Bergstrom, Arthur Hubert
A H Bergstrom listed in the Graham Street School Honour Roll in the Standard, 8 January 1916.
1916 ‘HONOR ROLLS.’, Port Melbourne Standard (Vic. : 1914 – 1920), 8 January, p. 3. , viewed 18 Mar 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91167144
Brothers: Albert Victor Bergstrom, Herbert Harold Bergstrom, Charles Robert Bergstrom and Oscar Gilbert Bergstrom.
3 Comments
Cheryl Griffin
Arthur Hubert Bergstrom, son of Frans Oscar Bergstrom and Catherine Unkles, was born in Port Melbourne in 1897. His father, a Swede, arrived in Australia in the 1890s. His mother was born at Port Fairy.
He joined the RAN on 1 August 1912 when he was 15 years old and served on board the ‘TIngara’ based in Melbourne. On 24 March 1914, his 17th birthday, he moved to a man’s ranking – Ordinary Seaman II and on 24 March 1915, his 18th birthday, he became an ordinary seaman.
Arthur ceased duty with the RAN on 15 Oct 1915 and joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force.’ On the front of his RAN file is a stamp that says ‘War Gratuity paid’. As yet his war service with the Candians remains undocumented.
Arthur survived the war, returned to Melbourne and died at Pascoe Vale in 1979 when he was 82 years old.
Arthur’s brothers Albert, Charley, Oscar and Herbert enlisted in the AIF, as did his four Templeton cousins, all from Coburg.
Cheryl Griffin
Now that A.H. Bergstrom has been identified as Arthur Hubert, we know that five Bergstrom brothers served in World War One.
I wonder how many other families with roots in Port Melbourne had sent so many sons to the war. I know that in Coburg there were at least half a dozen other families who sent off four sons, but I’ve yet to find a family where five sons joined up.
In 1916, the ‘Argus’ started a column they called ‘Mothers of Men’ which featured women who had sent three or four sons off to the war. You can read a little more about that on the Fighting the Kaiser blog –
http://fightingthekaiser.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/mothers-of-men.html
David Thompson
I don’t know of any other Port families with four or five brothers who served in WWI. There were three Hill brothers and four Prest cousins including William Thomas Libbis whose mother was a Prest (actually make that five cousins since William’s brother, Leslie, also enlisted).