Elizabeth Hegquist

Photos and information contributed by Nancy Mateyka

Elizabeth Hegquist was a teacher at Kimberly, Minnesota, District No 62, Aitkin County in 1904. From what I can find, it had to be a very small rural school.

The booklet (link below) that belonged to Elizabeth is what I would call an “autograph book”. It mostly contains little messages & poems, signed by friends, people who were apparently her school mates, the kind of things people might sign in a high school yearbook. There is a list of students in Elizabeth’s class at “Kimberly, Minnesota, on April 12, 1904, District No 62”. Autograph Booklet - List of Pupils

Elizabeth (b 1882 in the US), was the only child of August Wilhelm and Hilda Åkerman Hegquist, who immigrated from Sweden and homesteaded in Crow Wing County on Town Line Lake. They had a Deerwood address. I always heard about Deerwood from my mother, and never heard Aitkin mentioned, but I am now guessing that for at least part of her life, Elizabeth may have attended school in Aitkin, perhaps because it was closer to her home than Deerwood? She was listed as a servant for the Francis and Anna Shook family of Aitkin in 1900 when she was 17. I am guessing that while in school, she lived with this family, and worked to help pay for room and board so she could live in town. I believe this practice of living in town with other families, was not uncommon during the school year for the children of rural families.

In 1905 Lizzy was listed as postmistress in Aitkin. She married my grandfather, Robert Allan Hubbard in 1906 in Duluth, and from then on lived in Proctor. Her parents are buried in Deerwood Scandia Cemetery.

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Newspaper Clippings
Lizzie Hegquist Resigns as Post Mistress
August W. Hegquist Obituary Mrs A. W. Hegquist Obituary Mrs A. W. Hegquist Obituary (2nd)