Person:Carl Ekman (1)

Carl Nils Ekman, also known as Carl Nilius Ekman, was christened Carl Nilsson after the Swedish practice of patronymy, his father being named Nils. The name Ekman was NOT part of his name until the family began using it later. (It was a military name -- see item on his father.)

Carl was the second son of his parents; at the time his father was in the Swedish Army and the family were not well off, so he had what was called a "common" education. He began working in his home town of Växjö (also spelled Vexio and Wexio in the past) as clerk in a local shop and worked also as a bookkeeper. In 1872 he decided to try his luck in Germany and moved to Hamburg, where he got work for an import/export firm. He advanced quickly, becoming the travelling representative (i.e. salesman) to the firm's Danish, Swedish and north German customers.

However, poor economic conditions in the Germany of the time meant that he couldn't get ahead, and in 1879 he decided, on the advice of a friend, to try his luck in America. He departed from Gothenburg, Sweden on the 17th of October 1879, stating that his destination was "Wyoming". We believe this meant not Wyoming state, but Wyoming township in Chisago County, Minnesota. He arrived in St. Paul/Minneapolis the day before Thanksgiving, 1879. He quickly found a job as bookkeeper and later as salesman in a dry goods store there, and within two years established his own store in partnership with his younger brother Henry (Olof Henrik) who had immigrated to the US in 1880. This became, according to the biography that appears in "Swedish-Americans of Minnesota", "… one of the prominent Swdish business houses in St. Paul."

He married his first wife, Amanda Wallmark, at her parents' home on County Road in St. Paul, MN in 1883. Ill health forced him to withdraw from the dry goods store and he and his wife moved to her main family hometown of Lindström, Chisago County, MN in 1884, where the first of their many children were born. In Lindstrom Carl established a general merchandise store, which prospered until it burned down on the 23rd of December 1888.

By then he had a family of four children, the youngest having arrived on New Year's Day 1889. Things seemed desperate, but his wife Amanda had connections through two uncles to the Minnesota State Senate (one was a serving and one a former senator), and Carl is noted in his biography as having "… received an appointment in connection with the Minnesota legislature." The family returned to live in St. Paul, where their fifth and subsequent children were born.

In 1891 Carl ws appointed chief clerk to the Minnesota Secretary of State (Col. Hans Mattson). In 1893 he became manager of the Swedish-language ''Minnesota Stats Tidning, and from 1st July 1899 he was general manager for the Svenska Folkets Tidning of Minneapolis.

His first wife died in 1900 giving birth to their 10th child. He remarried in 1902.

In 1908 he was appointed by Minnesota State Governor Johnson to be Director of the Board of State Normal Schools. By 1922 or 1923 it was becoming clear that his behavior was eratic, and he spent his declining years in the care of his second wife and his eldest son. He died at home and was buried in the same family plot as his parents, a brother who predeceased him, another brother's wife, his first wife and at least two stillborn children by his second wife.

1.   Swedish-Americans of Minnesota
   768-9, 1910.

   summarized in personal history.

2. ↑