Where She Lived: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Record That Adds Color”

 

Obit for Stena Severson Leads to Info on the Living Situation of Working Women in the 1910s-1930s

Christine “Stena” Severson: 1881-1931 (Paternal First Cousin 1x Removed)

I had very little information on my ancestor/cousin, Stena Severson, beyond the bare facts of birth and death—nothing that really gave any insight into her life. But as I read the brief obituary notice printed in the Minneapolis Journal in 1931, a small piece of information caught my eye. After a little online research, Stena’s life story had a little dash of color at long last.

Christine Severson was born in June 1881 in Brookings, South Dakota to parents Julia Peterson Severson and Sever Severson. I have found no actual birth record, and no other records provide the actual day of her birth. She was the second of their seven children. Her father drank himself to death when she was sixteen, and she was forced to grow up quickly and support herself. She appears in the 1900 census still living at home. She was nineteen, but was listed as “at school”. Since she became a stenographer, I believe she was probably attending a trade school that prepared young women for office work.

Christine "Stena" is probably the seated woman at the left.

I found no census records for Stena in either 1910 or 1920. The 1930 census finds her living in Minneapolis and working as a stenographer for a law firm.

Just a year later, on June 12, 1931, she suddenly died. According to her obituary, she was only forty-nine years old, which means her birth date must have been after the 12^th in June 1881. I found no news articles about her death, so it was apparently due to natural causes—perhaps a stroke or heart attack, or an illness like pneumonia that led to death.

Her brief obituary lists only her mother and siblings as survivors, and notes that interment will be in South Dakota. The only information the obituary provided about her life was the brief notation “residence, Belmont Hotel.”

A hotel? That piqued my curiosity. What would cause a woman with an office job to live at a hotel? Research on the Belmont Hotel provided some answers. The current owners of the building, the Honig Company, provide a history of the building as follows:

“The Belmont, located in the historic Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis near the Hornig Companies’ Home Office, sits on the corner of West Franklin and Hennepin Ave South.  The “Belmont Inn,” as it was originally known, opened in 1920 and was built as an “Apartment Hotel,” a style of living that was popular for a short time in the early 1900’s.  Residents could rent an apartment for a day, a week or by the month and receive the amenities of fully furnished units, housekeeping services as well as garage services.  Built by the Fleischer Brothers, who also built the Calhoun Beach Club, the building was a popular winter home for families who owned summer cabins on Lake Minnetonka.

At its prime, the lower level boasted a dinner and dance hall, a continental bath and beauty shop with mineral steam baths, a barber shop and a billiard & club room…

The Belmont Hotel, circa 1920s

I looked at the 1930 census record for Stena more closely, and saw that her neighbors included several single, professional women, including teachers and other stenographers. I can see the attraction of such a property, with all the additional amenities available such as furnishings, housekeeping services and the onsite beauty shop. The “rooms” were more like small apartments, which would be perfect for a single woman. Perhaps Stena developed friendships with her single female neighbors, which would have made the property even more attractive.

Looking at Minneapolis City Directories for the period Stena lived in Minneapolis, I was able to trace both her jobs and her residence locations. In 1910, Stena was working for a company called the Mercantile Adjustment Co., and was living in a “flat” at 712 E. 14^th Street. By 1915, Christine found a stenographer position with a lawyer named Harry G. Amick. His company, H.G.Amick Co., worked in “legal collections and adjustments”, and had offices in the Palace Building, located near 315 S. 4^th Street in Minneapolis. In 1915, Stena had moved one block further to 22 E. 15^th Street.

The Palace building in Minneapolis, circa 1930s

The following year, Stena moved to one of the first “apartment hotels”, the Ogden Hotel at 70 s. 12^th Street. This was ideally located, only one mile from her new office in the Baker Building at 7^th Street and 2^nd Ave. H.G. Amick had merged his legal practice with another firm, which became known as Deutsch, Loeffler & Amick. The firm seems to have been a full-service legal firm.

The Baker Building in the 1930s, location of the offices of Deutsch, Loeffler & Amick.

Stena’s boss, H.G. Amick, had kept an apartment at the Ogden Hotel around 1912. He also had a home further out in the city, so probably kept the apartment due to its proximity to his offices. Perhaps he suggested that Christine move there in 1916. She lived in Apartment 4 at the Ogden for at least six years, possibly more. The Ogden had much to offer. The location was near a large library, Loring Park, and the Minneapolis Auditorium, a performing arts location, so there was plenty for Ogden residents to do and enjoy.  

The Ogden Hotel in the 1960s when it was renamed the Continental.

Christine received promotions during her years at the law firm. By 1922, her city directory listing showed her as the firm’s “chief clerk”. By 1928, the directory listed her as “department manager”. She had also moved to yet another apartment hotel building, the Leamington. It was an elegant building at 1014 3^rd Avenue.

The Hotel Leamington, Minneapolis, circa 1940s

The following year, 1929, Christine moved for the last time to the Belmont. She obviously enjoyed the “apartment hotel” lifestyle, as she lived in three different ones during the last fifteen years of her life.

I loved finding photos of the buildings where she lived and where she worked. I could imagine her walking briskly to work on chill mornings, or catching a street car or bus on wet winter days. She must have felt very sophisticated, working in high-rises and living on her own in busy city apartment hotels. Her life in Minneapolis was vastly different than life in much smaller, quieter Brookings. I hope Stena loved her life and her career. I am so glad I ran across that mention of the Belmont Hotel in her obituary. It led me to dig more deeply and add some color and detail to the bare facts of Stena's life.

 

 

Sources:

Christine Severson obituary. Minneapolis Journal. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jun 14, 1931. Newspapers.com.

https://www.hornigcompanies.com/2021/03/25/the-belmont-apartments

Belmont Inn and Hotel. 1940s Star and Tribune Company, donors to Hennepin County Library Digital Collections. (1970https://hennepinco.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5vC8z9bbQSyJsuW

Hotel Leamington. Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/CPED/id/5220/

Historic Minneapolis Minnesota Facebook Group. Photos of buildings. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1494515567441974/posts/1912207682339425/

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Ogden Hotel. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/1b2f1f60-072f-41f4-b942-3c39b2c82513

Census data and Minneapolis City Directory entries: Ancestry.com.

Strength and Persistence on the Prairie: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “An Ancestor I Admire”

 

Great-Aunt Julia: Never Surrendering When Far From Family and Facing Adversity

Julia Joramo Peterson: 1857-1939 (Paternal Grand-Aunt)

 

So much of history is written only from the male perspective, and it is easy to fall into that trap as a genealogist. Most records from prior to the mid-1960s were created by men. Women had little power over their own money or personal agency, yet they were often powerful, amazing people. When I find records that actually provide a glimpse of a female ancestor’s life, I rejoice. My great-aunt Julia Joramo Peterson was one of those female ancestors, and her life story shows her strength and determination in the face of tragedy and difficulty.

Julia was born February 6, 1857 in Lesja, Oppland Norway to parents Peder Pederson Joramo and Anne Gulbrandsdatter. She was the second of their five children. When she was thirteen, the family emigrated from Norway to the United States, and ended up in Madelia, Minnesota.

Julia met another Norwegian immigrant in Madelia, Sever James Severson. They married February 9, 1877 when Julia was twenty and Sever was twenty-two. Their first child, daughter Anna, was born eight months later. The young family decided to strike out on their own, leaving their parents and numerous siblings behind in Minnesota, and moved to Brookings, South Dakota in the middle of the winter of 1880. How brave they were, to leave everyone and everything they knew in their new country behind, moving to a place where they had no support system. Brookings was a railroad stop, so the Severson family probably traveled by train, their possessions in the baggage car.

Julia was interviewed by the Brookings newspaper in 1939, shortly before her death. The headline noted that she was “the longest continuous resident” in the city of Brookings, and the article also noted she was the “oldest living person having operated a business here.”. She recalled her early days in the city as follows:

“Early in January 1880, my husband and I landed in Brookings and immediately opened a restaurant on the lot where now the Economy Center Market is on or the one directly south of it, occupied by Mr. Louis Johnson.

It was a fine summer and we had a fine business. There was another restaurant in town on the west side of the street, and there was a hotel, south of us, on the lot now occupied by the Community Oil company. Meals were 25 cents everywhere, and we had no trouble getting food of sufficient quantities and varieties.

Hotel in on Main Street in Brookings in 1890s

Our labor problem was easy to solve. Girls newly arrived from the old country, were glad to work for us at $2 a week and their board, and we never had any trouble with labor. One girl stayed with us for a full year. The meals were put on the table and you ate all you wanted.”

I am amazed at her confidence and work ethic. She had never run a restaurant before they arrived in Brookings. I’m sure Julia had helped her mother with cooking for their family, but cooking for the public all day long is a far different experience. She and Sever faced difficulties as well. She told her interviewer the following story:

“The first winter we were in business was the winter of the big snow. Everything was eaten up in the grocery stores here, and we had to send to Volga with a pair of ponies to try and get some groceries. We kept a man hauling wood all winter from the river. We had a little coal, and that with the wood helped us, especially in baking bread. Thee was a tunnel across the street, to the grocery store, the snow was so deep. I remember a man came in and wanted me to bake him a birthday cake, but we didn’t do it, because we had no flour.

We owned a pair of ponies so I took a ride in a sled on the railroad track. There wasn’t much danger of trains at that time. In the spring I told my husband we were out of butter and that I couldn’t eat [or cook] without butter, so my husband went out to Korstad’s to try and get some. He didn’t get back that night and the next morning he came back, floating up to the back part of Main Street in a wagon box, the creek had come up so much that night, but he had one and one-half pounds of butter. We still had some crackers and ham and a lot of goods that were at Tracy, but they were of no value to us at that time.”

These stories make light of the danger and back-breaking work involved in this life—digging that tunnel through gigantic snowdrifts, risking drowning by floating down a roaring creek in a wagon box—what happened to the wagon base and the horses? Hopefully Sever left them somewhere safe and could retrieve them when the stream receded.

View of Brookings, SD in 1910s

And poor Julia kept that restaurant running while she gave birth to two more children in 1881 and 1884. How did she manage? How did she care for her babies while she was prepping meals and cooking them, washing the dishes, etc. Even with young women working at the restaurant, the hours and labor must have been brutal on her while she was pregnant and nursing.

I am also impressed with Julia and Sever’s ability to quickly build connections in their new community. They found people who could provide them with wood to keep their oven and fireplace going, they found sources for the food they needed for the restaurant like Mr. Korstad, the buttermaker, and of course they built a customer base. They must have been outgoing, charming people.

Julia finished her account as follows:

“We ran this restaurant four years and I enjoyed it. If I had known as much then as I do now, I would have kept right on with it. You know, if you have a place like that you always have a living.”

I’m sure that wasn’t Julia’s only regret. Her husband was an alcoholic who could become violent when he was drunk. He made the newspapers after committing assault during one bender, and he died of alcohol poisoning in 1897 at the age of 42. Sever had been working “selling groceries for a Minneapolis house” when he died.

Sever J Severson, from tree on Ancestry

Julia must have been in desperate straits after Sever’s death. She had seven children between the ages of one and eighteen, while Julia was forty years old. How could she support her family? On the 1900 census, it appears she was working as a “wash woman”. Her eldest children were helping to support the household. Daughter Anna, then 22, was working as a milliner. Son Charles, only 15, was a grocery salesman. He may have taken over his father’s old job, which seems to have involved door-to-door grocery sales.

Julia at right, with her children. Since youngest looks to be about 4-5 years old, probably taken circa 1901-02.

By 1910, Julia was no longer working. Her eldest son Charles seems to have been supporting not only his mother and three youngest siblings, but his new wife as well.

Four years later, Julia married a widowed farmer, Iver Grudem. They lived in a small house on Eighth Street in Brookings. He died in 1925. Julia died fourteen years later on September 21, 1939. She was 82 years old. Her obituary stated that she had been in poor health for five years, but was still up and around each day.

I feel so fortunate that my family kept this news clipping of Julia’s interview with the Brookings newspaper. Reading her own words helped bring her to life. I could see what a strong, determined woman she was., and how she was a valued member of her community. Her resilience and positive attitude in the face of hardship is admirable. She was an impressive woman.

Sources:

Julia Severson-Grudem obituary. Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, SD. Sept. 22, 1939. Newsoapers.com.

“Mrs. Julia Severson-Grudem, Longest Continuous Resident in City, Recalls Early Restaurant Business, Spring Flood. Brookings Register. Brookings, South Dakota. Jan. 12, 1939.