This is my great uncle!
Mauritz Christianson was my great uncle. He was married to Gunhild Erickson (Ericson?), my grandmother Helga's sister. Mauritz was from Sweden. He was a mason, or in his words a "bricklayer." He came to the United States--as did many other immigrants--to cash in on money being made rebuilding San Francisco after the great 1906 earthquake and fire. I was told Sweden was also suffering an economic turndown at the time. I don't know how he and Gunhild met or when/where they married. They had no children.
I remember as a child visiting Aunt Gunhild and Uncle "Morris" with my mom, dad, and grandmother. They lived in Cranston, RI. Mauritz had carved many wooden figures, all satirical--a prim and proper banker, a drunk, a policeman, etc.--all were painted in lifelike colors. My mom said once they were "very cleverly" done. Mauritz liked to work with wood; he built a rowboat that somehow came into my father's possession. Mauritz seemed a very old man, but looking back through misty memories of his face, I suspect he'd once been good-looking in a rough sort of way.
All I have of his is a World War One campaign medal, the bars on it say "Oise-Aisne" and "Mense-Argonne" and "Defensive Sector". Mauritz died before Gunhild. She went to live at the then Swedish (now Scandinavian) Home in Cranston and took Mauritz's carved figures with her; they disappeared after she died. She must have given his WW2 medal to Helga before then. When Helga died, it went to my mother Doris Westeren; when Doris died, it came to me. This is basically all I know.
I remember as a child visiting Aunt Gunhild and Uncle "Morris" with my mom, dad, and grandmother. They lived in Cranston, RI. Mauritz had carved many wooden figures, all satirical--a prim and proper banker, a drunk, a policeman, etc.--all were painted in lifelike colors. My mom said once they were "very cleverly" done. Mauritz liked to work with wood; he built a rowboat that somehow came into my father's possession. Mauritz seemed a very old man, but looking back through misty memories of his face, I suspect he'd once been good-looking in a rough sort of way.
All I have of his is a World War One campaign medal, the bars on it say "Oise-Aisne" and "Mense-Argonne" and "Defensive Sector". Mauritz died before Gunhild. She went to live at the then Swedish (now Scandinavian) Home in Cranston and took Mauritz's carved figures with her; they disappeared after she died. She must have given his WW2 medal to Helga before then. When Helga died, it went to my mother Doris Westeren; when Doris died, it came to me. This is basically all I know.
