Gustaf Bom on kiikarissamme tänään ja hänen tarinansa, joka löytyy täältä:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/torstis/lohja/kirjoit/vaesto/bom.htm
todella mielenkiintoinen haastattelu ja se pistää pohtimaan missä on Gustafin kultakello ja missä nuo mainitut paperit? Kuka oli kasvattipoika ja onkohan hänellä nuo paperit tallella? Kannattaisi ottaa selvää.
No kun olimme Suomessa sukututkimus matkalla tuli tätini maininneeksi tästä jutusta ja tunsin nimen heti. Hän kuitenkin sanoi ettei ole varmaa josko tämä Bom on sukulaisemme. Olin varma että oli, koska hän asui Lohjalla, mutta tietenkin ilman todisteita on paha mitään sanoa. Ok, siis tänään pengoin papereitani ja muistiin panoja ja kirkonkirjoja. Muistiinpanoihin on raapustettu että Eliaksella oli Gustaf niminen poika, mutta muuta en ollut sinne merkinnyt.
Sammatista löytyi koko Elias Bom’in perhe mutta Gustaf puuttui Sammatin syntyneitten kirjoista, sekä rippikirjoista. Aloin jo hieman epäillä muistiani. Muistan selvästi että jokunen Bom asui Lohjansaaressa ja jokunen Karkalin luonnonpuiston lähettyvilläkin. Jonkun on täytynyt muuttaa Lohjalle jonain ajankohtana ja niin läksin penkomaan Sammatin muuttokirjoja ja löysin kuin löysinkin Elias Bom’in perheen muuttoilmoituksen, talon numeroineen päivineen.
Harmillista oli se että siinä oli vain 3 miespuolista ja 3 naispuolista merkittynä. Tiedämme, että Eliaksella oli 5 lasta niihin aikoihin joten matematiikka ei täsmännyt. Eikä siis myöskään Gustafia löytynyt. Artikkelissa sanottiin että hän oli syntynyt Lohjalla kesäkuun ensimmäinen 1870. Edellisessä artikkelissa kerroin että yksi tyttäristä kuoli varhain, siksi siis yksi lapsista oli ’kateissa’. Tässä alla ote kuolleitten kirjasta Sammatissa 1862 ja pikku Edla on siellä kirjattuna.
No, perhe muutti siis Lohjalle joten Gustaf on aivan varmasti syntynyt heidän sinne muutettuaan. Asia oli kuin olikin näin! Löysin hänet Lohjan kirjoista, isänään Elias Bom ja äitinään Maria, mainittuna päivämääränä ja vuotena.
Joten voimme huoletta tehdä loppupäätöksen että Gustaf Bom on meitin sukulainen. Salli-mummun isoisän veli. Tässä alhaalla hänen osansa sukupuussa: sukupuun oksa
Ja sen varalta ettei kuvaa hyvin näy, kirjoitettu aikajana: Eric Bom -> Elias Bom -> Gustaf Bom. Gustaf on veli Johan August Bom’ille, meitin iso-iso-iso…. isälle…
Itse tunnen syvää kunnioitusta siitä kuinka hyvä sotilas Gustaf oli ja mitä hän saavutti. Meillähän on lukuisia sotilaita laidasta laitaan suvussa ja jo kauan sitten Salli mummu kertoi että Bomien puolelta sotaisaa sukua ollaan. XD Muistin mukaan veikko ukkikin oli jossain vaiheessa siellä kaivoksessa töissä. Ympäri mennään ja yhteen tullaan.
( pieni huomautus Maria tallqvistin kohdalle: hänen nimensä on kirjoitettu eri lailla papeista johtuen: Maja Stina, christina, Maria, Stina ja niin edelleen ja sukunimikin on joskus väärin: Fallqvist, ihan riippuen mitä pappi kirjoittaessaan kulee tai muistaa )
English:
A continuation of the Bom’ien family story: Gustaf Bom
Gustaf Bom is on our rifle scope today, and his interview 1939, which can be found here:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/torstis/lohja/kirjoit/vaesto/bom.htm. Although I translated it all lower down, after this post of mine.
Really interesting interview and it urges to reflect on where is Gustaf¨s golden clock and where are those mentioned papers about it? Who was that adopted boy and I wonder if he has those papers still there? Might be worth investigating.
Well, when we were in Finland on a family research journey my aunt mentioned this story and this name and I recognized the name immediately. However, she said that it is not certain if this Bom is related to us. I was sure that he was because he had lived in Lohja, but of course without any evidence I could not back up my claims. Ok, so today I went through my papers and digged in the notes books and the church books. On the notebook I had scribbled that the Elias had a son named Gustaf “, but more than that I didn’t have there.
From a village of Sammatti I found Elias Bom and his family but Gustaf was missing from the books of Baptized, as well as from the Confirmation books. I started to doubt my memory a little. I remembered clearly that a Bom family and a few more of them had lived in the island of Lake Lohja and even near Karkali district nature reserve. Someone must have moved at some point, and so I went on digging deeply into migration books and records, and found from Sammatti’s books family Bom: Elias’s family moving to Lohja was there, with entire notification and even cottage numbers.
It was a shame that it only had 3 male and 3 females marked up. We know that Elias had 5 children at that time, so the math didnt add up. And no Gustaf to be found. The article said that he was born in Lohja, the first of June 1870. In my previous posting I mentioned how Elias’s young daughter died early age, therefore one of the children is ‘ missing ‘. Above in Finnish text is a take-out from the books of Death of Sammatti 1862 and the little Edla is mentioned there.
(all images in finnish text, all the way up)
Well, the family moved thus to Lohja, so it is certain that Gustaf was born there after their moving. So the case was like I remembered and thought! I found him in Lohja, born to Elias Bom and to mom Maria, with dates and years and all visible.
So we can safely make the final conclusion, that Gustaf Bom is indeed our relative, my grandma Salli’s grandfather’s brother. Above among the Finnish text is his share of the family tree.
Timeline goes like this: Eric Bom — Elias Bom — Gustaf Bom. Gustaf is the brother of Johan August Bom, our great-great-great…great … grandfather …
Personally, I feel deep respect of how good of a soldier Gustaf was and what he achieved. We have a great number of soldiers embedded in the family history and a long time ago my Granny told me that Bom side of the family tree has very warlike nature. XD I remember how Veikko grandpa also had worked in the very same mine as Gustaf had. Around we go and together we come.
(a small note to Maria Tallqvist: her name is spelled in different ways due to the priests: Maja Stina, christina, Maria Stina and so on, and the family name is sometimes incorrectly: Fallqvist, depending on how the priest to write or hear or remember)
Published in the journal of the Church. 40/1936
The man, who was the model for the statue of Alexander II when it was shaped
The pedestal of the statue of Alexander II the great square holding axe
as a man of Finnish people stood once Gustaf Bom.
By clicking on the picture you can see a larger view of the stand.
Photo: Derek S
The former champion shooter marksman Gustaf Bom’s image also adorns the old 100 marks banknotes.
Our representatives visit the Lohja Kirkniemi interviewing warrior Bom.
Announcement sent: “And, if you further are interested, then this Bom – when a police officer he was being well-known of his cognomen name Big-Bom – is present at the Lohja Virkkala lime factory’s sawmill, where he now works as a night guard in his old age.” – Such announcement was sent to one of our magazine editors, a friend of the person whose image every Helsinki habitant almost every day glances when passing by. The battalion’s Gustaf Bom – the former imperial bodyguards of the third battalion of the military – he is one of the country’s many unknown heroes whose actions and little favors are mostly unknown to the current generation.
We went of course, in search of this Master-sniper Gustaf Bom, whose image adorned the old hundred marks banknote and who stood in modest standing the ax in his hand at Alexander II’s statue base on Helsinki’s Great Square, as a Finnish peasant man characterized. However, we didn’t found him Lohja’s Virkkala, but in Lohja’s Kirkniemi , the old glass factory workman barracks, where he and his elderly wife lives their old age days, with young energetic adoptee.
It is amazing how erect those old Finnish warriors are standing, even when the burden over long decades rests on his shoulders. They look as if casting in defiance from them the old age ailments and gray era – and when the subject turns to the times when the dust furiously raged on military camp arenas, the command words echoed, horses trotted, when hands of men tightly clogged the rifles, Gustaf’s stern eyes sharpens to grey steel and voice turns into harsh military tone. In the old Finnish military – darn true – could indeed train a man out of loafers, even!
2-3 hours a day at Walter Runeberg as a model, and 1 mark a day salary.
“I am Gustaf Bom and I was born in June in the first year of eighteen and seventy,” answers our question this straight-back old man, with a stature around one hundred and eighty-five cents. To add some weight on his words he goes for his dresser drawer to dig out the papers, and they are showing much more than just a name and birth date – for example the fact that the military Gustaf Bom has been an Imperial Lifeguard third sniper battalion’s champion shooter.
-Please tell us how the sculptor Walter Runeberg found you to be his model for the statue of Alexander II tripod while he shaped it? urges the reporter.
“Oh how, eh? Well, in fact, it was a very simple thing, replied the warrior Bom and swayed in his rocking chair. At the end of August in the year eighteen-hundred and ninety-four, we returned from the Krasnoje Selo’s camp back to Helsinki. One fine day was then commanded, out of the ordinary times, that company should gather in the old guard barracks lobby and form the lines. Our company Chief, Lieutenant von Renhausen arrived to the lobby in company of unknown civilian man. They were talking some time “ruohtia” ( swedish) and then this mentioned civil man begun to inspect our lines. In front of each soldier he stood a while, looking up and down at the soldier and measured them a good time. Then again he continued inspection. We wondered this kind of inspection – someone might have been even smiling- but when this civilian stopped in front of me, he stood there for a longer period of time. I was worried wondering what he wanted with me -and in my head I went hastily through all the events of the last few days that had I -you see- done perhaps some sin! But because my conscience was clean, I watched this civil Lord with brightest of eyes. I was told to step out of line and Lieutenant explained the case to me and it was so that I was commanded to be a model to this civilian sculptor who happened to be Walter Runeberg, he had a corner room on the third floor of the Atheneum, which was his atelier.
So I stood as a model for about two or three hours every day for five weeks, continues the old man. The salary I got was one mark, which at the time was a big money -at least for the average soldier.” -And Gustaf Bom winks the eye roguishly and reminiscing that those days a beer cost twenty-five pence a bottle.
-Did you chat with sculptor Runeberg?
“What we would have been chatted about, when he could not Finnish and I could not manage in Swedish,” responds warrior Bom. “I stood on a chair in rather normal resting position. The left hand was hooked up and with the right I held the axe. “For this modelling I had to purchase civilian clothes, and the sculptor Runeberg, of course, replaced this cost to me. I purchased brownish trousers in one of those old clothes shops and I paid six marks – but gosh this scoundrel tricked me, the pants were flat-out bad, a bit hastily plated and ironed!”
-How big the statue of the draft was?
“One and a half meters tall,” answers the old man. “The statue of a woman, whom I fondled with my left hand, was already set up in the corner. I was standing on a chair, but the chair didt come into draft,” he adds.
Gustaf Bom can still remember exactly the posture,
where he once came to stand in front of Walter Runeberg’s 2-3 hours a day.
Photo: The Club.
Krasnoje Selo camp.
The old warrior Bom was reminiscing of the Krasnoje Selo and its old training camp exercises when sixty thousand men dusted the camp field. He recalls comrades-in-arms and officers, and remember to mention that he –Bom- was in particularly good terms with officers and other big peers; he knew how to behave and you see and performed all the gimmicks correctly and with praise.
-You must have been the battalion’s tallest man.
“Not at all,” responds warrior Bom. The tallest the man was, as I recall it, David Nyman, whose head rocked in couple of meters altitude. I was only the third, or fourth… I do not now remember.
About lords of the Generals talks this old warrior with certain respect, with higher admiration than how he talks about the emperor himself, who, in opinion of this old war veteran was “just a youngster,” namely, the last of the tsars slouching in the seat, wisp-bearded Niku. The Emperor Alexander III was at least considerably more manly looking man reminding rather a giant, and that made even generals knees stir on the field when Emperor entering, let alone a cheap squaddy’s knees. Too bad, that this giant-Emperors work had little value in the eyes of a Finnish man, it don’t wake up the slightest hint of admiration.
Master sniper of the third battalion and the winner of Emperor’s gold watch.
With pride shows the old warrior his military dossier, which describes how he had received June 29. 1894 mark of honor, a badge for excellent shooting, and in August 6. next year same thing for a truly excellent shooting and the Emperor’s Golden Clock with the stern engravings.
-I guess you were the Third Sniper Battalions the best shooter – right?
“Well, that’s for sure,” the old man answers and begins to give details of the shooting, carried out at the camp. “Typically, we shot 200-1000 meters distances, ranging from 35 to five shots/bullets always for each tour. Targets were a kind of “hubbies”, sometimes was the target a “half-hubby”, and sometimes just “hubby-head”. We were firing away like maniacs. Six hundred shooters blasted to their targets at the same time – and one can guess what a starburst it turned out to be! Russians didn’t match for us Finns at all in the hole-making, but were shooting with their firearms…where ever they were aiming at. But we Finn-boysknew how to shoot and the officers didn’t tired of thanking and praising us. Sometimes someone high striped officer came to greet and thank with a good handshake.”
“Quick-shooting,” continued warrior Bom, “was the kind of game that in thirty seconds one had to scorch to the target 10 hits. One was busy enough, while still, of course, one was supposed to take aim at the target to make more or less hit. I fired away as fast as I could, and each bullet pierced for sure the “Hubby”. For these achievements I got my honor badges and the Emperor’s Golden Clock.”
-Do you still have this clock?
“No, but you have to believe that it has been g o t t e n, the old man assures. After all it stands in these dossiers!”
We explain to the old soldier, that we do not doubt that he had gotten the Emperor’s Golden Clock, we just wanted to see what it looked like.
“Well, it sure was a handsome apparatus,” replies Bom. “Its key was like a small rifle and rifle images were engraved on the clock’s cover. The clock was the eighteen-carat gold, while the sterns were fourteen. Officers estimated price of the clock to be around 450 marks of that time’s currency, and it was already much for a senior citizen. The Emperor himself congratulated with a handshake of all those who managed to get this valuable gift, and we guys bowed and hit our heels together so that heels were aching and the Russians were about to burst with envy.
Then, when the Finnish military, due to Russian mighty command, was once and for all closed down, the soldiers were scattered to all winds. Gustaf Bom served in the states yet for several decades as a policeman in different parts of the Uusimaa/Nyland -e.g. in Helsinki. Also in hometown, Lohja, he bore the government’s police baton and a “big bomb” was known even in neighbor regions. Now works this former Master sniper and man, whose features remain in the Helsinki Suurtori for the coming times in great imperial company, silently defining the Finnish common men, as a night guard in a lime factory, sawmill, and reminiscing about the past and telling stories to his adoptee son.
Bom’s picture was the year 1898 fashioned 100 Finnish mark, rather than the 500 mark’s note that the original article earlier was mentioning.
Matka historiaan *A journey to history 