Sixteen Years Old and Brave Beyond Measure: Why I Admire My Great-Aunt Alma

When I was sixteen, my biggest worries revolved around my high school classes, whether the cute boy that I saw every day outside Moeller High School noticed me, and getting my first real part-time job at McDonald’s. My great-aunt Alma Svensson was also sixteen once. But on January 11, 1912, she boarded the S.S. Oscar II in Copenhagen harbor with ten dollars in her pocket, the name and address of an uncle in Brewster, NY, and a courage I can barely fathom. Is it any wonder why I admire my ancestor?

She was traveling alone. Destination: America.

Alma was an older sister of my grandfather, David Sten. While I grew up hearing family stories, it wasn’t until I dove deep into her records that the full weight of her journey struck me. Let me tell you why I admire my ancestor. This teenager from rural Sweden made a decision that would forever alter the trajectory of our family tree.

A Farming Village in Skåne

Alma entered the world on September 7, 1896, in Hjärsås parish, Kristianstad County, in Sweden’s southernmost province of Skåne. Her parents, Sven Svensson and Pernilla Olsdotter, were both twenty-nine and had married young, as was common in their rural farming community. The Swedish parish registers meticulously recorded her birth in volume HIAA:1160, entry number 40, with the formality that characterized Swedish record-keeping.

Life in Skåne revolved around the agricultural calendar. Household examination records show the Svensson family living at Bränskulla from 1895 to 1904, then moving to Gyvik when Alma was eight. These relocations between small hamlets were typical of tenant farming families who didn’t own land and moved as leases changed. Winters were long and dark. Summers meant planting, haying, and harvest. The parish priest came annually to examine families on their Bible knowledge and moral character.

Early Life in Sweden

But the 1890s and early 1900s were difficult decades for Swedish agriculture. Poor harvests, falling grain prices, and limited opportunities for land ownership pushed many rural families to the brink. While industrial jobs beckoned in cities like Malmö and Stockholm, thousands more looked across the Atlantic to America, where land was said to be abundant and opportunities limitless.

By the time Alma reached her teenage years, Sweden was undergoing profound transformation. Young people, particularly, felt restless. They had tasted literacy through Sweden’s excellent parish schools, and many dreamed of lives beyond the narrow confines of rural existence. For young people like Alma, particularly those who stood to inherit nothing as younger siblings or daughters, staying meant little future. America promised not just prosperity but social mobility and freedom from Europe’s rigid class structures. Understanding these circumstances helps explain why I admire my ancestor.

The Decision

When fifteen-year-old Alma decided to emigrate, she joined the peak years of Swedish emigration to America. Her decision at such a young age is precisely why I admire my ancestor. Her departure point was Copenhagen rather than a Swedish port, suggesting she traveled by train through southern Sweden to Denmark. This was a common and less expensive route than direct sailings from Gothenburg.

Leaving Sweden

The S.S. Oscar II was one of the Scandinavian America Line’s premier vessels, a modern steamship that had entered service in 1902. Unlike the immigrant ships of earlier decades with their crowded steerage holds, the Oscar II offered somewhat better conditions, though third-class passengers still endured cramped quarters during the two-week Atlantic crossing.

She departed Copenhagen on January 11, 1912, in the depths of winter. Most emigrants traveled in spring or summer when seas were calmer. The winter crossing would have been rough, with January storms battering the ship as it steamed westward. But Alma, like many emigrants, probably had little choice in timing. Perhaps a domestic service position awaited her in New York.

Arrival in America

The passenger manifest recorded her details with bureaucratic precision:

Age 16. Sex: Female. Married or Single: S. Calling or Occupation: Servant.

She could read and write Swedish, marking her as better educated than many immigrants of earlier decades. The manifest recorded her nationality as Swedish, her race as “Swedish, Scandinavian.” Officials noted Immeln, Sweden as her last permanent residence and “Mr. Sven Svensson, Immeln”—her father—as her nearest relative there. Brewster, New York was listed as her final destination, where she planned to join “Mr. O. Boorning,” her uncle and her father’s half-brother who had emigrated earlier.

She had paid her own passage and carried ten dollars, the minimum amount required to demonstrate she wouldn’t immediately become a public charge. The immigration inspector’s questions must have been intimidating for a teenage girl in a foreign port: Had she ever been in prison, an almshouse, or an insane asylum? Was she a polygamist or anarchist? What was her physical and mental condition? To all the exclusionary questions, she answered no. Her health was recorded as “Good.” She was deemed admissible to the United States of America.

First Glimpse of America

On January 25, 1912, after fourteen days at sea, the S.S. Oscar II steamed into New York Harbor. Alma would have stood on deck with hundreds of other passengers, catching her first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline beyond. The immigration processing at Ellis Island was efficient but overwhelming—medical inspections, document reviews, and money checks, all conducted in a babel of languages. Officials chalked marks on immigrants’ clothing if they needed additional examination. Interpreters shouted instructions. Children cried. Families searched frantically for relatives who had promised to meet them.

For Alma, alone and sixteen, the experience must have been both terrifying and exhilarating. She had crossed an ocean, left behind everything familiar, and now stood on the threshold of an entirely new life.

Early Life in New York

After clearing immigration, she would have taken a ferry to Manhattan and then a train north to Brewster, a small town in Putnam County, New York, about sixty miles from the city. The Hudson Valley landscape—rolling hills, forests, small farms—might have reminded her somewhat of southern Sweden, though the wooden American buildings and broader roads marked this as distinctly foreign territory.

Mr. O. Boorning, whose name appears on her immigration papers, was crucial to her success. Family networks were essential for Swedish immigrants, and it was common for uncles, aunts, and cousins to help newcomers find positions and settle into American life. Young Swedish women were highly sought after as household servants in middle-class and wealthy American homes. They were considered clean, hardworking, Lutheran, and respectable. These were qualities that made them preferable to immigrants from southern and eastern Europe in the eyes of native-born Americans.

When she booked passage on the S.S. Oscar II, Alma made a choice common among Swedish immigrants: she anglicized her surname from Svensson to Stone. The change simplified her identity in American society and perhaps signaled her commitment to her new country.

What Sixteen Means

I keep coming back to her age. Sixteen. The same age I was worrying about prom dresses and driver’s licenses. Alma was navigating immigration officials in a language she was learning. Adapting to a foreign culture became her daily reality. Long hours as a domestic servant filled her days. From nothing, she built a life. When I think about what she faced at my age, I truly understand why I admire my ancestor.

Her story wasn’t unique. She was one of millions who made the wrenching decision to leave home for an uncertain future. She was one of thousands of Swedish girls who worked as domestic servants, saved their money, and eventually built families in America. Yet her life contained profound courage. She crossed an ocean alone at sixteen. She learned a new language and adapted to a new culture. Somehow she found the resilience to keep going when homesickness must have felt crushing.

Return to Sweden

Her early years in America were only the beginning. Remarkably, around 1916, she returned to Sweden, appearing once again in the Hjärsås household examination books. The reasons remain unclear. Perhaps homesickness overwhelmed her, or family obligations called her back across the Atlantic.

Her mother Pernilla died in 1918. Perhaps Alma realized that staying in Sweden would mean taking care of her now widowed father. Staying would never allow her to realize her dreams. Besides, her older sister, Ida, would be there to take care of their father.

Final Journey to America

So in 1921, Alma made her final crossing back to America, this time for good. This time, the manifest indicates Alma spoke English as well as Swedish, she was going to meet her employer, Jane Darling in Manhattan, and she was planning to make America her permanent home.

I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of a photo of Alma, probably taken for a passport based on the consular stamp that is partially visible. This photo was probably taken either before her first voyage to America in 1912, or her final one in 1921.

On October 1, 1925, Alma married Arthur S. Bahnmuller in Manhattan. Two children came along as the couple settled on Long Island, where Alma worked as a seamstress. Two world wars, the Great Depression, and extraordinary technological change marked her American life. Through it all, Emanuel Lutheran Church in Patchogue kept her connected to her Swedish Lutheran heritage while she became thoroughly American. On January 16, 1979, at age eighty-two, Alma was laid to rest at Long Island National Cemetery alongside her husband. The Swedish immigrant girl who had arrived alone in 1912 had built a family that spanned generations and geography.

This is why I admire my ancestor, Alma Svensson Stone Bahnmuller. I admire her not for any grand historical accomplishment, but for the quiet perseverance of a sixteen-year-old girl who decided her future lay across an ocean. Her courage became part of our family’s American story. Her decision to leave Sweden paved the way for two of her younger brothers, Hugo and David, to follow her to America years later (See “Historical Events: My Grandfather’s American Journey“). If my grandfather David had not made that journey, my life would look very different today. Alma’s bravery at sixteen created ripples that would touch generations she would never meet, including me. That is why I admire my ancestor.

1. Hjärsås församling (Kristianstad län), Sweden, “Födelsebok för Hjärsås församling och dess Dopbok för år 1896,” page 12, entry no. 40, Alma; imaged, ArkivDigital (https://app.arkivdigital.se/volume/v346705 : accessed 24 December 2025), image 160, volume CI:2 (1895-1919). ↩︎
2. 1904 Sweden, Kristianstads län, Hjärsås parish, population register (husförhörslängd) 1895-1907, Bränskulla, page 96 (stamped), Alma [surname], born 7 September 1896; imaged, “Population of Sweden (BiS),” ArkivDigital (https://app.arkivdigital.se/volume/v346669 : accessed 26 December 2025), image 1060 of volume Hjärsås (L) AIIa:1. ↩︎
3. 1906 Sweden, Kristianstads län, Hjärsås parish, population register (husförhörslängd) 1895-1907, Gyevik, page 154 (stamped), Alma [surname], born 7 September 1896 at Jämshög; imaged, “Population of Sweden (BiS),” ArkivDigital (https://app.arkivdigital.se/volume/v346669 : accessed 26 December 2025), image 1640 of volume Hjärsås (L) AIIa:1 ↩︎
4. “Scandinavian America Line S/S Oscar II at Copenhagen,” photograph, early 1900s (after 1901); imaged, Norway Heritage (https://www.norwayheritage.com/: accessed 4 January 2026) > Steamship Companies > Scandinavian America Line > Oscar II at Copenhagen; citing postcard published by Peter Alstrups Kunstforlag. ↩︎
5. “Scandinavian America Line steamship Oscar II departing Copenhagen,” photograph showing S/S Oscar II departing Frihavnen, Copenhagen, with emigrants, early 1900s (after 1901); imaged, Norway Heritage (https://www.norwayheritage.com/: accessed 4 January 2026) > Steamship Companies > Scandinavian America Line > Oscar II at Copenhagen. ↩︎
6. “New York City, New York, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9T4-79PW : accessed 24 December 2025), image 120 of 885, image group number 007675001, entry for Alma S. Stone, line 2, S.S. Oscar II, sailing from Copenhagen 11 January 1912, arriving New York 25 January 1912. ↩︎
7. 1915 New York state census, Putnam County, Southeast, assembly district 01, page 14 (stamped), line 49, Alma Stone; imaged, “New York, U.S., State Census, 1915,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2703/images/32848_B094106-00151 : accessed 24 December 2025). ↩︎
8. “BiS (Population of Sweden) 1800-1947,” ArkivDigital (https://app.arkivdigital.se/volume/v346670a : accessed 19 May 2024), Hjärsås AIIa:2 (1907-1916), Image 1700, Page 156. ↩︎
9. “New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/records/4028401274: accessed 24 December 2025), entry for Alma Stone-Svensson, ship Drottningholm, arrived 4 October 1921, page 11, line 27. ↩︎
10. Photograph of Alma Svensson Stone, [date unknown]; Arthur Stone Bahnmuller Collection, privately held by the Family of Arthur Stone Bahnmuller, Sumter, South Carolina, 2026. Received from the estate of Arthur Stone Bahnmuller (1931-2018), 4 January 2026. ↩︎