Completed Transcription: History of Swan Johnson Family

I have post­ed a com­plete tran­scrip­tion of Lena John­son Schlite­meier’s “His­to­ry of Swan John­son Fam­i­ly of Nance Coun­ty, Nebras­ka (Jan­u­ary 1936).”

The book exists only in the form of a typed MSS in the hands of the fam­i­ly. There are at least two ver­sions; the tran­scrip­tion is of the most com­plete ver­sion, which was giv­en to me and my moth­er by the author’s son in 1997 as we vis­it­ed his farm is Nehawka, Nebras­ka.

Swan John­son (born Sven Jöns­son in Val­by, Kris­tianstad, Swe­den in 1826) mar­ried Kjer­stin Wescelius in 1853. They had six chil­dren in Swe­den, and then, in 1868, with the youngest child less than 6 months of age, they emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States. They lived first in Chica­go, Illi­nois, lat­er on a farm in Bement, Piatt Coun­ty, Illi­nois, and final­ly cross­ing the prairie to farm in Keatsko­toos and Genoa, Nance Coun­ty, Nebras­ka. This book tells a quite detailed sto­ry of three gen­er­a­tions of this fam­i­ly. The author was the eldest child of the eldest child of Swan and Kjer­stin John­son. Lena John­son attend­ed Nebras­ka Wes­leyan and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, receiv­ing a Ph.B. in Edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go and an A.B. from Nebras­ka Wes­leyan. She writes well and clear­ly, and though the doc­u­ment is not sourced, most of what I have been able to val­i­date has been sur­pris­ing­ly accu­rate.