Guest blogger: Margareta Teke
On vacation In Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, we suddenly met a couple we recognized, Gertrud and Clas Bern. She is my third cousin and we have met earlier due to a common relative, a wellknown Swedish author, Frank Heller. He has a “society” in which we are members.
Gertrud Bern is the daughter of another wellknown author, Elsi Rydsjö, whom I love to read. Anyway, we got to know each other a little better than before and spent a couple of nice evenings together. We had a lot to talk about, part of it concerning our common heritage.
Those are the portraits...
...of Lydia Lindman, her children and grandchildren. All of us have some kind of relation to some of them. Myself, I become warm when I think about Brita. Nostalgic when I think about Gösta. Curious when I think about Lydia. They are, now, all characters of our family history. And as long as we keep telling it, it will exist.
This photo from 1969...
...features Else Wennberg and her aunt Anna, probably in the home of Signe Wennberg in Helsingborg.
Let the New Year...
...make us even more united within our family!
Skeda 1979. Santa has arrived
Furthest back: Peter, 34. In the sofa: Margareta, 34 and Karin, 86. Sitting in front of them: Anniqua, 37 with Jakob, 4, Larz, 3, Anna, 6 and Hans, 6. Anna, 90, looks as if she had seen all this before.
Preparing for Christmas
The book about Skeda
When I was at Skeda some month ago, I started to write on a book about the family estate where I grew up. The main house was built in 1906 and several people lived there before my great grandfather bought it as a summer home in 1941.There are four additional estates that originally belong to Skeda. They will also be included as will the people living there, who will be portrayed in the book. I expect to write most of it during the summer to come.
A photo from this summer
Kalmar in August. Dag Ljungdahl got to meet his uncle Dick and gave him his brother Torsten's confirmation bible.
This is Ivar Wennberg...
...who lived 1882-1960 and was a bookseller in Västerås where I now live. He was my great grandfather's brother and my great grandmother's first cousin. This portrait (among others of famous characters) I found at Västerås City Hotel.
My dear grandmother...
...as we remember her from the last years. Thanks Anniqua for the photo.
News on the website!
On the website we now have a new section called Family Thoughts. This will be a forum for everyone who wants to write anything about the family, but not as long story; more like a short (or longer) note about something that he/she has at heart. You can write in either Swedish or English. Send it to me and I will publish it.
If you really want to write a family story, do it for the section More Stories. If you just want to make a greeting or write a few lines, use the guestbook. One could say that this new section is a cross between the two of them.
The first contributer is Marita Tidlund Lindman, who writes about her impressions from the family reunion in July.
If you really want to write a family story, do it for the section More Stories. If you just want to make a greeting or write a few lines, use the guestbook. One could say that this new section is a cross between the two of them.
The first contributer is Marita Tidlund Lindman, who writes about her impressions from the family reunion in July.
Saturday July 30...
Photo: Rainer Ulonska
...we had the third reunion within our family, at Skeda gård, Rydaholm, Sweden. We were 39 people (including spouses) and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The most touching moment was the meeting between Dick and his new found niece Marita.
In the cottage, where I had made an exhibition, we talked about the family. The themes were Kerstin Lindman, the foremother of Dick, Marita and her niece Eva-Karin, and Ellen Lindman, my great grandmother's favourite sister. (On the website, under "What's new" and "Photos and films", you can now see all the pictures, most of them taken by our master photographer Rainer Ulonska, who is also making a documentary about the reunion and Dickie's visit to Sweden.) We also talked about the future, about what will happen to the website and the family society; I suggested the following:
- We will continue to have a society, but it won't have a membership fee; instead each member is expected to give a volontary contribution once in a while. As long as members contribute, we will afford to keep having the website.
- You become a member when you participate in a family reunion. If you did not have the chance to participate in this reunion, but still want to be a member, you just have to tell me and it won't be a problem.
- The blog will continue to be updated but only on special occasions (for example when a new reunion is being planned on).
- The next family reunion will, hopefully, take place in either Canada or US, for us to really have the chance to meet our relatives overseas.
Now....
...start focus on Skeda!
Another important person...
...this Saturday: Kerstin Lindman Ring, here with daughter Louise.
Ellen Lindman (1890-1903)
Ellen was my great grandmother Anna's favourite sister. In Anna's room at Skeda, above all the other portraits (and much larger than them) she had this portrait of Ellen. She was a sociable, gifted, inquisitive girl who died of TB when she she was only 12. In the family archive we have notes and some drawings left from her; we also have the letters that her mother Lydia recieved after her death. Ellen is one of the persons that I will make speeches about during the family reunion, an event which is getting more and more close!
