The Bike Riding Youth Group

After confirmation then, we were eligible to join the youth group there at church and all the Boberg kids went to the meetings. Pastor Myrgård was such an easy-going man and he made it so much fun. Sometimes in summertime, we'd get on bikes and ride out to see members who lived out of town. One these trips, he was on his bike and he'd have one of his kids on behind him and Tyra would have another one and the two oldest would ride by themselves. That was a very memorable time for me.

This is one of the youth group programs Mom describes. Sara is second from the left and Margaretha is third from the left :)

Every year, in town, the youth group also had a Luciafest and it was always held in the Mission House. In the Mission House, there was a middle set of seats and then there were aisles on either side of those seats and then there were two more sets of seats beyond those aisles. Lucia would come from the front down one aisle and then through the entry hall and back up the other aisle. We'd go up on stage and have a program. Our mothers would have brought in refreshments, rolls and cookies or whatever. The Mission House was full to the brim everytime we had a Luciafest.

One time the youth group was going to sing in church, probably 20 or 30 kids, but Gunnar Brolin said that I couldn't sing because I couldn't hold a tune. I was the only one singled out who couldn't be in on this. I always thought that

Mom is in the middle here and her friend Karin is third
from the left.

that was rather silly. Would it have matter that much if one kid couldn't sing so well? Another time we had a program in church. They were up around the altar and carried different things and represented different things. They sang some songs and read some scriptures. I couldn't be in that one either, but I wasn't the only one left out there. Sara and Margaretha were in it and a little girl named Boyan who lived with us for a couple of years. Her mother had been taken to a mental hospital and I think her father should have been in one too. He was not quite right either. Boyan had a sister who was taken in by a family in

Kisa but that family wasn't sure they could handle both of them. When they got a bit older, Boyan was able to go live with her sister.

Mom is in the middle again and Karin is right in front.

Anyway, as part of these programs, we would ask for donations and whatever we raised was put toward scholarships for synod youth conventions. If you had your own money, you could go, but the scholarships were given to different people each year. I got a scholarship one year to go to the convention in Mjölby, never guessing that later Sara and Ingemar would move to Mjölby and I would spend a good deal of time there.

Mom is second from the right here and Karin
is on the far left.

Another time there were a bunch of us who rode bicycles to Eksjö which is in Småland. It is about 7 Swedish miles from Kjettestorp. Ingvar i Vimantorp was going on a bicycle so then the rest of us could go. Karin i Blåsten was with and some other kids from Kisa and me. We packed blankets on the back of our bikes. We rode to Eksjö and ate ice cream and talked and laughed a lot that day.

(If anyone can help identify the other folks in these Eksjö pictures, let me know :)