Axel, by Marty

Axel Herman Lundgren was born in Skeby, Skaraborgslan, Sweden on August 29, 1885. His family moved to Hendened when he was two years old where they lived on a farm.

Axel started school when he was eight, walking a mile each way, sometimes in very deep snow.  When he was fourteen he left school to work.  At age seventeen he said goodbye to his family and his homeland, and came to America. He landed in Boston June 13, 1903, and traveled to Rockford, Illinois where he lived with an uncle who owned a beer parlor.  Two years later he moved to Utah, having heard from friends that there were mining jobs in abundance.

In Salt Lake City, Axel first found work laying streetcar tracks.  He worked ten hour days for $1.75 per day.  Later he became a tool sharpener and machine miner in Ophir, Utah, where he worked on and off for about fourteen years.  One time as he was coming into Salt Lake with a little savings, he was robbed of every cent.  

There were mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Axel got a job at the Mammoth Mine in Alta.  He had to walk all the way up the canyon, and then work before he could get anything to eat.  Mining was a very dangerous career.  One of his friends was overcome with gas and fumes, and Axel dragged him out of the mine to safety.  He had other mining jobs in Arizona and was nearly killed by a large boulder and a cave-in. One time a dynamite blast knocked him down.  It was followed by ten more blasts, and Axel had to crawl in the dark to safety.

Axel's brother Gustav joined him in America a few years later.  They lived together in the Tilda Lavin Boarding House, on Social Hall Avenue in Salt Lake City. Axel fell in love with Tilda's daughter Agnes when she was only fourteen.  She taught him to read, write and speak English, and she also taught him the Gospel.  He waited for her  to grow up, hoping she'd fall in love with him, too.

In the meantime, Tilda was divorced, and attracted the attention of Gustav, who was much younger than she was.  They decided to get married, and Agnes was not excited to stay with the newlyweds.  She finally accepted Axel's proposal and they were married in 1913, within a few months of her mother. How interesting for a mother and daughter to marry brothers!  Gus was not only Axel's brother, but his father-in-law!