Brothers and Sisters

Hans & Matilda Bolin purchased the empty lot at 2910 W. Lyndale in August 1883 for $275 and put up a small cottage. In addition to the three older children Axel, Hulda and Charles, baby Oscar was born here in 1885. In later years Hans worked as a night watchman at a department store.

Hans's brothers John and Otto followed him to the neighborhood and bought next door houses at 2926 and 2930 Lyndale some time around 1886. Each of the three families had four children and the twelve cousins must have spent a lot of time running back and forth between their houses.

There are many interrelated families who have lived in the houses on Lyndale over the years, and the Bolin brothers were not the only siblings who owned neighboring houses. The two Stade brothers lived next to each other at 3017 & 3021. However the Dini family had them all beat. In the 1930s the six siblings Carlo Dini, Italo Dini, Maria Rossi, Rose Moscardini, Giovanni Dini and Theresa Mucci lived close to each other at 2934, 2935, 2946 and 2952 W. Lyndale with their spouses and children at various times.

Back at the Bolin house, Axel moved away but the other children stayed behind, perhaps to help their father after mother Matilda passed away in 1909. Hulda got married at age 37 and her husband John moved in to the house. Charles worked in commercial sales, and Oscar was a machinist at Western Electric, and they all lived in the tiny house together for many years after father Hans died at age 86.

Charles and Hulda and John all passed away one by one in the 1940s and Oscar was left alone in the house, but this is not the end of the story. At age 72 he married a youthful 55-year-old widow named Ethel who worked at a clothing store. They moved to California where they lived out their golden years together in sunny L.A.

The little house at 2910 W. Lyndale was demolished in June 2017 to make way for a new 2-unit condominium building.