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."