Mystery Monday: The 1944 job application

M father, Cid H. Dalin Jr., in 1944 at age 17

As part of my 2016 resolution to organize my small mountain of genealogy records once and for all, I am in the process of transcribing and analyzing all documents I have collected over the years. Yesterday, I worked on an interesting document I discovered only a few months ago. The document is a job application and comes from the personnel files of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. Apparently, my father applied for a job as a “yard clerk” on May 13, 1944 – when he was a junior in high school and only 17 years old. Continue reading

A double mystery: Brita’s maiden name and her son Johan

The story my father told me so long ago about his grandparents Andrew and Brita Dalin left me with two mysteries – well, at least two.  The first is the mystery of Brita’s maiden name.  I remember my father saying, “Well, it was something like Anderson or Johnson – I think.”  In all my years of research, I’ve managed to narrow it down (if you can call it that) to either: Continue reading