When Fredrick Carlson came to visit

I found these three pictures of Fredrick
and Mom in one of Mom's albums and
I'm guessing they were taken during the
time she's describing here, but they're
not labeled so I don't know for sure.

"The next company we had from America was Fredrick Carlson.  Mama had a letter from Fred and Ruby Carlson in Minnesota, and they said their son Fredrick was in Germany doing his military training. They had sent him money, so he could travel up to Sweden and see if he could find us. I went into Rune Davidson and borrowed his English books. He was in high school at the time. On Sunday, I sat reading in those books trying to memorize some more words. Just then, Sara and Ingemar came home. When they heard the story, they said, “You’re sitting there reading like you think he’s coming tomorrow!” I said, “Well, it doesn’t say in the letter when exactly he’s coming.”

It happened that the next day, they called from the railroad station and said they had an American boy standing there. He didn’t speak any Swedish, and they didn’t have anybody at the station who spoke English, but he had a note with Mama’s name and address on it. “What shall we do with him?” Well, Dad wasn’t home, so she asked them to call a taxi and have it bring him up to Kjettestorp. So they did and here came this taxicab and stopped in front of the barn.  Fredrick stepped out, and I was sent out to meet him. I asked him years later, “What did I say when I met you at the gate?” He answered, “Welcome to Sweden!” So we agreed that I had done pretty good. I was the one to try to entertain Fredrick because I spoke more English than anyone else.

Vet någon om dom här är Karin's flickor?

We walked to Grönede, so he could see what that looked like. We visited with Morbror Nisse. He had a lot of guns and Morbror Nisse was a master shot and had won a lot of competitions. Fredrick understood guns so that was something they could communicate about. Then we had all the cousins come to Kjettestorp. Axel spoke some English so that was good. They could visit. Axel’s sister Karin came with her little girls, and one of those girls came up to Fredrick and asked, “Vad säger kor i Amerika?” (“What do cows say in America?”) Axel translated and Fredrick said, “Moooo!” The little girl said, “Kanske kor är klokare än folk om pratar alla dom samma språk!” (“Maybe cows are smarter than people if they speak the same language!”)

The Dala Cow Picture is just for fun :)

Well, I had started to talk about going to America before Fredrick came but my Dad was never very much in favor of it. They always thought of the Titanic. Well, one day we took Fredrick to his grandfather’s birthplace, and we stood there looking at the farm where all of those people had come from, eight siblings and only two of them in Sweden, all the others in Minnesota and they were all born in this little place in the parish of Vist. We had called Moster Maria, and she brought along her daughter Maj and Maj spoke some English. We asked the people in the house if we could be on their lawn and so we had a picnic there in this place. After we ate Fredrick stood there looking around the place where his grandfather had been born, and tears started to

Fredrick and Mom :)

trickle down his cheeks, and he said, “If my Dad ever comes to Sweden, please take him to this place.” When Dad saw this and heard what he had said, Dad said, “Well, these Americans do seem to be good people. I guess it would be ok, Gun, if you went to America.”

Thor and Alma Johnson visit Sweden

Alma and Thor sitting in front of Kjettestorp

"The next Americans to come and visit were Thor and Alma Johnson. Thor was my Dad’s first cousin. The two sisters, Anna Lovisa and Helena Sofia, both

The cousins, Thor Boberg and 

Thor Johnson

named sons Thor, one in America and one in Sweden.  Anna Lovisa married a man whose last name was Johnson. I can’t remember his first name now.  Well, Anna Lovisa and Mr. Johnson had several kids, among them was Vivian who had a son Fancher whose daughter Susie is still in town here. She and her family have been a special connection through the years. And then there was Thor whose daughters are Bubs Olson and Marge Paulson, my American sisters. Bubs’ sons are Gary and Brad, and we’ve had lots of fun with them and their families through the years.  

Well back to Sweden. It must’ve been in the late 50s when Thor and Alma came. They stayed with us for a while, and they were a lot of fun. Thor was determined that I should come and visit them. He said he would pay my travel even but I was too independent for that. I wanted to go to America, but I wanted to pay my own way.

Thor, Ingemar, Sara, Elin and Alma

We had a lot of fun with Thor and Alma when they visited us in Sweden. Thor’s mother, of course, had come from Grönede but Alma’s parents had come from Småland. Kjettestorp isn’t very far from Småland, so we decided to take them down there to visit a relative. Dad was driving and I went along. To pass the time in the car, Thor wanted me to sing something, so I sang “Smålandssången,” the song of the county of Småland. Some of the words are “Röd lyser stugan bak hängbjörkens slöja, känner du hemmet från barndomens dar.” (“Red shines the cottage underneath of the birches, do you remember your childhood home?”) Well, Thor liked that but then I thought of “Flickorna i Småland,” “The Girls from Småland.” And oh, that one he really liked.  I had to sing it over and over again because Thor wanted to learn it so he could sing it when he came home.

Alma with Gunilla, Christina and Birgitta,
Brita and Henrik's girls

Well, before they left, all of Dad’s cousins were invited to Kjettestorp to meet their American cousins and you know how it can be with big family gatherings. You can see what differences there are even between family members, and sometimes they can be funny. We were cooking dinner. Sara and I were the chief cooks. Brita and Margaretha did all the other work, serving and such things. Thorbjörn, Birgitta and Ingalena were the biggest kids, and they were going to look after the little kids, and they decided that they were going to let Kjell-Egon, Farbror Folke and Greta’s son, decide what to play. Ingalena came in and said to Sara that Kjell-Egon decided that Ingalena and Birgitta were going to be two women who sat in a café, and Kjell-Egon was going to be a drunk man who came in and bothered them. Then Thorbjörn was supposed to be a policeman who came in and arrested this drunk. Sara said, “As much as you know, if Folke and Greta hear that then our kids will be blamed for it.” She went out to try and find something else for them to play. The difficulty was that Kjell-Egon was never allowed to play with other children except when he went to school so he didn’t know any of the little games kids played. He didn’t know Hoppa Hage, hopscotch, and he

didn’t know how to just play catch, but Sara found something else for them to play and came back in the kitchen, and she and I got the giggles.

Elin, Ingalena, Alma, Sara, Ingemar, Thor and Thorbjörn

The color photos in this post were taken by the Kingsburg Thor and developed as slides.

I found them in amongst Mom and Dad's slides while playing with a slide scanner :)

Then in the afternoon, it was sunny and warm and all the kids kicked their shoes off and ran barefoot but Greta said that Kjell-Egon was not allowed to go barefoot. Finally she gave in a little and let him run in his socks. Mama said, “I’d much rather wash a kid’s feet than his socks!”

Then later on that night, we were going to watch a movie Thor had taken of the family in America to show the cousins in Sweden. It showed his brothers and sisters and their families and, of course, his own family. When it was time to show this movie, all the other kids sat on the floor but being strict Pentecostal, Farbror Folke said Kjell-Egon could not see a movie, so he took him outside. Greta, though, stayed in. Thor tried to say that it was just family but Farbror Folke said it’s a moving picture and he couldn’t look at it. We couldn’t help but wonder if it was such a sin for the boy to watch a movie, why did she stay in? And we had a hard time not giggling then.

That day ended in a big sort of slumber party. Most of the family stayed overnight, so there were people sleeping in every room, on the floors and in all the beds. It was great fun."

Uncle Otto visits from America

Otto Carlsson, sitting
in the yard at Kjettestorp

"There were eight siblings in my Morfar’s family, and it was only Morfar and Tekla who stayed in Sweden. All the others went to Minnesota and out of all of them, only one got married. That was Fredrick Carlsson. At least that’s what he was called in Sweden. He called himself Fred in Minnesota. His son was also Fred Carlson. The other siblings were John, Otto, Anna, Matilda, and Hanna, all in Minnesota.

One of the women, they used to say, had such a hard time learning English. I don’t remember if that was Anna or Matilda. She used to say, “Jag kan inte förstår varför de kalla en häst a Horse när det är en häst!” (“I can’t understand why they call a häst a Horse, when it is a häst!”)

Uncle Otto came home to visit once. It was in 1947, I think. Thorbjörn was about a year old; I remember him as a little baby in the pictures that were taken. Well, how it happened was one day, with no forewarning whatsoever, they called from the radio station and told Mama, “We have an American here who wants to come up to your place. What shall we do?” Mama asked if they could help him to the bus station and put him on the bus. They said they could. So then I was sent down to the road to meet the bus. 

Lennart carrying Onkel 

Otto's luggage

When I saw it coming, I waved it down and stopped the bus and asked the driver if he had an American on board. I saw a man jump up back there on the bus and he said, “O Elin! Ä’ de’ du?” (“Oh Elin! Is that you?”) He thought I was my mother. Well, we got his trunks off there but they were too heavy for us to carry up the hill.  I thought we could leave them there and someone could bring a horse and wagon back to get them, but he would not leave them down by the fence. He thought for sure someone would come and steal them. So we dragged and fought them up behind some rocks so they were out of sight. Then we walked home and Lennart was home, so he went and took a horse and wagon and got the suitcases.

Mom and Margaretha are sitting on the ground here. Thor, Uncle Otto and Elin are in the middle

and in the back row stand Henrik and Brita, Lennart, and Sara, Ingemar and baby Thorbjörn.

Uncle Otto stayed with us for several months. He was the first person I ever heard speak what now we’d call Swenglish. He didn’t like to walk on the gravel path. He walked on the grass instead. Someone asked him why he did this and he said, “The gravel cutter up skorna.” Meaning, “the gravel will cut up my shoes” but it was some real Swenglish. One day he was sitting outside and all of a sudden he didn’t know where his jacket was. He said, “Ja tenker dos

This picture has nearly the same group as the

previous one but here Astor joins Margaretha

in the back row and Mom must be the photographer.

kidsen tog den.” “I think those kids took it.” But again it was something of a mixture of Swedish and English. And we knew that was Inger and Rune Davidson. They were just little kids; what would they do with a jacket? We looked around and found it, of course. And we called him Onkel Otto, our version of Uncle.

We had many family gatherings while Uncle Otto was home and one time Nisse i Grönede asked him to sing something. Well, he started to sing “Nicolina,” an old old song. (I found a version of this song on Youtube which is sung in a very twangy English -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvyTcoEiSHw ).

I also remember he got sick. I don’t remember if it was a kidney stone or a gall stone. He was in the hospital and had surgery. Relatives went and visited him there just about every day but, nobody called and said that he was ready to come home. Well, one day, all of a sudden I came through the hallway and I saw him sitting out on the porch. He had gone out and gotten into a taxi and come back to Kjettestorp! He talked a lot about Minnesota and Minneapolis, in particular."

Mom labeled this shot, "Klar för återförd i Aug. -47" ("Ready to leave in August '47")

I remember the first camera I ever saw

This is Faster Hanna Carlsson and one of the playhouse pictures she took.
The photo of Faster Hanna says it was taken in Minneapolis :)

"The first camera that I ever saw was Faster Hanna’s. She was my

Mother’s Faster and she had come to visit from America. She took a picture or two of us in front of the playhouse. I think I’m about four years old there. AnnaLisa and Karin, our cousins from Rimforsa, are in those pictures too.

Tekla Carlsson

They must have come along with Faster Hannah. Hanna had come to visit her sister who lived in Turnvik outside of Rimforsa. She came to prepare herself to move home. When she got back to America, she got everything packed and came back and lived the rest of her life with her sister Tekla. Neither Tekla nor Hannah had ever been married. And what a treat it was when Margaretha and I were set on the train to go to Rimforsa and they met us at the station and we walked to Turnvik. We spent a whole week with Faster Tekla and Faster Hannah. They waited on us like we were princesses. Coming from a big family, we were used to waiting on ourselves or doing things to help others out.

We almost didn’t know what to do with ourselves. And Faster Hannah let us look at things from America. She had one of these viewers that you put two pictures in side by side and through the viewer they look three dimensional. Oh we thought that was the greatest thing.

One of Farbror Folke's pictures.
Left to right on the bottom step are
Margaretha, Mom and Henrik.
In the middle is Karin. The back
row has Brita, AnnaLisa and Sara. 

The next camera I saw was Farbror Folke’s. He brought it with him when he came home. It amazes me now that I think about it how he was able to afford a camera. And he had a car! Someone must have given him the car in one of the congregations that supported him. He took a picture of us kids on the front steps once. Henrik and I are sitting on the lowest front step. Of course it was hard for me to be still long enough to take a picture, so I’m sitting crinkling my skirt in my fingers and digging with my feet in the sand. He also took a picture of the older folks, Mama and Papa, Midi, Hildegard, Ragnar and Farfar. And there stands Margaretha in front. She wasn’t supposed to be in that picture but she was curious and just a couple of years old. I think Henrik snuck in the middle there too somewhere.

Somewhere in my photo albums I have pictures that were taken by a photographer who went around the neighborhood and took pictures of people. So there lined up in front of the barn are Ragnar who’s holding Grålla. She was a grey mare and grey is grå in Swedish so that’s how she became Grålla. In his other hand, he holds a horse named Bläsen. The white mark on a horse’s face was called a bläs and this horse had a big white mark so there he got his name. Then there was Farfar holding Gulli. Gulli was a golden mare with a black mane. She was a brood mare and had foals ever so often. She was such a gentle nice horse that any of us

kids could ride on bareback. We did this even before we were big enough to get up on her back by ourselves. Someone else would lift us up and we would hold onto her mane. Then there's Henrik holding Flora which I think was just a nice horse name. Then there’s Dad with Ayax. Where he got his name I don’t know but he was a son of Gulli. Then there stands Mama and she’s holding Lennart on her arm, and he can’t be more than a year or two old. Then standing a little in the front her, there is Margaretha and I. And I’ve laughed looking at this picture so many times because as a small child, I was always pretty shy. I didn’t like to have to stand still and look up at some man I didn’t know with his black box, so I look so troubled in these pictures. Then next to me stands Margaretha and she smiles and poses even though she was only three or four years old. I thought she was such a pretty little girl. I’ve laughed at that picture over and over to see my frown and her smile.

We also have a picture from that same day of the family in the yard in the front of the house. Ragnar and Papa look like they hadn’t shaved that day. Hildegard and Midi are in it. Mama is sitting holding Lennart in her lap. Brita and Sara are dressed in black dresses with pearl necklaces. They must have been going somewhere or coming home from somewhere; I don’t remember all those details. I think that might be part of why I was somewhat unhappy that day; I was stuck at home as one of the 'little girls' not old enough to dress up and go along."