In the records of the parish church in Norra Rörum, Sweden, Sven's middle name is spelled Ehrnfrid and his date of birth is August 29, 1898. However, he always spelled the name Ernfrid and celebrated his birthday on August 31. Those record books don't mention when he left the parish for North America. It seems to have been in 1923. But when the pastor showed John Windh those books in 1976, sand fell out of Sven’s page. Likely it had been used to blot the ink in 1923 or sooner, and likely that page had not been opened since.

In August of 2023, John Windh randomly discovered an online document showing Sven’s arrival in Quebec, Canada. He had set sail on the SS ATHENIA - likely from Liverpool - on July 23, 1923. In his own handwriting, it says he is 24 years old, his occupation is “clerk,” his intended occupation is “clerk,” his object is “to settle,” he has $25 to his possession, he can read Swedish, paid his own passage, and intends to join his brother Oscar Windh - not Person - in Aylesbury, Saskatchewan. This discovery comes exactly 100 years after his arrival. The Athenia was a large and modern passenger liner; it had been built in Glasgow in 1922/23 and sailed mostly from Liverpool and Glasgow to Montreal and Quebec. It was sunk by a German torpedo in September of 1939, the first UK ship to be lost in WWII, just as its namesake, a previous SS Athenia built in 1904, had been sunk off the coast of Ireland by Germany in 1917.

In September of 2023 John happened upon Sven’s application for US citizenship on Feb. 8, 2918, and his name in census records of 1930, 1940, 1945 and 1950. Those documents are posted here under Multimedia, along with many photos.

Sven’s 1945 US census document (included here) says he served in the army in World War I .. that would have been in Sweden. He worked for a while with a shipping company in Malmö (perhaps from 1921 to 1923), then came in August of 1923 (arrival document included here) to his brother Oscar's farm near Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, Canada, sailing (probably from Liverpool) on the vessel Athenia to Quebec City. After living for a while with Oscar and working for another farmer, he entered the US at Portal, ND, on Dec. 18, 1924 (document included here), calling himself a farmer with $250 in his pocket and saying he intended to become a US citizen. He came to his brother Carl's farm 8 miles north and a mile east of Groton, South Dakota. Soon he was manager of the grain elevator in nearby Putney, SD (5 miles north and 3 miles west of Groton) and may also have worked in the grocery store there. Then in 1928 he worked in a grocery store in Sisseton, SD, and one in New Effington, SD, where he met Gladys Melland, who worked briefly in the same store. In 1928 Sven moved back to Groton to manage the Red Owl grocery store. (It was located where the Paetznick Furniture now stands in 1997.) He had applied for citizenship on Feb. 8, 1928 (document included here), while a resident of Sisseton, SD, and not yet married; he became a naturalized US citizen Oct. 6, 1941.

His marriage to Gladys in 1930 was the first wedding in the new First English Lutheran Church in Groton. It was also the first wedding for the young Rev. Melford Knudsen, who forgot his belt and had to borrow Sven's. Sven became ill with tuberculosis in the summer of 1942. He then spent from August 1942 until May 1944 recuperating at a state TB sanitarium near Custer in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Contradicting this narrative are documents showing that he came down with TB in 1941.

Thereafter Sven sold auto and life insurance and worked as a substitute clerk in the post office and as clerk of the school board. Sven had a serious heart attack in the spring of 1961, then another one in September of that year which he did not survive. He died Sept. 30, 1961.

OBITUARY from the Groton Independent:

Sven Ernfrid Windh, 63, passed away at his home in Groton, Sept. 30, 1961. He was born Aug. 31, 1898, in Norra Rorüm, Skåne, Sweden. After serving in the Swedish army and working as a shipping clerk in Malmö, he followed the example of four older brothers and emigrated to Canada in 1923. Two years later he began working on his brother Carl's farm near Groton. He managed the Red Owl food store in Groton from 1928 until illness confined him to a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1942. In 1944 he established an insurance agency in Groton and from 1949 was also a substitute clerk at the local post office.

On July 10, 1930, he married Gladys Melland of New Effington, SD, and to this union were born two children; Mrs. M. J. (Dorothy) Maurstad of Wahiawa, Hawaii, and John of Ithaca, NY. Mr. Windh was preceded in death by one sister and five brothers [really six] and is survived by his wife, two children and two grandchildren. He was a member of Emmanuel Lutheran church, Groton, and was active in the church choir and the men's Brotherhood. He was also interested in flower growing and was a member of the Groton Garden Club.

Funeral services were held at Emmanuel Lutheran church on Oct. 3, 1961, with Rev. Richard Lee officiating. Music was provided by the church choir, by Keith Smith, soloist, and by Mrs. Kenneth Alberts, organist. Pall bearers were Oliver Belden, Walter Herron, Maurice Olson, Joe Johnson, Raymond Wing and Russell Wolter.

Burial was in the Groton community cemetery with the Paetznick Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.

Relatives attending from a distance include: Mrs. John Melland, Mr. and Mrs. George Knudsen, Sr., Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Monson, Mr. and Mrs. George Knudsen, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Benny Kuklish, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell Kuklish, all of New Effington, SD, Russell Melland and Robert Melland of Jamestown, ND, Mr. and Mrs. Jerauld Melland, Lisbon, ND, and Mr. and Mrs. I. O. Maurstad, Sioux Falls, SD, as well as a large number of friends.

In 1991 John wrote of his father:
“I remember my dad as a wonderfully kind and gentle man. In the summer he enjoyed tending his flowers; in the winter he occasionally did leather tooling or wood carving; all year long he enjoyed crossword puzzles and, with my mother, entertaining friends. He worked hard to improve his English, lose his accent, and become a “true American.” To my knowledge he never dreamed of returning to Sweden for a visit. Most of all he loved music. He said in Sweden his father wouldn’t let him buy a piano, even with his own money. So in South Dakota he purchased a pump organ as soon as possible, taught himself to play it (and later the piano), and spent untold pleasurable hours mastering the hymnbook. Because he could sing music at sight, he also served for decades as the backbone tenor of the Groton church choir. It’s no wonder both his children have also been active in music all their lives.”


After John Windh visited the Windh farm in Sweden in 1976, he wrote:

Norra Rörum is the Swedish village near which the Windhs farmed before my father and four of his brothers came to North America. It lies perhaps 25 US miles northeast of Lund and 35 miles northeast of Malmö in extreme southwestern Sweden across from Copenhagen. The rolling Sköne countryside resembles southern Wisconsin except for occasional thick woods and an old windmill just out of Lund. One passes between two sizable lakes ten miles before reaching Norra Rörum, a well-kept village of perhaps 50 houses strung out along intersecting asphalt roads. The frame or brick houses are rather "Midwest" looking except for the many tile roofs. We saw young people on motorcycles by a drive-up snack bar, but otherwise noticed no stores or even a school. All was very simple but neat with no signs of poverty.

The one church of white stucco is flanked by a rust-colored wooden bell tower. It sits in trees on a slight hill near the north edge of the village. A limestone plaque over the door is dated 1782. The small church is utterly charming, looking surprisingly like the rural pioneer churches our Scandinavian forebears built in the New World. As you face the front, a carved and colorfully painted wooden pulpit with an overhead canopy is to the right of the simple altar, in front of which is a semi-circular kneeling rail. A baptismal font created from one large block of stone (where my dad and his family were likely christened) is at the left. All the pews and woodwork are painted a delicate blue-green. Three golden chandeliers (with candles, not electric lights) and a traditional sailing ship model hang in the center aisle. A new-looking pipe organ stands in the small rear balcony. On the wall of a tiny sacristy to the right, one can read the names of all the pastors who have served this parish back to 1546.

In the flower-filled cemetery alongside the church one finds the Windh family plot in the far left corner coming out the door, away from the street, quite near the wooden fences and fields. On the lone Windh tombstone is carved a small cross and some very worn lettering, which can best be seen in late morning. It reads "Olander Windh" "Hesthun (Hustrun/"housewife") Cecilia" and "Sonen Bror". It lacks any dates or any mention of Aunt Maria. This tombstone does not appear in a photo taken at Cecilia's burial in 1937 and may not yet have been erected then. But it can be seen, with very readible letters, in another picture taken in 1957 at Maria's burial. These same photos suggest that Cecilia was laid to rest slightly left of the present stone (when facing it) and Maria to the left of that. Olander and Bror, the son who lived from 1895 to 1907, also lie here somewhere. The family plot is clearly defined by cement curbs. All the plots are covered with fine gravel, perfectly raked. There are a few plants, neatly trimmed but without blossoms. Apparently because she died without survivors or money, Maria's name had not been carved on the family tombstone.

In the cemetery we met an older lady tending her husband's grave. In halting Norwegian, my mother was able to tell the woman who we were, and she graciously offered to lead us to what had once been the Windh farm. Before leaving, we spoke with an older couple living beside the church who remembered Olander and Cecilia, Maria and even Sven. We never found a Jenny Carlson (Karlsson) (her married name may be Johansson), described as a cousin, although we believe we knocked at the door of her home.

(In 2014, a Google map view of Norra Rorüm clearly shows the church on a short street named Hammars Väg. Its cemetery looks much larger than in 1976.)

The Windh farm lies perhaps three US miles southwest of Norra Rörum. Drive 2.5 km west on an asphalt road, then turn south and west on a gravel road which brings you into a farm yard surrounded by two houses and two barns. This is the "Agerup" farm, which once owned the Windh farm and eventually bought it back. Some of these farm buildings are roofed with straw. A family named Anderson has lived in one of these houses since 1934; both Mrs. Anderson and her son, about 40, remembered Maria well and affectionately described her as "kindly." Mrs. Anderson also remembered Sven, who had left by 1923. They shared with us a photo album and a picture of a 3-4 year old child they said was Maria sitting in front of the Windh house. The man who bought the Windh farm lives in the other house, but we didn’t find him at home. Apparently he purchased it well before Maria died, then allowed her to live there as long as she wished.

From this farmyard, a narrow lane leads perhaps 200 yards past a rocky pasture and between stone fences and gnarled trees to the small farmyard where the Windh farmhouse stood until it was burned down some time after Maria's death in 1957. Especially if you have seen photos of this farm, you can locate the flat stones of the barn floor, but there is no trace of the house which once joined the barn in an L-shape. Now planted with wheat, the yard is surrounded on three sides by a low stone fence. A rusty, broken hand pump stands on a cement well casing in the yard. Untended flowers bloom nearby. There are several apple trees. At the open, unfenced side of this yard, perhaps 40 feet from the barn-house site, is a small red, wooden, newer-looking house, apparently furnished. It was probably built in the 1920s. Mr. Anderson said this house was built for Olander and Cecilia in the event that Maria married and, with her husband, took over the farm; however, no Windhs ever lived in it, he says. A neat pile of red roof tiles stands nearby, perhaps salvaged from the burned house. (The adjoining barn was roofed with straw.) When Olander died in 1934, the deed to the farm was signed over to Maria by her brothers, who formally gave their shares to her for having taken care of their parents so long. To the north of the buildings is a wheat field of perhaps 6-8 acres surrounded by trees. Across the road to the south is a smaller pasture also carved out of the woods. It isn’t clear how much of this Olander owned or farmed. Today the farm is quiet, isolated, peaceful and apparently fertile, though seemingly far too small to have provided more than the barest living to Olander and Cecilia and their eight children a century ago.

The young pastor (Rev. Hans Grimhammar) was most willing, even eager, to help us look for family information in the church records stored in his parsonage-office. When he opened Sven Windh’s page, out fell the sand which had been used to blot the ink! He also offered to look into older archives now stored in Lund. Through him Gladys Windh arranged to have the family gravesite replanted, for a stone cutter to make the names on the Windh tombstone legible again, and to add the name "Selma Maria." When Maria died in 1957, there were no family members to see that her name was added to that tombstone.

What a delight to have been there.
John Windh, September 1976
with Gladys Windh, Elsa Windh, Rolf Windh (then 11) and Maria Windh (then 9)

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An additional comment by John Windh:
Again in 1984 I visited Norra Rörum. In the churchyard, I identified myself as "Windh from America" to an elderly gentleman who was digging a fresh grave. He thought a moment, then asked, "Gladys Windh?" and pointed toward the Windh gravesite. Indeed, he was the very gentleman whom my mother had hired in 1976 to plant additional shrubs on the Windh graves and to have the carvings on the tombstone completed and clarified.

John shared prints of photos he took in 1976 with some of the Tacoma Windhs and is willing to share them again in 2014 by email.

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Sven Windh
1898-1961

He was so far away. But I wanted so much to know him, to know more about him, because he was my father. As I started graduate school halfway across the country, I wondered how he felt when he left his family at about my age to live halfway around the world.

He’d been born in Sweden just before the turn of the century, on a tiny farm hewn out of a thick woods in the extreme southern region of Skåne, near Lund and Malmö, opposite København. As a boy he could perhaps have thrown a stone from one side to the other of his father’s pitifully small field. But he’d stayed in Sweden until he was 24 before he came to Canada and then the US. I’ve often wondered why he left, for he apparently had some education and a job in the port city of Malmö. Apparently he’d learned some English and he knew enough German so he could help me when I was in college many years later.

The youngest of seven boys and a girl, he knew his father’s little farm was too small to be divided between him and his brothers, as was the custom in Scandinavia. Perhaps as soon as he was old enough to realize such things, he knew that his older brothers had already agreed the farm should go to their sister, Maria, so she might have some property with which to attract a husband some day. But she never married, even though her parents had built a small house a few paces away so they could continue to live there near her. Instead she sold the land to the neighbors well before she died on the condition they’d let her live in the house as long as she was able. Somewhere I remember seeing pictures of her and of that older house and its connecting ell-shaped thatch-roofed barn.

That house was burned down long before I met those neighbors, the Anderson family, on their farm in 1976, when I went to Sweden with my wife, our two young children, Rolf and Maria, and my mother to explore my father’s roots. My dad was long dead by then, but he somehow came to life as the older Andersons talked excitedly, but in Swedish, about growing up near him early in this century. They were just his age, living at the other end of an idyllic lane completely roofed with gnarled old trees. We had to drive right through their prosperous-looking farmstead to reach that lane and then my grandfather Olander’s few acres. They remembered my father well, they said, and pointed him out in old Anderson family photos taken well before the first World War.

He looked startlingly as I remembered him, and his brothers too. I’d met several of them years ago when they visited us in South Dakota, for all of them but Nils had emigrated to North America before my dad. I had seen photos of my father and some of his brothers in a rustic Swedish hay wagon when he was about 8, but I don’t know where those photos went.

By the time my dad turned five, three of his brothers were already farming in North America. From the time the first one, Carl, left in 1901, dad’s brothers, his sister and their parents were never together again. When the boys left home, they may have assumed they’d never return. What a sad leave-taking that must have been.

My dad never talked of going back to see his parents. Having arrived in the years immediately after World War I, he apparently wanted quickly to become a “real American.” So after working briefly with Oscar in Saskatchewan, he joined his brother Carl in rural South Dakota and soon became the manager of a grain elevator and then a small grocery store. Although for years he read a Swedish-language newspaper, the Svenske-Amerikanishe Tribune from Chicago, and corresponded with Nils and Maria in Swedish, he worked hard to improve his English vocabulary and lose his Swedish accent. With great success, I thought. Yet years later when I suggested to my cousin that his father, Per or “Pete,” still sounded like a recent immigrant. Lloyd quickly told me it was not his father who had the foreign accent but mine.

When I was in fourth grade, my dad got some simple schoolbooks from Nils and tried to teach my sister and me the Swedish language, but of course we had no time for such foolishness.

There’s a picture somewhere showing my aunt Maria’s coffin being buried beside her parents’ graves in 1957. My father must have longed to be there. Since there were no longer any relatives in Sweden, no one even added her name to the family gravestone until my mother arranged that after our 1976 visit. At least my sister, two Canadian cousins and I have all visited that cemetery, and we’ve seen the simple eighteenth-century parish church and the much older stone font where my dad was baptized. It was such a bittersweet thing—experiencing an immediate and powerful connection with his childhood while knowing so little about it.

My mood was changing by 1961. I was married and in graduate school in New York and increasingly proud of my father’s bold decision to pull up stakes for America. I resolved to ask him all about it in South Dakota that summer.

Then in May on the phone I heard a voice telling me that my father had just suffered a massive heart attack.

Of course it wasn’t possible to reminisce with dad while he was in an oxygen tent under intensive care. Even after he left the hospital and began a slow recovery, it seemed wiser to wait until he was stronger. Then without warning after a second attack a few months later, he died.

In 1984 I spent a week in Lund, forty-five minutes from my father’s farm home, with the director of Sweden’s oldest men’s chorus. I talked endlessly with him, visited many of his rehearsals and, to attend his formal year-end banquet and concert, even wore his old tails. It fit superbly. Only much later did I realize that many of the men in his chorus were my size and color and shared my mannerisms and soft-spoken speech patterns. If my father had somehow stayed in Sweden and I had been born to him there, he and I might have sung together in that same men’s chorus. I had vividly experienced my roots.

Over the years I have moved on in many respects. I can’t imagine going back to live in South Dakota or in my father’s image. Yet in more and more small ways I find myself becoming more like him . . . as best I can remember.

John Windh
April 11, 1992