Stories of Lennart

This photo is in one of Mom's albums and is labeled "kusiner." I believe it is her paternal
cousins because it's next to a picture of adults that's labeled "Farfar, fastrar o farbröder."
In the first row, left to right, I believe we have Henrik, Sara, Brita, and baby Lennart. In the
back row, Mom is the tallest in the middle and Margaretha stands to her left. I believe the
other children are Ivar and Adela's kids, Ingegärd, Torsten and Ake, and Linnea and Gunnar's
children, Svea and Rune, but I'm not sure who is who. 

"My first real clear memory of life is from when Lennart was born. Brita and Sara, I think, guessed that Mama was going to have a baby but I didn’t understand that part. I was only five years old. They sent me to Mama to ask her if she was going to have a baby. She said, “You don’t understand that sort of thing yet. We’ll see.” If Brita and Sara had gone themselves, maybe they would have gotten an answer, especially Brita because she was ten years old.

Well, anyway, I remember the night when he was born. Margaretha and I slept in the junior bed in Mom and Dad’s room right then and all us kids were gathered up and sent to other beds. Margaretha and I were put to sleep in Hildegard’s bed. We were supposed to sleep, anyway. But Hildegard sat on a chair in the room, fully clothed, which was so odd. And everyone in the house seemed so anxious and we could hear all kinds of noises, people running back and forth. Midi came in ever so often and told Hildegard about the progress. I kept asking Hildegard what was going on, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. She just said, “Now you have to go to sleep, like I’ve told you. You can not talk any more.” So I didn’t dare to ask any more questions, but Midi would come in and whisper to Hildegard so I wouldn’t hear what she said. Well, pretty soon, I heard a baby cry and then after a bit Midi came in, and she was so excited that she said out loud, “It’s a boy.” I could see they both looked so happy then, that I went ahead and went to sleep.

Then in the morning, they combed our hair and washed our hands and faces and when we were all cleaned up, we were told we could go in and see our new little brother. Everybody rushed up to Mama’s bed. I stood in the doorway thinking that now I would never get near Mama again. If there was another one younger than me, I had no chance. Margaretha always pushed me away as it was. Mama was wise. After a bit, she saw me standing there and called me up to her side. She told me to lay my hand on the bed next to the baby and she took Lennart’s hand and laid it in mine. I was immediately so in love. I loved that little brother with all my heart then and there.

They used to say that I’d sit singing by his cot when he was going to nap. I’d sing and sing on and on. He probably wasn’t old enough to care if I was sitting there or not. When he got a little older and could sit up, I got to feed him. He’d sit in a high chair that Farfar had made out of wild hazel bush stems which were tall and slender. He warmed them up somehow so he could bend them how he wanted them.

When Lennart was little, there was a little bit of competition between Margaretha and I to see who could best look after Lennart. There probably weren’t lots of other things that we could help with very well when there was Brita and Sara to help, so we were often sent outside to look after Lennart. Morbror Kalle had made us a little wagon. It was a miniature of Dad’s hay wagon. Lennart could sit in there when he was about a year old and hang onto both sides. Margaretha was going to show that she could pull that wagon just as well as I could. She was going to pull him up onto Berget, the hill we played on, but the path up to Berget wasn’t very wide and the wagon slid off the path and tipped over and Lennart landed in a bunch of nettles. Oh how he screamed. Any of you who have touched nettles know how that stings. Mama came out and there was a bit hullaballoo. I had started to feel a little bit glad that it hadn’t gone well for Margaretha, but when I saw the welts on his soft little skin I felt so bad.

Farbror Andersson i Mellangården had a lot of trouble with his legs. When

Lennart was little, he would go over there and go with Farbror Andersson on a walk up through the fields and look at things. On their way back one time, Farbror Andersson thought it looked like Lennart was getting tired so he held out his hand and said to Lennart, “Would  you like to hold my hand if you’re tired?” Lennart said no; he could go by himself. After a bit then, I guess Lennart was getting more tired so he held out his hand to Farbror Andersson and said, “Would you like to hold my hand if you’re tired?” They walked hand in hand the rest of the way home."