Släktbloggen

Far from Stockholm but close to nature. To be continued.

...is Limsjögården's hotel for the elderly, where I hope to move in when I get old. Not.

...this of course is the most important place.

This is the house where I live, belonging to a part of the town called Limhagen.

I'm inside, though, and not really myself yet (whatever "myself" means in a cluster of atoms).

...Sofia and Salomon Lindman. Salomon sr. lost his parents very early and was brought up by an aunt, whose husband owned a grocery store in Jönköping. Salomon took over it and made it very successful. "S. Lindman & Co" at Östra Storgatan 94 was later taken over by his son Salomon jr., and existed as a company at least until the 1960's.

Authoress Elsi Rydsjö, great granddaughter of Salomon sr., has written a novel Kavalkad where she outlines (partly founded on facts) Salomon's life together with his wife Sofia in the middle of the 19th century. When I read it, I did not wish to have been born in those days.

...Salomon was photographed together with his sister Anna. Imagine if they had known that Salomon was going to have a daughter Anna, and Anna (the girl in the picture) was going to have a son Helge, and that the two of them were going to marry. And that Anna and Helge would become my great grandparents.

Helge's mother (the girl in the picture), was Anna Wennberg nee Lindman. Her daughter-in-law, my great grandmother, was also Anna Wennberg nee Lindman. And to complicate it even more: Salomon's mother Sofia was a Lindman nee Wennberg! From this you can understand that I'm related to myself in more than one way.

...shows Karin and Lydia, probably around 1920 in Lydia's home. It could have been when she lived in Värnamo. It's not the most cheerful picture that I have.  

...from 1921 shows Greta with her children Maggie and Bob. Didn't Greta look quite manly? Since she was only 32 years old when she died, we don't know so much about her either. We know that she was very sporty, trained as a medical gymnast, and that she married a rich hotel proprietor in Chicago. She seems to have been quite a cheerful person. But what more? It will be interesting to see what information her granddaughter Anita finds in the documents left from Else. Maybe some day it will be possible to write a short essay called "Who was Greta Lindman?"

One of the descendants that we know the least about is Greta's oldest son Bob (or Bobby). He was born in Chicago 1914 and died in 1971; his full name was Robert Lindman Andersen. (Under "Other Documents" you can read about him in letters written by Greta and Lydia.) He had three siblings: Margaret, Else and Chris. When they moved to Sweden in the 30's he didn't follow them and that's why we know so little about him.

In March this year I decided to call Else and find out some more, but unfortunately she was already rushed to hospital for the very last time. I never got that information. So I decided to write a letter to her only remaining sibling, her twin brother Chris in the US. He never answered it, likely because he read it on his deathbed.

I didn't dare to contact any more people.

Anyway - when I visited Jennifer in Ottawa in July, i found a document written after Aunt Karin's death in 1985. It was a record of her survivors, saying that Bob had an (adopted) son named Lee Drott, living in Rockville, Maryland, US. By the internet I could find out some more: he would be 75 years old by now and seems to have a son named Justin and a daughter named Greta!

Who knows. Maybe some day they will read this, contact us and want to be a part of our society. And when they do, they will be most welcome.

...where all the ice hockey takes place, the only thing that Leksand is really known for. I must admit that I was there once watching a game; an interesting study in primitive human behaviour. To be continued.

...is the health centre where I go several times a week, sweating (and sometimes make animal sounds) in front of 10 students. That's the situation in a town of 6000 habitants.

This is the school where I work.

...from 1982 shows Stina's son Johan, his step daughter Annika, step daughter Maria, daughter Maja and wife Elisabeth holding Mikael, their mutual son. To Mikael, I am related in at least three different ways. He is my first cousin (since his mother is a sister of my father); second cousin (since his father is a cousin of my mother) and fourth cousin (since our great grandmother Anna was a cousin of her husband). Well, I call him my cousin.

...Stina Wennberg celebrated her 90th birthday. This picture shows all the four generations. Stina was the sister of my grandmother, yet they were extremely different. I have many recollections of Stina; if you met her one time you remembered her. She had a sharp tounge and strong opinions about things. If I had the chance to travel 20 years back in time (being the one that I am now) the two of us could have some very interesting conversations, I think.

...(taken by Rainer Ulonska) shows my second cousin Katarina with her daughter Amanda. Katarina is daughter of Hans Larsson, granddaughter of Stina Wennberg and great granddaughter of Anna Lindman. When we both were 13 and she visited Skeda, I wanted to scare her a bit so I informed her that "Helge usually walks here at night". I don't know if she was affected at all by it, but I definitely scared myself so I couldn't sleep for the whole night.

...is Erik Wennberg, son of Ingrid Wennberg, grandson of Gösta Wennberg. Erik, who was born in 1986, is one of the second cousins that I've never met. Hopefully Skeda 2011 will bring us all together.

...Helge Wennberg and his son Gösta were on their way from Skeda to Skåne. This picture (taken by Gösta and found by Anita) shows Helge having coffee besides the road. It would be less than an hour before the fatal accident that affected the lives of all family members, especially my great grandmother Anna. Read about it under "Gösta Wennberg's Stories", in Swedish or in English.

...is, for some reason, known for its celebration of Midsummer. A lot of humans watching a big pole with flowers being erected and then dancing around it. (This is not an ordinary Swedish maypole though, it's the perverted/different Dala version of it.) To be continued.

...next to the church shows Bond Jerk, "den gamle ringaren", a lonely man whose job was to ring in the church bells every day at 7 am and 8 pm. That was it. What a meaningful life he had.

...is its church which was partly built in the 13th century. I find it very nice and peaceful to take a walk around the churchyard, thinking about things, looking at graves and contemplate. If that is a disorder, it is certanly not inherited from my parents.

...who haven't been in the little town Leksand where I currently live, I will give you some glimpses and thoughts of it, for you to understand both its advantages and disadvantages.  

...shows Skeda with its new veranda, beautifully overlooking the lake. The family estate is now owned by my brother but still inhabited by my parents. Likely their friends will visit them even more often after this.

...now has 25 paying members, which is a really good developement. Now it is our mission to increase the interest of all the (pontentially) interested relatives.

Well, at least I have a job.

...where I had my first job as a teacher in 2002.

...started the day by listening to an old favourite from 1989.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEX35LUUzgk&feature=related

...Lars and Vivianne I had a really, really interesting evening. I found out so much about them, about Torsten and about the family. It's fascinating; without the internet (the peculiar invention we take for granted) I wouldn't even have known that they existed.

...Vivianne Kaijser (Torsten's daughter).

...Eva-Karin Strand and her husband Lars Wåtz.

...I will make a family trip to Linköping, the city where I lived for many years (and maybe some day will return to). As always on family trips I will do some blogging, so stay tuned.

...the family historian of the Canadian branch, 50 years old yesterday! In 2006, Jennifer made a trip to Sweden in order to do some research about her father Ted and grandmother Kerstin. As a result of this we now have Jennifer's essay "In Search of Kerstin Lindman", vividly illustrated with her own drawings.

...was the unknown Swedish son of Kerstin Lindman. This picture from 1964 shows Torsten on his 50's birthday together with his granddaughter Eva-Karin Strand, grandson Peter Strand, daughter Ingalill Ljungdahl and grandson Peter Ljungdahl. When I go to Linköping this weekend I will visit Eva-Karin, today 52 years old, which will be most pleasant.

...that 90% of what I write in this blog is about women. How can that be? Of course, there are slightly more women than men in the family, but there is more to it. I remember Swedish author Jonas Gardell being asked once why all his books were about women. His explanation was something about women being more complicated, not taking things that easy. I guess that is very true. If just some nice evenings with a handsome man had been enough to make Lydia feel happy, she wouldn't have been that interesting as a person.

...Greta Lindman Andersen wrote this letter to her cousin Signe (Elsi Rydsjö's mother) who just had twins. The letter ends with a wish: "Give me a formula for twins. I must have two next time!" Ironic, since we know what happend when her dream came true in 1924. (If you want to read the letter, go to Övriga dokument/Other documents.)