Emil Allard Abramsen/Abramson was born June 25, 1911, in Frederiksted, Virgin Islands, the son of John A. and Margaret Abramsen. The family lived on King Street in Frederiksted, where his father, John, worked as a baker in his own shop, and his mother, Margaret, did washing in their home. Emil had two older half-sisters, Anna and Esther, who were his mother's daughters, and by the time he was born in 1911 they were already working as seamstresses.
Emil was employed as a photographer at some of the large resort hotels of the Caribbean throughout the 1930's and 1940's; island hopping by plane and boat between St. Kitts, St. Croix, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico. He worked at both the Grand Hotel in St. Thomas and the Palace Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and he continued to live at the King Street family home with his widowed father from 1930 through at least 1940.
Emil Abramsen died November 30, 2002, at Coler-Goldwater Memorial Hospital in New York City, and was buried on Hart Island.
Sources: U.S. Social Security Death Index; U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007; 1920, 1930, and 1940 U.S. Federal Census; U.S. Virgin Islands Census, 1835-1911 (Danish Period); Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962; U.S. Virgin Islands, Passenger Lists, 1885-1962.