Left: Passage certificate for Julia Helander, 1901. Center: From left, Hilda, unknown woman, Julia, and unknown man (possibly Eric. E. Helander) in Mariehamn, ca. 1895. Right: Family gathering at Hilda and Walter Scheuerman’s house in Ballard, Washington, 1909. Photos courtesy of Sylvia Stauffer.
Hilda Marie Helander (1878–1964), the eldest of the three sisters, had left Åland for America sometime in 1896. My father’s cousin Ruby Scheuerman Wells (1903–2000) told us that her mother, Hilda, may have traveled from Åland on a stolen or forged passport. Fearless as Hilda must have been, that could be the case. Extensive online searches reveal no clues as to Hilda’s travel dates or routes, including her daring adventure in the Klondike gold rush of 1897 to 1898. The story is that she worked as a cook or clerk in Dawson City for a year or two, with the proof being a receipt dated October 20, 1900, for gold bullion worth over two thousand dollars at the time. Hilda had earned enough, paid in gold dust, to bring her two younger sisters to Seattle: Julia in 1901 and Emelia five years later in 1906. Sources for Visual Atlas on pages 14 and 15: Eriksson, Thorvald. Så tillkom Ålands självstyrelse och så försvaras den; Glimtar ur självstyrelsens historia. Mariehamn, Åland: Ålandsutställningen, 1976. Fakta om Geta. Geta kommun, accessed July 13, 2022. https://www.geta.ax/ turistinformation/fakta-om-geta. Fakta om Kumlinge. Kumlinge kommun, accessed July 13, 2022. https:// www.kumlinge.ax/index.php/las-mer-om-kumlinge. Four Lighthouses Around Åland. Visit Åland, accessed July 17, 2022. https://visitaland.com/en/experience/sights-excursions/lighthouses/.
In October 1906, following the death of both her grandmother and mother, and disappointed with her father’s second marriage, Emelia boarded a ship from Mariehamn, Åland, bound for Hull, England. From Hull, she made her way to Liverpool to travel on the SS Dominion, October 11–26, 1906, crossing to Quebec, Canada. Then, she made a solo journey by rail across Canada, entering the U.S. to arrive at her final destination, the rough and muddy metropolis of Seattle, Washington. To read Emilia’s complete story, please visit our website https://www.swedishfinnhistoricalsociety. org/my-aland-ancestors/.
Presentation of the Municipality of Brändö. Brändö kommun, accessed July 13, 2022. https://brando.ax/en/brando. Åland in Figures 2022. Mariehamn, Åland: Ålands statistik- och utredningsbyrå, 2022. Åland Wildlife. Åland Travel, accessed July 11, 2022. https://aland.travel/ aland-wildlife.html.
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