In this article I am looking into the Immigrant Status of the Swedish born soldiers who were drafted to the US Army before it’s entrance in the Great War and the advance towards Europe, with the American Expeditionary Force.(AEF)
In this case the delimitation is that I have looked into the registration cards of those who served and fell for the AEF in the Great War.
Introduction
I have found it very interesting to read about the different levels of Immigrant status and the meaning of them.
In this quite small and basic study I have used the Registration cards the soldiers filled in during the three differents draft periods.
First Registration (June 5, 1917): Covered men aged 21 through 30 (born between June 6, 1886, and June 5, 1896). Second Registration (June 5, 1918 and August 24, 1918): Covered men who had turned 21 since the first registration on June 5, 1917. A supplemental registration on August 24, 1918, added those who turned 21 after June 5, 1918. Third Registration (September 12, 1918): Expanded the age range significantly to include all men aged 18 through 45 (born between September 11, 1872, and September 12, 1900).
The majority of the Swedes in this study were drafted in the first registration, on June the 5th, 1917.
Below an example of the registration card of the Swedish soldier John A Carlson, who were an “Alien” at the time, and also claimed exemption from draft, with the reason that he was an “alien”, on of the four options you had to fill in on your registration card, regarding you citizen status. I will come back to the different citizen statuses later in the article.
Ancestry
The different immigrant statuses
Declarant Aliens vs. Non-Declarant Aliens (Draft Classifications)
For the purposes of military conscription under the Selective Service Act of 1917, the U.S. divided all non-enemy immigrants into two critical legal pathways:
Declarant Aliens: Immigrants who had formally filed their “first papers” (a Declaration of Intention to become a U.S. citizen). The U.S. government viewed them as future citizens and subjected them to the draft just like natural-born Americans.
Non-Declarant Aliens: Immigrants who had not yet initiated the naturalization process. They had to register for the draft but could apply for relief from military service, though doing so carried heavy social and future legal consequences.
The other two options on the registration card were:
Natural Born Citizen, meaning that you were born in the US.
A naturalized citizen, meaning that you have passed all the stages to become a citizen in the US.
An enemy alien was any non-naturalized resident, native, citizen, or subject of a country at war with the U.S. (primarily Germany and its allies like Austria-Hungary), who held allegiance to that hostile nation.
Before the War
Before World War I and the introduction of the military draft, the standard naturalization process was regulated by the Naturalization Act of 1906.
Five Years Residence: Applicants had to reside continuously in the United States for at least five years.
Declaration of Intention (“First Papers”): Applicants went to a court of record to file a sworn statement declaring their bonafide intention to become a U.S. citizen and renounce foreign allegiance. This could be done as soon as they arrived or after a short initial period.
Petition for Citizenship: Between two and seven years after filing the declaration, the applicant filed a formal petition with the court.
Witness Testimony: The applicant had to provide the personal testimony of at least two credible U.S. citizen witnesses who could swear to the applicant’s residency and good moral character.
Exams and Hearing: Applicants had to undergo a formal investigation and court hearing, prove they could speak English, and pass basic tests on U.S. history and civics.
During the War
During World War I, foreign-born members of the U.S. armed forces could use an expedited one-day process to become naturalized citizens under the Alien Naturalization Act of May 9, 1918.
The Expedited WWI Military Steps
Unlike the standard peacetime rules requiring five years of residency and extensive exams, the wartime process for enlisted service members involved simplified steps:
Proof of Enlistment: Provide official proof of active service in the U.S. armed forces.
Witness Testimony: Secure the oral testimony of two credible civilian or military witnesses who could verify the soldier’s identity and service.
Petition for Citizenship: File a direct petition for naturalization at a local court, federal court, or through temporary examiners dispatched directly to military bases.
Oath of Allegiance: Immediately take the formal oath of allegiance to the United States.
Certificate Issuance: Receive the Certificate of Naturalization on the same day, completing the process in as little as 24 hours.
Requirements Waived During WWI
To fast-track citizenship before troops shipped overseas, the 1918 law exempted soldiers from:
The standard 5-year U.S. residency requirement.
Filing a preliminary Declaration of Intention (“first papers”).
Demonstrating the ability to speak English.
Passing history and civics examinations.
Method & Result
I have manually read through all the registration cards of those 389 Swedish born soldiers who served and fell for the AEF during the Great War, and noted the result into my database. These individuals are the present number of individuals in my database.
In this first step I have only compared the amount of the differents citizen statuses and connected them to if they had any reasons for exemptions filled in, in their registration card.
I will later continue to compare other values such as where they were born in Sweden, when they emigrated, where they lived in their new country, and if they did any Swedish military Service.
The result as follows:
The figures above are based on what they wrote on the cards at the specific moment. Some of the individuals who wrote that they were “Aliens” later declared intention, just before they went over to France.
281 individuals (89 Aliens + 192 Declarants) of those 389, were not citizens of the United States when they fell in the Great War. Although, the Declarants were subject to Military Draft.
95 individuals were Naturalized Citizens of the United States when they fell in the Great War.
13 Unknown status, as I haven’t been able to find their registration cards
Declarants: Immigrants who filed their first papers (declaration of intention) were treated similarly to U.S. citizens under the Selective Service Act of 1917 and were eligible for military service.
Non-declarants: Resident aliens who had not declared their intention to become citizens were initially exempt from the draft, though they had to formally claim their exemption. Claiming exemption as an alien, however, permanently barred them from ever becoming U.S. citizens.
Exemptions
The 89 Aliens in the study above were not forced to participate in the War, but it is clear that they did.
10 of the 89 Aliens above claimed exemptions to be drafted. The reason for why they ended up to serve anyway, is not known.
19 of the 192 Declarants above claimed exemptions to be drafted.
11 of the 95 Naturalized above claimed exemptions to be drafted.
40 of the total 389 individuals claimed exemptions.
The reasons were mostly connected to support of the family or their parents, in the US or in Sweden.
Some of them stated the reason to be that they were Aliens, and not obliged to participate.
Discussion
In my earlier article about Swedish Immigrants in the Great War I have looked into reasons and motivation of the Swedish immigrants. The majority of the Swedish immigrants had a positive attitude to participate in the war for their new country, although the reasons varies from a wide range of options, such a strive for adventure, unemployment, what does the new community think, and commitment to a loyal attitude to do good things against the bad things, as maybe a genetic thing that they brought over from their old country, Sweden.
I find it interesting to see that those individuals who claimed exemptions ended up in the war anyway. It would be very interesting to find more information about the process of how they sorted out individuals who claimed exemption, and the reasons for it. The link below will take you to a webpage where you can read more about the boards which were setup to clear out the conditions for those who claimed exemption.
There are other content which discuss if the Swedes knew that they could have claimed exemptions as aliens, such in the case below about Fred G Ekstrom (Fredrik Gustav Arvid Ekström) from Ramkvilla, Småland, Sweden, now buried at the Meuse Argonne American Cemetery.
I hope this small study gave you a first insight about the Immigrant status of the Swedes who fought and fell for AEF in the Great War, and what those different statuses meant for the American Draft to the war.
A much larger project is to compare this to all the registration cards of the Swedes, of those who survived the war, and of those who never had to serve in Europe. One day I may look into that as well.
If you found this interesting, you can support me through the link below.
This is the third story about the Swedish born brothers from Torpshammar in Sundvall, who all ended up in the Great War after having emigrated with their family to North America. I have earlier written the story about Ernest Julius Erickson, who sadly fell in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and about Frank Julius Erickson who survived the days of the “Lost Battalion” in the Argonne Woods.
Now it is time to tell the story about the third brother who experienced the Great War in France, the story about Sebran. However, the story also contains a great peace of history, not only about the time in North America and France. It contains also history about the hard post war situation in Russia, and about the difficult times Sebran went through together with his Russian Wife.
The words below are based on the text from the descendant of Frank Gustaf Severin Erickson, from Mark Erickson, who is Sebran & Klavdia’s (Sebran’s wife) Great Nephew. It is with great honour I write these words through my project, and this cooperation with Mark is a very important part of my research about Swedish emigrants who fought and fell in the Great War.
The cooperation with Mark will continue, and I am looking forward to the subjects we will cover in the future.
From my point of view this story about Sebran is amazing, with both history from North America, but also Russia at that time. Please follow me through the story below.
Background
Sebran Andy Philoman Erickson was born as Anders Sebran Filemon Ersson Eriksson on February 18, 1896, in Torpshammar, Västernorrlands län, Sweden, a rugged landscape of iron and timber near Sundsvall. Known as Sebran from childhood, he was the son of Anders Alfred (Andrew – AA) and Brita Kristina (Olofsdotter-Olsson-Andersson) (Ersson Eriksson) Erickson. He grew up in a flourishing family with a lineage deeply rooted in the traditions and soil of his Swedish heritage.
Sebran was one among many, part of a tightly bound sibling circle that would carry the Erickson name across continents: Frank (Frans) Gustaf Severin, Ernest (Ernst) Julius Alfred, Erik Helmer, Vera (Elvira) Edla Alfrida (Gallager), Abby (Ebba) Angnis Kristina (Lincoln), and Alphons ‘Al’ Frederick Alcassar Erickson. Together, they would form a family shaped by adventure, hard work, adversity, and triumph.
Adventure started early for the Erickson Family, as on May 1, 1903, when Sebran was just seven years old, the family left behind their homeland of Sweden, stepping into the great tide of emigration that carried so many Scandinavians toward America. Their journey took them first to Liverpool, England, where they boarded the S.S. Aurania, a vessel bound for the New World. On May 21, 1903, they arrived at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, tired, hopeful, and standing at the threshold of a new life.
From there, the journey pressed westward. By train, the Ericksons traveled deep into the American interior, toward Bismarck and Wilton, North Dakota. The family lived with Anders’ brother Frederick, his wife Carrie, and their four daughters on their farm in Slaughter, North Dakota. It was there, amid open skies and prairie winds, that the family began to anchor itself. Soon after, they secured their own homestead in Regan, within Ghylin Township in Burleigh County, a place that would become the proving ground of Sebran’s youth.
On that farmland, Sebran grew into manhood. The rhythms of the family life, school, plowing, planting, harvesting and working with machinery, became second nature to him. Yet the early 20th century was not a time for standing still. Change was coming to agriculture, carried by steel, steam, and innovation. It was this transformation that would eventually pull Sebran far beyond the fields of North Dakota.
Photo: markerickson.com
101st Aero Squadron (1917–1918)
With America finally entering the European conflict in the spring of 1917, a wave of patriotic fervor swept the nation as young men from every corner of the country rushed to enlist, while others anxiously awaited the draft. Among those eager to serve was Sebran, a young man with his sights set firmly on the skies. Joining the American Expeditionary Forces in July 1917, he was assigned to the 101st Aero Squadron and sent to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, to master the vital crafts of automotive mechanics and airplane repair. In a striking twist of historical irony, exactly a quarter-century later in 1942, Sebran’s nephew, Ernest Anders Erickson, would find himself walking the very same grounds, now a modernized facility, chasing his own wartime dream of becoming an Army Air Corps fighter or heavy bomber pilot.
The unit was formally organized on August 22, 1917, at Kelly Field, Texas. Its earliest duties consisted of basic military drill, indoctrination, and foundational soldiering mechanics before mobilizing for deployment overseas. On December 4, 1917, Sebran and the 101st detrained at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, located at League Island along the Delaware River, and immediately boarded the troopship S.S. Northland. They steamed out of the port the following day, making a brief stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before continuing across the Atlantic to Liverpool, England.
After a long sailing voyage over the North Atlantic aboard the Northland, the squadron arrived in Liverpool, on Christmas Day. On December 27th, the squadron was stationed at a Rest Camp near Winchester, England.
Pfc. Sebran Anders ‘Andy’ Philoman (Ersson Eriksson) Erickson * 1917 – 1919 101st Aero Squadron * Army Air Services * American Expeditionary Forces * Issoudun Aerodrome, Bourges, France The 101st Aero’s planes, the Nieuport 24 BIS (Bosch Injection System) bookend the airmen.
Upon leaving the rest camp near Winchester, the 101st crossed the English Channel and landed at Le Havre, France, marking their official entry into the European theater Almost immediately, the unit boarded a train bound for the Replacement Concentration Center (AEF) at the St. Maixent Barracks. They arrived on January 1, 1918, spending New Year’s Day entering their primary processing hub. At St. Maixent, the AEF evaluated the specific skills and vocations of the men. Following this assessments, the men would be assigned to their appropriate assignments. The unit was formally designated as the 101st Aero Squadron Service.
As a Service Squadron, the 101st were involved with assembling fuselages, tuning rotary engines, and repairing wings damaged by pilots. Sebran worked on a variety of French-supplied aircraft, primarily Nieuport variants and biplanes like the Breguet 14 or SPAD, which were used extensively for tactical instruction.
Assignment to the Issoudun Aerodrome – Bourges, France
Following their initial processing period, Sebran and the 101st Aero Squadron were assigned to the massive 3rd Aviation Instruction Center at Issoudun, near Bourges, France. Issoudun was the world’s largest air base at the time, dedicated entirely to training American pursuit and bombardment pilots. The 101st would quickly become the backbone of daily operations across this sprawling complex.
Photo: Mark Erickson
While pilots trained intensely for combat, the 101st assembled, maintained, repaired, and prepared the French Nieuports and Sopwiths used in bombardment training and tactical missions. The squadron took keeping the American air fleet flying smoothly through the war seriously. Sebran was a vital cog in that massive aerial mechanism, constantly challenged by the rigorous demands of the skies above France. By February 1, 1918, the 101st was stationed primarily at ‘Field Five’ within the massive Issoudun complex, where they fully assumed their duties supporting acrobatics and advanced flight instruction. As a specialized technical team, they managed schedules for advanced pilots while continuing to assemble, repair, and service the tactical French aircraft used by American trainees. The unit also ensured that front-line bombardment and pursuit units were constantly provisioned with fuel, spare parts, and functional machinery.
Wikipedia – Issoudun Aerodrome – Field 3 with Nieuport 23M, 80 HP single seat (solo) aircraft, 1918.
Sebran thoroughly enjoyed the work and excelled in his engine studies. As his mechanical dexterity increased, he began catching the attention of his unit’s officers. Unbeknownst to Sebran at the time, he was storing away a wealth of technical knowledge and hands-on experience that would prove invaluable in his post-war civilian life.
While Sebran was supporting the aviation training and mechanical assembly at Issoudun, France, his brothers were experiencing vastly different sides of the war at the exact time. His brother, Frank, was on the front lines as a rifleman and runner with Company H of the 308th Infantry, 77th Division. Frank remarkably survived the famous October 1918 ‘Lost Battalion’ siege in the Argonne Forest and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. Tragically, their other brother, Ernest Julius, was killed in action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a month before the war ended. Because Sebran was stationed safely away from the trenches at the aviation instruction centers, his crews mechanical and logistical support kept the AEF’s training pipeline running smoothly so that American pilots could make it to the front lines.
Life at Issoudun (The 3rd Aviation Instruction Center)
For Private Erickson and the men of the 101st, life in France was defined by relentless technical labor, mud, and intense winter cold. In late 1917 and early 1918, the conditions at Issoudun were notoriously harsh. The camp was a sea of thick mud, and the men lived in drafty, wood-and-canvas barracks. During the bitterly cold winter, the mechanics had to work on freezing metal aircraft engines with bare or thinly-gloved hands to maintain the precision required for flight safety.
Though removed from direct German artillery, Issoudun was still a dangerous place. Because they were training pilots in high-risk maneuvers like dives, spins, and mock dogfights, crashes were frequent. Ground crews were the first responders to training accidents, tasked with pulling pilots from wreckage and clearing or rebuilding the damaged planes.
Sebran quickly learned that a mechanic’s hands could be as vital as a pilot’s reflexes. The work was unyielding. In the open, drafty hangars, he braved the bitter European frost to tune temperamental Gnome and Le Rhône engines. With bare hands numbed by the cold, he manipulated freezing metal components, ensuring every valve and pushrod was flawless. A single loose bolt or a misfiring cylinder meant a trainee pilot might stall mid-dive, turning a routine training maneuver into a fatal plunge into the French countryside.
Beyond the oily confines of the engine cowlings, Sebran mastered the delicate, high-stakes craft of structural repair. The Nieuport trainers of the era were elegant but fragile skeletons of spruce wood and taut canvas, routinely battered by hard landings and high-G aerial maneuvers. Sebran spent countless hours meticulously splicing fractured wooden wing spars, aligning wire riggings to perfect tension, and stitching together torn fabric skin. Using pungent dope lacquer, he painted the canvas patches until they shrank drum-tight over the frames. It was a tedious, artistic process where precision was measured in millimeters, and the stakes were nothing less than human life.
Sebran’s versatility soon earned him an additional, vital role within the squadron: that of a chauffeur. Navigating the chaotic, unpaved labyrinth of the Issoudun complex required a steady hand and a cool head. Behind the wheel of rugged utility vehicles, Sebran transport officers, vital logistics paperwork, and urgently needed spare parts between the base’s scattered airfields. When training accidents inevitably occurred, the reality of war became quite real to Sebran and the other men of the Squadron. Watching the frantic, solemn urgency of the rushing crews to crash sites, pulling bruised or broken pilots from the splintered cockpits was unsettling. Then often being part of clearing the runways so the relentless pipeline of training could continue.
The long, grueling days blended into months of ceaseless labor, fueled by the distant, echoing rumble of the Western Front where his brothers fought. Through the dust of summer and the return of the autumn rains, Sebran and his fellow mechanics kept Field Five alive, sending wave after wave of combat-ready aviators into the skies. When the Armistice finally silenced the guns in November 1918, Sebran could look up at the quiet sky knowing the 101st’ tireless devotion to engine, wood, and steel had helped in a small way, pave the way to victory.
The Post-Armistice and Return Home (November 1918 – April 1919)
When the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the 101st did not pack up immediately. The men remained stationed at Issoudun through the winter to help dismantle the massive aviation infrastructure and inventory. Months went by and little word came from his brothers. Sebran continued his chauffeur assignments until he left France.
As the Spring of 1919 was breaking over the eastern seaboard of America, Sebran returned to New York at Mitchel Field on Long Island. By then he had heard from his Brother Frank who would arriving at Brooklyn Harbor on April 23rd, and he made sure he was there to greet him. The two brothers, fresh from the war, spent time together in New York City, talking over their days in France. They visited a photography studio in Manhattan and had a series of images taken, of the young men who had seen the world and returned changed. Those photos live on to this day, family treasures that hold a time long gone, but never forgotten.
Sebran watched as Frank and the 77th Division marched down the ‘Canyon of Heroes’ on Broadway. The custom of a ticker-tape parade originated on October 28, 1886, celebrating the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. The term, ‘Canyon of Heroes’ describes the narrow, high-rise corridor of buildings that created a ‘canyon’ effect, where workers famously rained down paper, giving rise to the city’s iconic parade tradition. The parade on May 6, 1919, down Broadway was a massive parade honoring the Division, a moment of pride and relief after their time in France and the long wait to return home. Sebran and Frank were discharged from the American Expeditionary Forces later in the month, and both returned home to find their place in their former lives, once again as civilians.
For Sebran and Frank, returning to the family farm in Regan provided a welcome, much-needed break as they helped out around the property and took on various local jobs. During this time, Frank reacquainted himself with Clara Amelia Nelson, a girl he had known years before when he was last home. Their rekindled connection blossomed into romance, and by 1922, the couple was married. The newlyweds settled down to build their life together on her family’s homestead in Painted Woods, North Dakota. It was there, amidst the rolling fields of the Painted Woods farm, that they welcomed their first child, Ernest Anders, on August 4, 1922.
In early 1923, Sebran’s life took an extraordinary turn. The J.I. Case Threshing Machinery Company hired him as a farming machine instructor to teach Russian farmers how to use modern American agricultural equipment. No longer a mere laborer, he became part of a select group of men sent far beyond American fields and into the uncertain territories of post-revolutionary Russia. The two years spent honing his skills with the 101st Aero Squadron were finally paying off; his deep knowledge of automobile and aerial mechanics was about to launch him into a career he never saw coming.
J. I. Case Threshing Machinery Company
In the wake of the Great War, as the world struggled to redefine itself, men like Sebran ventured onto a different kind of frontier. They were missionaries of mechanization, instructors who approached sales as a form of cultivation. Their mission: to bring the promise of modern agriculture to a nation shattered by the First World War, the 1917 Revolution, and the hollowed-out years of civil war. Russia, once one of Case’s premier export markets, had fallen into a long, grim silence. With trade severed and machinery seized by the burgeoning Soviet state, the vast grain fields that once fed empires now stood at a precarious crossroads of ideology and survival.
Into this uncertain world stepped Sebran. He arrived in a land where language, politics, and even trust were fragile things. Yet the need was undeniable. The Soviet government, despite its suspicion of Western enterprise, understood one hard truth: without modern agriculture, there would be no recovery. By the early 1920s, trade cautiously resumed through state-controlled channels, and with it came the machines, and the men who knew how to make them live.
markerickson.com
It was during this time that Sebran made a practical yet telling decision: he began using the name ‘Andy,’ adopting his father Anders Alfred’s Americanized name of Andrew. In Russia, his original Swedish given name of, Anders Sebran Philoman, proved difficult for locals to pronounce. Whether he ever made the change legal remains uncertain, but among family, including his brother Frank, he was still known as Sebran. And so, in telling his story, that is the name that remains.
Sebran’s role was clear, though never simple. He stood beside the great Case threshers, massive steel machines born from decades of innovation dating back to Jerome Increase Case himself, and taught Russian farmers how to use them. These machines, powered first by steam engines and increasingly by the new gasoline tractors, could process over 1,000 bushels of wheat in a single day. In some demonstrations, with skilled operation, they could separate as much as 2,000 bushels, an almost unimaginable leap from the backbreaking labor of hand harvesting.
At the heart of this transformation was the ‘Agitator’ thresher, a marvel of its time. Its counterbalancing system shook grain free from straw with an efficiency that seemed almost alive, vibration turning chaos into order, harvest into yield. Sebran did not simply explain it; he brought it to life in the fields, showing farmers how to operate, maintain, and repair these complex machines. In those moments, surrounded by wide Russian skies and fields stretching to the horizon, Sebran became more than an instructor, he became a bridge, between continents, between old methods and new industry, between uncertainty and possibility.
Sebran’s background as a Dakota farmer and the J.I. Case Company’s strategic shift during the interwar years. For Sebran, the vast Russian steppes felt like a ghost of the North Dakota prairies he had left behind. Growing up on a Dakota farm, he understood the soul-crushing labor of horse-drawn plows and the desperate hope that came with the first rumble of a gasoline engine. Now, as an instructor for Case, his sales approach wasn’t about quotas; it was about ‘cultivation,’ teaching men who had only known civil war and revolution how to trust a machine to feed a nation.
He wasn’t just selling tractors; he was offering the same mechanical liberation that had transformed his own family’s homestead into a modern enterprise. In 1899, J.I. Case Company officially entered the Russian market, which quickly became one of its largest export regions. By 1911, production of gasoline tractors began to ramp up, eventually eclipsing the company’s famous steam engines. In 1917, trade with Russia ceased due to the Revolution and Civil War; existing machinery is nationalized by the Soviet state. Then, the J.I. Case Company officially ceased production of steam traction engines, fully committing to the gasoline ‘Crossmotor’ and Model L designs. During this time, Case tractors were famously painted grey to distinguish them from the black-and-green steam engines of the past.
markerickson.com
The Case Machines
MachinesDuring Sebran’s tenure in Russia from 1923 to 1936, he bridged two distinct eras of Case engineering. The final years of the rugged, side-mounted Crossmotor and the dawn of the revolutionary Letter Series. When Sebran arrived in 1923, the Crossmotor was the backbone of the Case fleet. These machines were famous for their engines being mounted sideways, transversely across the frame, a design that allowed for efficient, direct-gear drives to the belt pulley, ideal for stationary threshing.
The Case 12-20 was likely Sebran’s most common demonstration tool in his early years. It was a compact, lightweight tractor featuring a one-piece cast iron frame and was the first Case model to use renewable cylinder sleeves, a vital feature for maintenance in remote Russian fields.By 1925, the Case 18-32 was the more powerful successor; this model offered 18 horsepower at the drawbar and 32 horsepower at the belt. Its shorter wheelbase made it more maneuverable than previous heavy models, which Sebran could use to showcase modern efficiency over traditional horse teams. The Case 25-45 came along soon after, a heavy-duty big brother to the 18-32. This 10,000-pound machine was built for the massive scale of Russian grain fields, capable of pulling a four-bottom plow with ease.
In 1929, Case retired the Crossmotor design in favor of a modern inline engine layout. These grey-painted machines were often called the ‘Rolls Royces’ of the tractor world for their power and reliability. That same year, the Case Model L was the powerhouse of Sebran’s later demonstrations. With a massive 6.6L four-cylinder engine, it was rated to pull a 4-furrow plow in even the hardest ground. It was a Standard tractor, meaning it had a fixed, wide front axle, making it a stable and formidable presence on the vast steppes.The Case Model C was a slightly smaller, more versatile version of the Model L. The Model C was rated for 2–3 plows. It was a crucial part of the lineup for smaller collective farms that didn’t need the raw power of the Model L but required its legendary durability.
The Case Model CC was the row-crop version of the Model C, featuring a narrow front end for cultivation. For an instructor like Sebran, the CC allowed him to demonstrate how a single tractor could handle an entire season’s work, from plowing to precise cultivation. Sebran’s fleet of machinery were painted grey with red wheels, the signature Case look during this interwar period.Early in his stay, he would have only shown steel wheels with spade lugs; by 1935, he would have been introducing the wonders of pneumatic rubber tires.
markerickson.com
Sebran (back row on the right) and Soviet Workers – 1925
Toward the end of his time in the early 1930s in Russia, he could demonstrate the motor lift, a feature that used engine power to raise and lower implements at the touch of a foot button. Between 1923 and 1936, Sebran’s work occurred during a tectonic shift in Russian agriculture, moving from the individual plots of the New Economic Policy (NEP) to the massive, state-controlled collectivization drive.In his early years, Sebran would have likely followed the tractor columns, mobile units of tractors that traveled from village to village to prove the worth of mechanical power over horses.
One of the Case workers’ main areas was in Southern Ukraine & the Russian Steppes, which were a vast, treeless, and primarily flat temperate grassland zone stretching across southern Russia from Ukraine to the Ural Mountains and Siberia. Characterized by rich, fertile black earth (chernozem) soil, these semi-arid plains feature hot summers, cold winters, and dominant vegetation of feather grasses and hardy shrubs. Sebran’s primary route likely centered around Odessa, a key Case hub since 1908. From here, instructors traveled through the Kherson and Mykolaiv districts, which were critical testing grounds for American equipment and seeds.
Sebran likely visited German and Mennonite colonies in the Volga River valley. These communities were often early adopters of American technology and had established Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS) before the system became a national requirement.As Case models like the 18-32 and 25-45 were introduced, demonstrations moved toward Rostov-on-Donand the Kuban region, where the vast, flat terrain was ideal for showcasing big American power. By the time the Case Model L arrived in 1929, the Soviet government had centralized all machinery into Machine-Tractor Stations. Sebran would have spent his final years as an instructor at these major hubs: The Shevchenko Sovkhoz (State Farm) located in Ukraine, which was the site of the first-ever MTS in the Soviet Union, established around 1928-1929.
It served as the national blueprint for how tractors like the Case L would be rented out to surrounding collective farms (Kolkhozy).Mennonite Colonies (Molotschna & Chortitza): Specific collective farms in Waldheim, Orloff, and Halbstadt were famous for their high concentration of tractors. In these areas, Sebran’s cultivation approach was essential, as he had to train local peasant brigades to operate and repair the complex Model C and Model CC models.This served as a central technology base and tractor-driving school. It was here that instructors like Sebran likely conducted their most formal training, turning farmers into the first generation of Soviet tractorists.
During this 1923–1936 window, Case was in a fierce ‘Tractor War’ against Ford (Fordson) and International Harvester. While the Soviets eventually began mass-producing their own copies, like the SKHTZ 15-30 (a copy of the IHC 15-30), the genuine Case Model L remained the ‘Rolls Royce’ of the fields, often reserved for the most important work on the largest state farms. For a Dakota farmer like Sebran, the transition from the orderly Midwest to the chaotic Soviet countryside between 1923 and 1936 presented challenges that were as much political as they were mechanical.The Case Crossmotor and Model L were designed for high-quality American kerosene or gasoline.
In Russia, Sebran faced a mechanical nightmare with Russian low-grade Naphtha, a Soviet fuel that was often unrefined or ‘heavy’ naphtha, which caused massive carbon buildup. Sebran would have spent his days teaching ‘tractorists’ how to clean spark plugs every few hours and adjust the manifolds to run hotter just to keep the engines from stalling.Because the fuel didn’t burn completely, it would leak past the piston rings and dilute the crankcase oil. Sebran had to insist on frequent oil changes, a concept that was hard to sell to officials who viewed oil as a precious, scarce resource. In the brutal Russian winters, the thick, low-quality oil would turn to wax. Sebran likely taught the ‘fire-under-the-oil-pan’ method, literally lighting small fires beneath the tractors to thin the oil enough for the hand-crank to turn the engine.
Dekulakization – Stalin’s Repression
Sebran arrived just as the Soviet state began forcing peasants into collectives (Kolkhozy). He was caught in the middle of a social war. Peasants who lost their private land often saw the tractor as a symbol of their oppression. Sebran would have encountered cases of sabotage, accidental damage, sand in the fuel tanks, sugar in the oil, or wrenches dropped into the threshing drums, designed to make the state’s mechanization plan look like a failure.
For many Russian peasants, the horse was a sacred family member. Sebran, who understood the bond between a farmer and his team from his Dakota days, had to navigate the deep resentment of farmers who were forced to trade their living animals for a cold iron machine they didn’t own. In the later years (1929–1932), the ‘Dekulakization’ campaign grew violent
Dekulakization (was a brutal Soviet campaign of mass political repression initiated by Joseph Stalin in 1929–1933 to eliminate wealthy farmers (kulaks) as a class. It aimed to break resistance to collectivization, secure grain supplies, and provide forced labor for industrialization. Millions were stripped of land, arrested, executed, or deported.
Sebran, as a foreigner and a representative of a capitalist company, had to walk a fine line to avoid being seen as an agitator while his best students, often the most successful, independent farmers, were being arrested and deported. If a Case Model L snapped a vertical steering shaft in the North Caucasus, the replacement part was thousands of miles away in Racine, Wisconsin. Sebran often had to rely on the village blacksmith’s engineering, forging makeshift parts out of scrap metal just to keep a demonstration moving.Most of Sebran’s students had never seen an internal combustion engine. He wasn’t just teaching them how to drive; he was teaching them the very concept of preventative maintenance. To a peasant used to a wooden plow that required zero ‘upkeep,’ the idea of greasing twenty different fittings on a Case Crossmotor felt like a bizarre ritual.
Shock Workers
By the mid-1930s, the Soviet ‘Shock Workers’ (Stakhanovites) began pushing the tractors far beyond their limits to meet impossible state quotas. Sebran would have watched in frustration as his carefully cultivated machines were run 24 hours a day without rest, leading to catastrophic engine failures that the state often blamed on foreign wreckers rather than poor management.During the final years of Sebran’s stay (1934–1936), his role as an instructor shifted from being a welcome expert to a suspicious outsider.
The Soviet Union had successfully harvested American technology and no longer felt the need to protect the men who brought it. By 1934, the massive factories Sebran had helped mentor began flooding the fields with domestic machines. While the Case Model L remained the most dependable of the steppes for its durability, it now faced competition from Soviet-built copies that prioritized quantity over quality. The STZ-1 (15/30) was produced at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. This wheeled tractor was a near-exact copy of the American McCormick-Deering 15-30.
markerickson.com
Sebran on the left in 1923. (left) Sebran up top and Soviet Workers in 1926 (right)
By 1932, the factory was churning out 144 tractors a day, making the expensive importation of genuine Case tractors increasingly difficult to justify. Toward the end of Sebran’s stay, the Soviets began shifting toward tracked tractors like the STZ-3, which was better suited for the heavy, unrefined fuels and the deep mud of the Russian spring. With Case’s final innovations, the company introduced the Model R, a smaller, more fuel-efficient tractor, and offered optional rubber tires and a motor lift on the Model C to showcase American technical superiority.
That same year marked a dark turning point with the assassination of Sergei Kirov, which Stalin used as a pretext to launch the Great Purge. For Americans like Sebran, the atmosphere became claustrophobic. Sergei Mironovich Kiro was a Russian/Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Kirov became an Old Bolshevik and personal friend to Joseph Stalin, rising through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ranks to become head of the party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo.
Stalin’s Great Purge
PurgeOn December 1, 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Nikolaev and several alleged accomplices were convicted in a show trial and executed less than 30 days later. Kirov’s assassination was used by Stalin as a reason for starting the Moscow trials and the Great Purge.As Soviet-built tractors frequently broke down due to poor manufacturing, the state needed scapegoats. Failures were often blamed on ‘wrecking’ and ‘sabotage.’
Foreign specialists were easy targets; if a machine Sebran had worked on failed, it could be framed as a deliberate act of capitalist subversion. Local friends and students who were seen talking to Sebran and his fellow Case workers risked being branded as ‘foreign spies’ or ‘counter-revolutionaries.’ Many American specialists reported that their Russian colleagues suddenly stopped speaking to them or warned them of plots to cause them harm.
The secret police (NKVD) tightened their grip, and foreigners were under constant surveillance. By 1936, many Americans were being arrested, sent to Gulags, or executed alongside their Soviet peers. By 1936, the frontier Sebran had entered was no longer a place of agricultural promise, but one of unremitting oppression and terror.
The Soviet Union had acquired the engineering skills and technical advice it needed from the West. As the state geared up for total war and internal purification, the presence of independent-minded Dakota instructors became a liability to the regime. For Sebran, leaving in 1936 was likely not just a corporate decision, but a desperate move for survival before the borders fully closed.
Sebran stood right at that turning point in history. He taught men who had grown up behind horses how to trust engines. He showed them how belts turned, how gears meshed, and how grain could be separated with speed and precision that once seemed impossible. In doing so, he participated in something far larger than any single machine or company, he and other instructors helped carry the Industrial Age into fields that had not yet fully left the past.
A Fateful Time of Klavdia S. Hochlova
Sebran’s life in 1924 took on both professional and deeply personal meaning. Amid the vast agricultural fields and the complexities of a nation struggling to rebuild itself, he met Klavdia S. Hochlova, only months after he arrived in Moscow. Klavdia was born on May 11, 1895, in Krasnodar, Russia, was a woman whose life had already been forged in the fires of history.
The Russian Empire mobilized on July 30, 1914, an act that set the gears of global war into motion and prompted Germany to declare war on Russia on August 1, 1914. Klavdia had stepped into that storm, becoming an Imperial Russian Army nurse. She was no stranger to hardship. She had seen the wounded, the broken, and the relentless human cost of a war that consumed nations.
Then came revolution. When the Bolsheviks (Soviets) seized power in November 1917, Russia itself was torn apart and remade. By March 1918, the new Soviet government withdrew from the war, stepping away from the global conflict just as the United States prepared to enter it. For Klavdia, the war did not simply end, it transformed. The world she had known vanished almost overnight. In the upheaval that followed, the Bolsheviks seized her family’s home, stripping away not only property, but stability, identity, and the life she, her five sisters, two brothers and parents had once known.
Klavdia S. Hochlova – Imperial Russian Army Nurse 1914-1918
The Russian Famine & the American Relief Administration (ARA) 1921-1923
The Russian famine of 1921–1923, which killed an estimated 5 million people, was caused by a combination of severe drought in the Volga region, the devastation of seven years of war (World War I and the Civil War), and economic collapse stemming from the Bolshevik policy of prodrazvyorstka (forced grain requisitioning).
Aid from outside Soviet Russia was initially rejected. The American Relief Administration (ARA), which Herbert Hoover formed to help the victims of starvation of World War I, offered assistance to Lenin in 1919 if it had full say over the Russian railway network and handed out food impartially to all. Lenin refused that as an interference in Russian internal affairs.
The famine also helped produce an opening to the West. Lenin now allowed relief organizations to bring aid. War relief was no longer required in Western Europe, and the ARA had an organization set up in Poland that relieved the Polish famine, which had begun in the winter of 1919–1920. The situation became so desperate that some of the starving Russian populace resorted to cannibalism. Thousands of cases were reported, with the number of cases that were never reported certainly even higher.
In Samara, ten butcher shops were closed for selling human flesh. In Pugachvov, it was dangerous for children to go out after dark since there were known to be bands of cannibals and traders who killed them to eat or sell their flesh. An inhabitant of a nearby village stated, “There are several cafeterias in the village, and all of them serve up young children. Obviously, the situation had gotten far out of hand.
This was no exception, as a considerable proportion of the meat in Soviet factories in the Volga area was human flesh. Various gangs specialized in capturing children, murdering them, and selling the human flesh as horse meat or beef, with the buyers happy to have found a source of meat in a situation of extreme shortage and often willing not to ask too many questions.
In 1920, Klavdia was hired as a nurse and relief worker in an ongoing Soviet crisis, the most devastating famine in history, threatening the lives of millions of Russians as well as the continuance of Soviet rule. Responding to a plea for help from the Soviet government. The American Relief Administration (ARA) agreed to provide famine relief in the stricken areas to millions of Soviet citizens.
The ARA was a private relief organization headed by Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce and one of the best-known Americans of his time for his spectacular success in rescuing the population of Belgium from starvation during World War I and in feeding millions of Europeans during the Armistice. Hoover was also a retired capitalist of considerable wealth, a champion of Republican liberalism, and a leading opponent of recognition of Soviet Russia.
Vladimir Lenin, head of the Soviet government, leader of the Bolshevik party, and a living symbol of world revolution, was the antithesis of the ARA’s chief. Hoover and Lenin’s personalities, motives, and modi operandi, both as individuals and as representatives of their societies, were opposites At the same time, considering the relief mission itself, which has been the subject of continuing controversy for fifty years, while its partisans see it as a charitable, nonpolitical enterprise, its enemies judged it an anti-Soviet intervention entirely devoid of humanitarian purpose.
Both sides overcame their ideological antagonisms and made possible a spectacularly successful relief mission that inspired the vain hope that a new era in Soviet-American relations had begun. The ARA established over 21,000 kitchens to provide daily meals to children and adults in the famine-stricken Volga region, and its medical division supplied 16,000 hospitals, treated diseases like cholera and typhus, and conducted extensive vaccination drives.
To deliver food, the ARA bypassed shattered infrastructure by any means necessary—deploying ships, trains, and even camel caravans, while mobilizing a local workforce of 120,000 Russians. The mission prioritized the most vulnerable, channeling aid through schools and orphanages while providing vital rations to teachers. Amidst this effort, Klavdia joined a front line of hundreds of nurses, cooks, and relief workers dedicated to reversing yet another catastrophe gripping the Russian people.
markerickson.com
American Relief Administration Headquarters in Moscow
Only three years before, and across the world, unknowingly connected by a similar sweeping tide of history, Sebran stood at a crossroads of his own. Back on the farm in North Dakota, far from the collapsing Russian Empire, he watched as the winds of war reached even the quiet plains. He was contemplating his future, and the weight of a decision that had already been made by those closest to him. His brothers had stepped forward one by one. Sebran’s oldest brother, Helmer, joined the North Dakota National Guard. Frank and Ernest Julius chose the Army, joining the American Expeditionary Forces, and by 1918 both would be serving on the Western Front.
The world was shifting, drawing men and women from distant corners toward the same great collision. Klavdia, tending to the wounded in a crumbling empire. Sebran, standing in the Dakota fields, looking toward a war not yet his, but fast becoming so. Neither could have known that years later, after revolutions, battles, and borders reshaped, their paths would cross in that same land of Russia, where both had already given so much to history. Meeting in 1924, Sebran far from his homeland, and Klavdia forged a partnership defined by resilience that would span their lifetimes. They were married on September 17, 1924, in Moscow Oblast, Russia.
Klavdia & Sebran 1925 * Somewhere in the U.S.S.R.
Life, however, rarely followed a straight path for the married couple. In August of 1926, with Klavdia nearly nine months pregnant, they decided it was time to leave Russia. Sebran and Klavdia made their way to France, intending to continue onward to America. But fate intervened. On September 8, 1926, in Cherbourg, Manche, France, their son, Donald Robert Erickson, was born, just days before they had planned to depart.
It was a moment that tied together three continents in a single breath: Sweden, Russia, France, and soon-to-be, back in North Dakota.Klavdia and Andy Erickson arrived in America with their three-week-old son, Donny, settling temporarily with Andy’s family on the Regan farm. Andy’s parents, Brita Kristina and Anders, along with his siblings, Frank, Helmer, Abbie, Vera, and Alphonse, welcomed Klavdia with open arms. Although she spoke with a strong Russian accent, Klavdia’s intelligence and education allowed her to adapt quickly and blend smoothly into the family.Two years later, their daughter Zena (Zenaieda) Abbie Erickson was born in Bismarck on July 3, 1928.
Despite these shifts, Sebran’s work continued to draw him back to Russia. Throughout the 1920s and into the mid-1930s, he returned as part of his role with Case, continuing to instruct farmers in the use of modern agricultural machinery. It was demanding, uncertain work, carried out in a land still stabilizing after revolution and war. And yet, through it all, Sebran built something lasting, not only in the fields he helped modernize, but in the life he carried forward.By the 1930s, after years of movement between continents, Sebran returned to the United States for good, and he, Klavdia, Donald, and Zena settled permanently at their home on Rosser Avenue in Bismarck, Burleigh County, not far from where Sebran had grown from a boy into a man.
The mounting restrictions under the Bolsheviks began a disconnect from Klavdia’s family, a haunting reality. Despite her efforts to bring her sister Natasha to the United States, escalating turmoil turned communication into a dangerous endeavor. Eventually, the USSR’s iron curtain of distrust made communication between America and the Soviet Union too dangerous to maintain any decent contact, leaving her family’s fate eventually to be unknown.
As the years passed into the 1940s and the war years into the 1950s, the silence became absolute, forcing both sides to simply stop writing. There, at last, the journey came full circle.
From the forests of Sweden and the prairies of North Dakota, through the war-torn landscapes of France to the vast fields of Soviet Russia, they had finally returned and found their permanent home on the Great Northern Plains, a life shaped by motion and work. The quiet strength of a couple who carried knowledge across borders, helping reshape the land and the people wherever they stood.
One day Linder Nilsson overslept and arrived too late at his work at the sawmill in Töcksfors. The owner, Nils Sanamon, fired him immediately. That was the start of a great adventure.
Earlier this year I wrote an article about identifying Swedish soldiers who served in the Great War. One of the soldiers I was struggling with was Linder Nelson. He stated he was born in Sweden but I had difficulties to find information in the Swedish archives to confirm the data from the archives.
Finally I managed to find the correct data, and later I could confirm Linder Nelson to be Elof Linder Nilsson from Töcksmark parish in Sweden.
Elof Linder Nilsson was born in Töcksmark parish on Westra Bön farm, in the landscape of Värmland. He was born on February 11th, 1886, and was a former soldier in Karlskrona Coastal Artillery, but he didn’t mention that in his Canadian Attestation papers. He was raised by his mother Laura Nilsson (Abrahamsdotter), and his father Nils August Nilsson, together with his siblings, Olga Elvira and Anna.
Through my article about finding the correct data about the soldiers, I was contacted by a relative to Linder, and she gave me very interesting information about him, which always makes me happy!
Linder signed his Canadian Attestation papers on October 25th, 1915, Sailed from Canada on April 17th, 1916, and arrived in Bramshott, England, on April 28th, 1916. He joined his unit, 14th Canadian Infantry Battalion, on the field in France on June 29th, 1916.
From an article in the Swedish newspaper “Nordmarksbygden” from 2010, I read the following information. The article was made by Gunnar Carlstedt. Linder was the Great uncle to Gunnars wife. I have translated the article into English.
One morning in the early 20th century, Linder Nilsson from Töcksfors overslept and arrived late for work. Nils Sanamon, a sawmill owner, fired Linder on the spot. That marked the beginning of an adventurous life.
In February 1910, Linder traveled to Stockholm and took a job as a firefighter.
“Agile and strong, handsome as a god and the torment of every girl’s heart; a heroic figure in his firefighter’s gear, and a devil with the ladies.”
So begins the poem “A Firefighter,” recorded by Linder in his diary. But firefighting is a tough profession today, and it was even more so in 1910; Linder witnessed colleagues and friends losing their lives on the job.
Yet Linder craved more excitement in his life, and on October 22, 1912, he set sail on a whaling ship from Tönsberg (Norway). The voyage took him first to Antwerp and then to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. In letters home, he described Las Palmas as a city of white houses and flat roofs, where vendors offered wine and tropical fruits.
On November 29, 1912 he arrived in South Georgia—located east of Argentina, southeast of the Falkland Islands, and at the same latitude as Cape Horn—and remained there until the end of 1915.
He worked in the whaling industry. Whales were plentiful, and he earned a good income. However, he dreamed of traveling to Australia. Yet, he could not afford the deposit required to secure a berth on a ship bound there. Shipping companies demanded this deposit because jobs in Australia were so plentiful that crew members would desert the ship once they went ashore; in one instance, only the captain and the first mate remained on board.
Back in Töcksfors, Linder had been inspired to travel to North America by his aunt Alma’s husband, Erik Gustaf Hansson. Hansson had made the trip twice. During his first visit, he engaged in selling firearms to Native Americans, who used the rifles to rob trains. When this activity came to light, Erik Gustaf was expelled. He returned once more under a false identity but was exposed and came back to Töcksfors in 1906.
In March 1918, the 14th Canadian Infantry Battalion (in which Linder served) was involved in fighting near the town of Lens in France. They were engaged in constructing defensive works and dispatching patrols on night raids, all while exposed to intense artillery and machine-gun fire. Linder was killed during one of these raids or by the German bombardment and is now buried in the Mazingarbe Communal Cemetery Extension; Mazingarbe is a small town in Pas-de-Calais, situated between the larger cities of Lens and Béthune.
From the newspaper of Nordmarksbygden 2010From Anne Brekke
Through my recent dialogue to Anne, who is the relative that contacted me, I have received some more photos of artifacts, like the “Death Penny” and the conversation about who was entitled to the pension after Linder’s death. it is very interesting to read about the process. I received a photo of the death certificate as well. (Photos above)
I have visited the headstone of Linder Nelson a couple of times when have been travelling in France, and I remember when I visited him last time, performing my normal routine, talking to the soldier, telling him that he is not forgotten. I take a photo with the Swedish flag as well, that is very important to me.
Anne told me that Linder wrote poetry, and she will try to find the book with his writings, which would add extra information to the individual. I find it very interesting to be able to strengthen the picture of the soldiers, who they were, and why they ended up where they did.
I take a very humble approach to the information that Anne sent to me, and I am very glad that I decided to start with my research, which is a very important part of my life today.
