Carl Leonard Nelson (1894–1986)
An Immigrant's Journey of Faith and Resilience
Let me tell you about your great-great-grandfather Carl. He was born Karl Leonard Nilsson on April 16, 1894, in Veinge (sometimes spelled Weinge), in Halland, Sweden. He grew up on the family homestead in Mestocka, out in the countryside, and that farm life shaped the kind of man he became. His father was Nils Peter Andersson and his mother was Kristina Pålsdotter. Now, you might wonder why his name was Nilsson when his father was Andersson. In Sweden back then, a child’s last name came from the father’s first name. Nils’s son became Nilsson.
Karl went to school through the seventh grade. He stood five feet, seven inches tall, and he was most likely raised in the Lutheran church, since that was the faith of nearly everyone in Sweden in those days.
Europe was getting restless in the years before World War I, and that may be part of why he decided to leave. Just after his 20th birthday, he sailed from Southampton, England, on the RMS Alaunia. Nine days on the Atlantic, and on April 19, 1914, he stepped off in Portland, Maine.
Those first years were hard. World War I broke out only a few months after he got here. Then came the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic, which killed thousands of people in Rhode Island. Carl believed the pandemic was most likely God’s punishment of mankind for sin.
When Carl arrived, he didn’t speak a word of English. So he taught himself, and here’s how: he took a Sears Roebuck catalog, matched the pictures with the words, and asked people to tell him how to say them. He kept at bettering himself like that his whole life.
He started out with whatever hard labor he could find. One season he worked the cranberry bogs in Massachusetts, and it was brutal. The men lived in a little shack. They had one bucket of water for washing and drinking, and a second bucket for a toilet. When the cold came, the water froze solid and was no use to anybody. Lots of the men got frostbite, and some of their ears turned black. Carl made it through, and he always said it was his strong body and his faith in God that carried him.
He also worked hard to soften his Swedish accent. In the factories, Scandinavian men were sometimes looked down on and called “dumb Swedes.” He never lost the accent entirely, but he grew more sure of himself by reading his Bible every day and listening to religious programs on the radio. Those helped his English and his faith both.
Around 1919, Carl got a job at Samuel Moore & Company, a jewelry manufacturer near 301 Friendship Street in Providence, Rhode Island. That building is on the National Register of Historic Places now, and it was a big part of the city’s industry. Carl was a wire roller there, a skilled trade, and he stuck with it for more than forty years.
In 1923, Carl went back to Sweden to bring his sister Signe to America. They sailed from Christiania (that’s Oslo, Norway, today) on the SS Frederik VIII and got to New York on December 1, 1923. By then he was going by Nelson. He was 29, and Signe was 21 and spoke only Swedish. When they arrived, they stayed with Mrs. J. Sipples at 159 Pound Street in Providence.
Carl’s faith ran deep. In 1926 he joined the Church of Jesus, which met in a hall at 7 Winter Street, not far from his work. On September 20, 1927, he became an American citizen, officially taking the name Carl Leonard Nelson. He was still living on Pound Street.
In 1928, when he was 34, Carl married Evelyn Dodge. She was 17, and her father was the church’s minister. By 1930 the couple had moved in with Evelyn’s parents, Fred and Mabel Dodge, because Mrs. Dodge believed God wanted the families to live together. The 1930 census shows them at 770 Westminster Street in Providence, in a tenement they shared with other church members.
The Great Depression (1929–1939) was hard on everyone, including the people in Carl’s church. In 1936, Carl put $100 down on a small house at 222 Crescent Avenue in Cranston, thinking he’d own a share of it. But the title went only in the names of Fred E. and Mabel C. Dodge. In 1937, another church member, Amos Bray, bought three lots next to each other on Crescent Avenue to build a bigger house.
In 1938, Carl put $9,876.25 into building that new house at 196 Crescent Avenue. That’s about $200,000 in 2025 money. Once again, he got no ownership at all. By the 1940 census, sixteen people lived there, the Dodges and the Nelsons among them.
On June 9, 1947, the church, led by Mrs. Dodge, threw Carl and his family out. They had no home. But Carl didn’t give up. He went to court, and in 1949 he won the landmark case Nelson v. Dodge, with $10,468.82 in damages. That case became an important precedent for protecting church members from being pressured over money.
With that money, Carl bought the house that would be his home for good, at 215 Garden Street in the Eden Park part of Cranston. So many Swedes lived there that folks joked it was “Sweden Park.” After all that betrayal, Carl never lost his faith in God. He never said a bad word about the people involved, and he never showed any bitterness. Even when he ran into people who had testified against him, he stayed calm and kind. That quiet strength and forgiveness were who he was.
Carl took good care of himself. He’d rather ride his bicycle than drive, he never drank alcohol, and he believed the body was a sacred gift from God. He liked to quote Psalm 90:10: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years.” He loved being outdoors. He kept a big garden full of fruit trees, and he loved the seashore, because he believed salt water could heal.
In the 1950 census, Carl, then 54, was listed as a jeweler, and Evelyn, 39, worked at a delicatessen. They lived on Garden Street with their five children.
As the children grew up and married, Carl and Evelyn moved upstairs and rented the first floor to their daughter Ruth and her family. Later Ruth bought the house next door, and her daughter Miriam lived just a few doors down. The whole family was right there together.
Carl retired in 1961 after 42 years at Samuel Moore & Company. In November 1978, he and Evelyn celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with 180 relatives and friends. By then they had five children, sixteen grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. At the party, Mayor-elect Edward DiPrete gave them an official proclamation from Cranston’s Mayor Taft in honor of the day.
All his life, Carl was known for loving his family, for being modest and careful, and for his deep faith. He prayed and reflected every day, and that inspired the people around him. At family gatherings, he was usually the one asked to say the prayer.
When his health failed in his last years, Carl moved into the Scandinavian Home in Cranston, where they took kind care of him.
Carl Leonard Nelson died on April 5, 1986. He was 91. He started on a little farm in Sweden and lived a long, honorable life in America, and he did it with hard work, humility, and faith. That courage and character are part of what he left to all of us.
Birthplace
Nils Peter Andersson
Kristina Pålsdotter
Samuel Moore & Company
Golden anniversary