Frederick, then nearing his 24th birthday, married the former Johanna Carolina Jonsdater on November 5, 1871. Johanna, 2 years younger than Frederick, was also born in Ljusnarsberg. Some records of the Styrlund family list Johanna's maiden name as Johnson but church records from both Sweden and Michigan list her as Jonsdater so that is the name I will use here. Johanna would eventually gave birth to 12 children, 4 were born in each of 3 locations: Sweden, Michigan, and Minnesota. The four children born in Sweden were, like their parents, born in Ljusnarsberg.

The Styrlunds, like approximately 90 percent of all the people in Sweden, belonged to the Lutheran Church. In Sweden the Lutheran Church was financially supported by the state and is charged with keeping birth, death, and marriage records of all the country's people. The state did not separate itself from the church until Jan. 1996.

The family of Frederick Styrlund left Sweden from the port of Goteberg on May 9, 1879 headed for Ishpeming, Michigan. Ishpeming is located in Marquette County on the Upper Peninsula near Marquette, Michigan. Their reason for leaving can not be discovered for certain but Swedish genealogy experts I have corresponded with indicate to me that many people left the country between 1870 and 1890 because the small country was becoming overcrowded. Included in the family at the time they left Sweden were Frederick and his wife Johanna; sons, Albert and Ernest, who was just 8 months old at the time they left, and daughter Hilma Marie (Mary). Their oldest child, Ingaborg, died in Sweden in 1877 at the age of 5.

I have located this family living in Ishpeming in the 1880 U.S. Census under the name Stylon. They were living in a mining camp at the New York Mine site, one of several mines in the Ishpeming area. The Ishpeming area was a rich source of minerals. While the New York Mine, where the Styrlunds were located, was an iron mine, copper, silver and even gold were also mined in the area. They moved to Iron Mountain, Michigan in 1884. Iron Mountain is also located on the Upper Peninsula, right on the Wisconsin border.

According to Church records obtained from the Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming as well as the First Lutheran Church in Iron Mountain, the first child born in the U.S. was Hulda Cecilia Styrlund who was born in Ishpeming in October of 1880 and died there in 1881. Also born during their time in Michigan were Simon, Charles and Thure. Thure was the only child born during their two year stay in Iron Mountain. Hulda, Simon, and Charles were all born in Ishpeming. Frederick was joined in Ishpeming by his younger brother Carl and a sister Carolina both of whom emigrated from Sweden in 1880, a year after Frederick.

In 1886, After spending his lifetime working as a miner in both Sweden and Michigan, Frederick left Iron Mountain and headed for St. Helaire, Polk County, Minnesota to take up farming. Polk County is located in NW Minnesota across the Red River from Grand Forks, North Dakota. An exact date for their move has not been determined but Thure was born in Michigan in April of that year so it was certainly after that.

From working my mother's side of my family history I have discovered that the preferred method of travel into the area at the time was to go by boat to Duluth and then by train or oxcart from there to East Grand Forks. This is how my mother's family got there from Southern Ontario. However since Duluth is accessible by land from Iron Mountain the Styrlund family probably traveled the entire distance from there to East Grand Forks by either train or oxcart depending on their financial standing at the time. Upon his arrival in Minnesota he homesteaded on a farm in New Solumn Township, Marshall County,just north of the Polk County line. New Solumn Township is a rural area outside of Rosewood, MN. Rosewood lies in southern Marshall County about 30 miles NW of Grand Forks, ND. In the period from 1870 to 1880 immigrants, mostly from Canada, began to flood into the Red River Valley area of Western Minnesota. They first went to the area around Fargo, ND and Moorhead, Minnesota where the best land was said to be located. As they continued to flood in to the area the land filled up and new arrivals were forced to move further north. By 1880 when the Bushees (my mother's family) arrived the area of settlement had moved north to East Grand Forks. So while Michigan Church records indicate the Styrlunds were headed for Polk County this land was probably all claimed by the time they arrived so they were forced to move north into Marshall County.

During their time in Minnesota Johanna gave birth to 4 children (David, Elsie, Ethel and Emil). All were born on the family homestead in New Solumn Township. After moving to Minnesota the Styrlunds, like many other Swedish immigrants, joined the Mission Covenant Church and attended the Viking Mission Covenant Church in nearby Viking, MN. The Mission Covenant movement was begun by Swedish immigrants who were concerned that the Lutheran Church in America had grown too liberal. The Mission Covenant, in keeping with the traditional Swedish Lutheran Church, was a more conservative church.

Frederick Styrlund died on July 9, 1914 at the family homestead in New Solumn Township. The cause of death on his death certificate was listed as myocarditis, an imflamation of tissues surrounding the heart. He was 66 years old at the time of his death.

In 1918, four years after the death of Frederick, the family moved to Viking, Marshall County Minnesota where Ernest, Simon, and Charles ran a general store. Johanna died of colon cancer at the home in Viking on the 10th of March 1923. At the time of her death Johanna was 72. Johanna and Frederick are buried together at the Wildwood Cemetery in Rosewood, MN.

One of the more interesting things about this family is the longevity of the children. My research has covered over 280 families on both my mother's and father's side and no other family has had this type of longevity. Of the ten children who survived childhood all but 2 survived to the age of 70. of these 3 died in their 70's, 2 in their 80's, 2 in their 90's, and the oldest surviving daughter, Mary, lived to the age of 100. The children in order of birth(reading left to right) with their ages at death:

The pattern seems to be that the older children lived longer than the younger ones did. 5 of the 8 children born before the family arrived in Minnesota,(exceptions being Albert and the 2 who died in childhood) lived past 80 while none of the 4 children born in Minnesota survived to that age.

Their children produced 27 grandchildren for Frederick and Johanna. The first was born to Mary in 1902 and the last to Elsie in 1938. Nearly half of those 27 (12) were born to Elsie and her husband Peter Voiss. None of the other children had more than 4 and David and Thure had no children.

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