Anna Carlström described her life in her memoirs, published in 1841, which may not give an altogether truthful picture: among other things, she claimed to have been the mother of 22 children.
According to her own memoirs, she worked as a maidservant, as a weaver at Hässelbyholm and as a children's nurse: in 1801, she was employed as a servant in a family by the name Williamson, which was moving to London in Great Britain, and stayed with them there for half a year before returning to Sweden.
She started a business as an innkeeper, a common profession for a widow, and married the shoemaker Johan Löfstedt, with whom she was desperately unhappy and had eight children (all of whom died but one).
Widowed after a ten-year marriage, she married in circa 1818 for the third time to Anders Johan Lundholm, a lower rank officer of the navy, with whom she lived for sixteen years, had eight children (all of whom died).
In 1838, the Stockholm authorities, alarmed with the problem of controlling the spread of sexually transmitted disease, decided to try a new policy against prostitution, inspired by contemporary French ideas.
She remarked of her business: "I have the conviction, that I have spared no effort to satisfy every wish for any one of those, who visit my inn", but also that: "numerous unpleasant incidents occurred more or less daily" of which she was not used to and found exhausting.
The Stockholm authorities, however, abandoned the policy of licensed brothels in 1841, after having received great opposition from the public and also regarded their purpose of controlling the sexually transmitted disease as failed.
[2] In 1841, Anna Carlström published her memoirs: “En modig qvinnas händelserika lefnad, Antecknad av Henne Sjelf” ('The Eventful life of a Courageous Woman, Noted by herself').