#66: Knit Back Together: The Aftermath of 1930

I’ve written before about the day my great-grandfather, Ludvig Amandus Olsen, lost his life. It’s a story defined by a split-second tragedy—a falling steel rod on a Brooklyn pier in January 1930. (Link HERE) But lately, I’ve been looking past that single day and focusing on the quiet, grueling survival story that followed for my great-grandmother, Gulborg, and her five children.

Arthur, Irving, Gulborg, Clifford, Ethel and Gertrude. Digital image of an undated photo ©️Edward R. Olsen

When Ludvig died, the family didn't just lose a father; they lost their stability. The ages of the children at the time really drive home the heartbreak of the Great Depression: Arthur was 17, Gertrude 15, and the youngest, Ethel, was only 5. My grandfather, Clifford, and his twin brother Irving were just 7 years old.

With no way to support the family in Brooklyn, Gulborg faced a choice no mother should have to make. By late 1930, my grandfather and Irving were placed in a Brooklyn orphanage. While they were there, Gulborg traveled back to Norway—perhaps to find a way forward or to lean on the family she had left behind years earlier.

I recently came across an emigration record from Oslo that marks the exact moment the family began to knit itself back together. On February 26, 1931, Gulborg signed the register to return to New York. The document identifies her as an "Enke" (widow) and lists her birth date as 17/10 90 (October 17, 1890). She was 40 years old, standing on a pier in Norway, preparing to cross the Atlantic to get her children back.

Oslo politidistrikt, Emigrantprotokoller, nr. 3 (1931)

She arrived back in New York on March 8, 1931. It took another year of struggle and the help of the eldest daughter, Gertrude, before they were all under one roof again and eventually moved out to Nassau County.

It has always puzzled me why Gulborg was buried alone in Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale, far from Ludvig and their son Stanley in Brooklyn. But after seeing this record, I see her differently. She spent 38 years as a widow, the woman who fought her way back across an ocean to rescue my grandfather from an orphanage. She earned her rest exactly where she is—close to the family she refused to let stay broken.

Genealogy Snapshot

Name: Ludvig Amandus Olsen
Spouse: Gulborg K. Gulbrandsen
Relationship to me: Great-Grandparents

1. Ludvig A. Olsen = Gulborg K. Gulbrandsen
2. Clifford Olsen = Emma Dorothy Hillenbrand
3. My Father = Mother
4. Me

Key References:

• "Olsen Family History," [Name Withheld for Privatcy], Updated 2020.
  
• Oslo politidistrikt, Emigrantprotokoller, nr. 3 (1931).