Person:Irene Ekman (1)

Irene was christened Irene Amanda Bridget Ekman.

When her father remarried in 1902 she evidently did not get on with her new step-mother, and may, as the eldest child, have resented someone new taking over a household she had helped to run since her mother's death in 1900.

She eloped and married her husband Fred. She also converted to Catholicism, in line with his faith. They moved around a lot, changing houses frequently. He died suddenly in 1916, leaving her a widow with five children, the eldest just 13 and the youngest just a few months old.

The three youngest (perhaps the four youngest) were taken to orphanages, the eldest was sent out to make her own way.

Irene remarried in the 1920s to widower Peter P. Derrig, but it seems she never lived with him, and he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in the hotel where he resided in Willmar, Kandiyohi County, MN. on 18 Nov 1930.

Some time later she married a third time, to widower Charles B. Barger. They lived for a time in Washington State. He died in 1947 or 1948 and she returned to Minnesota, where she died in 1949 at 2630-1/2 North Dupont, Minneapolis. She is buried in the Catholic cemetery near her first husband and her first mother-in-law.

1.   Swedish-Americans of Minnesota
   769, 1910.

   biography of father Carl Ekman

2.   1885 Minnesota State Census
   1885.

   household 51 of Chisago Lake township

3.   1900 Census MN, St. Paul
   ED 151 p 1B, 1900.

   aged 16, apprentice dressmaker, living at home with parents

4.   1910 Census MN, St. Paul
   ED 141 p14B, 1910.

   wife of head, 2520 Chilcombe Avenue, St. Paul

5.   death certificate
   1949.