1871–1885
A childhood in Tana
Anna Kathrine was born in Tana in 1871, the daughter of Kristian Børresen and Brita Kathrine Henriksdatter. Kristian came from Tromsø, while Brita came from Kuivaniemi in Finland. Anna’s earliest baptism records place her parents at Norskholmen. She was baptized at home by Petter Eliassen, with her parents present, and the baptism was recorded in church on February 25, 1872. [1]
By 1875, the family was living at Petterlund. Anna had a younger brother, Bernt Vilhelm, and a baby sister, Berthe Oline. Another brother, Henrik, was born in 1877. Their father died on September 16, 1879, when Anna was eight, leaving Brita with four young children. [2] [3]
Anna’s grandfather, Henrik Sivertsen Laidinen, helped support his daughter and grandchildren. An account preserved in an 1881 parliamentary paper describes the family’s limited means and the help Brita received from him and from poor relief. It is a rare glimpse of the people who helped the children after their father’s death. [4]
By the 1885 census, Anna was living in Jakobselv as a foster daughter of Karl and Marie Kristine Buck, alongside their four children. Her own brothers and sister were in other households: Bernt with their mother’s second husband, Albert Enkvist, and Berthe and Henrik with their maternal grandparents. We do not yet know when Anna joined the Buck household, or the arrangements that brought her there. [5]
The Børresen family
Her parents, Kristian and Brita
Kristian Børresen and Brita Kathrine Henriksdatter came to their marriage from different places and different generations. Kristian was born around 1834 in Tromsø and worked as a labourer and fisherman. Brita was born around 1854 in Kuivaniemi, Finland. Her later marriage record refers to her confirmation in Alta in 1868, placing her in northern Norway while she was still a girl.
They married in Tana on July 2, 1871, the year Anna was born. Kristian was about thirty-seven and Brita about seventeen. Over the next six years, Anna was joined by Bernt, Berthe and Henrik. Their children’s records connect the family with Norskholmen, Petterlund and Sandlien at different times. [18]
When Kristian died in 1879, Brita was only about twenty-five. Her parents, Henrik and Else Gaisa Laidinen, became an important source of help for her young family. Henrik had a small holding near the Tana River, and the parish priest described him as hardworking and helpful to his daughter and grandchildren. There was little money to spare, but the surviving account makes his support clear. [4]
On December 27, 1881, Brita married Albert Enqvist, a man from Haparanda in Sweden. A few years later, Bernt was living with Albert at Petterlund, while Anna lived with the Bucks and the two youngest children lived with their grandparents. Those separate households are recorded, but the family arrangements behind them are not yet known. [19] [20] [21]
Brita died sometime after her marriage to Albert and before July 9, 1893, when he married again. His second marriage record says that his first wife had died. Her own death entry has not yet been found, so we cannot say how old Anna was when she lost her mother. [22]
1891–1906
A family of her own
In 1891, Anna was working as a domestic servant in Indre Kvænby in Vadsø. On July 5 that year, she married the fisherman Johan Ludvig Harjo. Anna was about twenty; Ludvig was twenty-two. Vadsø was the setting for the first years of their marriage and the beginnings of their family. [6] [7]
Their children were Johan Bernhard, Hans Fredrik, Andreas Severin, Signe Margrethe, Isak Vilhelm, Hans Kristian and Karl Fredrik. Hans Fredrik, born in 1894, was an older brother of Hans Kristian, who was born in 1902. Hans Fredrik’s baptism has been found, but what happened to him afterward is still an open part of the family story. [8]
The Børresen and Harjo families became connected a second time in 1896, when Anna’s brother Bernt married Ludvig’s sister Marie Cecilie. Their children would be double first cousins, sharing both sets of grandparents.
Anna and Ludvig moved from Vadsø to Masjok, most likely in 1899. That May, Ludvig’s father bought a farm property called Larsnes in the Masjok area, along with another holding; by Isak’s baptism later that year, Anna and Ludvig were living in Masjok. The 1900 census places them at Larsnes. Ludvig was a country merchant and tenant, while Anna’s work included caring for the home and the livestock. [9]
Ludvig’s shop soon ran into financial trouble. A bankruptcy notice appeared in 1901, and later records describe debts and property pledged as security. Years afterward, their grandson John Harjo recalled hearing that Ludvig had been softhearted, giving goods away or allowing people to pay later. That is the family’s explanation of what went wrong; the surviving financial papers record the debts but do not tell us whether generosity caused them. [10]
Anna’s sewing machine
Anna’s helpfulness lives on in a story told by Thormod Holti. According to his local history, she owned what was then the village’s only sewing machine. Her friend Marialisa Kollstrøm would come to use it, carrying cloth with her to make clothes for the children.
One summer day, while Marialisa was sewing at Anna’s table, Anna spotted smoke rising from the family’s home at Birkenes. Neighbours hurried along the rough path through the woods. The older children had managed to get the younger ones and themselves out, but the home and its contents—including the family’s savings—were lost.
Holti’s account remembers her by the village name “Ludvik-Anna.” The story offers a glimpse of neighbours sharing what they had, and of Anna’s place in that community.
Source: Thormod Holti, Masjok-eiendommer (2016), p. 54. This is a local recollection; the account does not give an exact date for the fire.
1908–1920
Life continued at Larsnes
Ludvig died at Masjok on March 5, 1908, aged thirty-eight. Anna was in her thirties, and their youngest son, Karl, was only about two. Hans Kristian was six. Anna had lost her father as a little girl; now her children faced the loss of theirs. [11]
On June 13, 1909, Anna married Petter Abanus Johansen Barski, a fisherman. The following year’s census finds them at Larsnes with children from Anna’s first marriage. Petter worked as a fisherman and farmer. Their daughter, Anna Matilde—also called Anna Mathilde in family records—was born around 1911. Her baptism places the family in Masjok. [12] [13] [14]
Another loss came in July 1913, when Anna’s eldest son, Johan Bernhard, died at Masjok. A death certificate preserved with later inheritance papers gives the date as July 13. [15]
By 1920, Anna and Petter were still at Larsnes, with Isak and their daughter Anna Mathilde. Nearby, at the same property but in a separate household, lived Anna’s brother Bernt and several of his children. He had been widowed in 1916. The brother and sister who had been recorded in different foster homes as children were now neighbours, with their families close by. [16]
1927–1935
Anna at the spinning wheel
One of the surviving photographs brings us into Anna’s later life. Taken in Masjok in 1927, it shows her seated beside a spinning wheel in a wooden room. She would have been about fifty-six. The large wheel fills much of the picture, while Anna looks toward the camera. Alongside the more formal portraits, it preserves a moment of everyday work.
Anna died in Tana on February 7, 1935, aged sixty-three. Her death record gives her married name, Barski. In the family photographs and in her children’s stories, she is also remembered as Anna Børresen and Anna Harjo—the same woman whose life linked all three families. [17]
