Home
Johanna's Cover Page

On Sunday, April 16, 1865, Grandpa’s Father was competing with other young men in the churchyard in Örtofta. They were testing their strength to see who could lift the heaviest weight. Mom, in an interview I had with her in 1977, gave this account of what happened:

. . . he was a young married man and it was the custom of the young bloods - the young men of the church - after church services or between church services or something like that - to show their strength, ya know, and to pick up these big stones that were in the churchyard and he picked up a stone - this was Grandpa Wiberg’s father [Sven Hansson] - he picked up a stone and somehow broke or strained or did something to his innards that caused his death.

As a result of these injuries, Great Grandfather Sven died five days later on Friday, April 21, 1865 -- seven days before his son Sven was born.