Anna Sofia Mikkelsen Jensen

It's not every day that we can enjoy gardens of the past with our relatives and ancestors, but sometimes we're lucky.

Anna Sofia Mikkelsen Jensen was clearly an admirer of the concept of the outdoor room. She was born in 1876 in Ladelund, Nordfriesland, daughter of Thomas Mikkelsen (1850-1921) and his wife Helene Cecilia Sievertsen (1855-1914). Anna and her siblings came to America around 1887 with her parents and returned to Flensburg with her mother while her father Thomas stayed behind in Chicago.

Anna re-emigrated in 1889 and made her own life in Chicago, marrying Nels Jensen in 1892. She and Nels had four children: Marie, Albert Nels, Anna, and Anton.

The 1930 U.S. federal census shows Nels working as a gardening laborer so it's no wonder that Anna and Nels had such a peaceful place to view their plants. Anna and Nels lived at 7442 South Champlain Avenue, near 75th Street in Chicago, which they owned outright, renting rooms to boarders.

In this photo from about 1935, Anna enjoys her shady Chicago garden. If you want to know more about Anna's ancestry, please visit our companion website, Family Folio.

Marie Caroline Elise Jatho MacLaughlan

She wasn't a gardener, horticulturist, or hybridizer but Marie appears to love all plants, so much so that she always looked for opportunities to be pictured with them..

Marie was born in 1897 in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of two musical parents, William Jatho and Jennie Müller, who appeared in light opera together before their 1887 marriage. William and Jennie had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.

William died of tuberculosis in 1904 and Jennie managed William's business, a fabric and accessories store, to which they added art supplies when daughter Ethel (who was artistic herself) showed a talent for it. In 1910 Jennie and her family moved to Chicago, surely a culture shock to children used to Charleston's warm climate.

Marie's formative years were in Chicago. She married Alva Elwood MacLaughlan (formerly Alfred Emil Petersen, who was artistic with his own persona) in 1914 and had four children of her own. Alva was an accountant and the family moved wherever there was work, from Chicago to Indiana to California to Florida and back to Chicago. Whenever possible Marie liked to pose with tropical plants, here a Viburnum outside her home. On their final trip to California in 1946 Marie was pictured in an orange grove in front of a tree heavy with fruit.

If you want to know more about Marie, please visit the MacLaughlan webpage.