Stina at last
This is the last photo that I have of my great aunt Stina (1916-2008).
Here she is with her son Johan, her granddaughter Maja and great grandson Jakob in 2007.
May I present...
...Anna Serner, born 1964, the new manager of the Swedish Film Institute.
Since she is a third cousin of my mother, I allow myself to be at least a little bit proud.
This photo...
...of me and my third cousin Eva-Karin was taken two weeks ago when I visited her, and her husband Lars, in Linköping. My gift to her was a photo and a postcard written by her great grandmother Kerstin Lindman Ring.
The youngest member of our family
Stella, born in February, daughter of Jennifer Råsten (who belongs to Greta's branch) and Magnus Tillman. Here she is with sister Irma, born 2009.
A poem by Stig Dagerman
En dag om året borde alla låtsas,
att döden vilar i ett vitt schatull.
Inga stora illusioner krossas
och ingen skjuts för fyra dollars skull.
Världskatastrofen sover lugnt och stilla
emellan lakan på ett snyggt hotell.
Inget rep gör någon broder illa
och ingen syster slumrar vid ett slutet spjäll.
Inga män blir plötsligt sönderbrända
och ingen dör på gatorna just då.
Visst är det lögn, det kan väl hända.
Jag bara säger: Vi kan låtsas så.
Reg and Kitty
In 1920 Kerstin married the distinguished English businessman Reginald H. Sherard Ring. He was a collegue of Greta's husband; therefore it is possible that they met in Chicago while Kerstin, initially staying with Greta, did her training as a nurse.
Just like her sisters Anna (sometimes called Annika), Ellen (sometimes called Ella), Margareta (allways called Greta), Karin (sometimes called Kajsa), Kerstin also had a nickname: Kitta. This, of course, became Kitty in English.
Reg and Kitty lived the first years of their marriage in New York (at 7 East 32nd Street to be exact), where they had their children Louise in 1921, Sylvia in 1925 and Ted in 1926. The photo features the family (Louise in front of Ted and Sylvia), probably in 1930 when Dick was to be born in December. By this time they had already moved to Toronto, Canada, where they lived as a family, until 1935 when the financial depression changed their lives. To be continued.
Greta - a story with a sad ending
After living some years in Chicago, Greta and her family moved to Hot Springs, Virginia, where the second child Margaret was born in 1918. The photo features Margaret, Greta and Bob in 1921. Greta's husband Chris was the manager of the Homestead, a big hotel that still exists.
They had, as far as we know, a really happy marriage until the day in 1924 when everything changed. Greta gave birth to the twins Chris and Else, but something went terribly wrong, no doctor could help her and Greta bled to death in a few hours. The reason for it, which was a stuck placenta, would not have been fatal today.
Newspapers in Virginia after Greta's death
As a family...
...with three children, they finally moved to Värnamo where Brita, Gösta and Stina grew up. There they acquired the burring "r" that they had throughout their lives.
THE STORY OF THE LINDMAN SISTERS, part 2
By the time when my grandmother Brita was born, Anna and Helge lived in Stockholm where Helge had his first position as a land surveyor. In 1916 their daughter Stina was also born. (The photo from 1917 features Anna and Stina with grandmother Lydia.) His second position Helge had in Backe, a little village in the middle of Sweden, where their son Gösta was born in 1920.
A photo from yesterday
Mikael Mossberg, me, my mother, my aunt Birgitta, my grandmother Brita and grandfather Bertil.
