The friction between the two had begun in 1922, two years after their marriage and the birth of a little girl, who died soon afterward. Their quarrels became more frequent, deteriorating into disputes characterized by loud arguments, shouting, and much banging on closed windows and locked doors. The confrontation escalated when Blomberg tried to have his wife, who he believed he could prove was of unsound mind, declared incapable of managing her affairs, at which point she demanded they separate. In addition to her husband’s attempt to forcibly access her money, Olivia cited also his repeated affairs with the young, foreign women who helped around the house in Storgatan. Olivia herself had worked in the house before she became Mrs. Blomberg in 1920.
The court records in the old archives suggest that the Vimmerby Tidning’s editor in chief knew nothing about Swedish women’s newly acquired rights, which indeed weren’t particularly evident in Swedish society during the first half of the twenties. He did, however, know plenty about money and investment opportunities, and always kept a vigilant eye out for potential injections of capital that might help his business grow. Saving up, buying reliable securities, and hoarding silverware in the cupboard weren’t in Blomberg’s nature; he loved risk. As a witness testified during one of the court hearings, “he suffered from a passion for speculation when it came to business.”
Throughout the protracted divorce case, Blomberg remained surprisingly reticent, even subdued. In the records, where the couple’s various gambits and defenses were carefully noted, he comes across as his wife’s rhetorical and tactical inferior. Mr. Blomberg often struggled to parry Mrs. Blomberg’s assertions and to contain the new fronts she was constantly opening up, ably seconded by her talented brother, a lawyer from Tingsryd in southern Småland.
Blomberg’s most convincing counterattack in the long court case, which unfolded in several stages over the years 1924–27, was the suggestion that a feminist conspiracy lay behind his wife’s legal proceedings. Even the gender imbalance of the witnesses Olivia Blomberg called to testify that she had always “worked in the family’s best interests” seemed both to prove him right and to indicate what was at stake: not simply one woman’s honor but the rights of her gender in contemporary and future Sweden. That, insisted Blomberg, explained the similarity between certain of Olivia’s witnesses and some of the animated women he’d found outside his front door on the very day that somebody snipped holes in his winter wardrobe up in the loft.
In early September 1926, this toxic marriage was again brought before the court, and now—Blomberg was sure—it was coming to an end. Following a two-year separation, the district court was going to make the divorce official and decide how to apportion the vexed couple’s financial assets, after which they could leave Vimmerby Town Hall as ex-husband and ex-wife. Over the spring Blomberg had been busy gathering the paperwork needed to settle the divorce, including documents from their priest. By this time Astrid was pregnant, though only a few people in the town knew about it, and this probably explains his haste. If it came out that he was the father of the child in Astrid Ericsson’s belly, his wife would have damning evidence that, in the worst-case scenario, could bring about the collapse of Blomberg’s business empire, thwarting his plans to marry for a third time.
When the court gathered on September 2, 1926, at Vimmerby Town Hall, Reinhold’s fears were realized. A final decision on the case was postponed on the grounds of new and important information that had come to the attention of Olivia Blomberg and her lawyer, which demanded further, thorough, investigation. Reinhold, sensing which way the wind was blowing, protested in court against the delay, but Olivia Blomberg got her way and the next sitting was scheduled for October 28. Five weeks before Astrid’s due date.
Two months passed and, when the court gathered again, the divorce case took the worst conceivable turn for Blomberg. Olivia’s investigation had borne fruit, and she now served a writ upon her husband for adultery. Since she still didn’t have definitive proof, however, she and her brother asked for a further postponement of the case. Again the court granted Olivia her wish, and Blomberg’s protests fell on deaf ears. When Reinhold and Astrid’s child was born in early December 1926, the case was still no closer to a resolution.
A Child of Betrothal
From that point on, young Astrid Ericsson—in absentia, without being named and without risk of being called as a witness, since she wasn’t yet of age—took a leading role in the divorce case that journalist Jens Fellke, in the Dagens Nyheter in 2007, called “a marital dance of death in which all parties involved were doomed to lose.”
Were they? Reinhold Blomberg kept living in Vimmerby after the case, still an editor in chief and still a wealthy businessman. He married for the third time in 1928, fathered another four children, and wrote a short book about his family, in which Olivia, Astrid, and Lasse were conspicuous by their absence from his extensive family tree. Olivia Frölund, formerly Blomberg, got both vindication and compensation, albeit of symbolic proportions. And Astrid Ericsson? She gave birth to a trolovningsbarn, a child conceived during betrothal rather than wedlock, in December 1926, and eventually escaped marriage to Blomberg.
“Trolovelse” is an old Nordic word for betrothal. According to Swedish law in the 1920s, although a trolovningsbarn was born out of wedlock, the child was due the same rights as one born within marriage, because the parents had been betrothed either before or after conception. If one of the parents chose to break off the engagement, which could be either public or secret, the child remained a trolovningsbarn, with the right to inherit its father’s estate and bear his name.
We don’t know for sure when Reinhold and Astrid got engaged, but a letter she wrote to him at Easter 1928 suggests that it was two years earlier, around Easter 1926. The betrothal, which of course had to be secret, was incredibly important for Astrid Ericsson, because it secured the rights of her illegitimate child no matter how things ended between her and Reinhold. Who informed the expectant mother of this crucial fact is unknown. It’s not impossible that Hanna and Samuel August knew about this part of Swedish marriage law, although they took a while to get over their shock and grief at the pregnancy. As Astrid Lindgren explained to Stina Dabrowski in 1993: “That my parents were terribly upset was hardly remarkable. You can’t ask a couple of farmers who grew up thinking of pregnancy outside marriage as a calamity to be anything other than upset. . . . They didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say. In any case, I feel they were honest, and they helped me as much as they could.”
It may even have been Blomberg who made Astrid aware of how important it was that they get engaged and keep it secret. Everything indicates that the editor in chief was smitten with the journalism trainee, and intended to propose as soon as he’d escaped the chains of his current marriage. It’s even possible that Blomberg had something to do with the Vimmerby Tidning’s publication of two lengthy articles in the summer of 1926 on the subject of “Children outside Marriage,” in which the legal circumstances around a trolovningsbarn were thoroughly explored.
The Sevede Häradsrätt record books from 1926–27 document that Astrid Ericsson was in touch with Reinhold Blomberg throughout the fall and up till the birth on December 4, 1926, particularly during September and October, when the couple agreed that Astrid should give birth at the private clinic Gott Hem in Vättersnäs, near Huskvarna and Jönköping. At that point the Rigshospital in Copenhagen wasn’t in the picture; that would happen later, when charges of adultery exacerbated the bitterness of Blomberg’s divorce case.
In September, Gott Hem in Vättersnäs had advertised assiduously in the Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, and Blomberg saw the name during his daily perusal of the national papers. It was billed as offering “discreet and understanding hospitality.” He immediately sent an anonymous inquiry to the clinic, requesting a swift response to a post office box that later turned out to be rented to the Vimmerby Tidning. That fact emerged in March 1927, during the court’s scrutiny of the complex and
mysterious events of fall 1926. It was also during that part of the investigation that Olivia Blomberg hired a graphologist to prove that Reinhold Blomberg had written the anonymous letters to Gott Hem, which featured his distinctively knotty abbreviations and the expression “ung dam obemärkt” (young lady unnoticed), code for a pregnant, unmarried woman who wanted to live “unnoticed”—that is, in an unfamiliar place—in order to have her baby there: “Regarding the advertisement, I am inquiring whether an absolutely discreet and understanding stay can be arranged at the beginning of Dec. for a young lady in a certain condition, and whether the delivery can happen in the same place? Please also provide information about costs etc. Your detailed response gratefully expected at the following address: Box 27, Vimmerby. A home for the child not required at the present time.”
We don’t know for sure what future eighteen-year-old Astrid Ericsson was inwardly imagining in the fall of 1926. She was engaged to Blomberg—secretly, of course—which meant that the child she was expecting would be a trolovningsbarn, with the right to inherit. Blomberg, accused of infidelity, continued to write affectionate letters to his young fiancée, whose answers protested her affection for him; she didn’t quite know what else to do. Blomberg, for his part, always felt that Astrid was dreaming of a future with the child but without its father.
The answer to Blomberg’s inquiry in September 1926 came promptly. Gott Hem’s owner, a nurse named Alva Svahn, informed him that there was space available in both November and December. Another letter from Blomberg followed immediately, this time under the pseudonym Axel Gustavsson, telling Ms. Svahn that “Gustavsson” had forwarded her letter to his fiancée in Stockholm, who would provisionally be arriving in Vättersnäs around November 1 and would spend her last month before the birth at the clinic. He thus indicated that he was withdrawing from the correspondence and leaving the rest to his fiancée. No sooner said than done: The first of three letters from Astrid Ericsson, pasted into the record books in March 1927 as evidence in Blomberg’s divorce and adultery case, was received by Alva Svahn on October 8:
I write in reference to your letter addressed to Box 27, Vimmerby. The letter to you was written by my fiancé, who happens to be staying in V-by. My childhood home is in Vimmerby, but I have recently been living in Stockholm, so that the circumstances, as you write, don’t become widely known. I intend to arrive around November 1, but I would like to ask for more information. Will you be able to arrange a foster family for the child, at least initially? A really good home is definitely preferred. Then there is another matter. Will the delivery take place under anesthetic? Are there doctors nearby? Are there many other discreet residents at your institution? I would like answers to these questions before I make a decision. I assume the delivery will take place at the beginning of December so that I can be home by Christmas. I am very young, no older than nineteen, and would appreciate help and understanding.
Do You Have a Sewing Machine?
Alva Svahn was one of many hospital-trained women in Scandinavia who ran maternity clinics in the 1920s, part of what has since been called “the foster child industry.” Private maternity clinics constituted an important link in the trafficking of infants born outside marriage. Many of them were taken to orphanages, while others went to foster mothers or foster parents, who might be just as loving and self-sacrificing as Lasse’s foster mother in Copenhagen, where Astrid and Reinhold’s little boy spent the first three years of his life, or just as cold and unfeeling as the foster parents in Mio, My Son. Private maternity clinics, orphanages, and foster families earned good money from the misfortune of others during a period of widespread unemployment, and many children did not get the love and attention they were due. Astrid Ericsson was aware of the ongoing debates around such failures of care, which was why she asked specifically what Gott Hem could do for her child after the birth.
Alva Svahn replied by telegram that she would indeed find a loving foster mother, and that the delivery could easily be carried out under anesthetic. In response, Astrid sat down and wrote a new letter, dated October 10, 1926, in which she expressed satisfaction with the various answers and explained the reason that her previous letter had asked about other young women at Gott Hem. It wasn’t fear of meeting people at the clinic; on the contrary:
When you’ve ended up in the same unfortunate situation, you need to stick together as closely as possible. How long do the other young women you mentioned mean to stay? I also need to find out my parents’ opinion on the matter and make my excuses with the other place before I make a definitive decision. However, I think I can assure you now that I will be grateful if I can arrive on Nov. 1. I daren’t stay any longer in Sthlm. But there was one more thing—do you have a sewing machine I might be allowed to make use of? I have a lot of things I need sewed. Yours sincerely, Astrid Ericsson.
The answer came without delay. Of course Alva Svahn had a sewing machine, and she would be happy to help Miss Ericsson with her clothing. On October 19 Astrid replied to say that she had firmly decided on Gott Hem. She intended to arrive on October 31 and stay in Vättersnäs until the birth at the beginning of December. The 150 kronor for the stay would be paid promptly by her fiancé. Miss Ericsson also hoped that Ms. Svahn would be able to pick her up at the station in Jönköping, because it was unclear whether her suitcase could be checked in as luggage all the way to Huskvarna.
A nine-month journey looked to be nearing its conclusion, but neither the suitcase nor Astrid Ericsson turned up at the station in Jönköping on October 31. Instead, a telegram arrived, with the message that Miss Ericsson had been delayed. Alva Svahn remembered that very clearly as she stood in the witness box at Vimmerby Town Hall four months later. Something had gone wrong.
Very wrong. Blomberg’s divorce, as we have seen, hadn’t been settled on October 28. Olivia Blomberg, fighting tirelessly to unmask her adulterous husband, had again gotten the case postponed, this time to December 9. In the meantime Olivia planned to do everything she could to track down decisive proof. The alleged mother of the alleged child couldn’t be called as a witness, but somebody had to know—or know somebody who knew—where the child was going to be born . . .
In other words, Reinhold and Astrid were presented with a completely new situation. Under no circumstances could they make the betrothal public before the birth, since Blomberg was still married, which meant that suddenly Gott Hem wasn’t suitable: a birth on Swedish soil would generate a birth certificate, a copy of which would be sent to the national register, revealing that the child’s last name was Blomberg. More than ever before, it was necessary to keep the birth as far out of Olivia Blomberg’s reach as possible, making sure the child was invisible until the court case was over and the scandal had died down.
There was certainly plenty for Astrid and Reinhold to discuss in the days after the disastrous court hearing in Vimmerby on October 28. They had less than five weeks before the due date, and everything was agreed and arranged with Alva Svahn and Gott Hem. What now? In the first instance, Astrid chose to remain in Stockholm, sending a telegram to the clinic in Vättersnäs to inform them that she would be delayed. A subsequent message—as Alva Svahn later testified in court—announced that Miss Ericsson would arrive on the evening of November 3 instead.
Astrid used the sudden, unexpected free days in Stockholm to come up with a new plan for the birth. For the first time during her pregnancy, she took matters into her own hands and went to see Eva Andén, the lawyer she had read about, in her office on Lilla Vattugatan in Gamla Stan. On October 30, 1926, she knocked, entered, and laid most of her cards on the lawyer’s table, describing not just her own unfortunate situation but also the secret engagement and Reinhold’s divorce case, which was increasingly affecting the birth. She acted as though she had been thrown upon her own resources.
Eva Andén, the first woman ever to join the Swedish Bar Association, was known for her legal work with female clients and closely associated with the feminist magazine Tidevarvet
(The age) and the advice bureau set up one year earlier by the magazine’s editor: Ada Nilsson, a doctor. In 1924 Andén had written long articles in Tidevarvet about the latest amendments to legislation regarding children “inside marriage” and children “outside marriage,” emphasizing the ways in which pregnant unmarried women could make provision for their children. What Andén strongly hinted was that the relatively nonbinding institution of betrothal could be a golden opportunity for pregnant unmarried women to secure their children’s future without shackling themselves to the father forever.
By Word and Deed
After her conversation with Eva Andén, Astrid was sent for a consultation with Ada Nilsson at her office at Triewaldsgränd 2, also in Gamla Stan, where she received a checkup and was advised on medical complications that might arise. That evening she sat down in her fifth-floor room at the boarding house in Artillerigatan and wrote an optimistic letter to Reinhold at home in Vimmerby, reminding him to put his reply in an envelope with Samuel August’s name and address on the back so that they didn’t risk the letter falling into the wrong hands and being used as evidence:
Today I’ve been to see a female lawyer called Eva Andén. She was so incredibly kind to me and didn’t take any money. . . . She thinks I should find really good lodgings in Copenhagen and have the child at a hospital there, I can’t remember what it’s called, but they have a secret birth register where you don’t need to give the name of the mother or father. . . . She was thoroughly decent and thinks one absolutely has to take responsibility for one’s child, as far as possible, so she didn’t suggest this idea to help us get rid of the child permanently. She does think it would be dreadful for me to be alone in a foreign country, but I’m sure I can cope with that. . . . She told me that under no circumstances should I get on a train before being examined by a doctor, so she sent me to a female doctor called Ada Nilsson. I didn’t have any albumin, so that was good. Write and tell me what you think of my suggestion. I’m going to see the lawyer again on Monday. Send an envelope with Father’s address on the back!