I have several Holder photos to scan in and post, so let’s start with this one. It is Julia Mabel Holder at her graduation from nursing school about 1926, in Sioux City, IA. Julia is the daughter of Jesse William Holder and Josephine Tekla Martinson Holder. Julia was born in 1907, and named after her mother’s sister Julia Martinson. Julia Holder was only about 11 years old when her mother Josephine died in the great flu epidemic of 1918. In 1926, Julia’s father Jesse Holder remarried, to Mabel Leota Hinkhouse, and they had two children together.

Jesse Holder was born in 1886 in Sioux City, IA. Jesse’s father Green Nelson Holder was born in 1855 in Caldwell, NC, and came to IA about 1875. Jesse’s mother Calphy Jane Allen was born in 1858 in Sergeant Bluff, IA. There are lots of family trees online for the name Holder, but they have conflicting information (of course). It is possible that our Holder line can be traced to Thomas Holder who was born in 1694 in Aberdeen, Scotland, but I am not at all sure about that; I need to do a lot more research on the Holders to see where our line fits in.

Josephine Martinson was born about 1885 in IA. Josephine’s father John Martinson was born about 1857 in Sweden, but I don’t know when he immigrated. Josephine’s mother Bertha Pearson was born in Apr 1855 in Sweden and immigrated about 1881. John Martinson died before 1900, where his wife Bertha is listed as a widow on the 1900 census; so he was only about 40 when he died, leaving hs wife with 7 children to raise. As far as I know, she never remarried after her husband died.

Swedish surnames are tricky, and in the 1800s especially, because that is when family names first started to become common. Before that, they used a patronymic naming tradition, so probably Bertha Pearson is the Americanized version of Persson, and Bertha’s father probably had the first name of Per. A man named Per would have children with the last name of Persson. And before that, a male child would be Persson and a female child would be Persdotter, but then in the 1800s they started giving both male and female children the name Persson. I think I need to learn a lot more about Swedish names before I can do any more research on that line!