FEBRUARY 20, 2025 – (Cont.) After the time machine had rocketed back to the present, I looked up from Dad’s letter and squinted at the view framed by the window panes—sun and snow blinding me to the extreme cold outside. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed the royal blue sky, which reminded me of the Swedish flag. I put Dad’s letter aside and picked up the letter from Monica, which was addressed to “The Nilsson family.” The envelope bore the familiar blue and yellow Swedish “Flygpost” (air mail) sticker, along with three postage stamps under two side-by-side cancellation marks. One of the stamps featured the portrait of a man wearing a crumpled brimmed hat at a slight angle. Next to the portrait was a lengthy (for a postage stamp) text. Below that stamp, Dad had penned “Commie” inside a set of parentheses and drawn an arrow pointing upward. I must’ve noticed Dad’s one-word editorial comment back in February 1981, but I don’t remember having examined the stamp. From my seat in the time machine at rest in the present, I gave the man in the rumpled hat his due. His name was Joe Hill, not exactly a Swedish name.
Who in the hell was Hill? I wondered. With the time machine paused in “PRESENT,” I disembarked, opened my laptop and looked him up in Wikipedia. Soon I was way off on a tangent.
If Dad’s appellation for the guy on that 1981 Swedish stamp was intended to be unflattering, it was also close to accurate: Joe Hill was a labor union (IWW) rabble rouser, which in Dad’s eyes would have rendered the Swedish-American a despicable “Commie,” despite the fellow’s Swedish origins.
I was surprised, however, that Dad had obviously known of “Joel Emmanuel Hägglund,” a/k/a Joseph Hillström, who, as a popular IWW organizer, political songwriter[1] (in a song entitled, “Preacher and the Slave,” he coined the phrase, “Pie in the Sky”), satirical cartoonist and union speechmaker would later adopt the name Joe Hill. The “Commie” was born in Gävle, Sweden—Dad’s ancestral land, of which he was so proud—on October 7, 1879 and emigrated to America in his early 20s.
If you want to distract yourself from your legitimate woes, consider the trial (as in the courtroom variety) and tribulations of Joe Hill. His father, a railroad conductor on a Swedish rail line, died at 41, leaving Joe’s mother nearly destitute with her six kids (three more had died in their early years). She died when Joe was in his early 20s and under intense treatment for tuberculosis. In 1902 Joe and his brother came to America, where Joe worked as an itinerant laborer, first in New York, then westward all the way to San Francisco.
Experiencing the worst of early 20th century labor conditions, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World and achieved considerable fame—and infamy, depending on which side of the labor-capital divide your sympathies lay.
It all came to a bad end for Joe, when he appeared at doctor’s office in Salt Lake City one evening to seek treatment of a gunshot wound. His timing was awful. It so happened that on that same evening, a double murder had occurred—a grocer and his son gunned down in their store. When Joe was asked about the circumstances surrounding his own gunshot wound, he gave a laconic response, explaining only that he’d been involved in an argument “over a woman.” He was put on trial and convicted, triggering international outrage among worker/socialist sympathizers. After appeals were exhausted (including an extra-legal appeal by President Woodrow Wilson to the governor of Utah), the “commie” Hill was executed by firing squad[2]. He was 36.
In a book published in 2011, a writer blew the case wide open. The key was a letter he’d uncovered from one Hilda Erickson, the 20-year old woman at the center of a feud between her would be suitor, Hill, and Erickson’s recently dumped fiancé. In the letter she addressed Hill’s injury at the hand of her erstwhile lover. All three were Swedes.
The more likely suspect in the murder of the grocer and his son had been let go inexplicably. The police had found him in the vicinity of the murder scene soon after the killings. He was carrying a bloody handkerchief and despite the cold, wasn’t wearing an overcoat. (He had a criminal record a mile long—and would continue his chosen career for many years thereafter.)
Unending speculation ensued as to how a jury could convict Hill on the thin evidence that he’d suffered a gunshot wound in place and time close to the murder scene (though there was no evidence of any blood at the scene except that of the murder victim and no evidence that either of the murder victims had used a firearm against Hill). Labor sympathizers were convinced that it was all a set-up by enemies of labor to rid themselves of Joe Hill, prominent union organizer and thorn in the side of capital. Questions were also raised as to why Hill hadn’t defended himself—though this, of course, flies in the face of the right not to testify against oneself and the principle of presumed innocence absent proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) of guilt. One theory is that Hill wanted to protect Hilda Erickson from having to testify. Another theory: Hill believed his martyrdom would arouse greater support for the cause of labor unions. Just before he was executed, Hill wrote to supporters, “Don’t waste time mourning, organize.”
This imperative was modified into a union slogan: “Don’t Mourn—Organize!”
Nearly 100 years after his death, Hill’s last will and testament was found among archival materials at NYU from the Communist Party USA—lending support for Dad’s label, “Commie” under the Joe Hill postage stamp on the envelope from Sweden. The will began with, “My will is easy to decide/For I have nothing to divide.”[3]
After reading Monica’s letter, which was entirely about her travel plans and the logistics of traveling to Minnesota, I slipped it back into its envelope. I hadn’t yet read the rest of Dad’s letter, so I returned to what he’d had to say besides his mention of Monica’s prospective visit.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
