On the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey, there is a name that says Welsh, F A. He belonged to the 15th Battalion, Australia Imperial Force, and he died on August 7, 1915.
The LONE PINE MEMORIAL stands on the site of the fiercest fighting at Lone Pine and overlooks the whole front line of May 1915. It commemorates more than 4,900 Australian and New Zealand servicemen who died in the Anzac area – the New Zealanders prior to the fighting in August 1915 – whose graves are not known. Others named on the memorial died at sea and were buried in Gallipoli waters.
The memorial stands in LONE PINE CEMETERY. The original small battle cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice when scattered graves were brought in from the neighbourhood, and from Brown’s Dip North and South Cemeteries, which were behind the Australian trenches of April-August 1915.
There are now 1,167 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 504 of the burials are unidentified. Special memorials commemorate 183 soldiers (all but one of them Australian, most of whom died in August), who were known or believed to have been buried in Lone Pine Cemetery, or in the cemeteries at Brown’s Dip. (Source: CWGC)
Frank Augustus Welsh enlisted in April 3rd, 1915, in Casino, New South Wales, Australia. He was an immigrant, but it is not yet know when he immigrated. I will try to find that information later. He stated in his application that he was born in Brunswick, Canada, and that his next of Kin is a friend called Mr Snyder, living in Ohio, North America.
In his attestation papers I also found an address, pointing to an an individual in Sweden, Mrs M A Sjostrom, Karlshamn, Sweden. That made me curious.
It turns out that Frank A Welsh was actually the Swedish born soldier Frans August Sjöström. Frans was born in Västra Vingåker parish in Nyköping county, Södermanland, Sweden. He was not age 41 when he signed his attestation papers, he was actually 43, as he was born on November 19, 1871.
He probably tried to state that he was a bit younger, even if I think he anyway was quite old at that time, to sign up as a soldier.
He is stated as absent in the Swedish church books, from around 1906, and then noted in the book of absent in around the year of 1910. He was then married to Maria Augusta Espelund, who later became M A Sjöström, and they got married on July 24th, 1902, in Karlshamn, Blekinge, Sweden. Their daughter, Eva Augusta Kristina, was born July 24th, 1903, on the same date as their one year anniversary of their marriage.
Below a photo assumed to be a wedding photo, taken at the place of the Photographer Falk in Karlshamn. (Source: Ancestry)
A lot of questions remain
He must in some way had emigrated from Sweden to Canada or North America, but at this moment I haven’t yet succeeded to find any document that says when or which route he took.
In some way he must have been immigrated to Australia, but I haven’t been able to find any records or documents that shows that. I will of course try to find the full story of his movements around the world. It is hard to know if he travelled under the name of Sjöstrom, Sjostrom or Welsh, or if he stated that he immigrated from Sweden or Canada. I would also be interesting to know when he changed his surname from Sjostrom to Welsh, and why he did it.
In some cases in the period of the Great War, some people thought that their Swedish heritage could be connected to Germany, as Sweden politically stood closer to Germany at that time, at least among the upper classes in Sweden.
Frans August’s wife, Maria Augusta, lived further on in Sweden, and in the Swedish church books from 1949, she is noted as a widow from the August 7th, 1915, a widow from Frans August Sjöström. Their daughter Eva Augusta Kristina, seems to haved lived with her mother until at least 1924.
The last note I have found so far is that the daughter, Eva Augusta Kristina Sjöström, worked as a teacher in Ystad parish, Skåne, Sweden, in 1944.
It will be very interesting to try to get more information about how and why Frans August suddenly wanted to leave Sweden, spend some time in North America or Canada, if he did, and then end up as a soldier in the Australian Imperial Force, in the Great War.
His death is mentioned in the book of death in the Swedish church archives.
May the family rest in peace, and I really hope that I one day will be able to travel to Turkey, to the area where the Swedish born soldiers are buried and commemorated, no matter under which name they served.
The search will continue.
