled to Canada to become Oscar Person, changing not only his location but also his name. About 1906 he returned to Sweden for his girlfriend Alma. Oscar’s son, Lloyd Person, wrote that his uncle Otto, who was with Carl and Oscar in South Dakota at the time, seemed to believe that story but that his uncle Sven (who would have been only 7 at the time and still in Sweden) denied it.

Whatever may be the truth, Oscar did leave South Dakota for Saskatchewan in about 1905 and didn’t return to visit his brothers Carl and Sven there until about 1927.


IN APRIL OF 2014, ANNETTE JAMES WINDH WROTE ABOUT OSCAR:

Oscar was a very kind and nice man. He was also a very good blacksmith. In that day most farmers could do their own repairs on the farm, but Oscar was always busy with jobs in town as well as farmers repairs. [The blacksmith building was still standing when Annette attended Aylesbury’s 100-year town party in August 2009.] Oscar’s wife Alma, quite a large woman, spoke with a heavy accent. Oscar and Alma went to Sweden and their daughter Gladys was born there on the trip. Another daughter, Ellen, married Mel Gulk.

Mom says that the Windh boys, meaning Carl, Oscar etc., all came over from Sweden one each year. When bad times and crop failures hit the US in 1927/28, Oscar told Carl to pack up and come on up to Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, where they had had a bumper crop the year before.

So Carl and Sena packed up the family, eight kids then, and moved on up. My mom [Lavina, later married to Milton Windh] was 10 years old and living in Aylesbury. She remembers the big "hoopla" when they all arrived. A family which brought NEW KIDS!