Across three states

Alfred Johnson & Ida Fagerberg


icon-male  Alfred Ludvig Alford Johnson (26/10 1846 – after 1879)
icon-leaf  D2 branch [1.2.11.8.1.3]
icon-home  Son of Frank Alford & Hannah Johansdotter
  Ekeby, Östergötland
icon-globe  Emigrated to America


  Ida L. Fagerberg (1857 – 1951) (m. 1878 in Kansas, div.)
icon-location-arrow  Sweden
icon-globe  Emigrated to America
  2 children


  Primary sources + living sources
  03-02-2021


Alfred grew up in a remote Swedish cottage, but came to Joplin in southwesternmost Missouri via New York with his parents in 1866 when he was 17 years old.

Älgaberget cottage. Photo: Esben Alfort 2019.

In 1877, he got the Swedish girl Ida L. Fagerberg pregnant. He was by then 32 years old and she was 20. She was likewise a Swede by birth, so their family became entirely Swedish-speaking at home, but they were all able to speak English.

A year later, his widowed mother married John Johnson, and Alfred decided then to likewise take the name Johnson.

It is difficult to trace this couple, but they soon settled in the important industrial town of Fort Scott across the state border in Kansasicon-map-marker with their two sons. However, they were divorced while the boys were still young. In 1910 Ida is living with her sons in Twin Groves townshipicon-map-marker, somewhere outside Carl Junction.

  • 1.  icon-male John Edward Johnson (1/4 1877 – 1944) icon-stop
  • 2.  icon-male Frank William Johnson (14/11 1879 – 11/10 1958) icon-stop

Sometime in the 1910s they all moved to a farm in Narcissaicon-map-marker in Oklahoma, just across another state border. The area was known to the family, as her former brother-in-law John Alford had lived there with his family, and in the 1930s his daughter Katie and her husband once more moved in as their neighbours.

The landscape around Narcissa is very flat. Source: Google.

The Johnson family ran the farm together for the rest of their lives and are buried together in the nearest town of Miami, Oklahoma. None of the sons ever married. In his old age, Frank moved to 418 A St Southeasticon-map-marker in Miami, Oklahoma. The sons both had blue eyes and dark hair.

Ida Johnson and her sons grave in Miami, Oklahoma. Source: Findagrave.com.


Research data

There is a story out there that Alfred drowned on the way to America. His prayer book is said to still bear the marks from being completely wet through. The question is whether the drowning is a fabrication arising from the wet prayer book, or whether it was actually one of Alfred’s brothers who drowned? Clearly, he survived.

Even so, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding this couple.

  •  icon-male name (others’ spellings): Alfred Ludvig (1849-1860)
  •  icon-female name (others’ spellings): Ida Johnson (1910); Ida L. Johnson (1940)
  •  icon-male b. Ekeby 1849: v37219.b34.s60
  •  icon-male hous. 1849-1860 Ekeby: v25383.b114.s102(1849-1852); v25386.b315.s293(1852-1860); Malexander: v27197.b110.s201(1860)
  •  icon-female hous. 1910-1940 Twin Groves: 1910; Narcissa: 192019301940
  • Frank WWI reg.: 1918; WWII reg.: 1942
  • John WWI reg.: 1918