Johan August was the only one of the Sötåsa-children to stay in Sweden all his life. He never went to the US. He was born 19/11 in Sötåsa Southern farm.
His ‘fadder’ – godparents were: Daniel Danielsson from Sötåsa and his wife Anna-Maja Jonsdotter. Their son was also attending the baptism: Johan Fredrik Danielsson and their maid Maja-Stina Liss, daughter in Åsen
He grew up at Sötåsa as the second son and as the 7th child of Johannes and Anna-Greta. He learnt the skills of his father and was very practical. Especially, he seems to have enjoyed the carpentry which he continued doing all his life.
At his 18th birthday, he took his first job outside the farm and moved away from Sötåsa for a year, to work as a farmhand at Åsen South farm, where his sisters were and had been working as maids. He stayed there for a year ’til 20/10 1868. By 1869 his father took a loan of 900 Riksdaler to build a new house at Sötåsa and Johan August probably stayed to build this house.
Some years later, at an age of 29 years, he married Sofia Johansson, 22, from the Northern Sötåsa farm in the same village: 15/7-1876.
They had 11 children: John 1877, Josef 1878, David 1880, Hanna 1882, Judith 1884, Maria 1885, Agnes 1887, Elisabeth 1889, Isak 1891 and Ruben 1893 and Tekla 1896
As mentioned, he was a handy and creative man. He continued his carpentry in Nässjö factory of making wooden chairs: See this typical chair from that factory. He worked there for a couple of years after marrying Sofia and they had 2 children: John and Josef.
John August was a very warm and serious Christian. One day he saw some children throwing stones at each other in Nässjö and thought: ‘I don’t want my children to grow up in a hard world full of animosity and he started looking for a farm in the countryside. He found Storrydet in Svenarum Parish. He went to the little close by city Wrigstad to get a loan from the bank to buy this, around 1879. He moved in there with Sofia and the 2 small boys 10th of Octobre 1879. All the following 9 children were born there.
We don’t know why it wasnt considered possible for him to take over Sötåsa, but that farm was sold to the neighbours already 1874 and Johan Augusts parents stayed at Sötåsa at an exceptions contract the rest of their lives.
STORRYDET
Johan August was happy-mooded and is said to have been singing in the fields as he was ploughing. Carpentry was also his hobby and several of his carpentry pieces are still out there with us children which he has made.
He also decided, together with Sofia, to teach their own children home-schooling since Storrydet was situated quite far away from any school. At inspection by the responsible from the county- the children were said to know their schoolwork better than the ones in school. Since they were far away from villages they fabricated things themselves and the attitude in the home was that if you needed something you could make it yourself, as well as anybody else.
In the beginning they were quite poor and the oldest girls told later that it happened that they would have to take turns to wear the only coat there was.
You can still see how J A put effort into making things looking beautiful and practical at the same time at Storrydet.
He built a Rest-room he called the Throne: 3 stairs to climb to find 3 seats beside each other in the sidehouse of the house. It is still well kept in Storrydet.
Later they got better standards and got their own bicycles and as the children grew they would go out on excursions.
Johan August is said to have met a ‘free-thinker’ one day- one of his neighbours: The man told him that if he should call himself a Christian he ought to keep the seventh day as resting day instead of Sunday. He started thinking of this and went home to study the Bible about the issue. He found that the man had known what he was talking about, but thought it would be a bit presumptious to take such a step to change such a tradition as the whole world were keeping sunday as sabbath.
Spring 1892 Agnes, 5 years old, got sick in May and died. In Febr. 1993- half a year later David, their 12 year old also died. When this happened Johan August started brooding and thought that maybe he was doing something wrong. Since he had a bit of a heavy consciense around the sabbath-question, he thought it might be this and he then started keeping saturday as sabbath
. Later he learnt that some seemstresses in Wrigstad were keeping the Sabbath on saturdays, too and this was the beginning of a life-long relationship with the Seventhday Adventist church. He loved to go to their conferenses and adopted that faith. In the church-books it is said about one of his new-born youngest sons: ‘Not baptized. The father is refusing’ – this also part of the new beliefs.
Later (around 1962) Amanda , his oldest sister Christinas daughter who was emigrated to the US, told in a letter to Johan August daughter Judit, that before Christina was emigrating to the US with her family they were a bit scared to visit with them to say good-bye because of this new ‘religion’ but later they were happy they did because they realized they were nice people and still their nice cousins. This letter was written between the cousins when Amanda was in her nineties and Judit in her seventies.
Johan August died in ‘chest inflammation’ (probably pleural empyema) 1909 24/9 in the hospital of Eksjö, only 63 years old. The doctors had tried to drain some of the pus out of the lungs. He was grieved by many as a wise and very kind man.
STORRYDET nowadays
