Bertha Backstrom

Bertha Anna Maria Mattson, the eldest of six children, was born on Friday 5 December 1924 to Wilhart and Nellie Mattson at their house on Cloverland Road in Demmon (Boston Location); the doctor arrived via her father’s horse-drawn sleigh.

Bertha attended Boston School (grades kindergarten through grade 10) and Old Hancock Central High School (grades 11 and 12), graduated in 1943 (she wanted to be a schoolteacher), and moved to an apartment on 5th Street in Calumet.

She was a bilingual employee at several local businesses, including the General Store in Boston (her first job), Niemala’s store on Tamarack Street (where she met her future mother-in-law), and Carpenter’s Closet and Parkside on 5th Street. She also worked for the Florida Water Company and her church and did alterations for Vertin’s Department Store on 5th Street.

Bertha was a long-time active member of Faith (Evangelical) Lutheran Church in Calumet.

Bertha married Paul Backstrom at a parsonage in Laurium on Saturday 30 March 1946, soon after his discharge from the United States Navy Armed Guards (WWII). From their wedding day until their move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1949, they resided at “the Backstrom house” in Florida Location (which Paul’s beloved mother, Kate, and where Paul was born). In 1953, they relocated to the Backstrom house, where Paul resided until December 2013 (90) and where Bertha resided until two weeks shy of her 97th birthday in 2021. “Berts” and her sailor-artist brought into this world four children and were married for 67 years. They were independent, active, reliable, efficient – and humorous.

Bertha is well-known for her finesse as a seamstress and her mastery of challenging alterations; her “regular” pasties, green pepper pasties, and prune tarts; her kindness and generosity; and her easy wide, warm smile, and laugh. She was smiley and jovial to everyone, had finely-honed bantering skills, focused on today and tomorrow-and looked three decades younger than a near centenarian. Bertha enjoyed fashion, sewing (her daughters’ and her closets were full), cooking, baking, knitting, crocheting, crafting, cross-country skiing (she fractured her leg while downhill-skiing as a teen), dancing, socializing, traveling, working outside the home, learning to use a computer, and doing circle-the-word books. She also liked cardinals, hummingbirds – and her “grandanimals.” Bertha’s life codes were a blend of traditional and openly modern, and she was “the favorite” of many (including the four-legged kind).

Bertha was preceded in death by her sister Ruth Erma Dagmar Mattson (1926-1927); brother Paul Gordon Mattson (1928-1979); father Wilhart John Mattson (1902-1981); mother Nelma Dagmar (Kaarle) Mattson (1902-1985); son David Bruce Backstrom (1946-1988); sister Beatrice Florence Joyal (1944-1993); husband Paul Bruce Backstrom (1923-2014); sister Mildred Miriam Ozanich (1931-2016); and brother Allen George Mattson (1938-2023).

Bertha is survived by daughters Linda and Mary L. (Florida Location) and Brenda-Ann Kirschner (Texas); granddaughter, Kate Alexandra Kirschner (University of North Texas); and son-in-law, Richard Henry Kirschner II (Texas); and nieces and nephews.

A special kiitos to the ever-compassionate Fern Mattson (sister-in-law); “The Ozanich girls” (nieces Karen, Laura, Lisa, and Jane); and Vicki and Jeff Musselman.

The service was officiated by Pastor Jared Howard at Erickson-Crowley-Peterson Funeral Home on Tuesday 13 August 2024, followed by a burial on Monday 26 August in Section 74 at Lake View Cemetery, Osceola Township, Michigan. Both days were sunny and warm, like Bertha.

END – MARIELE BACKSTROM, DAUGHTER