John and Kristine Erickson were born in Mora, Sweden. They lived in the village Bergkarlas and had four children. They left for America with the children: Carrie (Karin), Anna, Andrew (Anders), and Christine (Kerstin), John’s mother, and John’s brother, Andrew, in May 1882. Christine, their youngest daughter, was only three months old. The trip took three weeks.
They landed in Castle Garden, New York Harbor, and were detained there for a short time before taking a train to Minnesota to stay with John’s sister and brother-in-law, the Olson’s. The family then settled in McLean County, North Dakota near the Missouri Rive near Washburn. John did carpentry work and farmed. Discouraged by the extreme weather, they moved to Washington State to Chehalis and later to Centralia.
John found work drilling wells. They later moved the family to Tacoma on the Pine Street Hill. Mamie was born in Tacoma 4 December 1889. Her older sisters Carrie and Annie worked cooking for families while Christine and Andrew went to Central School. The family moved to Tenino and John worked at Mentzer’s Sawmill. They later were able to buy forty acres from the Northern Pacific Railway Company and built their home. The property was about five and a half miles from Little Rock, a small community with a post office and a mill. Four other families lived near them on Case Road. The families petitioned for a school, but there were no funds, so they got together and built their own school and hired Miss Anna Callow, 18, to teach their children. Later, John helped build a new school about a mile away from their home. Kristine had three more sons, Arthur Richard in 1892, John Arvid in 1894, and Elmer Francis in 1895. She had no doctor, only neighbors, to help her. John and Kristine lived on in their home until they passed away (she in 1924, he 1927).
From the guide to the John and Kristine Erikson Family History, 1882-1986, (Pacific Lutheran University Archives and Special Collections/Library Services)
