M.009.01
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| The Jekyll Island Club Golf Course, 12th Green Jekyll Island, Georgia |
To: Mr Gustav Samuelson, Storegården, Fristad, Sweden
From: Gerda (Brunswick, GA, Feb 6, 1937
From: Gerda (Brunswick, GA, Feb 6, 1937
Sänder dig hjärtligaste hälsningar från denna ön. Det är ganska tyst och lugnt här, men ej fullt så mycke som det ser ut på kortet. Det har varit varmt och skönt emellanåt så man kan bada. Skrev brev för ej länge sedan. Vi mår alla bra, hoppas du gör det [också]. Kommer nog hem --- i mars. /Gerda
Sending you warm greetings from this island. It's rather still and quiet here, but not quite as much as it may seem from the card. I wrote a letter not long ago. We are all well, hope you are too. Will probably be home in March.
M.009.02
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| The Jekyll Island Club, Beach at Low Tide Jekyll Island, Georgia - d. 17 - 2 - 37 |
To: Mrs Selma Emanuelson, Nysäter, Fristad, Sweden
From: Gerda (Brunswick, GA, Feb 18, 1937)
From: Gerda (Brunswick, GA, Feb 18, 1937)
Nu har vi varit här i 5 veckor och solat, och nästa vecka reser vi hem till Sverige igen. Vi mår alla bra, hoppas att ni gör detsamma. Hjärtliga hälsningar till Er samtl. från Gerda
Now we have been here for 5 weeks sunbathing, and next week we'll be going back home to Sweden again. We are all well, hope that you all are too. Love to you all from Gerda.
M.009.03
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| Working hard for the family dinner in Dixieland - S.430 |
Series No. S-313 C.T. Southern Pickaninny* Scenes
"C.T. Art Colortone" Reg. US. Pat. Off.
Made only by Curt Teich & Co., Inc., Chicago
I'm having problems finding a genographical definition of Dixieland - wondering if any of my American readers can help me? (Google only givs me references to music!)
"Pickaninny (also picaninny, piccaninny or pickinninie) is a word applied originally by people of the West Indies to their babies and more widely referring to small children --- derived from the Portuguese pequenino ("very small"). --- In contrast to this neutral meaning, the word has been used in North America as a racial slur referring to a dark-skinned child of African descent." [Wikipedia]
To: Herr Gustav Samuelsson, Storegåren, Fristad, Sweden
From : Gerda (Brunswick, GA, Feb 18, 1937)
Om en vecka reser vi härifrån, den 26 lemnar vi New York med Europa, omkring den 8 mars är vi nog hemma igen tänker jag. Vi mår alla bra. K. hälsningar, Gerda.
In a week we'll be leaving here, on the 26th we're leaving from New York with the Europa, around March 8th we should be back home again I think. We're all well. Love, Gerda
M.010.01
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| NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD BREMEN Turbinen-Schnelldampfer "Europa" |
From: Gerda (sent from Bremen, Germany, March 5, 1937)
Europa den 4-3.37
Vi är nu snart framme och resan har gått mycke bra och vi mår alla gott. Söndag e.m. kl 4 är vi i Stockholm. Kära hälsningar, Gerda
Vi är nu snart framme och resan har gått mycke bra och vi mår alla gott. Söndag e.m. kl 4 är vi i Stockholm. Kära hälsningar, Gerda
Aboard "Europa" - March 4, 1937
We will soon be arriving [in Germany]. The journey has gone well and we are all feeling fine. On Sunday at 4 pm we'll be in Stockholm. Love, Gerda
We will soon be arriving [in Germany]. The journey has gone well and we are all feeling fine. On Sunday at 4 pm we'll be in Stockholm. Love, Gerda
"JEDER Volksgenosse Rundfunkhören"
"EVERY fellow countryman, listen to the radio"
"EVERY fellow countryman, listen to the radio"
Trying to find some info about this German additional stamp/cancellation on the postcard, I landed on a website belonging to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org), where I found this photo, with the text: "Germans listen to an antisemitic speech by Hitler. Josef Goebbels, minister of propaganda, encouraged every family to acquire a radio. Germany, January 30, 1937."
Försök att finna mer information om den extra poststämpeln på det sista vykortet, "JEDER Volksgenosse Rundfunkhören" – en uppmaning till alla tyska medborgare att lyssna på radio - ledde mig till en webb-sida från ett amerikanskt Minnesmuseum över Förintelsen, där jag fann detta foto med texten: ”Tyskar lyssnande till ett antisemitiskt tal av Hitler. Josef Goebbels, propagandaminister, uppmuntrade varje familj att skaffa en radio. Tyskland, 30 januari 1937.”
Apart from two postcards from the coronation of king George IV in England, which I already used for Sepia Saturday 624, the ones in this post are the last postcards written by Gerda that I have. As we all know (and as that appeal - or order - to all Germans to listen to their leaders on the radio remind us), the outbreak of World War II is now only a couple of years away. How much (if at all) the Bernadottes continued to travel abroad as a family during the war years, I don't know. And with Folke Bernadotte gradually getting more and more involved in various diplomatic and war-related affairs, I can also imagine Gerda getting even more cautious than usual about even giving hints about their whereabouts on postcards.
The story of Gerda's life doesn't stop with the postcards, of course. I just have less details from the later years. She kept on working for the Bernadottes throughout WWII and beyond. After Folke Bernadotte was tragically assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948, she still remained living with Estelle at their home in Stockholm, Dragongården, way past normal retirement age - I think nearly all her life. She lived to be nearly 92 years old. Estelle later got remarried - but not until the same year that Gerda died (1973).
There may well be some more posts about Gerda to come; I'm just not quite sure yet how to continue. But besides maybe some glimpses and speculations from later years, I've been thinking of going back and take another look at her early years as a maid in Chicago. While I probably can't dig up any more cards written by her, I do have one album of Christmas and Easter greetings written to her saved from those years. Most of them don't have much written on them, but there may be exceptions. And there are also some unwritten cards that I might be able to connect to things I've found out from the written ones along the way.
In between, I may also try to sum up what I know about some of the other siblings and their families; including my own grandparents.
Linking to Sepia Saturday 633
... lots of things still left to look into...
Dessa är de sista vykorten skrivna av Gerda som jag har; förutom två från kröningen av George IV i England (1937), som jag redan använt i ett tidigare inlägg (för Sepia Saturday 624). Som vi alla vet (och som poststämpeln på det sista kortet här påminner oss om), så är det nu bara ett par år kvar tills andra världskriget bryter ut. Hur mycket familjen Bernadotte (och Gerda) fortsatte att resa utomlands tillsammans som familj under kringsåren vet jag inte. Men då Folke Bernadotte blev allt mer involverad i diplomatska och krigsrelaterade uppdrag, föreställer jag mig att Gerda kanske antagligen också blev ännu mer försiktig än vanligt med att röja via vykort ens var de befann sig för tillfället. (Hon hade ju också viss erfarenhet av postcensur från sina år i Frankrike under första världskriget.)
Gerdas livshistoria upphör förstås inte med vykorten – jag har bara inte så mycket detaljer från de senare åren. Hon fortsatte att arbeta för familjen Bernadotte under krigsåren, och betydligt längre än så. Efter det tragiska mordet på Folke Bernadotte i Jerusalem 1948, blev hon kvar hos Estelle Bernadotte på Dragongården mer eller mindre livet ut, eller i alla fall långt efter normal pensionsålder. Hon blev nära 92 år gammal. Estelle gifte så småningom om sig – men inte förrän samma år som Gerda dog, 1973.
Det kan mycket väl bli fler blogginlägg om Gerda – jag är just nu bara lite osäker på hur jag bäst kan ”sy ihop” hennes historia. Förutom en del glimtar (och spekulationer) kring de senare åren, så kommer jag antagligen också att gå tillbaka och titta lite mer på hennes tidiga år i Chicago. Även om jag inte har fler vykort skrivna av henne, så har jag ett album med jul- och påsk-hälsningar (och liknande) skickade till henne, från de åren. De flesta av dem mycket kortfattade, men det kan finnas undantag. Därutöver har jag också ett antal oskrivna vykort som hon sparat, och som jag kanske nu bättre kan relatera till de skrivna kort jag gått igenom.
Ah, Dixieland refers to all of the southern states...below the Mason Dixon line. And it also refers to the southern use of the term by white and black in the civil war song "away down south in Dixie!" Of course the use of derogatory terms for blacks, including pickaninny for black children was the continuing southern "Jim Crow" efforts to keep blacks in secondary citizen statue...including lack of schools, health care, and voting rights. The whites of the southern states had a hard time (generations even and definitely still today) letting go of their assumed superiority over their slaves. Many are against any education that shines the light on their abusive practices. I live in the south, and see the incredible prejudice still being demonstrated daily. When the "Black Lives Matter: movement started, I was so glad to get on board (as well as most of my friends) to let the southern conservatives know they weren't the only ones in the area. OK, I got carried away.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that additional information, Barbara. Even when having read books and seen films etc, it's always harder to quite grasp the full scope of local cultural and historical issues as an outsider. Not least when it comes to derogatory implications. I'm still feeling a bit unsure how people were expected to interpret the image vs printed text on this card, in 1937. (Message meant to be ironic? And whether it was or not, how did Gerda see it? And her brother who received it?)
DeleteI have really enjoyed the series of Greta's postcards. I'm a little sad to see them stop. Barbara gave you some good cultural insight, and I would say that your thought that the words on the postcard of the children fishing are meant to be ironic, is correct. I've spent so much time trying to "guess" how my people may have interpreted things in the past. It is a difficult/impossible task, unless they left us something that reveals their thoughts and feelings on an issue. And I never seem to find that!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathy. I'm a little sad to see them stop myself! For one thing, over the past eight months or so, I haven't had to wonder what to blog about next ;-) Now I'll have to put my "thinking cap" on again!
DeleteThank you for sharing Gerda's story, Monica. Your inventive way of following the chronology of her postcards and adding a narrative to her simple messages really gave her a personal dimension. Though her correspondence with Gustav and other family may be missing, I think you've uncovered enough of her personality for us to imagine her life in service and recognize her great affection for her family and even for her employers too. In a way you've finished the last chapter of a novel that leaves readers hoping the main character will return again in another book.
ReplyDeleteAs for the definitions of Dixieland and Pickaninny, Barb said it best. The first term should really apply only to the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–61, but some union states like Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky had mixed political interests and many people in those regions thought they were living in Dixieland too. Of course in the 21st century the term is now so very politically incorrect that the music/song Dixieland has been removed from concerts, and deservedly so.
The other word is troublesome, and I thought a lot about it in April when I was writing my story, The Boys' Brass Band of Jacksonville, Florida. I don't think the word Pickaninny was intended as a pejorative slur in the context of Gerda's postcard. In this era it was a kind of softer, almost affectionate, way of addressing a black child. It was used in minstrel shows and probably had roots from the 1852 anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin". When the novel was dramatized for the stage, it was taken on tour and became immensely popular, even decades after the war. So even though the word Pickaninny is debasing racist way, it was used in this era more as a non-threatening descriptive word, almost in a friendly or kindly way. However the image of poor black boys fishing was a kind of propaganda used to romanticize the "Southland" (another word for Dixieland) and invent a mythology of a "happy" black experience that played to a nostalgic view many white people had for the Antebellum era.
The pictures on Gerda's other cards of Jekyll Island are very like it is today, though with more people and more green grass, (which is often sprayed with green dye in the dry seasons!) Modern irrigation and air conditioning have destroyed the natural charm of these isolated barrier islands making them more tolerable year-round than it was in 1937. Gerda would not have enjoyed the summer heat or the sand gnats and mosquitos. And thanks making me laugh at the rare postage stamp! :–)
Thanks for your input Mike, and I'm glad you've enjoyed my posts based on Gerda's cards. I have of course come across characters in books and films that would fit the 'pickaninny' image - I just can't remember having heard (or paid attention to) the word itself before. But the printed text on the back of that card - "Southern Pickaninny Scenes" - made me realize that there must have been a whole series of cards with images on the theme, and that made me curious to dig a bit deeper.
ReplyDelete