Skip to main content

1940 US Census - Edith (Knutson) Ludwig and Charles Ludwig

Here is the 1940 US Census for Edith (Knutson) Ludwig daughter of Elizabeth (Finnestad) and Ole Andreas (Andrew) Knutson and the granddaughter of Mari Iversdatter Nordskår and Ole Olson Finnestad.



Lines 6 - 7 list Edith, living in the city of Rochelle, Flagg township, Ogle county, Illinois with daughter Elizabeth.     Employment information is not provided for Edith. 

Edith's husband, Charles Ludwig was serving a sentence in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Lockport, Will county, Illinois, known as Stateville Correctional Center.   There were some infamous inmates that served time at Statesville, from John Wayne Gacy to Leopold and Loeb.      Apparently the section of US route 66 that ran past the prison was changed to Illinois state highway 53 sometime after 1940.



Charles is listed on line 77 of the census.    Charles was arrested and charged for arson and admitted to setting several tavern fires according to the True Republican, September 5, 1936 edition, page 8, 4th column midway down the page.



The October 21, 1936 edition of the True Republican published the sentence of 1 - 10 years for arson.   According to the article, Charles was previously employed as a fireman.     The country was in the middle of the Great Depression and I wonder if his crime has any relationship to his family's financial situation at the time.     Column 7 toward the top of the page is highlighted with the details.



I have not come across any information as to when Charles was released from prison.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ole Finnestad Jr obituary

Here is the obituary for my great, great grandfather, Ole Finnestad Jr from the Dixon Evening Telegraph of July 9, 1928. Note the misspelling of his first and last name, though Finnestad was spelled correctly within the content of the article. You will also note that his brother Rasmus had moved from Canada to Washington by the time of his brother's death. Oddly, there is no mention of the sisters that survived him, leading me to believe they may have lost touch by the time of his death.

Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad obituaries

I have had previously posted the obituary for my great great grandfather Ole Finnestad several posts back. I have not yet been able to locate an obituary for my great grandparents Oliver and Mary Finnestad, though here are the obituaries for my grandparents, Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad.

Finnestad Farm - Stavanger, Norway

It was customary in Norway to take the farm name as the family name. Prior to arriving in America, Ole Finnestad was known as Ole Olson. According to the Regional State Archives of Stavanger, in 1862, Ole Olsen bought a farm from Bjørn Larsen. The following link provides some farm information along with the family members in 1865: http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=59&filnamn=f61126&gardpostnr=582&sokefelt=vis “Merknad 387b” now means property nr. 16 of the farm Finnestad. (Please keep in mind that accuracy of records is less than perfect - so ages and other information are not always correct) For more information on Stavanger and a map of the area, please go to the following wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavanger