This is an excerpt of a compiled genealogy of Gustaf Medine and his descendants. The full compiled genealogy includes a longer biography of Gustaf Medine, and biographies of three generations of his descendants. See the full document on this page.
Gustaf and Lena Medine were my great-great grandparents. Gustaf emigrated from Sweden, met Lena in Germany, and then they immigrated together to the United States. They settled in DeKalb County, Illinois, where many of their descendants still live. This is a brief biography of their lives in the United States.
Gustaf Andreasson (known after 1882 as Gustaf Medine), was born 7 November 1853 at Mexarp, Mistelås parish, Kronoberg County, Sweden; died 30 June 1927 at Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois. He married about 1880 in Germany, Katharina (Lena) M. Schrader, daughter of Ralph Schrader. She was born 1 December 1862 in Schönberg, Holstein, Germany, and died 17 September 1940 in Sycamore.
Gustaf was the third of eight children to be born to Andreas Danielsson and Lena Stina Svensdotter. He grew up on their farm, but apparently struggled to find work as a young adult. For almost a decade, he and his siblings moved around in Sweden and a few temporarily relocated to Germany and Denmark to try to find a better life. Gustaf moved to northern Germany in about 1871, where he met and married his wife Katharina Schrader (“Lena”) in about 1880. Katharina was from the contested region of Schleswig-Holstein. Little is known about her life and family prior to coming to America. Their first child, Maria Amelia, was born in Germany.
In April of 1881, Gustaf’s younger brother, Sven Peter, emigrated to the U.S.A., settling in Mayfield Township, DeKalb County, Illinois. About one year later, Gustaf, with his wife and young daughter, also arrived in the U.S.A. and settled on a nearby farm in Mayfield Township. Within just a few years, their sisters Helen and Mary had also traveled from Sweden to Mayfield Township. (Read more about the family’s trip from Sweden to DeKalb County in this post.) As they arrived in Illinois, they began to use the surname Medine. Gustaf became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 4 November 1890 in DeKalb County. His sister Christine, and their father, Andreas Danielsson, immigrated to the United States in 1899 after their mother died in Sweden. Andreas first lived with Gustaf, then Helen for several years. Andreas passed away on 11 December 1907, and was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery on Gustaf’s farm. He has a headstone in the family plot in Elmwood Cemetery, but it is uncertain whether his body was moved from Pleasant Hill to Elmwood.
Gustaf farmed in northeastern Mayfield Township, first renting a farm and saving money for his own farm. In 1898, he purchased at auction 116 acres from the Israelson estate, located in northeast Mayfield township. In 1906, Gustaf sold this piece of land to Ellen Parsons, and purchased from her 208 acres nearby. Gustaf’s new farm was the old Ira Douglas farm, known as Pleasant Hill Farm. The previous owner, Ira Douglas, was one of the prominent farmers in the area, and was a member of the abolitionist church at Mayfield. When building the house, Ira Douglas had built hidden compartments into the house and barn, and possibly hid runaway slaves. After the abolition of slavery, the hidden compartments were simply play-spaces for the children on the farm, and the spaces were eventually dismantled. (Read more about Pleasant Hill Farm and the Underground Railroad here.) The farm also had a small schoolhouse and Pleasant Hill Cemetery on its property. The farm, which was about 210 acres, had fertile soil for crops, as well as a little timber and access to the Kishwaukee River.
Gustaf became a successful farmer. He lived with his family at Pleasant Hill Farm for many years, appearing there on the 1900 and 1910 censuses. Besides their first daughter, who was born in Germany, all of their children were born on the farm. He raised cattle, hogs, and chickens, and also grew corn and wheat. In December of 1914, hoof and mouth disease spread across DeKalb County, and all of Gustaf’s 32 cows and 88 hogs had to be killed. He was partially reimbursed for his loss.
The Medine family occasionally attended church at the Salem Lutheran Church of Sycamore to attend baptisms and other special events. In January of 1910, Gustaf and Lena were received as members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Sycamore, Illinois, where Gustaf’s siblings were already members. He was also a member of the Woodmen and the Elks organizations in Sycamore.
In 1918, Gustaf retired from farming, sold his farm implements and stock, and purchased a house in Sycamore on Alma Street. He rented out the Pleasant Hill Farm to family members and other tenants. In the 1920 census, he lives there with his unmarried children and his wife. He lived in Sycamore with his wife and some of his children until he passed away in 1927 of stomach cancer. He had been in poor health for quite some time, but only was seriously ill for his last ten days. At the time of his death, his estate was valued at $35,850, most of which was the value of his large farm property. Lena outlived him by 13 years, passing away in 1940 at their home on Alma Street. During the last year of her life, she was confined to her bed and her daughter Emma helped care for her. She was well known for her interest in gardening and reading, and her “excellent needlework and her abounding creative energy found expression in many lovely pieces of crocheting and knitting work.” Lena’s five grandsons and Carl Swedberg were pallbearers at her funeral. Gustaf and Lena are both buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois.
Gustaf and Lena had six children: Maria Amelia Medine (1881-1907), William Crist Medine (1884-1968), Emma Helen Medine (1886-1945), Selma Augusta (Gusty) Medine (1889-1955), Julia Z. Medine (1892-1943), and Frederick Edwin Medine (1894-1979).
Sources:
- Evangelical Lutheran Church Records (Mistelås, Kronoberg, Sweden)
- Death Certificates from DeKalb County, Illinois.
- U.S. Federal Census Records for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940.
- Salem Lutheran Church (Sycamore, Illinois), Ministerial Records Books.
- Newspaper articles from The DeKalb Daily Chronicle, Sycamore True Republican, and Republican-Northwestern.
- Atlas and plat book of De Kalb County, Illinois : compiled from surveys and the public records of De
Kalb County, Illinois (Rockford, Ill. : Thrift Press, 1929). - Full list of sources is listed in the Gustaf Medine Compiled Genealogy.
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