Robin Fåhræus

1888-1968.

Professor of Medicine, Pathologist.

Robin Fåhræus was born in Stockholm and was Professor of Pathology from 1928 to 1955.

With his epoch-making investigations into the suspension stability of red blood cells (the so-called sink), Fåhræus has achieved international renown.

In his 1921 paper, The Suspension Stability of the blood, the rate at which blood cells sink to the bottom of a test tube and the sinking reaction (SR, "sinking") as a sensitive if non-specific indication of ongoing disease processes in the body was launched.

Together with The Svedberg, Fåhræus contributed to the determination of the molecular mass of hemoglobin.

Examples of his lifelong writing include the books Blood in the History of Medicine (1924) and History of Medicine (1944-1950).

Fåhræus, together with Anders Diös, was responsible for the restoration of the Hall of State at Uppsala Castle.

 

Burial site: 0112-0547

Image description: Robin Fåhraeus at the University House, Uppsala 1955. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped]
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Anna-Ma Toll

1914-1997.

Social worker, counselor, city council director.

Anna-Ma Toll attended the Social Institute in Stockholm from 1934 to 1936 and trained at the Red Cross School of Nursing from 1936 to 1939.

Between 1941 and 1943 she worked as a curator at the pension board's health resort in Korseberga and as a hospital curator at Uppsala University Hospital, where she was hospital superintendent between 1948 and 1953.

Toll participated in rescue work in Hungary in 1956 and in Skopje in 1963 and was also for a time employed by Save the Children and was Director of SIDA from 1968 to 1980.

 

Burial site: 0108-0449B

Image description: Anna-Ma Toll, ca 1970 from the Wennergren Center in Stockholm with staff from the Population Office. Photo: Pelle Stackman / SIDAThe image is cropped]
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Carl Axel Ekholm

1845-1932.

Architect.

Carl Axel Ekholm was born in Sund in Östergötland and was Uppsala's first city architect from 1878 to 1912.

Ekholm began his education at the Technical Elementary School in Norrköping before studying architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Ekholm was inspired early on by the Neo-Renaissance style, which came to characterize many of the buildings he designed.

After working in various architectural offices and as a city engineer and master builder in Oskarshamn in 1877, Ekholm became city architect in Uppsala. In the 1870s, due to the risk of fire, it was forbidden to build new wooden houses and in Uppsala, 75 percent of the cityscape consisted of wooden houses.

Ekholm designed around 150 buildings in Uppsala during his lifetime. He created houses in various styles such as Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau, several of which are still standing. In 2005, despite protests, the so-called Bodénska huset and several other 19th-century houses in the district were demolished to make way for the criticized Uppsala Konsert & Kongress.

Österplan 13 in Uppsala, built in 1888. Photo: Unknown photographer and unknown year / Upplandsmuseet.

Vaksalagatan in Uppsala in 1970. The stone house on the far left of the picture is Ekholm's. The block was demolished to make way for Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. Photo: Ola Ehn / Upplandsmuseet.

Examples of houses that Ekholm was involved in, which are still standing are: Gästrike-Hälsinge nation (1880), Norrlands nation (1887-1889, the facade facing Fyrisån by I.G. Clason), the old burial chapel at the Old Cemetery in Uppsala (1882-1883), Österplan 13 (1888), Dragarbrunnsgatan 48 (1889), Magdeburg Girls' School (1890) and Regnellianum (1891-1892).

 

Burial site: 0128-1256

Image description: Carl Axel Ekholm with his family in 1899, his wife Anna Ottilia Hildegard and daughter Signe Hedvig. Photo: Heinrich Osti / UUBThe image is cropped]
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Gunnar Sundgren

1901-1970.

Photographer.

Gunnar Sundgren grew up in a family of nine children at a small railway station between Sala and Gävle. 

Sundgren started at H.A.L. (Katedralskolan) in Uppsala in 1913 and was housed in a school household at Maria Lindgren's bakery at Skolgatan 13.

At the age of 21, Sundgren was accepted as a student of Ellen Claeson, the leading photographer in Uppsala at the time. In 1928 he opened a portrait studio at Östra Ågatan 29 and became one of Uppsala's foremost photographers in the 1940s and 1950s.

Gunnar Sundgren at the camera around 1969. Photo: Unknown photographer / UUB.

Gunnar Sundgren with his dog Klumpen, standing on Dombron in Uppsala sometime in the 1950s. Photo: Unknown photographer / UUB.

The portraits were made after in-depth personality studies, and Sundgren also produced significant environmental and architectural images.  Several famous people passed through the studio, such as Hugo Alfvén, Bror Hjort, Cora Sandel, Gösta Knutsson, Axel Hägerström, The Svedberg and Bo Setterlind.

Upplandsmuseet holds approximately 300,000 negatives from Sundgren's production.  He appeared on the radio as a strong agitator for photography as a separate art form.

In the 1950s, Gunnar Sundgren led guided tours of the Old Cemetery in Uppsala. At the gravesite there is a metal sculpture "Mother and Child" by an unknown artist.

Gunnar Sundgren's preserved photographs are a remarkable cultural and historical treasure.

 

Burial site: 0150-1988

Image description: Gunnar Sundgren, unknown year. Photo: Gunnar Sundgren / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped]
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Ebba Sörbom

1927-2001.

Author.

Ebba Ruzsica Sörbom was born Ruzsica Schreiber to a Jewish family in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia. As a child she spoke German, Hungarian and Serbian.

In 1944, Sörbom was taken to a concentration camp where his mother and younger brother were gassed. Despite everything, Sörbom survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and came to Sweden in 1945.

She studied drama at Uppsala University, worked with drama therapy at Ulleråker Hospital and provided information about the Holocaust in schools.

In 1994, Sörbom received a cultural scholarship from Uppsala Municipality and in 1997 a scholarship from the Swedish Writers' Fund to study at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Vienna.

Her debut book Bortom minnet, bortom glömskan was published in 1988. Through her poetry, Ebba Sörbom has reflected personal memories of the concentration camps and given voice to the survivors.

 

Burial site: 0104-0266

Image description: Ebba Sörbom's gravestone. Photo: Henrik Zetterberg. [No photo of Ebba Sörbom was found when this page was made]

 

 

Anders Gustaf Ekeberg

1767-1813.

Chemist.

Anders Gustaf Ekeberg was the son of shipbuilder Joseph Eric Ekeberg and Hedvig Ulrica Kilberg.

In 1784, Ekeberg enrolled at Uppsala University, where he was taught by Carl Peter Thunberg, among others. After graduation and study trips, Ekeberg became an associate professor of chemistry in 1794.

In 1799, Ekeberg was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences. In 1802, he discovered the element tantalum (Ta).

An explosion in the early 1800s left Ekeberg blind in one eye.

One of Ekeberg's scientific discoveries was a method for making strong, clear and translucent porcelain. He took the secret of this method to his grave.

His friends carved his name on a stone pillar in the cemetery wall and three words in Latin: Chemico (he was a chemist) Amicitia (friendship) Memor (memory) and the year of his death in Roman letters MDCCCXIII. Photo: Henrik Zetterberg.

The picture shows the Ekeberg Prize awarded by the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center. Photo: TIC.

In recognition of Ekeberg's pioneering work, an award was established in 2017 by the TIC (Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center), to promote the knowledge and understanding of tantalum. The award was named the Anders Gustaf Ekeberg Tantalum Prize ("Ekeberg Prize") in his memory.

 

Burial site: 0101-0030

Image description: Portrait of Anders Gustaf Ekeberg from Mellin, Gustaf Henrik (ed.) 427 porträtter af namnkunniga svenske män och fruntimmer, Stockholm, 1847. Photo: LIBRIS-ID:1579474The image is cropped]
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Rune Hammarling

1936-1999.

Curator.

Rune Hammarling took correspondence courses in drawing and painting and was apprenticed to conservator Alf Hedman in Gävle, where he worked for 17 years.

In 1981 he trained as a conservator in Copenhagen and two years later started his own business.

Hammarling has restored medieval paintings in a number of churches in Uppsala and also the 19th century paintings in Uppsala Cathedral, the University Hall, Carolina Rediviva, Geijersgården, as well as a number of student nations and the castles in Gävle and Västerås.

 

Burial site: 0127-1201

Image description: Rune Hammarling doing conservation work in Bälinge church, Uppland, 1989. Photo: Rune Hammarling / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped]
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Carl David af Wirsén

1842-1912.

Author, literary critic, poet.

Carl David af Wirsén was born in Vallentuna and later in life became an associate professor of literary history in 1868 and a lecturer in Swedish and Latin at the Högre Allmänna Löroverket in Uppsala in 1870.

Wirsén published Dikter (1876) and later a further six volumes of traditional idyllic poetry and several collections of religious poems.

The cemetery in Uppsala was honored with a poem and Wirsén wrote the text of the hymn "En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt" (Swedish Hymnal, hymn 201).

Wirsén was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 1879 and became its permanent secretary in 1884. In this position, with his pronounced conservatism, he came to adopt an attitude that was dismissive of contemporary literature.

As a literary reviewer for Post- och Inrikes Tidningar and Vårt Land, Wirsén was able to express a reactionary view of literature for many years. A selection of his reviews can be found in Kritiker (1901).

 

Burial site: 0140-1606

Image description: Carl David af Wirsén, Stockholm ca 1880-ca 1890. Photo: Johannes Jaeger / UUBThe image is cropped]
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Henrik Wilhelm Söderman

1829-1901.

Wholesaler, entrepreneur.

Henrik Wilhelm Söderman from Österbybruk became an apprentice to the tailor Nyblom in Uppsala at the age of 14.

Later, Söderman opened a spice shop and flour mill and also bought land in Rasbo (seven farms together became the Henriksberg estate), followed by the distillery in Lejstabro.

Domestic distilling was banned in 1855 and in 1860 the distillery at Fabriksgatan 4 in Svartbäcken was taken over by Frans Otto Törnlund and Söderman. They had enough taxed land to start distilling spirits.

"Brännvinspengar" became a major source of income for the city and also financed much of Uppsala's industrialization. Examples include the Bavarian brewery and Upsala Ångkvarn, which were bought by Söderman and Törnlund. Uppsala Ångkvarn with its mill, yeast factory and distillery was the city's largest workplace at the turn of the century 1900.

Central Uppsala, with the walls around the Fyrisån river, was built between 1860 and 1890 and was financed by liquor sales and taxation. In the 1860s, there were 29 sales outlets and 27 licensed premises for alcohol in Uppsala.

Söderman was a member of the city council from 1875 to 1878 and from 1883 to 1900, as well as a member of the county chamber and the building committee.

The gravestone is probably the largest in the cemetery in terms of weight and volume and is said to have been blasted out of a rock in Vaksala.

 

Burial site: 0124-1125

Image description: Henrik Wilhem Söderman, Uppsala ca 1878. Heinrich Osti / UUBThe image is cropped]
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Tycho Hedén

1887-1962.

Politician, painter.

Tycho Hedén was a trained painter and also ombudsman in the Swedish Painters' Union 1942-1954.

Hedén was interested in politics at an early age and he was the manager of Folkets hus, chairman of Uppsala arbetarekommun, chairman of Uppsala läns socialdemokratiska partidistrikt 1920-1960, member of the city council 1919-1959 and member of the county council 1930-1962.

For several decades, Tycho Hedén was a leading politician in Uppsala and influential in the city's labor movement.

New residential areas were built in Uppsala during Hedén's time, which was led by the city architect Gunnar Leche.

 

Burial site: 0150-2047

Image description: Tycho Hedén, Uppsala 1954, photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped]
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