Hulda Eckman emigrated from northern Sweden, near Lapland, at the end of the 19th century. Her future husband, Albin Nyström, emigrated from Närke/Värmland in southwestern Sweden at about the same time. Albin was a carpenter and built houses with his second oldest son, Stanley, who had followed in his father's footsteps.

Marinette was a Swedish community where the Nystrom family attended church services in Swedish. In the first years of school, Stanley would translate for his brother, Milton, who was 2 years older and hadn't learned English as well as Stanley.

My father moved to California after the rest of his family had moved there. I think that was in the 1930's.  He met my mother in Los Angeles, where they got married on July 4, 1942. They moved to Oakland a couple months later.

During World War II, my father worked as a carpenter at the Alameda naval shipyard. After the war, he opened a furniture store in Hayward, where he and my mother at first sold furniture he made, then furniture they bought from furniture wholesalers, like the Furniture Mart in San Francisco.

SF Furniture Mart, Feb. 2002 (Photo: Hulda Nystrom)

QUEEN MARINETTE: Spirit of Survival on the Great Lakes Frontier, by Beverly Hayward Johnson. Historical biography of the life of Marinette Chevalier, a French and Native American woman who lived near the mouth of the Menominee River during the early 1800"s. An intelligent, competent and respected businesswoman, for whom the city Marinette, Wisconsin is named.

A Swedish Girl's Journey
Swedish emigration to the US
Swedish emigration to Wisconsin