Home Sweet Home

My home has been “upside-down” the last week…

“Factually” I was only expelled from home for about eight hours on Thursday (because of a change of windows in my flat, see previous post). It was a fine early autumn day at that (chilly winds, but sunny), and I tried to make the best of it. And yet it felt like an awfully long day (with nowhere to lie down for a bit of a proper neck-rest); which made me realize how lucky I am, not only to have a place to call home at all, but one where I feel at home, and normally quite like to spend as much “hometime” as I usually do/need to.

I don’t mean “realize” like in never having thought about it before (because I have); it just hit me a bit more forcefully than a normal day, as I found myself aimlessly wandering some unknown streets in town, with Paul Simon’s “Homeless” popping up in my head…

So when I got back home in the late afternoon, to my upside-down home, and was met by another realization – that new windows do not equal clean windows, but windows that need extra cleaning before anything else can be done – I decided not to complain but just take my time about it… and be thankful… First of all that the building is being kept in good repair; and second that the timing was “as good as it gets” with this kind of thing. (I much prefer September to December, which is probably how long it will be until they get through all the buildings on the estate.)

I was actually back on wi-fi already on Friday, but my computer has remained “off” the whole weekend, as I’ve been putting my energies towards restoring my home to normal.

Now I’m off to the dentist’s; life goes on…

Windows Upgrade IRL

I’ll be “off blog” for a couple of days, because of a change of windows. Not Windows, mind, but windows!

Just spent a day taking down all my curtains and removing flowerpots and “stuff”, preparing the way for the Big Job which is planned for tomorrow.

Before I got started I told myself not to panic.  There’s not all that much stuff just in front of the windows… the only heavy piece is the desk in the study… and if I take out the drawers… and getting curtains down is less of a problem than getting them up again… I can do it…

Half way through, I wondered: Where does all this stuff come from? And, more importantly, where am I going to put it?? Because they’ll be doing all four rooms… And not only do they need elbow room when working at the windows, they also need to be able to get to the windows (carrying windows!)…

Phew. Well, it’s Wednesday evening, and now there’s a strange echo from the keyboard because of no curtains and carpet in the study, and I just sincerely hope I won’t need anything from the bottom desk drawer as the drawers are piled up in a different corner of the room than the desk itself, which is shoved to the side (I hope I don’t need anything from the bookshelves either).

Later tonight I’ll disconnect the modem and the router, because they “live” close to a window too.

In the kitchen there’s just space enough for me now to have breakfast at one corner of the table tomorrow morning before I make myself scarce (going to the rehab pool – and after that I’d probably better have lunch in town).  Before I go I shall have to make my bed and take down the bedroom curtains and place those on the bed because that’s really the only space left I can think of…

Wish me luck. I can only hope they do get all four rooms “done” tomorrow, or I might end up spending tomorrow night on the sofa, draped in curtains…

Roots

I’ve known for years that on my mother’s side of the family I’m included in a genealogy book for a huge and locally *well-known “tribe” of people with roots going back to the time around when the town of Borås was founded (1621)  *(Famous mainly for the fact that it IS huge and rather well-researched, I think).

I found the book in one of my raids in The House, and took it home with me. This weekend for the first time I had a closer look, trying to make head and tail of the name-tables and trace my “bloodline” on that side of the family (my mother’s mother’s father).

The very first documented Ancestor in the book is a tenant farmer by name of Nils, born circa 1620. If I got it right, he was my mother’s mother’s father’s father’s father’s mother’s father’s mother’s father’s father’s father. (Don’t wake me in the middle of the night and ask me to repeat that…)

Presumably, even this Ancestor did not spring directly from the hand of God, but must in turn have had parents and grandparents and great grandparents… But as before the 1620s there was no law in Sweden about keeping parish registers, it seems that this is as far back in history as anyone will be able to get.

By now, the “family” is supposed to count around 23.000 members – 16.000 still living. And I who always claimed to have very few relatives…! (Which is still true if referring only to close ones: One brother, one aunt and two cousins. However, digging beyond that, my perspective is beginning to widen a little…)

Out of the Book also fell a family coat of arms. Wow. I got fascinated by coats of arms some years ago in connection with my Harry Potter-mania; although back then I had no idea that I had one of “my own”… Must have been my inherited sixth sense nudging me to get prepared for the discovery! (Read on.)

Of course this coat of arms is completely fake in that it does not really go back to the 1600s (a tenant farmer wouldn’t have had a coat of arms). As far as I understand, it was designed in the mid 1900s or so…

… but the design inspired by a story about Nils Nilsson, son of the first Nils, who lived 1656-1708. According to tradition, he was a travelling tradesman/pedlar, who even travelled as far as Russia. Once (the story goes) he sensed that he had better get back home very quickly, and he then travelled on a sled over the ice, embedded in a load of straw. This is supposed to have happened in connection with a great fire that devastated the town of Borås in mid December 1681.

So the family coat of arms includes a sled and a sheaf. I’m glad the explanation is given in the book, because at first glance I really didn’t have a clue what those symbols on the shield were supposed to be… ;)

Walk With Me

In several Swedish towns you’ll be able to find  a special “health path” marked with this sign:

For a walkpath to qualify for this sign, it should be easily accessible for anyone. For example it should not include steep hills or stairs. There will be signs along the way to help you keep track of how far you’ve walked.  If you follow the whole path (4 km in my town) you will get back to your starting point. But there should also be plenty of possibilities to enter or leave the path anywhere, and to choose shortcuts.

There is a starting point for my town’s health path very close to where I live, and yesterday I decided to follow it.  I frequently walk various parts of it, but rarely the whole path in one go. Actually even yesterday I got a bit sidetracked when I got into town, but never mind…

One of our more spectacular pieces of modern architecture – a triangular glass-covered office building.

Oops, the health path (left) is closed… Even if someone else evidently just went ahead anyway, I think I’ll take the steeper path to the right… I know that from the top of that little hill there is a better view over the town:

They’ve been building a new traffic roundabout here and I’ve lost the path, no sign in sight… Never mind, I know roughly where I’m supposed to go anyway…

Some autumn colours are sneaking up on us!

Back on track, along the river.

Old textile factory building to the left, the tower of the old church in the middle. (And no, I’ve not gone for a swim, I’m standing on a bridge.)

A powerful building: The electricity company.

No autumn colours yet in those trees!

Entering a street which was officially opened as a new Pedestrian Street, with a ceremony earlier the same day.

Getting distracted… A vintage second hand shop seemed to have moved half of their stock out on the street.

A magic toy shop. (Can you see me?)

The old Town Hall / Court House from an unusal angle.

The fountain in the Town Square. There was quite a wind blowing so if you got too close to the fountain it was like walking into a rainshower.

There’s that church tower again.
It has a habit of following you around…

You know the old superstition of not walking under ladders? I’d include scaffolding. And wheelbarrows…

I got sidetracked into another shop, but here I am again. It would be quicker now to turn around and walk home in the other direction, but I’ll follow the path…

The outdoors cafés still popular, even on a windy day.

Still a bit of exotic touch with the palm trees… They’ll soon be moved indoors into some greenhouse for the winter. Walking towards our Bus Square, where all of the town’s bus routes meet.

Anna Lindh’s park, with the Non-Violence sculpture. (In memory of Anna Lindh, minister for foreign affairs, who was assassinated – in Stockholm – on 10th September 2003. Nine years ago on Monday…)

Along the river again… Old factory buildings on one side, and modern housing on the other:

And the city continues to grow… On the building site behind that fence, a new 12-storey building will be rising.

Coming to a crossroads again… Following the official path, I should take the one to the left. But I choose to go the right and take a shortcut/detour across the old cemetery. (It’s a shortcut if I really take the shortest way across. A detour if I stroll around a bit…)

For one thing I get to say hello to the rabbits…

… and some of my ancestors (great-grandparents, left).

On the other side of the cemetery, we’re back to where we started this walk. Thanks for keeping me company!

Linking to Straight Out of the Camera Sunday.

 

 

 

Time Not Wasted

I’m still contemplating my finds from the American population censuses I looked at last week.

Among other things I found out in whose household my great-aunt Gerda was working in Chicago back in 1910: a physician by name of Otto L. Schmidt.

I tried googling Otto, and was further rewarded. It seems he was a very prominent man in Chicago, and not least in the German-American community (he was born in Chicago but of German descent). His name is engraved (among others) on the Illinois State Archives building, and 17 boxes of his papers are kept at the Chicago History Museum. He was the first physician in Chicago to use X-rays. (He was also sued by one patient for the side-effects,  in the early days…) He was also trustee or chairman in several historical societies. In 1933, he was vice president of the German Group at the Chicago World’s Fair, and seems to have taken a stand against nazism in the way he dealt with some issues in that context (the landing of the German airship Graf Zeppelin, and the use of the Nazi flag/symbol.)

Not quite coincidentally, I’m also currently reading a biography of the Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte. He and his American wife Estelle, born Manville, were Gerda’s employers in the 1930’s and onwards. (That she worked for them I’ve long known from family sources; what I still don’t know is exactly when, where and how she came to do so.)

Folke Bernadotte is known for his negotiation of the release of many thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps towards the end of the 2nd World War; and after the war as the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict of 1947–1948. He was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948.

Reading the biography I also learned that one of his early important public appearances was to give a public speech on behalf of  the king of Sweden (his uncle, Gustav V) at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. (An event I didn’t know much about until combined with what I found written about Otto Schmidt.)

And old photo of Gerda with a note on the back tells me that in the summer of 1933, she visited Pleasantville (New York); which is where the Manville family lived (Estelle’s parents).

There is another photo, without any notes attached, which seems to be from the same time and place. In that one, Gerda appears together with two little boys; which I now conclude to be Folke’s and Estelle’s sons born in 1930 and 1931, in which case both photos were probably taken at the Manville family estate.

Knowing that Folke Bernadotte had an official role to play at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, makes it all the more plausible that he and Estelle also took the opportunity to take the boys to see their grandparents. My theory is that they left the boys in Pleasantville (with Gerda), while Folke (and probably Estelle too) visited Chicago.

See the photos and more in recent posts over at my blog Greetings from the Past.