110-Year-Old Church a Legacy to Phobic Geneva Man

Every community includes its share of town “characters." and turn-of-the-century Geneva was no exception. John Rydsjo (or “Andrew Risjo," as the Geneva Republican called him) died May 22, 1905, at either age 67 or 70, depending on whether you believe his tombstone or his obituary.

A native of Rydsholm, Sweden, Rydjo emigrated to Geneva in 1858 and married local lady Louise Mongerson. The couple had one child, Ida, who married Fred Carlson and lived on “east Third Street”—possibly a one-block road that dead-ends into Oak Hill Cemetery that modern maps label as Third Avenue. Rydjo was living with the Carlsons when he died.

East Third Street had to have been east of the Fox River, because Rydjo’s obituary focuses on a phobia that made him the talk of the town for decades. “Risjo [sic] was a very peculiar man, and though never violent, his friends considered him slightly demented,” the Republican states. “Some twenty years ago he said he would never cross the river again, and from that time to the day of his death he never came across the bridge.”

“He was a devout member of the Lutheran church, and at the time the new church was erected (1900-01) he gave liberally toward its erection,” the obituary recalls. “When it was completed, his family and pastor tried every means of persuasion to get him to come over on the west side and attend the church he had assisted in erecting, but he replied, ‘I can see it from my own home.’”

Despite his apparent fear of crossing the river, Rydjo must have been a successful man, since he had money to contribute to the $15,266 cost of building the new church, which still stands. He also knew loss: his wife, Louise, predeceased him by 17 months, and his tombstone also marks the grave of a 3-year-old granddaughter, Clara, who died in 1880.