John Sjolander

- HIKING TRAILS AND WILDFLOWERS by Keith and Barbro McCree -

John Sjolander

Poet of Cedar Bayou

by Barbro Persson McCree

Eakin Press, Austin, Texas, 1987

ISBN 0-89015-569-0

Preface

What deathless part of song may be in me
is what, in coming through, my soul has felt.

From The Voice of the Wind by John P. Sjolander, Cedar Bayou, Texas

When starting this work I set out to search for material for a new Sjolander collection of poetry, but it soon became evident that John Sjolander's verses lend themselves extremely well to biographical writing, and the purpose and the approach were altered accordingly.

As a result this biography was slowly and affectionately created, and within its framework of data from various sources Sjolander's poetry flows freely to tell us about his background, his experiences, his feelings, his thoughts, his beliefs, his dreams - his life.

Sjolander lived his songs more than most poets, and the story of the poet and the story of the man tend to become one.

John P. Sjolander (1851-1939) was twenty years old when he arrived in Texas. This seafaring man with Swedish roots settled down at Cedar Bayou near Galveston Bay and became a pioneer farmer.

Sjolander's parents had taken a determined stand for religious freedom in Sweden when he was baptized, and their action affected his early life, indeed his entire life. John Sjolander himself had an unusually creative and talented mind which he put to good use. His background set him apart and made him contemplate and evaluate the human existence independently, and his ability allowed him to do so with visible results. From this man came a flow of songs in words, and for the last fifteen years of his life he was known as the "dean of Texas poets."

Around the turn of the century, people were keen on writing poetry in Texas. The Houston Post received an average of fifty poems a day in early 1899, but usually only one poem was published in each daily issue of the paper. Poetry writing was an active form of communication. Sjolander, a mostly self-educated immigrant writing in his second language, used newspapers as a forum. But he also made his voice heard in magazines, one book of poetry entitled Salt of the Earth and Sea, school readers, books on Texas literature and as a founding member of the Poetry Society of Texas.

The information varies as to when Sjolander first started to publish in English. In the research for this biography the earliest poem signed by John Sjolander was found in an 1884 issue of Peterson's Ladies National Magazine. There were earlier poems, but they probably appeared anonymously or pseudonymously. In his usual gentle way Sjolander once told his friend Hilton Ross Greer that most of his early work had been lost, and that it was best so.

Almost 500 poems were discovered in the search for material for this book. This number does not include the poems in the Sjolander manuscripts and the newspaper clippings in the Baytown Historical Museum, nor the verses in a thesis by Marie Coursey, unless these pieces were found elsewhere - as many were.

All poetry quoted in this book, except for a few comparable pieces, comes from John Sjolander's work. When slightly different versions of a poem were available the last, and often improved, version was generally used.

During his early years in Texas, Sjolander collected a number of legends among the boatmen of Galveston Bay. Later in life he transformed these prose stories into poetry. His Rhymes of Galveston Bay have never appeared together in one book. Their present whereabouts, as best as could be established, can be found in the notes near the end of this work.

Much biographical writing published about John Sjolander tends to provide misinformation about his background. He was not a Laplander, although he wrote a "Lapland Lullaby." He was not born in Norway, although he arrived in Texas on a Norwegian ship. His parents did not have to go to prison in Sweden because of their religious beliefs, although their disagreements with the dogma of the Swedish State Lutheran Church brought them a great deal of trouble in the courts, and so on.

The Swedish church records of every parish in the country as well as the records of the Swedish courts of law are very informative and specific and provide the source material for Sjolander's Swedish background in this biography.

There is something reassuring in the practical everyday philosophy of John Sjolander as it comes through in his poetry. Sjolander's kind of writing as a poet was his kind of coping:

There is a strength in song akin to rest...

And he found contentment in nature:

I love the soil and I love the woods. I love the wind and I love the waves. I am perfectly contented.

They called him the "sage of Cedar Bayou,"

The driving force behind the writing of this biography has been a profound wish to save John Sjolander, the man with the "incurable rhyming habit," from oblivion. Mrs. Annie Scott, the poet's daughter, dedicated much of her life to this cause, helping everyone who looked for her father and his work. I had the privilege and pleasure of visiting with her in 1975 in her Baytown home on Sjolander Road, and we corresponded for many years. The last sentence in the final letter I received from her reads in the trembling handwriting of an aged woman:

Hope you have good luck in the work you have started,

Sincerely, and Love,

Annie Scott

I will always remember Annie for her kindness, her grace, and her strength.

What follows then is the straightening out of facts of Sjolander's background and the sharing of his philosophy, his humor, his love of nature, and his optimism and contentment. It is a search for a human being through his own poems and other pieces of writing, scattered as these are by now in space and time.

Reproduced with the permission of the publisher.