A 'Swenglish' journey through family photos, notes and postcards
from the early 20th century.

2024-03-16

My Mum as Teacher - Sepia Saturday 715

 


My mother, born 1930, graduated from teacher training college in the spring of 1952. Here she is on her graduation day together with her parents. Her father was a school teacher as well. Her mother, before she got married, had had a secretarial job.

In the autumn of 1952, my mum moved to a small countryside village for her first teaching job. It was a very small school. From the few photos in her photo album, it seems her pupils were all ages, from beginners (7 year olds) to their early teens. (Rather reminding of Anne of Green Gables or Little House of the Prairie kind of schools.)

The school house


"My children"


"First year"

"Break"

(Drawing by my mum in her album)

The school house from another angle. Photo taken when my dad (then her boyfriend) and his parents came to visit. My parents with my grandmother Sally +  my grandparents' dog Zepp (a collie). Photo taken by my grandfather Gustaf.  (My parents got engaged at Christmas that year, 1952.)


As teacher, my mum lived in this small cottage next to a farm house.


"View from my window"

"Winter break"

At the end of the spring term 1953, she took the older of her pupils on a school trip to Gothenburg.






Photo from tourist boat 'Paddan'  in Gothenburg

While I don't know how many of the young people aboard "belong" to my mum, I think I can spot evidence that her fiancé joined them for this boat trip: Dark-haired young man with sunglasses, next to dark-haired young woman - on the right, 7th row or so from the front...


Linking to Sepia Saturday 715





2024-03-10

Smoking a Pipe - Sepia Saturday 714


My grandfather Gustaf used to smoke a pipe. I remember it from my own childhood, although I don't think he usually smoked a lot in the house. But the photos above, from his photo albums, do confirm his habit. I also had a look in his old cash-books to see if I could find out when he started. In his notes from 1923-25, there are no posts mentioning tobacco of any kind. From January 1926 onward, it seems he started buying cigars now and then. (That was the year when he started working full time as a journalist...) In January and February 1928, both cigars and 'tobacco' are mentioned - but from March that year and onward, it seems he kept to pipe tobacco. However, I see no purchase of a pipe mentioned...  Maybe someone gave him one for Christmas in 1927...? (Might even have been his girlfriend - my grandmother - if she preferred the smell of pipe smoke to cigars...)

The upper left photo in the collage is one of my favourites. I've shown it here before, for example for Sepia Saturday 669. It's my grandparents Sally and Gustaf in the spring of 1930 (not yet married, but engaged since the previous autumn) at the newly finished well on the plot where they built their house that spring/summer of 1930. The well was built by their future brother-in-law, Olle (engaged to Sally's sister Hildur), carpenter by trade. (To build the house itself, they hired someone else. - It's not the house in the background, that belonged to someone else.) 


Linking to Sepia Saturday 714



2024-03-02

Going to Work - Sepia Saturday 713

I have written about my grandfather Gustaf's career before, for example last summer in a post for Sepia Saturday 675. He started out as a shoemaker's apprentice in his early teens, but what he really wanted to do was write. He gradually managed to shift to a career as journalist, by taking a few correspondence courses, and starting out by freelancing until eventually he got a full time employment as journalist at a local newspaper in the nearest town (1926). He also usually took his own photos when he was out and about on various jobs. 

He was more often behind the camera rather than in front of it, and I haven't got a lot of photos of himself related to his job. But there are these:


After he left the shoemaker's business, he had a room at the farm where his childhood friend Nils and his family (mother, two sisters and two uncles) lived - at first probably in exchange for also helping out a bit at the farm. This photo shows him at his desk in that room (which was probably in a small separate cottage rather than in the main farm house). 

(He was later to marry Nils' sister Sally, my grandmother; but I think when he first moved in at the farm they were still just friends.) 


This is a photo of him at work from later years
(not sure when or where)


This is not my grandfather, but one of his colleagues at the newspaper where he worked between 1926-1938. (In 1938 he was recruited to another, bigger newspaper in the same town.)











2024-01-13

Sound of Music - Sepia Saturday 706

 

 


I've been searching my family albums for photos of pianos and organs I remember from my childhood, but found only two. The one above stood in the home of my dad's uncle Nils (my grandmother's brother), his wife Carin and their four children - and I have no idea who of them used to play. On this occasion, Christmas 1957, it was me (1½ years old) and my mum...


My dad, my grandfather, two of my dad's cousins, their mother Carin, my mum, me and my grandmother. As Nils is not in the picture, I suppose he may be the photographer.

In spite of me looking rather determined to learn there at age 1½, I never got any good at it. My parents bought a piano of their own when we moved to a bigger house in 1965, and I did take piano lessons through grade 4-6 in school - but quit after that. I just didn't have a natural talent for it - unlike my little brother, who turned out to be a lot more musical than me.  Here he is at Christmas 1968 (~ 7 years old), at the piano in our living room. (Christmas tree in the background.) This piano was brown, I'm not sure what kind of wood.


In my maternal grandparents' house there was also a piano, but I have searched my albums in vain for a photo that shows it. In my mind, I can see quite clearly though: Big and black, opposite the fireplace; and at Christmas, the Christmas tree to the left of it. 

In my paternal grandparents' house, there was no piano - but when I was little there was a small old pump organ, which I think fascinated me even more than pianos, as besides the pedals to tread, it also had that row of little buttons (or whatever you call them) to push and pull. I can't find that organ showing in any photo either. It looked a little bit like the photo below (found online from some auction site) - but simpler, without the fancy decorations. I can't recall either of my grandparents ever playing it, though - nor my father. 



Linking to Sepia Saturday 706
(January theme: Sound of Music)







2023-12-16

St. Lucia and Advent traditions - Sepia Saturday 703

On 13th December in Sweden, Norway, and the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland,  we celebrate Lucia, or St Lucy's Day - a festival of lights in honour of the early Christian martyr, St. Lucia, who was killed by the Romans in 304 CE because of her religious beliefs. 

Nowadays the celebrations involve a procession led by a girl chosen to represent Lucia wearing a wreath of candles on her head, followed by others dressed in white and and holding candles in their hands (sometimes also boys), singing traditional songs. (When children are taking part, there may also be gnomes and gingerbread men and whatnot involved.) This festival marks the beginning of the Christmas season and is meant to bring hope and light during the darkest time of the year. It can be celebrated both in public (in churches, schools, towns, work places etc) and at home. It usually also involves  coffee, special saffron buns (lussekatter) and ginger biscuits.

The tradition also has roots in this day in the past having been seen as the darkest night of the year (winter solstice), and then celebrated with bonfires meant to scare off evil spirits etc, and some traditions reminding more of British/American Halloween. 

I mentioned this in a post back in March this year, for Sepia Saturday 662, as my grandmother mentioned "pranksters" in connection with Lucia night in a letter. As evidence I then also  included this photo from one of her albums; showing that in this part of Sweden, the "darker" variant of the tradition was still practiced in the mid/late 1920s. 


From my own early childhood, I can't recall any elements of that kind connected with Lucia celebrations, though. Below is a photo from my first photo album, with a frame drawn by my mother where she included the traditional lussekatter (saffron buns) and pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies) 




Helping mum make gingerbread biscuits in 1960


Me and my little brother opening a door in an advent calendar, 1963. I remember this calendar, it was connected to a children's radio theatre calendar that year, involving people living in an apartment house. You opened a new window each day, connected to the radio story; and the calendar was made to be placed around a table lamp, so that the light shone through opened windows on all four sides of the building.


Linking to Sepia Saturday 703 (December, Life Indoors)