Cajsa’s Cottage

Hike the Tuskeboleden trail that Cajsa travelled again and again

Hiking the Tuskeboleden trail means you pass a small cottage owned by Anna Cajsa Jonasdotter (1833-1911). Cajsa grew up with her family as a pauper at Grönbäck, Pålsbo's cottage. She helped support her family from an early age and eventually found employment at an inn. Some time after that, she gave birth to her first child. She had four children in total, all out of wedlock, to four different men. The children were called Carl Justus, Hulda Charlotta, Johanna Gustava and Carl Justus.

After her parents passed away, Cajsa brought up her small family alone. In addition to her daily job, she occasionally walked 80 km to the match factory in Jönköping to work. Upon returning home from Jönköping one day, she found she had been evicted from Grönbäck. After moving around for a while, in 1884 she leased the plot where the cottage she lived in can still be found today. Here she scratched a living off the land, a few livestock and any day's work she could find. She struggled for a living until the very end, even though it was not required of her. With gangrene in both legs and refusing to have them amputated, she passed away the day before Christmas Eve in 1911.