The Viking Spirit - by Pat Deshaies
Yes indeed, the Viking spirit is alive and well, and may it continue to thrive. We can well remember when the going gets tough that (1) we don't have to scrub the kitchen floor every night until it shines while (2) we come from very fine, tough, persevering stock. If they could keep going despite all the hardships and tragedies that befell them, surely we can too. It wasn't all tragedy of course. There were the joyous occasions of births, christenings, marriages and reunions, the hopes of moving on to the new world, the excitement of setting out on long sea voyages and the beauty of watching babies grow into children, then adults in their own right. Combined with that was the comfort and security of knowing that through these children, the family and the name of Hansen would continue into the future as indeed they have one hundred and eighteen years after a young married Danish man named Carl August Hansen set out for the United States to seek a better life for himself and his little family and was joined two years later by his brother Hansen Ludwig and his family.
History Begins....
Carl August Hansen, the fourth child and third son of Hans Hansen and Johanne Henriette Pederson (also known as Andersen after the family who raised her), left Copenhagen and emigrated to the United States on the Ship Tingvilla, arriving in New York on August 13, 1881. The Ship's records show that on March 6, 1882, seven months later, Petronella Hansen (called Petrea in Australian records) and their four year old son Harold arrived in New York on the ship Geiser. Carl August was listed in the ship's records as a Smed (blacksmith). He was 35 years old in 1881 and Petea was 31 in 1882 when they sailed. Supposedly Petrea was an Opera Singer in Denmark before her marriage.
For reasons unknown, Carl August, Petrea and Harold returned to Europe. By that time, their family had grown with the addition of two more sons: Theordore, born in 1883 and Robert, born in 1886 in Detroit. It may have been beause of the climate. Australian records show that Petrea died from tuberculosis and according to the memory of her daughter, Harold was tubercular also. TB was very prevalent in those days; Denmark was a dairying country, milk was a dietary staple and it was not known at that time that tubercular cows passed the disease on to humans (since pasteurization, this no longer occurs).
The little family of Carl August, Petrea and their three young sons (Harold, Theodore and Robert), sailed from London on the ship Dorunda on October 19, 1886 and arrived in Brisbane December 15, 1886. This is shown on the ship's records. Theirs was a "Free Nominated Passage," meaning that an Australian immigrant who had established residence, nominated them for migration and had to pay (probably) a nominal fee for their passage. In return they were obliged to work for this person in repayment, and the records show that their ultimate destination was the town of Mackay, a sugar-growing country town on the coast several hundred miles north of Brisbane.
It was assumed that a distant cousin (Hansine, see later in this story) was related to a very astute businessman, who owned sugar plantations before selling those and investing in what was then one of Brisbane's leading hotels. He probably sponsored Carl August, Petrea, Harold, Theordore and Robert's migration to Australia. It appeared that the family fulfilled their obligation of working for Niels Nielsen, then headed south to Melborne, about 1600 miles away where the climate was much more gentle, and probably more like that of Copenhagen. There, in the inner suburb of Richmond on February 11, 1892, the fourth and youngest of their four sons, was born. They named him Carl Andreas, for his father and Carl August's youngest sibling, Andreas Julius. At the time of his birth, Harold was 14, Theodore 9, and Robert was 6.
There was a bad recession or depression in the 1890's. The family moved from Richmond to another suburb, Phran, wher Petrea opened the New York Laundry. Petrea died in 1896. She is buried in a cemetery outside Melbourne in an unmarked grave. Carl was then aged 3, to be 4 the following month, Robert about 10, Theodore 13, and Harold 18.
Carl August moved to Broken Hill, a large silver mining town in western New South Wales and lived with Carl Andreas in a hotel there. Perhaps Robert and Theodore were also there, but Harold was probably old enough to fend for himself. Carl August's death certificate shows that he was employed as a steam pipe fitter in the mines. He was about 53 years old and the authorities stated that this was a ripe old age for someone who worked in the mines. By then Harold was 21, Theodore 16, and Robert about 13 years old. It must have been a pretty scary situation for those young boys. Carl August's gravesite was also unmarked at a cemetery in Broken Hill. In 1983 family members (Pat Deshaies and sister Hansine Hansen, Carl Andrea's daughters) placed a gravestone and marker on the grave.
Another brother, Theodore, lived in Signey with his wife Hansine Ann Margrethe Nielsen Hansen. Records show that the seventh and second youngest child of Hans and Johanne was Johan Hendrik Theordor and he was four years younger than Carl August, so around age 50 when Carl August died. Legend has it that the people at the hotel in Broken Hill tied an address lable to little Carl Andreas' suit and put him on the train for delivery to his aunt and uncle, Hansine and Theordore in Sydney, as if he were a parcel. They took the boy in and raised him. They were quite affluent and owned seven row houses (which still stand) in Glebe, a suburb of Sydney. They lived in one house and rented the others. They were very active socially and were interested in the arts, particularly in music and in the Esperanto (international language) movement. They gave Carl a good education, which included music lessons and apprenticed him to the diamond-cutting trade. He finished apprenticeship, but the diamond dust bothered his lungs, so he turned to his music and to auto mechanics, his real interests. Hansine came to visit them during the war when she was 85 years old, played cards with Carl and often won. She was particularly pleased that a niece was named for her (daughters of Carl Andreas, Hansine Hansen, and sister Ruth Deshaies). When Hansine (1st) died, she left one of her houses to Carl Andreas and his wife, specifically for Hasine's (2nd) education.
Carl Andreas grew up in relative solitude as Hansine and Theordore were socially very active and he was left alone quite often. He didn't speak much of his childhood or family. Harold died as a young man in a hunting accident of some type. Theodore and Robert ended up in Adelaide. An uncle (probably Hans Ludwig) persuaded them to return to the Unied States, and they did so, after saving the money they earned from working in an Adelaide soap factory. Theordore became a carpenter-stairmaker and Robert became a plumber. Robert and Theodore married two Snyder sisters, Jessie and Nellie while in Detroit and both couples moved to West Palm Beach, Florida about the time of the Florida building boom.
Carl moved up to Queensland and as a young man and in his mid to late twenties, was working as a chauffeur on a sheep or cattle station near Roma, a large country town. His eventual wife was twenty-one and had also come up to Queensland with a girlfriend and was working at the same station. They married in a Catholic rectory in Roma in 1920. Soon they moved to the big city of Brisbane where Carl found work with his music. He was part of an orchestra that played at the government-owned radio station 4QG. Their great claim to fame was that they were chosen in 1926 to play at Government House at a reception for the then Duke and Duchess of York, who later became the king and queen of England after Edward abducated, Sometimes he moonlighted at the silent movie theatres. Their daughter Hansine was born and named after Aunt Hansine Hansen and their maternal grandmother. Times were good and they bought a house before Hansine was born. Then disaster struck in the form of talking pictures (drying up his moonlighting job), then the Great Depression hit, which ended his radio work and lastly, then the second daughter, Patricia, was born. Carl found part time work and they remained in their home, never missing a mortgage payment.
As a child, Pat recalled letters arriving from Florida from Uncle Ted and Uncle Robert, urging Carl to move to the USA, telling him that there was plenty of work for musicians. Times were difficult during the depression and Carl didn't feel brave enough to take such a daring step as migrating to another country.
Ted and Nellie had no children but were like second parents to Bob and Jessie's four children, Wanda, Robert, Ted and Nellie Loretta. Nellie was a very successful realtor, with an office on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. She and Uncle Ted were sometimes asked to caretake an oceanfront mansion when the wealthy owners went away.
When World War Two came, Robert Jr., age 18 at the time, joined the US Navy. The government wanted to evacuate all the children in Brisbane. MacArthur had made it his headquarters and he and the other generals had decided that if the Japanese invaded they would let them have the top half of Australia, and defind the bottom half. Brisbane would then be on the front line. Pat went away to boarding school in Southport, on the coast, south of Brisbane. She kept cousin Robert's picture by her bedside locker believing that he would never let the Japanese invade. Of course the Australian and American fleets did defeat the Japanese invasion fleet in the battle of Coral Sea, just off the Queensland coast. Pat believed her cousin Bob had orchestrated the entire triumph. She wrote to him whenever she could, childish letters which he kept and she saw them to her in 1981. The censors had cut big chunks out of them, where she had made refererences to towns or places. As a grown woman, she was overwhelmed that he had kept those letters for so many years.
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The above information was written by Pat Deshaies. She went on to write:
In conclusion, it seems ironic that I have inadvertently ended up an American, No one was ever a more patriotic Australian, but without knowing it at the time, I was just another Hansen who passed through Australia, somehow. Through fate or destiny's intervention I completed the circle which my grandfather started when he left Copenhagen and migrated to Detroit in 1881. Hansine, my sister still lives in Australia. She says: 'We were the lost tribe.' After nursing school I travelled to the USA as an exchange RN with the goal of meeting my Florida aunts, uncles and cousins. My plan was of a two-year one, taking in Europe on my way back home to Australia. However, meeting a certain young handsome French-Canadian USAF lieutenant, changed all that and forty five years and six children and grandchildren later, I have no regrets. Because our children were born so close together (six in seven years) and because we were building careers and surviving, I never met Uncle Ted, Uncle Bob and Aunt Nellie, but did have the good fortune to meet Aunt Jessie and my four cousins, many years later.
1983
She went on to say:
The California/Michigan connection: Fine people we have linked up with in the past twenty or so years. They are the descedents of Hans Ludwig and Caroline Hansen. Hans Ludwig was Carl August's (my grandfather) older brother.
2000
This was of course Ethel (Hansen) Appenzellar, and Florence (Hansen) Swaynie, daughters of Otto Hansen. They maintained a good relationship, visiting one another, communicating via letters, and telephone until Ethel's death in 2010. Ethel visited Hansine in Australia, and Hansine visited Ethel in Los Angeles around 2005, that's when I (Karen Hansen) met her. She and Ethel wrote letters back and forth for many years. Ethel had a hard time reading Hansine's European style hand writing and often asked me to try to decipher them for her.
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