 According to Wickland, he emigrated from Sweden to St. Paul, Minnesota, married Anna W. Anderson and moved to Chicago, graduating from Durham Medical College in 1900.Wickland's own autobiographical sketch lists accomplishments as a general practitioner of medicine, member of the Chicago Medical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and chief psychiatrist at the State Psychopathic Institute of Chicago.Anna Wickland died on 3 March 1937, after a nine-month illness.