AEMI

MARIA JARLSDOTTER ENCKELL
while she was still living at Sitka. The
child’s father I believe I finally have located
in 1848 at Åbo, where at widower
Johan Fredric Forstén was married for
the second time.
However none of this applied the Riga-born
Baltic German Medical Doctor
Heinrich Sylvester Tiling and his unidentified
man-servant/valet, nor to his
wife Elisabeth Fehrmann and her equally
unidentified chamber-maid Medical
Doctor Tiling mentions, however not
by name in his anonymously published
account covering his first term of the five
years spent from 1846 to 1851 at Ajan,
Pacific Siberia. (Tiling 1854. Enckell
1998). And for his second 1864-1868
engagement at the Company, this time
as the most senior MD at Sitka, Russian
America, his manservant/valet isn’t
mentioned at all, nor the chamber-maid
of his second wife, the far younger Riga
born Anna Elisabeth Dolch(e)’s (Enckell
1996:51). Still I expect convention
demanded these indispensable servants
to have been along when the Tilings as
they sailed for Russian America.
Then we have the Finlander Henrik
Johan Holmberg a pastor’s son born
1818 on the island of Kökar on the
Åland Islands, Finland. He grew up at
Reval/Tallinn, was educated at Dorpat
University, said to have married Catharine
Peterson somewhere in Siberia.
She was born 1821 October 10 at St.
Petersburg, widowed, died 1901 September
25 as a member of the German
parish at Helsingfors at age 79 years
11 months 15. In 1850 Mr. and Mrs.
Holmbergs accompanied by August Isac
Isaacsson Renholm, Holmberg’s valet
(Olin 1996:21), and his wife’s yet unidentified
chamber-maid, set out for a 4
91
years long adventure to Russian America,
they were to make in the company
of Fritz Franken-haeuser, brother to Sitka’s
Doctor Alexander Frankenhaeuser.
Renholm, born 1821 August 8 at Kyrkslätt
parish, had previously served as a
prison ward, then supplier of meals at
a mental institution. After the return of
this Russian Alaska venture which had
included visits to Rio, Valparaiso, Sitka,
San Francisco, Sitka, San Francisco,
Honolulu, Kodiak and Kenai, Sitka and
from there back towards home (Enckell
2010:52-65), Renholm ventured into
business as a restaurant and building
owner. In 1847 prior to his departure for
Alaska he had married and had 2 children.
Renlund died 1875 January 29 at
Helsingfors age 53 years 6 months. His
widowed wife died in 1890. Still unidentified
is the valet Frankenhaeuser is
presumed to have accompanied him on
this long journey.
Conclusion
What’s the point to all above?The major
point is that no community can be fully
studied, examined, and finally better
understood if any part of its membership
is left out. In this case the community
within-the-community left out are
the members of those called as well as
treated as ‘Invisibles’:
1) Alaska’s Russian Era Lutheran community’s
household-servants, who are
hard to find and fully identify.
2) Equally invisible in Alaska’s Russian
Era records are the Finnish seamen
below the rank of navigator engaged by
the Company for its Colonies, numbering
around 150 or thereabout. They
have been far from included, and hardly
ever even been hinted at, or mentioned