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| William Jacob Backman August 14, 1886 (age 18) |
His life story begins in Sweden and had a bit of a twist as his parents joined were early converts to the Mormon Church. As a result, he was one of the few Swedish children who were not baptized by a "Priest of the State Church." This created a bit of a situation for William at the age of seven when he was to start school and there was no legal or accepted religious documentation of his existence. Finally at the age of eight, he was able to start school with the help of a family friend.
As converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church as it was more commonly known, the family looked forward to the time when they could emigrate to the United States and move to Utah. The opportunity for William and his brother Gustave came in the summer of 1877. Gustave left Sweden with his Uncle John and William left under the care of John C. Sandberg, a LDS missionary returning to Salt Lake City.
William arrived in Salt Lake on October 6, 1877 and lived with the Aaron Jacobsen family until the following year when his parents, brother George, and sisters, Anna and Bertha arrived in July 1878. Shortly after their arrival, little Bertha passed away. This was William's first experience with the death of a loved one. As a boy of 10, he remembers his Mother's grief causing him the greatest pain at the loss.
Adjusting to life in America William remembers feeling shocked when he was teased by other boys as he tried to speak English. To add insult to injury, they called him a Dane. It seems the boys thought all Scandinavians were Danish. His English gradually became more fluent as he spent more time with the Jacobsens.
In the 1880 US census, the Backman family is shown as living on Second South in Salt Lake City. The surname is spelled "Bachman." The "h" and "k" in the name seem to be used interchangeably in many documents. At the time the family consisted of his parents, Samuel and Hannah (Anna Johanna), brothers (Gustave and George), sister Anna and William. Samuel is listed as working for the railroad.
In his memoirs, William explained the Backman name came from the Swedish Army to distinguish one of his ancestors from the multiple Swensons, Nilsons, etc.
William wrote about some of the jobs he did during his life. He started working in 1879 at the age of 11. His first job was weeding and thinning carrots and turnips for a man name Levi Reed. Other youthful jobs included peddling vegetables door to door, delivering hats for a Millinery shop, and washing dishes at a saloon up Little Cottonwood Canyon. In 1883, he started work in the railroad's tinshop with his father. He would work as a tinsmith for the rest of his life.
At the age of 21, William noticed Ede Gill (Edith Louise Gill) standing by her gate visiting with another young man. He stopped to talk and joke for just a few minutes. Even though he had known Ede for several years, those few minutes changed his life. He courted Ede and they were married November 26, 1890.
The happy couple soon started their family. A son, William David (Bill), was born November 19, 1891. In the fall of 1891, William received a call to serve a mission for the LDS Church. With the backing of his brothers he departed for Sweden on February 20, 1892. While his wife and young son were in the care of her father.
While he enjoyed the social aspects of religion and the values it encouraged, he had never had strong feelings for the doctrines of any organized religion. His time in Sweden was filled with internal conflicts. He suffered horribly from homesickness for his wife and little boy and struggled to reconcile his feelings toward religion and preaching it to others. The financial panic of 1893 provided the final push he needed to return early from his mission. With money becoming tight for all of his family members back home, he received a letter from his wife with a few dollars in it that she had earned to laundry. He felt the time had come for him to return home and look after his family.
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| William Jacob holding little Bill, Ede, Ede's sister Ruth holding Lyn in front of the Backman home at 24 Jeremy Street |
struggled a bit with his now almost two-year old son. Father and son struggled to get close until the birth of his new sister, Evelyn (Lyn) in 1894. With his mother so involved with the care of a new baby, little Bill discovered his Father again.
The family would continue to grow with the birth of Edith (Babe) in 1896. The joy at the birth of a second son, Richard Samuel on April 30, 1899 would be short lived as the little infant did not survive the day.
Another son, Franklin Gill (Bud), was welcomed on July 30, 1901, Herbert Spencer (Spen) joined the family on December 12, 1903, and finally, George Siegfried on October 9, 1909.
As William wrote in his memoirs, the family enjoyed a pleasant life and always had enough to meet their needs in comfort. There were difficult times as well included the death of little Lyn at the age of eight in 1902. Ede would begin suffering from the symptoms of liver cancer. She would pass away on December 13, 1925 leaving a gaping hole in William's heart.
After a few years, William married a widow, Mary Ann Haywood Gillespie in 1929. They would enjoy watching their children's families grew. William passed away on September 17, 1943.
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