Varola (Hallum); The Lager Family
We are looking for relatives to and descendents of Lars Johan Lager, b May 14, 1839, d in July 1890, tailor and probably soldier, and his wife Anna Kristina Lager, b February 29 (sic!), 1840, d March 31, 1910. They lived in Bäckatorp, later called Tailor's Cottage, under Hallum Vestergd (in the village of Hallum), Varola socken, Kåkind härad, Skaraborgs County, Sweden.
They had the children, probably all of them born in Varola:
1. Edvard (called Eden) Bergström, tailor and farmer, b 1867, Bjärby, Skövde, Sweden;
2. Charles (Karl?), b 1869, Chicago, Illinois;
3. Frida (Alfrida), b October 1, 1872, d December 2, 1945, married to Carl Oscar Skoglund, tailor in Arboga, Sweden;
4. Gustaf R, b 1874, Chicago, Illinois;
5. Joseph, b 1877, Chicago, Illinois;
6. Ernest (Ernst) August Lagerberg, b July 29, 1879, d March 29, 1968, tailor in Salina, Kansas;
7. Eric Lagerberg, b 1882, tailor in Salina, Kansas;
8. Anna Serafia (?), b 1884, married 1. Lindén, 2. Wahlström (?), emigrated to USA and immigrated back to Sweden (Varola and other places);
9. Nils, b 1886, d 1912 in Kansas City, Missouri.
There might have been one more child.
We know that Karl, Gustaf, Joseph, Ernst, Eric and Nils emigrated to USA, possibly all of them at the same time in 1902. They called themselves Bergström, Lager or Lagerberg or changed between those names. In Hallum there was another family Lager (the soldier's), and the children in that family emigrated at the same time together with a man Larsson, who later returned to Hallum. All of them went to Rockford, Illinois, to start with. In the summer of 2000 we met Larsson's son and grandson while visiting Varola.
Frida is my father's mother. Eric is the only one in that generation that I have met, but I have met children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Ernest and a daughter and granddaughter of Anna Serafia. We know the first names of the grandchildren of Lars Johan and Anna Kristina Lager, maybe there are still some missing, though.
We have not yet done any research about older generations and don't know where the Lager's came from before Varola except that Anna Kristina also was called Johansdotter and has a place named Aklinga connected to her. Lager is a soldier's name, and it was given to the chosen soldier of the area (village or so), which probably makes it hard to find relatives with that same name. The name Bergström might have been the family name somehow.
Of course we want to know everything about our family! For example, were there actually 10 children? And were the two families Lager from the small village of Hallum in Varola related to each other in any way? Most important is of course to find our relatives.
Gudrun Skoglund, Upplands Väsby, Sweden and Ben (Lagerberg) Teitelbaum, Castle Rock, Colorado, USA