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still looking for info on Oscar Ekstrand

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still looking for info on Oscar Ekstrand

Posted: 30 Oct 2009 10:51AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: ekstrand
I am on a mission to discover what might have happened to my great grandfather (Oscar Ekstrand). My search is strictly out of curiosity, my intent is not to find possible relatives or to seek anything other than information from those who may have it.
The thing is my grandpa died not ever knowing his father, my dad never had a grandfather and there has always been that unanswered question as to what happened to Oscar.
We have no pictures of him and from what my father said about his father’s mothers family that her (Heidtke) family were a sorted bunch, bootleggers, moonshiners, the type of persons most would not want to be involved with for obvious reasons. Therefore, my father can understand that is Oscar was to have gotten involved with Helen Heidtke, that it may have been a short-lived involvement based on the reputation on the Heidtke clan.
What facts we do know are Oscar met Helen when she was around 14 or 15 that she got pregnant with my grandpa (Earl Ernest Ekstrand) who was born in 1920 in Superior Wisconsin. We do not think that Helen or Oscar ever married.
Her family (Heidtke) were from Wisconsin and we speculate that Oscar met Helen in that state. We do know from my late Great grandma Helen, that Oscar had told her he was from Sweden, that he had an extensive education in Sweden, that he spoke and wrote fluent English (he was taught how in Sweden), that Oscar was a talented artist and that he was also a sailor, that he worked on the ships. We speculate that he probably worked in the shipyards in the great lakes area.
What I also know, as a fact is that my grandpa (Earl) and grandma went back to Wisconsin to visit family sometime in the late 60"s and by accident stumbled across the sister of a woman believed to be married to Oscar Ekstrand at that time. I do not have the name of this person; my grandpa has passed and with him has passed some of the details. However what was told to us was that the sister would not divulge any information about Oscars whereabouts but told my grandparents that he was happily married to her sister, that he was a polite, well educated gentle man who now had a “new” life and that they did not want any part of a sorted past.
What that tells us is that he may have made a bad choice by getting involved with Helen and her family, that he may have regretted it but moved on and had a life with someone else, completely understandable for the times and circumstance. However, if persons did not want the skeletons out of the closet then that I am sure no one wants them out now.
I believe someone knows more about Oscar and I am really hoping that that person or persons is associated with this site and will be kind enough to contact me.

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