Sever James Severson: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Newest”

Newest Unusual Cause of Death: Intemperence

Sever James Severson: 1855-1897

 

Sever James Severson was my great-aunt Julia Peterson’s first husband. While doing some research on Julia and Severson’s restaurant business in the newly-created town of Brookings, South Dakota in the late 19^th century, I ran across a news item describing Sever’s death at the shockingly young age of forty-three. The cause of death stunned me: intemperance. That was a new one I’d never seen before!

My only experience with the word intemperance was through its antonym, temperance. I was familiar with the Temperence Movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s that eventually led to the ill-conceived 18^th Amendment that brought about Prohibition. I inferred from the news report that Sever died of alcohol poisoning or liver damage, or some other fatal malady experienced by chronic alcoholics. He died in June 1897 while visiting a farm on a sales call. Did he arrive inebriated? Did he drink while there? Did he collapse? Did he pass out and never regained consciousness? There were no details, so all I can do is speculate.

Sever was born sometime in 1855 in Wisconsin. By the late 1870s, he had moved to Minnesota where he met Julia Peterson, a new immigrant from Norway. The couple married on February 9, 1877 in Madelia, Minnesota, the town nearest the homestead near Lake Hanska where Julia’s parents and brothers, including my grandfather Paul, had started farming.

After the wedding, Julia and Sever, who was often going by the name James Severson or SJ Severson, moved to South Dakota. They were one of the original pioneering families that established the town of Brookings, South Dakota. The young couple opened a restaurant in 1880 in the new community. It is unclear how long they continued to operate the business. Records show that they added to their family over the years, ending up with four daughters and three sons, the last child, Philip, born just months before his father’s death in 1897.

An article in the October 21, 1889 Daily Plainsman newspaper details a multi-day drunken spree that Sever James went on, causing his wife and children to decamp to a neighbor’s house. He brought home a friend, Knut Westrum, but the two had a disagreement and “Severson took up some of the furniture and demolished it over Westrum’s head. At last Westrum was found on the floor with a broken head by a passer-by…”

If this sort of violence and destruction was typical when Sever James went on a bender, it is understandable that Julia packed up the children and fled to the home of friends. The article went on to report that “Severson is now in the cooler” awaiting the results of Westrum’s injuries—this sounds like there was a chance that Westrum could die.

The article concluded by noting that “Severson is a gentleman when he is sober and has good business qualifications, but the demon makes him worse than a brute.”

Obviously Sever James Severson had a long-standing drinking problem that was public knowledge. Perhaps his early death was a relief to his long-suffering wife and children. While “intemperance” listed as a cause of death was new to me, the danger of long-term alcoholism is an old, sad story.

Sources:

The Daily Plainsman, Huron South Dakota. 22 Oct 1889. Page 1.

Sioux Falls Argus Leader 15 Jun 1897.