Focus on Maria Bouroncle
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Maria Bouroncle, author of It Came to Me on a Whim: The Story of Ingeborg Andersson, Child Murderess.
By Forrest Bachner
Burleith resident Maria Bouroncle was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1965 and spent the summers, until she was eight, with her grandparents and her Aunt Ingeborg in a small village called Molla. She remembers her Aunt Ingeborg with love, a chubby older woman who enjoyed playing cards, making cakes, weaving, and biking. She also remembers that her aunt could be moody, keeping to her room, or that she might launch into projects, bursting with energy.
In 1999, when Maria was 34 and her grandparents and Aunt Ingeborg were long dead, she received a call from a cousin one day asking if she knew that Ingeborg, at age 27, murdered her three children, Tor, 5; Efraim, 4; and Lucia, 15 months, in a washtub in 1929 while her husband went out to chop wood. The cousin, an occupational therapist, had heard the story from a patient.
“Suddenly it struck him: the windows had not fogged up as they usually did in the winter when his wife hung up the laundry inside. There was a sour smell and the house was unusually quiet. ‘Where are the children?’ he asked, receiving no answer.”
With that call, Maria’s life changed. Ingeborg’s story, a secret hidden for 80 years by Maria’s family, became Maria’s story, eventually in the form of a novel based solidly on historical records and letters—a beautifully and warmly, yes, warmly, written book about a seemingly happily married wife and mother who one day decides, on a whim, to drown her children. The novel, which Maria wrote in Burleith, was first published in Swedish in 2018 and has now been translated into English (It Came to Me on a Whim: The Story of Ingeborg Andersson, Child Murderess), Dutch, and Finnish and in the process of being translated into Italian. Manil Suri, best-selling author of The Death of Vishnu, called the book, “A riveting read—haunting, atmospheric,and ultimately, heartbreaking.” An award-winning short documentary, The Child Murderess of Vesene, is based on the book, which is required reading in UCLA’s Scandinavian Crime Literature course.
An e-book version is available from Barnes & Noble. To purchase a paperback copy, please email info@mariabouroncle.com. For additional information, visit Maria’s website: www.mariabouroncle.com.
I talked to Maria, an economist in international development who moved to Burleith in 2002, about how she came to write the book, her research, and what she hopes people will take from Ingeborg’s story.
So, you got this call about your great-aunt. Then what happened? I was angry. I felt these three children had been deleted from history. When I contacted my family, I learned that my mother, aunts, and uncles all knew that Ingeborg killed her children but they didn’t know when, how, why, where, or what happened afterwards. They had all come up with different explanations they had either invented or heard from someone. But everyone was very reluctant to talk about it. I kept the secret, too, for a time. I had just had my second daughter when I got the call, and I didn’t want to take it in. Also, I loved that aunt. Around 2011, I decided I had to look into the story for myself. I spent seven years researching and writing the book.
From the beginning, it seemed people attributed the murders to mental illness, but they wanted it to be kept secret. Do you think the family tried to keep the murders a secret out of shame or fear of being associated with mental illness? I think my great-grandparents probably felt some shame, because it was their daughter, and therefore they may have felt responsible. The photos of the children were destroyed and their gravestone buried. On the other hand, relatives on Ingeborg’s husband, Artur’s, side were remarkably understanding and kind to Ingeborg. In the book, her mother-in-law makes food and gives her warm bricks for the ride to prison. I wonder if as in-laws they felt no shame. It was one of Artur’s descendants who eventually gave me Ingeborg’s letters to Artur from prison and the hospital. These letters are incorporated into the novel.
Your book opens with the invitation to the children’s funeral signed from Ingeborg and Artur. I was pretty shocked by that. I think the funeral invitation tells a lot about Artur and his family. I think it’s incredibly kind that they included Ingeborg’s name, despite their grief.
How did you go about your research? Swedes keep records of everything, so I was able to see records from everywhere—prison, school, and hospital. I also visited hospital museums and read a lot of nonfiction books about life in prisons. I also read a lot of local history to see how people would have talked and lived.
Ingeborg’s prison doctor diagnosed her with schizophrenia with depressive episodes. Do you think that was right? I don’t know. In those days, all women with any mental health issues were given one of two diagnoses, either hysteria for upper-class women, or schizophrenia, for all others. I have wondered if it could have been a post-partum issue or bipolar disorder.
Can you talk about the hospital system where Ingeborg lived? It seemed remarkably humane. The staff was so kind, and Ingeborg appeared to be genuinely happy there. Before the 1900s, the mentally ill in Sweden were treated like animals. During the 1920s and 1930s, however, there was a humane window. Large beautiful buildings were built in scenic spots overlooking lakes and cities, and therapy programs included craft, weaving, and gardening programs. Patients and staff were encouraged to think of the hospital as a community. The belief was that all of this would have a good effect on the patients. Staff also thought of their work as a calling to help people, not just a job. Nurses weren’t even allowed to marry and have families. After World War II, the theory changed, medication became the norm and later on, people were moved back to their homes. Those beautiful buildings are now mostly condos and office buildings.
Did you ever feel that you came to understand Ingeborg? If you could sit down and talk to Ingeborg, what would you most like to ask her? I don’t think I’ll ever understand Ingeborg, but I’d say I’ve forgiven her. I did that when I read her letters to Artur for the first time in 2016. If I could sit down with her, I think I’d just be silent and hold her hand and listen if she would want to say anything. It would be too difficult to talk or ask any questions.
What do you most want people to take from your book? I would like to normalize mental health problems. I dream that mental health issues will one day be thought of and treated in the same way as any disease, for example, diabetes.