Hulda C. Andersen (née Johnson) 1873-1900

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Birth: January 15, 1873, Oland, Sweden

Death: August 27, 1900, Washington, USA

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Oluf Andersen, Emel Andersen, Emma Andersen, August Johnson, Louisa Johnson

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None Found

Oluf Andersen was born on September 24, 1860, in Christiansund, Norway, a coastal town shaped by maritime trade and fishing. In 1880, at the age of twenty, he left Norway and immigrated to the United States, joining the growing wave of Scandinavian settlers seeking opportunity in the Pacific Northwest. In time, Oluf became a naturalized U.S. citizen and established himself in the developing community of Seabeck in Washington Territory.

Hulda C. Johnson was born in Oland, Sweden, on January 15, 1873, and immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s as a young teenager. At just fourteen years old, she traveled with her parents, August Johnson and Britta Louisa Johnson (née Anderson), to America. The family settled in Seabeck, where many Scandinavian immigrants had formed a close-knit community rooted in shared language, culture, and Lutheran faith. It was there that Hulda met Oluf.

Oluf and Hulda were married on August 29, 1889, in Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington Territory. Both were members of the Lutheran Church, which played an important role in their spiritual lives and community connections. The following year, in 1890, they welcomed their first child, marking the beginning of their family life together.

By the time of their marriage, Oluf and Hulda were living along the waterfront area of Seabeck that would come to be known as Andersen’s Landing, a name that endures to this day. There, they made their home and raised their children. Five children were born to them in Seabeck: Adolf (1890), Anna (1891), Emel (1893), Emma (1894), and Walter (1896). Their early years as parents were marked by both joy and sorrow. Emel and Emma tragically died when they were only days old, losses that would have weighed heavily on the family. Their surviving children—Adolf, Anna, and Walter—grew to adulthood and later established families of their own.

Oluf earned a living as a farm laborer, contributing to the agricultural work that sustained the Seabeck community during its early years. Life in the territory was demanding, and the family endured further hardship when Hulda died on August 27, 1900, at only twenty-seven years of age. The cause of her death is unknown, leaving a poignant gap in the family’s history.

Oluf lived for nearly nine years after Hulda’s death. He passed away on November 29, 1909, at Seattle General Hospital at the age of forty-nine. His death was attributed to chronic interstitial nephritis, a condition now commonly known as kidney failure.

Oluf and Hulda are buried in Seabeck Cemetery, laid to rest on either side of their infant children, Emel and Emma. Together, their graves tell the story of a young immigrant family shaped by faith, hard work, love, and loss, and firmly rooted in the early history of Seabeck.