35 – Disaster

The first death came on the 27th of August: 3-year-old Johanna Mathilda Isacsdotter died of Rödsot, characterized by stomach cramps, diarrhea, and bloody stools, and she was buried the next day. After an almost two week pause, a torrent of deaths began on September 9, including Mathilda's 9-year-old brother Frans Oscar Isacsson on September 12. Then it was a daily occurance, sometimes two or three deaths a day, and it did not slow down until the end of October when it turned to a trickle. On the fifth of November, 1-year-old Thekla Olivia Amanda Wahlgren, daughter of the parish organist and schoolteacher, was the last to die, and it was over as quickly as it had begun.

Rödsot, known today as dysentery, killed more people in Sweden during the last few centuries than better publicized diseases such as cholera. During this epidemic in 1857 Jönköping County was particularly hard hit, with 4,000 deaths including Mathilda. The church book of the parish of Bälaryd where she was buried registers 78 consecutive deaths from dysentery in that late summer and early fall. Besides the two deaths from dysentery, no other deaths were recorded in November; three elderly people died of other causes in December. 

Bälaryd Church (Hoeschler, 2006)

ArkivDigital digitization of Bälaryd Parish church book cover

 

September 22 – October 3:  24 deaths, Bälaryd Parish, Jönskoping, Sweden

A wave of death...

All ages were affected, but mainly the young

My family's tragedy

In 1857 my great-grandfather Fredrik Ludwig Wederquist was living with his family in Åkersberg cottage on Karstorp farm in Bälaryd Parish; the small cottage still stands. When I visited in 2008 it had a new roof but the insides looked as if it had been abandoned thirty years ago; it was awaiting progress on some distant owner's project to turn it into a summer residence.

Ludwig's father Sven was a poor tenant farmer who had moved there with his family two years prior as told in this family history note written by another of Ludwig's great-grandchildren, Linda Hoeschler:

There is a somewhat confusing story of Sven's 1855 move from Hillerstorp to Karstorp in the records of the poor relief agency as quoted in a local history book. Sven, a "defenseless" (unable to vote) iron metal-worker, supposedly appealed to Bälaryd parish in 1855 for housing. We know that at this time he and his family were living on Hillerstorp farm, and that the owner of Hillerstorp was also a parish leader. According to the book, he was initially directed to live in a certain house in Hillerstorp that he found unsuitable and refused to accept. The farm overseer, J. Pettersson, found his behavior intolerable and told Sven to go find his own housing or move to the poor house. Since Sven was not registered in Hillerstop (one had to register residence in a certain area, and get permission to move, all from the parish priest), he could and did move to Karstorp. He located a cottage named Åkersberg (field mountain), one of 12 small cottages housing the 50 people who worked on the three Karstorp farms.

Åkersberg cottage in 2008

In the fall of 1857 six-year-old Fredrik Ludwig was the fifth oldest of 7 siblings living in the crowded cottage, with his parents Sven Abrahamsson-Wederquist and Lovisa Gustafsdotter-Dahlberg. He had four older brothers – Svante Alfrid 16, August Leonard 14, Gustav Edvard 12, and Carl Johan Oscar 8. And there was a younger brother Georg 3, and a baby sister Emelie Maria just turning 1. 

On September 26, as the epidemic was not quite halfway through its path of devastation, 16-year-old Svante Alfrid became the 40th person in Bälyaryd Parish to die of dysentery. Two days later, before Svante could be buried, 12-year-old Gustaf Edward died. Svante was buried the next day, and Gustav on October 2. A few days later, on October 5, 8-year-old Carl Johan Oscar was dead as well, just short of his 9th birthday, and he was buried the next day.

September 26 and 28: the first two Wederquist children die 

October 5, Carl Johann Oscar dies

The family was reduced by 3 of the oldest children, leaving just 4 alive. We don't know if Fredrik Ludvig or any of his remaining siblings became seriously ill, or were left untouched by the disease; but certainly the entire family must have been emotionally devastated, and probably terrified for the next month or two waiting to see if any others would succumb. Their only consolation may have been that they were not alone in their grief; three other families lost 3 children, and two of those lost a parent as well.

More on the 1857 Pandemic

In 2012 University of Gothenburg doctoral student Helene Castenbrandt defended a thesis about the history of dysentery in Sweden; in 2019 she wrote an article on the subject for Släkhistoria, a Swedish periodical on genealogy and local history. She documented that the epidemic in 1857 was the last of three major dysentery outbreaks in the last few centuries:

The three largest eruptions of the 18th and 19th centuries occurred in 1772–73, 1808–09 and 1857... In some years, tens of thousands of people in the country could die from dysentery. During the second half of the 19th century, the epidemics subsided. In Jönköping county, for example, which was hit very hard in 1857 with four thousand deaths, between 1865 and 1900 only 36 deaths from dysentery were registered.

Dysentery was not as feared as diseases which actually killed many fewer people, like cholera:

Dysentery never gave rise to the same pervasive interest - yet we can see in hindsight that the disease reaped far more deaths for Sweden than cholera. During the 19th century, roughly 100,000 deaths from dysentery were registered, while just under 40,000 died from cholera during the same period.

She notes that the severity of the epidemic locally in Jönköping might have been due to weather conditions affecting drinking water:

What then could have caused this county-specific severe epidemic? Studying the provincial doctors' reports for this year, it seems that a large part of the problem was related to the weather, as the provincial doctors saw a connection between the weather conditions and the poor state of health.

In the worst-affected districts, the summer is said to have been very hot, followed by a mild autumn. As it had not rained for several months, it was also very dry. The drought together with the hot weather must have caused a water shortage. The drinking water ran out, which led to people being forced to drink unfit water, and in addition they had to walk long distances when wells etc. dried up.

In her thesis Castenbrandt includes a map of Sweden showing the percentages of deaths in 1857 that were due to dysentery – I've added an arrow to show where Bälyaryd parish is on the map, close to the epicenter of the pandemic:

Circles show percentage of deaths due to dysentery in 1857 in each parish (Castenbrandt pg. 108)

Postscript

Sven Widerquist and his wife Lovisa Dahlberg went on to have another son and two more daughters. Of their ten children, seven survived childhood; only Svante Alfrid, Gustaf Edvard, and Carl Johan Oscar died, in that terrible 10 day span of late September and early October 1857.

Sven Wederquist lived to the very old age of 86, and then died of tuberculosis in Sweden; Lovisa had died at 76, ten years earlier. All their remaining children grew up, and all but two of their daughters emigrated to America.

Ludvig came to America in 1869 at the age of 18, and never saw his parents again. Eleven years later he married a first generation American of Swedish ancestry living in Illinois. After they had two children they moved to western Iowa where Ludvig worked for the railroad. He lived to 59 and died of tuberculosis six years after his wife had died of the same disease.

Ludwig Wederquist as a young man, tintype

Ludvig in his later years

Sources

“ArkivDigital: Bälaryd (F) C:4 1850-1860 Image 59 / Page 107.” n.d. Accessed September 5, 2023. https://app.arkivdigital.se/volume/v33415?image=59. Note: Also other adjacent images for the year 1857.

Castenbrandt, Helene. 2019. “Dysentery claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.” (“Rödsot skördade hundratusentals liv.”) Släkthistoria. January 28, 2019. https://slakthistoria.se/livet-forr/sjukdomar/rodsot-skordade-hundratusentals-liv. Note: this is a short summary of Castenbrandt's thesis for a Swedish family history site.

Castenbrandt, Helene. 2012. “Dysentery in Sweden 1750 – 1900: The demographic and medical history of a disease.” (“Rödsot i Sverige 1750 – 1900: En sjukdoms demografiska och medicinska historia.”) https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/30195. Note: this points to a pdf of the actual thesis, which is in Swedish. 

Hoeschler, Linda. 2023. Wederquist family history notes and photos. Privately held.

University of Gothenburg. “Dysentery epidemic killed many in the 1700s-1800s.” ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121025095407.htm (accessed September 2, 2023).