John OLSON [1879-1879]

To avoid confusion with the other John Olsons, this was the first son of John Olson snr. and my great-grandmother. Her name is given as Yau Kum on the birth certificate of my grandmother, Hannah Mabel Olson, John Olson’s second child by her. (He had changed his name from Jakobsson to Olson at the time of his son’s birth.) The gravestone inscription, which is very worn, reads “Sacred to the Memory of JOHN, infant son of J. and Y. Olson. Suffer little children to come unto me.” The baby died of laryngitis, as mentioned by Sean in his previous post on Olson graves http://gwulo.com/comment/17267#comment-17267. The grave has not yet been included on Patricia Lim’s database and I’m grateful to Christine Thomas for directions to locate it in the large Section 7, far away from his other Olson relatives in Sections 16B and 38. This baby is one of eight of my relatives, buried in Happy Valley, who include my great-grandfather, John Olson snr. and my grandfather, Charles Warren, buried next door in St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery. All credit to Sean not only for discovering the story of our joint great-grandfather, a mystery figure to me until 2004, but also for initiating the enquiry into Olson graves.

John Olson snr. clearly wanted to perpetuate the name and gave it again to his second son, born of his union with Ching Ah Fung. This can lead to confusion. John, “infant son of J. and Y. Olson”  (John and Yau Kum Olson) is my full great-uncle and elder brother of my grandmother, Hannah Warren. John Olson, grandfather of Sean Olson, is my half great-uncle and younger half brother of Hannah Warren. He would have been 13 or 14 when Hannah married Charles Warren in 1897/98.

Jill