In early 20th century Sweden, a woman who ran a small child care service was arrested after police discovered a drugged infant’s body hidden in her sugar chest. The arrest of Alva Nordberg would expose a shadowy world of unregulated foster care, desperate poverty, and the deaths of multiple children in her care. Alva was born Albertina Ardling on July 15, 1876, in Gävle, a Baltic port city in Sweden. Her father, Jonas Ardling, was a sailor, and her mother was Emma Lovisa.
Her childhood was marked by poverty, although she received some schooling during a period when Sweden had become one of the most literate countries in Europe. Her family’s circumstances worsened during the 1880s, a decade of deep recession and agricultural crisis in Sweden. Many small businesses collapsed, poor harvests devastated rural livelihoods, and unemployment pushed many families to emigrate to America or move to larger Swedish cities. In 1890, when Alva was 14, her family moved to Stockholm, where her mother gave birth to a baby boy who tragically died before his first birthday.
A year later, Alva’s father also died. Left in a desperate situation, Alva and her mother relied on poor relief and moved between different addresses in the city, working when they could, usually as domestic servants. In 1893, Emma gave birth to another baby boy, whose father was unknown. With no husband to support her, the child was placed in a children’s home.
Alva’s fortunes seemed to improve when, on December 24, 1899, she married Gustaf Norberg, a sailor and ship carpenter. Soon after, she gave birth to a daughter, Alva Serafia Josefina. A second child, born in 1900, died five months later, and a son followed in 1901. The family struggled in the city, where poverty was a pressing issue.
Urbanization led to overcrowded conditions, inadequate sanitation, and fierce competition for employment. The couple fell into debt and decided to move to Gräddö, about 90 kilometers from Stockholm, where Gustaf’s parents lived. By the turn of the century, the area had become a popular tourist destination, and Alva attempted to open a tea room to serve summer visitors. The venture failed, and their debts continued to mount.
Desperate for income, Alva turned to a business that was both widespread and largely unregulated: taking in children for payment. At the time, many mothers advertised for foster parents, often because they were too poor to raise another baby or because they were unmarried and faced severe social ostracism. Anonymity laws passed in 1778 had made it legal for women to give birth anonymously, partly to curb high infant mortality rates linked to abandoned newborns. By the late 1800s, it was estimated that more than 40,000 such children existed in Sweden, though the true figure was believed to be much higher.
In 1902, Alva replied to one of these advertisements and agreed to care for a baby for a fee of 200 kronor. The child’s father was supposed to pay an additional 400 kronor but failed to do so. Unable to raise the child with so little money, Alva sent the girl to another foster mother but failed to pay the required sum. That woman tried unsuccessfully to return the baby and passed her on to another care service.
Before the little girl’s second birthday, she had lived in five different care homes. That same year, 1902, Sweden introduced a law prohibiting women from accepting foster children for payment without first informing municipal authorities. No foster carer was permitted to have more than two children at a time, unless the child was their own, a grandchild, stepchild, or had been placed there by the courts. The law followed findings that the death rate among infants under 12 months placed with foster mothers was twice as high as that of children living with their biological parents.
Authorities believed many women offered these services purely for financial gain. Alva ignored the law. Over the following three years, she accepted 17 infants into her home, always for an upfront fee, and rarely informed local authorities. Her neighbors, however, became increasingly concerned.
One of them reported her to the local police, who in turn contacted police in Stockholm. When Alva traveled to the capital, she was followed and stopped. Police asked what she was carrying in her sugar chest. Inside, they discovered the body of a small child.
A post-mortem revealed the child had been drugged, and Alva Nordberg was arrested. During the trial, it was revealed that of the 17 children she had cared for over the previous three years, seven had died while in her care. She told the court she had not wanted to take on so many infants and had not intentionally killed any of them. Medical experts, however, testified that children who died in the care of women like Alva usually showed signs of dehydration, infections, and untreated diseases.
Most of these infants, they said, experienced immense suffering during their short lives. As the trial progressed, public outrage grew, fueled by press coverage that highlighted the terrible social conditions behind Alva’s alleged crimes. The press called women who ran such services “angel makers. ” Observers noted that with so many people living in poverty, and the stigma attached to unmarried mothers, the practice had flourished throughout the previous century and was likely to continue.
The trial lasted several months. Witnesses included Alva’s husband, Gustaf, who had also been accused but insisted he had never been involved in his wife’s child care service. Neighbors, helpers, mothers of children Alva had cared for, and other women who worked in foster care also gave evidence. Despite the 1902 law, many authorities had done nothing to check on the welfare of children placed with foster carers.
The trial ended in December 1905. Alva was found guilty of the maltreatment of one of the infants while in her care and was sentenced to two and a half years of hard labor. She could not be found guilty of murder or attempted murder of other children, as the court found it difficult to determine whether Alva Nordberg was a woman who murdered children or herself a victim of the terrible circumstances in which she lived, like so many other women who agreed to look after children, some of whom died. She was sent to the county prison in Växjö.
During this time, her own children were placed in care. While in prison, she and her husband agreed to divorce. After her release, she moved to Stockholm, met another man, and married for the second time. The couple settled in central Sweden, where she gave birth to two more children.
At the time, Sweden still had the death penalty, although no woman had been executed since Anna Månsdotter in 1890. Sweden abolished capital punishment in 1921. Alva Nordberg died in 1948, having kept her crime and trial a secret from her family for the previous 40 years.