Thor Ivar Lindberg from Gothenburg was born on May 8, 1891 in Haga, Sweden.
🇬🇧 Thor Ivar Lindberg from Gothenburg was born on May 8, 1891 in Haga. He was my grandfather, and his life came to reflect a Sweden going through great change.
🇬🇧 English
🇸🇪 Läs detta inlägg på svenska → Ett liv genom ett förändrat Sverige – Thor Ivar Lindberg (1891–1965)
This is the story of my grandfather
A boy who became an orphan, was auctioned off as a child, and later worked as a rock blaster in a Sweden that was beginning to change.
It is also a small piece of Swedish social history – and perhaps part of the explanation for why I myself have spent my life working with children who need a safe place.
Thor Ivar Lindberg
My grandfather, Thor Ivar Lindberg, was born on May 8, 1891 in Haga, Gothenburg. At that time Sweden was still a poor country, and life for many working-class families was hard and uncertain.
He was the son of Josef Oskar Olsson Lindberg, a carpenter, and Anna Maria Nilsdotter Lindberg. The family lived in the dense working-class quarters of Gothenburg, where people lived close together and much of the work was about building the city with their hands.
But childhood was short.
When Thor was only five years old, his father died, and the following year he also lost his mother. In the late 1800s there were no social safety nets as we know them today. Children who lost their parents often had to rely on relatives or foster families, sometimes far from the town where they were born.
In many parts of Sweden this happened through what were called child auctions or poor auctions. The local parish gathered people willing to take in the child, and the child was placed with the family that agreed to care for them for the lowest payment from the poor relief system.
Today it may sound brutal, but at the time it was part of how society handled children without parents.
In our family it has been told that my grandfather, as a small boy, was auctioned and placed in a foster home. That was how his life began – as a child without parents in a Sweden where social welfare systems did not yet exist.
My mother also used to tell that grandfather sometimes said to her when she was little:
”My father was called Josef and he found his Maria – and I was the Jesus child.”
He said it with a small smile, but perhaps also as a way of telling his own story.
On one occasion a social worker told him he should be grateful because he had been given a suit.
Grandfather replied:
”I only get to wear it when she comes to visit.”
In those words lies an entire childhood. A child who early understood the difference between what was shown to authorities and what everyday life actually looked like.
A Sweden in transformation
Thor Ivar Lindberg from Gothenburg grew up during a time when Sweden was changing rapidly.
Industrialization was accelerating, the labour movement was growing, and people began organizing for better working conditions. At the same time, many still lived in poverty and uncertainty.
As an adult Thor worked as a rock blaster, one of the hardest and most dangerous jobs one could have. It was people like him who built roads, railways and quarries – workers who literally blasted their way forward to create the infrastructure Sweden still relies on today.
Thor Ivar Lindberg from Gothenburg and his first family
In 1914 he married Agnes Natalia Berg Karlsson in Timmersdala.
That same year the First World War broke out in Europe. Sweden remained outside the war, but the anxiety and shortage of food and work were felt here as well.
Together they had children, but life struck the family hard once again.
In 1920 Agnes died, only 32 years old. Thor was left alone with children in a country that still lacked the social security systems that would later be built.
A new marriage in a troubled world
In 1939 Thor married again, to Gunborg Viola Viktoria Eriksson. The same year the Second World War broke out. Sweden again remained outside the war, but the world around it was on fire.
Three years later their daughter Gunhild Viola Margareta was born.
Before their daughter arrived they had already had two sons. One later became a self-employed businessman, while the other worked his entire life on the railway but often went hiking in the mountains.
I will write more about my mother in a later post – about her life, the “women’s trap”, and the hard work of everyday life in the 1970s.
In total, Thor Ivar Lindberg had seven children in his two marriages.
My grandmother and the Swedish welfare state – a century of responsibility
In the photograph below my grandfather Thor Ivar Lindberg sits together with my grandmother Gunborg and their four children.
It is a simple living room, a coffee table, a radio in the background – and a family gathered together.
Sometimes pictures like this say more than many words about what life actually looked like.
Thor Ivar Lindberg and Gunborg Viola Viktoria Eriksson together with their four children – a family photograph from Gothenburg showing everyday life during the era of the Swedish welfare state.
Political engagement
In the family it has also been told that my grandfather was politically engaged and sometimes travelled to Stockholm to discuss political matters.
This was not unusual among workers in Gothenburg at the time. Many were active in the labour movement and in the struggle for better working conditions and democratic rights.
👉 You can read more about that time in my post:
My grandfather fought for the right to vote – that is why I vote
Thor Ivar Lindberg in Gothenburg – a life shaped by work
Thor worked most of his life as a rock blaster. It was heavy and dangerous work that often meant travelling across the country to construction sites and blasting operations.
The work eventually left him hearing-impaired, something that was not uncommon among people who worked with explosives at the time.
Even when he grew older he continued to work.
In his later years he delivered morning newspapers in Gothenburg, a job that meant early mornings and long walks through the streets of the city. For many of his generation, work was not only a way to make a living – it was simply part of life.
The family that continued
With my grandmother he had two sons and two daughters. My mother was the youngest.
My mother has told me that grandfather was strict but fair. That was probably not unusual for people of his generation. Many who had grown up under hard conditions carried a strong sense of responsibility, work and order through life.
Looking back at the family, something seems to continue through the generations.
My aunt later worked with and cared for children who, for different reasons, could not live with their own families.
And I myself – his grandchild – have spent my life working with children and young people who cannot live with their parents.
My husband and I have been foster parents for many years, and I have also worked at residential treatment homes for young people.
Whether this somehow connects to the fact that my grandfather himself was once auctioned as a child, I do not know.
But sometimes I wonder.
Perhaps such things are passed on.
Not the sorrow itself – but the ability to understand.
Maybe that is why I have always ended up in places where children need an adult who stays.
The end of a life
On June 9, 1965, Thor Ivar Lindberg died in Gothenburg at the age of 71.
His life stretched across an era in which Sweden changed fundamentally:
• from a poor society to a welfare state
• from limited voting rights to democracy
• from a country where workers struggled to survive to one where social reforms began to take shape
He was not a politician or a powerful man. He was one of the many workers whose lives rarely appear in history books – yet whose labour carried the whole society.
Sometimes we think history is shaped by great leaders and political decisions.
But just as much it is shaped by people like Thor – workers, parents, and individuals who continued forward despite hardship.
And sometimes the greatest story begins exactly there –
in a simple line in a church record.
Between the lines – my voice
When I read about my grandfather’s life, I see more than just a family story.
I see a child who lost his parents and had to grow up early in a difficult world.
Perhaps that is why his life continued to circle around responsibility, work and family.
And perhaps that is also why I have always ended up in places where children need a safe adult.
Sometimes experiences are not passed down as words.
They are passed down as understanding.
AHA – between the lines
Looking back at three generations in my family, a thought strikes me.
My grandfather grew up without security.
My aunt later worked with children who needed help.
And I myself have spent my life as a foster parent and working with young people.
Perhaps life itself is not inherited.
But sometimes the ability to see a child is.
Reflection for the reader
Do you have a story in your own family that says something about how life has changed between generations?
Facts about Thor Ivar Lindberg
- Born: 8 May 1891, Haga, Gothenburg, Sweden
- Parents: Anna Maria Nilsdotter Olsson Lindberg and Josef Oskar Olsson Lindberg
- Occupation: Bergsprängare (rock blaster / construction worker)
- Historical context: Sweden during industrialisation and the rise of democracy
- Life story: From childhood hardship and foster care to adult life in a changing Sweden
This story is part of a series about family history and social history in Sweden.
Yesterday has already settled into history, tomorrow waits somewhere ahead.
But right now – this is where life happens.
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