2026 #52Ancestors, Week 10: Changed My Thinking

Alfred August Larson was my great great grandmother's (Augusta [Larson] Swanson) brother.  He was born in Sweden and arrived in the United States in 1891.  He married Amanda Josefina Johnson in Chicago, Illinois, in 1897, and they had five children - 3 sons and 2 daughters.  Census records and an obituary indicate he was a carpenter and owned his own business and his own home.  Alfred predeceased his wife of 40+ years, dying June 30th, 1940, at the age of 72. He was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, surrounded by much of his extended family.  

The Daily Calumet, 1 Jul. 1940, p. 2

He had lived his allotted years with his wife by his side, and they had raised a family in the comfort of a home they owned.  It was a life well-lived. This was my perfunctory assessment of Alfred at any rate.

It wasn't until I took a closer look at his 1940 census that my perspective changed.  Amanda was not with him, and he was not living at his home in Oak Lawn.  Instead, he was an inmate at the Chicago State Insane Hospital.  I knew the mental institutions of that time period were less than ideal, but I didn't know anything about this particular hospital, so I decided to do some digging.

The Chicago State Insane Hospital was originally Dunning Asylum and had been constructed as a combination poor farm and lunatic asylum.  It would eventually expand to include housing for tuberculosis patients.  All this sounds quite...altruistic, but the reality was shocking. Dunning was, according to Challenging Chicago. Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920, the equivalent of the boogeyman with parents threatening, "Be careful, or you're going to Dunning." The author of Challenging Chicago, Perry R. Duis, further describes that it was "the most dread place imaginable...gloomy institution walls, the cries of the insane, and the hopeless poor peering from its window."  In name, Dunning Asylum closed on June 30, 1912. Poor farm and tuberculosis inmates were relocated, but the asylum inmates remained in the Chicago State Hospital...which opened on July 1, 1912.

Poor living conditions continued to be an issue, highlighted by a December 1923 fire that killed fifteen people and destroyed two wings of the hospital.  The New York Times article, "12 Lunatics Perish with Three Others in Illinois Asylum; Attendant, His Wife and Child Among Those Trapped in Wooden Structure at Dunning," describes how "The crowding of between 500 and 600 patients into this old wooden structure was declared necessary...the hospital...being taxed to its limits every day by the number of cases sent out by the courts. All the other Illinois hospitals for the insane are also overcrowded. An investigation into these conditions is to be started at once."

Some minor improvements certainly occurred as a result of the investigation, but little headway was made in terms of significant progress.  The image below is from 1947, and shows "the poorly ventilated, narrow, and congested hallways in which some patients slept."

Chicago State Hospital, 1947

Photographer: Chicago Daily News

Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-16073)

According to the Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, Alfred lived in this institution for 3 months and 1 day in 1940.  I have found no documentation concerning his diagnosis, but I do find it interesting to note that his obituary claimed he died of a stroke at his home in Oak Lawn.  Certainly, there was a stigma attached to being confined to a mental institution, and his family probably preferred not to advertise his 3 month's sojourn there.  More upsetting (to me, at least) are the conditions he had to tolerate during those 3 months.  It certainly changed my assessment of his "life well lived."

Sources:

"12 Lunatics Perish with Three Others in Illinois Asylum; Attendant, His Wife and Child Among Those Trapped in Wooden Structure at Dunning," The New York Times, 27 Dec. 1923, www.nytimes.com/1923/12/27/archives/12-lunatics-perish-with-three-others-in-illinois-asylum-attendant.html. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.

Duis, Perry R. Challenging Chicago. Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920, University of Illinois Press, 1988. 

Perry, Marilyn Elizabeth. "Dunning," Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/395.html. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 8: A Big Decision

I began writing this post (thinking it was a fresh idea) and then realized that I had written something very similar for a 2024 #52Ancestors prompt about immigration.  However, I do have a bit of additional information now, so I suppose it's worth revisiting. 

My great great grandparents, Rosario Sapienza and Anna LaPira, were born and married in Collesano, Sicily. They had 8 children, all born in Sicily:

Maricchia [Sapienza] Gullo b. 1867
Peter Sapienza, b. 1870 (immigrated 1902/1903)

Giuseppa Josephine [Sapienza] Iocolano, b. 1875 (immigrated 1903)

Thomas Sapienza, b. 1876 (immigrated 1901)

Theresa [Sapienza] Gullo, b. 1882 (immigrated 1907/1908)

Concettina Eva Sapienza, b. 1884 (immigrated 1900)

Serafina [Sapienza] Aloisio, b. 1887 (immigrated 1903)

Joseph Guiseppe Sapienza, b. 1890 (immigrated 1906)

Between 1900 & 1908, all of their children, except Maricchia, moved to the United States. Great Great Grandma Anna followed her daughter, Concettina Eva, in 1901.  I have speculated that Maricchia, who would have already been 33 by the time the family began immigrating, simply did not want to pull up roots for the long trek to the United States.  Her other married siblings did, though.  Somewhat more oddly, however, Great Great Grandpa Rosario did not join his wife in America.  That has always been the story, at any rate, and I had not found any concrete evidence confirming or denying it.  Certainly, there was no immigration information on Rosario.  Recently, though, I discovered this:

Per Google Translate, "In the year nineteen twenty-one, on the seventh of February...Dominic Mario, aged sixty-eight...declared to me that at ten o'clock and a minute yesterday...Rosario Sapienza...resident in Collesano...died...Born in Collesano...husband of Anna LaPira."  There is more to the document, obviously, but that's the important part of the translation.  While it's not concrete evidence that Rosario stayed behind (I suppose he could have been visiting family), it seems to fit the generally accepted narrative.

So now we get to the prompt - A Big Decision.  There are few decisions I can think of that are bigger than, "Do I follow my wife and the majority of my children to the United States, or do I remain in Sicily?"  It seems like a no-brainer to me, but I certainly don't have the whole story.  Maybe Rosario was ill and travel was difficult/impossible.  Maybe he sent the family ahead intending to join them but could never get together enough money to make the trip himself.  Maybe he left the big decision to Anna, and when she elected to immigrate, Rosario disapproved and, being a stubborn Sicilian, chose to stay behind.  😂

I'll probably never know why Rosario made this big decision, but at least I'm a bit more certain that he did. 

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 6: Favorite Photo

Wedding photo of Carl Oscar Swanson and Thelma Linnea Robertson

September 17, 1931

Great Grandpa Oscar and Great Grandma Thelma - that's who they were to me, and here's what they looked like by the time they earned those titles.

Grandpa was in his early 80s here, and Grandma was in her early 70s.  I am the smiling little goon in the plaid shirt.  Even though both of them were gone by the time I reached my teen years, I have vivid memories of the time I spent with them.  

Grandma Thelma crocheted.  My daughter's closet is home to a couple yellow capes Grandma made, and I think my mother still has the green blanket that graced our couches all through my childhood. Grandma also kept a plastic baby doll (that, if memory serves, she acquired through saving box tops) for me to play with.  It came with a yellow plastic carrier.  My daughter inherited both when she was born in 2015. We called the doll 'Baby Thelma.'

Grandpa Oscar taught me to play rummy.  For some reason, the smell of the tobacco aisle (before tobacco products had to be stored behind the register) at Walgreens always reminded me of him.  The whiff of a good cigar has a similar effect. My mom says he didn't smoke cigars (though his father-in-law did), but there's something about the aroma that takes me back to Grandma and Grandpa Swanson's house.

Their Chicago house had the old-style air vents - large, grated squares cut directly into the flooring.  I remember a gold coin in the vent in their dining room.  Maybe they put it there for me to find (the same way my dad leaves change all over his house when my daughter visits), or maybe it is one of those fabricated memories - the kind that seems so real but that no one else remembers.

I only knew great grandma and grandpa Swanson as the elderly people holding me in these photos.  I didn't really know what they looked like as young adults until I inherited my grandmother's (great grandpa's daughter) photos several years back and found this wedding portrait. I love it for many reasons - its simplicity, Great Grandma's bouquet - but mostly, I appreciate being able to view them 50 years before my existence. 

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 5: A Breakthrough Moment

It's hard to choose just one breakthrough moment; genealogy is full of them.  There are plenty recorded in my Pearson line (Horace, William, Pierson/Joseph, Roy, and the list goes on), but there are other lines in my family to discuss.  One line that gave me trouble belonged to my great grandmother, Thelma Linnea (Robertson) Swanson.  Great grandma Thelma was the only child of Signe Jonsson and Hugo Robertson, but that was as far as I could trace her father's line.  When he died of tuberculosis in 1911, his wife was the informant, but the blanks for mother and father held only the depressing words 'don't know.'  I knew Hugo was Swedish, and I had his birth date, so I visited what I have found to be one of the most helpful pages on Facebook for those with Swedish ancestry - the Swedish American Genealogy Group.

I threw myself on the mercy of the group and provided what little information I had about Hugo Robertson. In less than an hour, someone located the record below. What it provided was a breakthrough on several fronts, although (as is typical in genealogy) it left more than a few questions unanswered.

1st breakthrough - I now had the names and birthdates of Hugo's parents!

2nd breakthrough - Hugo's last name was not Robertson.  He was actually Carl Hugo Robert Jonsson, son of Johan August Jonsson.  If the family had been continuing the patronymic naming system, he would have been Carl Hugo Robert Johansson, but regardless, Robertson was apparently the surname he selected when he immigrated.

3rd breakthrough - Hugo was actually a twin! His twin sister was Anna Elvira Augusta Jonsson.

That third breakthrough triggered a memory.  When I first found great grandma Thelma's baptism record, I had been frustrated because I didn't recognize the names of her sponsors, Charles and Elvira Blomberg, but now I had a suspicion.  

With a name and a birthdate, I was able to flesh out Anna Elvira's profile.  She came to the United States in 1889 (perhaps with Hugo, as there are conflicting records about his arrival - anywhere from 1887-1889), and in 1906, she married Charles Blomberg in Lake County, Indiana.  In 1910, she was living not far from Hugo in Chicago!  Sadly, in 1911, the March 13th baptism of her niece might have been the last time Elvira saw her brother.  Hugo would succumb to tuberculosis just two weeks later.

I'm still searching for additional breakthroughs on this line.  It seems that Johan came to the United States the same year his daughter, Ebba Amalia Albina, was born.  I don't know if he remained in the United States or if he returned to Sweden.  I have been unable to find any further information.  Ebba and her mother, Augusta Annette, remained in Sweden.  Augusta died in 1923, and Ebba died in 1962.  I have no other information on either of them.  What does seem likely is that my great grandma Thelma was the only child of her generation.  Charles and Elvira did not have any children, and I haven't found any record of a marriage or children for Ebba.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 3: What This Story Means to Me

Last week, I wrote about my husband's great uncle who had an unusual credit on a 1970s record.  My husband sent the blog post to his uncle, and his uncle asked what else I had found out about that side of the family.  Truth be told, not much, because my husband is usually of very little assistance/evinces very little interest.  However, if someone *does* take interest, I am always happy to do a bit of digging. 

I had done a basic tree for my husband's side of the family where most of my information came from censuses and the occasional obituary.  The 1958 obituary for my husband's great grandmother read simply, "Clara Lantz of 2234 Cortez Street, beloved wife of Theodore; devoted mother of Ben, William, Harry, Doris Levin, Shirley Teich, and the late Aaron; 13 grandchildren. Services Monday, 10 a.m. at chapel, 2235 W. Division Street."  They were all names I recognized, but I felt certain a few were missing.  As I looked back at my tree, I could see that Aaron had died in 1949, but why, if the obituary had recounted one 'late child,' did it not mention Molly, Theodore, or Hyman?

Short answer?  They weren't remembered.  They had passed so long ago that their own brothers, sisters, even their father, had forgotten to include them.  And I think that's why stories are so important to me.  Molly, Theodore, and Hyman lived - however briefly, but if no one speaks or writes about them, they cease to exist.  With that in mind, I'll share my limited knowledge of these three children of Theodore and Clara Lantz.

Molly was their first child. She was born in Russia on February 15th, 1907, and immigrated to the United States with her parents and brother, Benjamin, in 1915.  She lived to see the births of five more siblings.  Theodore and Aaron were born in 1915, William, in 1917, Harry in 1920, and Doris in 1921.  On the 2nd of November, 1923, Molly succumbed to carbon monoxide gas emanating from a faulty heater.  She was 16.

Theodore and Clara's third child, Theodore, was born on April 30th, 1915, and his birth certificate is the only evidence I've found of his existence.  His twin brother, Aaron, was born the following day.  If you look closely at Theodore's birth certificate, though, you can see that someone replaced "number of child of this mother" with a 4 and then indicated only 3 of the 4 are living.  I am left to assume that the certificate was amended to reflect that Aaron survived when Theodore did not.

Finally, Hyman was the baby of the family, born in 1929. I'm sure he was much doted upon.  Unfortunately, he didn't make it to his 3rd birthday. 

These three children lived, but when it came time to list the 'late' children of their mother, they didn't make the cut.  And I'm not being dramatic.  When my husband's uncle passed along the information he had about his father's siblings, there was no mention of Molly, Theodore, or Hyman.  So, what do these stories mean to me?  To me, they are a way of honoring and remembering those who came before, whether they lived for a few hours or 16 years.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 2: A Record(ing) that Adds Color

This post did not go in the direction I initially intended.  Well, let me revise that statement.  I had intended to write about my husband's great uncle, Harry Leon Lantz, and I did...but not in the way I had planned.  

In his time, Mr. Lantz was a well-regarded cellist, conductor, and music educator.

Here he is at a rehearsal of the Parkside Baroque Players at UW Parkside in Wisconsin.

The Journal Times, Racine, Wisconsin, 22 Sep. 1969

The article above gives his musical history up to 1969. He later became a professor of music at Peabody College of Music in Nashville, Tennessee, (now part of Vanderbilt University).  In 1977, he became an associate professor for cello and the conductor of the Baylor Symphony Orchestra at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. My thought was that he had either released a couple recordings of cello music, or there were recordings of symphonies he had conducted.  My intention was to locate one of them as my "record that adds color."  And here's where things got a bit odd. A quick search did reveal that Harry Lantz  recorded cello music on the RCA Victor and CRI labels, but that search also lead me to this Burt Reynolds record.

How did a search for Harry Lantz bring me here, you ask?  I asked myself the same question, but as I scrolled through the page's information, I discovered a credit for one Harry Lantz on the strings.  I thought to myself, "It must be a different Harry Lantz," as I searched for additional information on this album. The MusicRow website had little to say about it other than that Reynolds came to Nashville in 1973 to create Ask Me What I Am...and that the record was not a success.  Nashville, Tennessee, is precisely where Harry Lantz was in 1973, but I still wasn't 100% convinced I had the right person until,  upon further investigation, I discovered another Peabody College music professor, Samuel Terranova, had also loaned his talents to this record.

I started this post intending to leave the reader with some beautiful cello music. Instead, I will leave you with the link to a long forgotten country album featuring the vocals of Burt Reynolds...and the string contributions of Harry Lantz.

Overlooked

Sometimes you overlook potentially helpful information because you don't have enough information to realize that it's helpful. No, really.  Stay with me.  It makes sense.

My great great grandfather, Pietro Aloisio, immigrated to the United States in 1916, and settled in Manchester, Connecticut.  Census records and city directories confirmed his residence in that town from 1920-1932. He died in 1933 as evidenced by his headstone at St. James Cemetery - also in Manchester.  I couldn't find an exact date, though.  The only potential lead I had was the Connecticut Death Index.  It stated a Peter Aloisio had died January 11, 1933, in Preston, Connecticut.  To me, this just didn't add up to a hit for my ancestor.  Pietro had always lived in Manchester.  After his wife's death in 1928, he had moved in with his son and daughter-in-law (in Manchester) and was still living with them in a 1932 city directory.  At 80+ years old, it seemed unlikely that he would have much reason to be 50 miles away from home.  So I left it (and Pietro) alone for some time.

My breakthrough came when I unearthed this newspaper article. 

"Attempts to Commit Suicide," Hartford Courant, 4 Oct. 1932, p. 7

"How is this helpful?" you might ask.  Suicidal people were frequently committed to psychiatric hospitals, so I followed a hunch and searched for such a place in Preston, Connecticut. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Norwich State Hospital (for the mentally ill and criminally insane) opened in Preston, Connecticut, in 1904 and operated in some capacity until 1996.  Now my overlooked Death Index hint seemed more likely! 

Of course, the facility is now closed, and the files are only available through the Connecticut State Archives, so an inquiry was in order.  I sent one in June 2024 and didn't receive a response until almost 6 months to the day.  (Perhaps *they* had overlooked my query.)  At any rate, long story short:

As you can see, he was admitted to Norwich State Hospital two days after the date of the newspaper article.  He died there a few months later from a cerebral hemorrhage.