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From 1976, Anna had Skeda as her year-round home. Karin sometimes came for a visit. She spent many Chrismases at Skeda, but the last years of her life she was too old and tired. My parents, my brother (in the photo) and I sometimes visited her in her apartment in Ljungby. When my mother called her before visiting, she usually had to tell her that they had business in Ljungby anyway.

I remember that Karin was very short, smoked a lot, had black pants, gave us candy that looked like pieces of orange and (if I remember it correctly) kept money inside books. I have one clear recollection of her sitting in her bed (where she often laid smoking) under the bookshelf (with all the detective stories), telling us about how her gravestone would be designed. One of the last times that I met her was on her 90th birthday in 1983. By then, her hearing problem was so bad that one had to speak in a horn for her to hear anything at.

The last year of her life, Karin stayed at S:t Sigfrid's hospital in Växjö. I don't think that she, by then, was really aware about things going on around her. The last time that my mother visited her, she was sitting in her wheelchair, sleeping all the time. She died on the night of my 12th birthday, May 15, 1985. I remember my grandmother coming down from the upper floor, telling my parents about it in the kitchen, as I was listening to the record that I had for my birthday: The music from Amadeus.

From 1935 to her retirement in 1958, Karin worked as a teacher at the Junior Secondary School in Ljungby (the photo features her with my aunt Birgitta in 1952). In his essay about Karin, Gösta Wennberg tells us both about the dark and the bright aspects of her.

She had severe black moments which I think was caused by depression. [...] She had no ability to analyze herself and therefore she projected her discomfort on those around her. [...] She had other personal traits that were not so pleasant. She was snobbish. She would be arrogant to store clerks. [...]

He emphazises, however, that this is just one view of her.

To us three siblings, the intercourse with Karin was all frictionless when we were kids; to me it was frictionless all her life. She was like an older sister of mine, a natural part of my life; fun, intense and often exiting. In all my adolescence she gave me books that meant a lot to my development.

Just like her mother Lydia, Karin was a character, a person that you can chose either to like or to dislike. And characters are just what gives the family history its charm and colour. Diplomates might be more successful in the now but in a family historical perspective, they tend to disappear in the past.

My great grandmother Anna and great grandfather Helge were very close. In 1941 they bought Skeda, a farm in Rydaholm outside Värnamo which they initially had as a summer home. When Helge retired in 1951 they sold the house in Värnamo and moved to Skeda for good. For my great grandfather, who loved hunting and fishing, Skeda was a  paradise; my great grandmother was not that delighted (in the beginning) but accepted it.

In August of 1953 Helge died in a severe car accident. Also being in the car, his son Gösta nearly died as well. Anna, who was very dependent on Helge, was left alone and had to make a life of her own. For many years she lived with my grandmother Brita and her family. My grandmother was the least complicated person of that family, which I guess was a help, if not a prerequisite.

The autumn after Helge's death, Anna wrote a "letter" to him which Brita found in Anna's posthumous papers. In the essay about his mother that Gösta wrote in 1993, he reproduced this letter (which you will find in part 2). Together with Dick I have now translated (parts of) this essay into English, which completes our project of translating all of the essential website documents for the Salomon and Lydia descendants in US and Canada.

http://www.salomonochlydia.se/Default.asp?intPageId=15&intParentId=0

Ulla Wennberg whose art exhibition in Gamla Stan I visited together with my aunt Anniqua.

We should be grateful for all the documents that we have.

http://www.salomonochlydia.se/?intParentId=0&intPageId=28