Last night I watched the retirement of Washington product Daniel Bryan on WWE’s Raw. At the same time, I was researching Ernst Sundberg, the son of Nils Johan Sundberg, subject of my previous post. He emigrated from Sweden to Canada. Because he lived most of his life in Canada, I don’t have as many resources I can use to research him. The easy sources are the Canadian censuses, where Ernest Sundberg appeared in the 1911, 1916, and 1921 Canadian censuses, and his details matched up with what I knew about Ernst Sundberg.
I also have a couple of Manitoba newspapers I can view at newpapers.com and newspaperarchive.com. I found nothing about an Ernest Sundberg. However, there were a couple of references to Ernie Sundberg, featherweight wrestling champion. Going on gut, I searched online for him using Google. What appeared near the top of the results was a history theses by Charles Hatton, “Grappling on the Grain Belt: Wrestling in Manitoba to 1931”. It’s the story of early catch-as-catch-can wrestling in Winnipeg, featuring numerous bouts starring Ernie Sundberg, the hero of the local Swedish community.
Mr. Hatton’s thesis gives Ernie Sundberg’s date of birth as 2 Mar 1884 in Luleo, Sweden. And what do you know that matches up exactly with Ernst Sundberg’s entry in the Luleå birth register. We have a match!
At the end of the thesis, Mr. Hatton has images of many of the wrestlers mentioned. Two of them are of Ernie Sundberg. So not only do I now have a relative who was involved in wrestling, a form of spectacle I find very entertaining, I have photos of him!
Without further ado…
