Family

Forsberg-Sauers Family

1887-

Lorraine Thoren Forsberg (1911-2001) was born in Tacoma in 1911, the first child of Henry M. Thoren and Clara Rosetta Sauers Thoren (1). She attended Lincoln High School in Tacoma and graduated from Pacific Lutheran College in 1932. She taught for several years before marrying Leo J. Forsberg in 1940 (2,3). They had four children, Julia, twins Joanne and John, and Mary Ellen (2). She joined the Tacoma Genealogical Society in 1965 and served as president from 1969 to 1970 (3,4,5). Starting in 1972 she published a genealogical newsletter, The Hansons of Hamnvik (the title varied through the years), that circulated to relatives and solicited their information. Her daughters Mary Ellen Forsberg and Julia Roberts continued it after her death until 2004 (4). She died in Tacoma in 2001 at the age of 89 (2).

Anna C. Meyer was born in Wisconsin in 1886, the fourth daughter and fifth child of German immigrants, George Sauers and Anna Mahlberg. Her family had moved to Chehalis, Washington by 1900, and she married her first husband, William Criswell in 1904 (1,2). By 1914 they were living in Tacoma and operating a bakery and confectionery shop downtown (3). William died in 1915, and she continued running the business with her sister Ella Simpkins for a short time afterward (4,5,6). She married her second husband, John A .Meyer in 1917, and they stayed in Tacoma. He died in 1961, and sometime later she moved in with her sister’s daughter, Lorraine Forsberg. She died in 1979 at age 92 (7,8).

Ellen Forsberg was born in Michigan in 1887, the first surviving child of Swedish immigrant Victor Forsberg and his first wife, Sofia Carolina Stromberg (1). Her mother died in 1895 and her father married his second wife, Johann “Hannah” Bjur in 1899 (2, 3). The family had moved to Tacoma before 1903, when she graduated from Edison School (4). She was awarded a teaching certificate in 1908 and taught for the next 57 years (5,6). She earned a diploma in the two-year Normal training course for teachers at the College of Puget Sound in 1914 (7). Her father died of appendicitis in 1916 and she provided support for her mother and her eight younger siblings (8,9). Her career began at a one-room school at a German settlement between Eatonville and Elbe and culminated in teaching English for 27 years at North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo, from which she retired at age 77 (6). Her later years were spent living with her younger brother, Leo J. Forsberg, his wife Lorraine Forsberg and family. She died in 1978, age 92 (10).

Malcolm Forsberg (1908-1991) was born in Tacoma in 1908, the fifth child of Victor Forsberg and his second wife Johann “Hannah” Bjur (1). After graduating from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, he attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He began working in Ethiopia as a missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission (now SIM) in 1933. In 1935 he married fellow missionary Enid Miller and three of their four children were born in Africa. In 1938 they were ousted from Ethiopia by Mussolini’s forces and transferred to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan where they spent the next 25 years. He spent the final ten years of his career serving as candidate secretary for SIM in the United States, and retired in Carlsbad, California. He died in 1991 in Rancho Encinitas, California at the age of 82 (2, 3).

Mary Ellen Forsberg (1946- ) was born in Tacoma in 1946, the fourth child of Leo J. and Lorraine Forsberg. She attended Stadium High School and in 1967 graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in history (2, 3). From 1971 to 1974 she worked as a high school librarian in Keansburg, New Jersey while earning her MLS degree at Rutgers University (4, 5, 6). She returned to Washington in 1974 and was employed as an elementary school librarian in Prosser (7). In 1993 she began assisting with the genealogical newsletter her mother published and continued it after Lorraine died in 2001, producing paper copies until 2004 (8). By 2003 she had returned to Tacoma and lived at 1001 S. Prospect, the house her father had built on weekends using the steel fabrication techniques he employed as a boat-builder (9,10). She sold the house in March of 2023 (11).

Written by Ruth Keller, 2023.

Lorraine Thoren Forsberg
[1] U.S. Census 1920
[2] “Obituary, Lorraine Thoren Forsberg”, Tacoma News Tribune, 5/23/2001, p.12
[3] “Thoren-Forsberg”, Tacoma News Tribune,7/30/1940, p. 6
[4] Hansons of Hamnvik Newsletter 1972, Forsberg-Sauers Family Papers (Collection 6.2.9), Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library.
[5] “Genealogical Society to Meet” Tacoma News Tribune, 10/26/1969, p.62
[6] Letter to Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room, May 7, 2023, from Jean Findlay.

Anna C Meyer
[1] U.S.Census 1900
[2] Washington,U.S. Marriage Records, 1854-2013
[3] Polk Directory, Tacoma, 1914
[4] Washington State Death Records
[5] Polk Directory, Tacoma, 1916
[6] Polk Directory, Tacoma, 1917
[7] “Obituary, John Albert Meyer”, Tacoma News Tribune, 12/3/1961, p.53
[8] “Obituary, Anna Meyer”, Tacoma News Tribune, 2/28/1979, p.44

Ellen Forsberg
[1] Minnesota, U.S., Territorial and State Censuses, 1895
[2] St. Louis County, Minnesota Death Index
[3] WEB:Minnesota, U.S., Marriages from the Minnesota Official Marriage System, 1850-2019.
[4] “Eighth Grade Pupils Graduate”, Tacoma News Tribune, 1/31/1903, p.12.
[5] “Teachers Who Get Licenses”, Tacoma News Tribune, 8/28/1908, p.8
[6] “After 57 Years: Poulsbo Teacher Ends Long Career in Field of Education”, Seattle Times, 5/10/1964, p.1
[7] “In Extravagant Age, Says Supreme Justice to College Graduates”, Tacoma News Tribune, 6/18/1914, p.7
[8] Washington Deaths, 1883-1960
[9] The Oakes Street Gang MS Typed Draft, Box 2, Forsberg-Sauers Family Papers (Collection 6.2.9), Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library.
[10] “Obituary, Ellen Forsberg” Tacoma News Tribune, 8/20/1978, p.8

Malcolm Forsberg
[1] U.S. Census 1910
[2] “Obituary, Dr. Malcolm I. Forsberg”, North County Times, Oceanside, California, 3/21/1991, p.12
[3] Forsberg, Malcolm. Land beyond the Nile. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1967.

Mary Ellen Forsberg
[1] U.S.Census 1950
[2] Stadium High School Yearbook 1963
[3] Western Washington University Yearbook 1967
[4] “Keansburg Board Fires Teacher, Citing Abuse”, The Daily Register (Keansburg, New Jersey), 7/1/1971, p.5.
[5] “Teacher Salary Guide Awaited in Keansburg”, The Daily Register (Keansburg, New Jersey), 6/24/1074, p 15.
[6] “325 Monmouth County Residents Earn Degrees at Rutgers”, The Daily Register (Keansburg, New Jersey), 5/31/1974, p.20.
[7] “Officials honored at lunch”, Tri-City Herald, 8/28/1974, p. 1.
[8] Newsletter of the Olson-Hanson-Thoren Families, Box 2, Forsberg-Sauers Family Papers (Collection 6.2.9), Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library.
[9] Polk Directory, Tacoma 2003
[10] “1-Man Crew Shapes Home” Tacoma News Tribune, 9/4/1949, p. 24
[11] Pierce-County Assessor-Treasurer Information Portal