Clara is seventeen years old in this photograph. She and her brothers were a very close family and stayed in touch their whole lives. Clara married Frank Severin Erickson and they first lived along the Missouri River for years. In 1934, Frank and his brother Anders "Andy" Sebran began building a house at 801 Jefferson Avenue in Bismarck. Clara and Frank had two children, Ernest Anders born in Painted Woods, North Dakota and Dian Marcella.

Clara, Frank and Ernest moved into their new home in 1935. Dian was born in 1940 in Bismarck. Frank passed on December 28th, 1973 and Clara on December 27, 1993. Dian married Floyd Nick Boutrous and they have five sons (Allan, Nick, Steven, Michael & Attas) all born in Bismarck. Ernest Anders married Bernice Lane Hesslein and have one son, Mark Jon, born in Hollywood, California.

Bob (Albert) Nelson moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1922. He married Grace Cleveland in 1932 in Chicago and they had one daughter June Nelson. Bob and Grace spent the rest of their lives in Chicago and visited Clara often.

August Valentine Nelson moved to Los Angeles in 1920 and worked for the Peace Company inLos Angels and Chicago. In 1924 he joined the Army and was stationed in the Hawaiian Islands. After his service he returned to the farm in Painted Woods. He followed his brother Bob's lead and moved to Chicago in 1926 and met Florence Jones and married in September 1927. August worked for years as a tinsmith. Florence and August's son, August Junior was born August 27, 1929.

When the Depression hit the family moved back to Painted Woods and lived with his folks Anders and Gerda Nelson. They eventually moved to Bismarck and lived there or many years. In 1940 the family moved to Indian Head Maryland along the Potomac River. August worked as a welder and metal worker on the Naval base called the Indian Head Proving Ground.

The peninsula tip "head" that is Indian Head, Maryland overlooks the Potomac had been long occupied by various cultures of Indian Tribes. The historic Algonquian speaking tribe was the Mattawoman (Piscataway Indian tribe) who were the original Indian Tribe that was encountered by the first English settlers on the continent. This area along the river was known as "Indian Head," which means "Indian Peninsula." August had grown up along the Missouri River in Painted Woods and was quite familiar and knew various tribes that inhabited the area of Dakota especially the Mandan Indian Tribe.

Anton Tony Nelson stayed in Dakota a good part of his life. For awhile, like his brothers before him Anton lived in Chicago. He returned after a period to the family farm in Painted Woods and farmed the land with his father Anders and brother August. He married Elsie Heaton on June 12th, 1937 and they had three children, Arthur, Louise and Esther. The family moved to Bismarck in 1942. Arthur sadly passed away at the age of six years old in 1946. Elsie passed away in 1961. Anton remarried on November 2nd, 1963 to Emelia Olson in Bismarck. I recall visiting Anton often in Bismarck when he worked at the Patterson Hotel, a very sweet, gentle and kind man. Anton passed away on December 25th, 1976 in Bismarck.

Clara's oldest brother, Sture Albin Nelson (not in photograph, though a great double portrait of Sture from 1940 is below) went into the Navy in January of 1918 and received his discharge in 1919 after serving in the Atlantic during the war. Sture married Roma Wirt Summers on September 27th, 1930 in Toledo, Ohio and lived in Detroit for years before heading back to Bismarck and then moving to Los Angeles, California in 1936.

Sture and Roma have four children (Robert Andrew, Wirt, Jean (Fort) and Jacqueline Nelson) and one stepdaughter (Pamela McKenzie). Robert Andrew Nelson's children are Kelly, Jeffery and Wesley, Wirt Nelson's children are Kristin, Scott, Kenneth and Mathew. Jean (Fort) Nelson's children are Mark, Thor and Robert. Pamela McKenzie's children are Linda, Nancy and Suzanne.

Sture passed on July 6th, 1974 and was laid to rest in The National Veterans Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Clara and her four brothers were always something to behold for me, often mentioned by my grandmother and father, Ernest Anders. Clara lived the longest of her four siblings by almost twenty years and shared with me many of the family stories that I include here in many of the pages of the "Family Photograph Project."

I dedicate much of this Archive Project and the work and time spent to the five Nelson siblings, Clara, Sture, August, Anton and Albert "Bob" Nelson.