Greetings from the Past: 2023

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)

2023-12-09

At the Kitchen Table - Sepia Saturday 702

Going through another envelope of old photos, I found this one of me and my grandmother Sally at her kitchen table (well, with me on the table...) A note on the back says August 1958, which means I'm 3 years old here. Below is a version where I tried to better the faded colours somewhat in Picasa3 (my standard simple editing tool).

In my own early childhood photo albums nearly all the photos are black and white, taken by either my father or my grandfather, and developed at home. This may be the earliest colour photo print I've come across so far, and I'm not sure who of them may have been the first to experiment with putting a colour film into their camera for a change. (I know my dad also took slides sometimes, though, so perhaps it could also be a print made from a slide.)

Linking to Sepia Saturday 702

2023-11-19

Walking About in the Alps - Sepia Saturday 699

Six unwritten postcards from my great-aunt Gerda's collection. I think they are probably from her years in France during WW1, when she sometimes travelled with her employer (still Unknown to me) in the south-east of France and stayed for a while at various mountain resorts there. How far up in the alps she ever walked herself, I'll probably never know!

The Vanoise massif is a mountain range in the Western Alps and the third-highest massif in France. Nowadays Vanoise is a national park.

(M.030.01)
1422. - Le Lac Rond et le Col de la Vanoise

(M.030.02)
2366. Sommet du Jovet (2563 m.)
- La Mer de Nuages et les Glaciers de la Vanoise

(M.030.03)
1426. Col et Massif de la Vanoise - Refuge des Lacs

(M.031.01)
Massif de la Vanoise - Cascade de la Fraiche (a waterfall)

(M.031.02)
1976. Le Mont Blanc (4820 m.), vu du Bréven

Mont Blanc, the "white mountain", located on the French-Italian border, is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe.

(M.031.03)
3063 - Zermatt - Vieux Mazots

Zermatt is in the Swiss Alps. Gerda did cross lake Geneva over to Lausanne in Switzerland during the war years (I think more than once); but how close she ever got to Zermatt or Mont Blanc (either back then or later), I don't know. She might just have bought postcards of those two places. As there are more cards from Vanoise, my guess is that she saw some of that area, though.

2023-11-12

Walking About with Dogs - Sepia Saturday 698

I've started looking through some photos that at some point in the past were sorted into envelopes by my father, to see if I find some of interest that I don't recognise from the family albums. A couple of weeks ago I picked up an envelope marked "cats and dogs". There were no cats in it, though - only some photos of the two dogs that my grandparents had back in my childhood (one at a time). I had meant to post these for last week's Sepia Saturday (which had a photo of a lady walking a cat). But I did not find the time that week to scan the photos. So I'll post them this week instead.

Zepp 25.5.58

In my early childhood, i.e. in the 1950s, my grandparents Sally and Gustaf had a big collie named Zepp. I know they had him since some time in the early 50s (before I was born - which was 1955).

Zepp and my grandfather Gustaf in 1953

This is how I chiefly remember him from my childhood: Lying along thresholds, stopping people (at least little people of my size) from getting in and out of rooms... In an older post (here) I've told the story that kept being repeated to me by my parents and grandparents throughout life: On some occasion in my early childhood someone asked me what I thought of Zepp, and my answer was: "He's a good dog, but he's in the way!"

My grandmother Sally (right) and her sister Hildur (left) "walking about" with Zepp.

Not preserved in any photo, but just in my own brain, is how my grandmother would take the opportunity to comb his long fur when they were out walking in the woods; and how she would tell me that birds would then use the fur to line their nests.

I'm not sure exactly when Zepp died (1959/60?) and when they got their next dog - but I found a clue written on the back of another photo:

Sally and Max 10.7.60

I think this must be from when they went to pick up their next dog, Max (a Swedish Vallhund, or Västgötaspets) - or very shortly after. He was only a puppy when they got him. I seem to have a vague memory of me and my parents even have gone with them to the kennel for the occasion; but I can't find any photo proof of that in my own childhood album.

Max was a lot smaller than Zepp - but on the other hand a lot wilder, and he never grew out of a tiresome habit of always wanting to jump up on people (which I did not like - and I don't think I ever quite trusted him not to bite, either...)

No doubt he was good company for my grandmother for several years after my grandfather Gustaf died though (1969). This photo is from the 1970s, I can tell because it was after my grandfather's death that some renovations and modernisations to the house were done, including painting it yellow. Sally is sitting in the chair; I don't know who the woman sitting on the table is. (She looks vaguely familiar but I think a friend rather than a relative.)

Linking to Sepia Saturday 698

2023-10-29

Portraits of Young Gustaf - Sepia Saturday 696

Among various photos in an envelope marked "Before 1930" I recently found this childhood portrait of my grandfather Gustaf T. It's one I can't recall ever having seen before - it's not included in his photo albums.

I doubt I would even have recognised this boy as my grandfather if the photo had not been found together with other later photos of him (probably sorted at some point by my father).

Gustaf was born in 1904, and I'm not sure which year this was taken, but this is probably the earliest photo of him that exists. I don't know the year but I'm guessing ~ 1909. The outfit he's wearing does not look like anything I've ever seen! - but it vaguely reminds me of illustrations of Little Lord Fountleroy (book by Frances Hodgson Burnett from1886...)

This is where Gustaf grew up though - more like "the little house on the prairie"!

Until I found the portrait at the top, this one was the earliest I had - found in one of my grandmother Sally's albums. A childhood portrait of Gustaf (born 1904) together with my grandmother's brother Nils (born 1902). I'm guessing it may be from Gustaf starting school (1911). - At first, I only recognised Nils in this photo, and had no idea who the other boy was. It was only later that it dawned on me that it must be Gustaf, and that he and Nils had been friends since early childhood.

They're also both in this Sunday School photo from 1912. Gustaf (8 years old) is 4th from the left. Nils (10 years old) is 5th from the right (front row).

And this is from the village football (soccer) team, a few years later. Nils is (unmistakably) the tall one in the background (captain/coach?), and Gustaf the one with the "attitude" standing in front of him...

I remember that it was comparing it to another photo of the two of them as grown up young men that convinced me who was Gustaf in the football photo!

This is another photo from the envelope, which I can't recall having seen in any album.

I also found two portraits from his military service in 1925:

This I suppose may be the one that he sent to my grandmother Sally in a letter that year. (Referred to in one of her letters to him.)

And this one is glued onto a hard cardboard frame with the embossed text "Memory from my military service".

Linking to Sepia Saturday 696 - Portraits

2023-10-21

The Chicago Portraits - Sepia Saturday 695

Among my inherited family photos, there are also some portraits that I don't recognise as "family". Taking a closer look at some of those for this month's Sepia theme (portraits), I noticed a bunch of rather large ones in paper frames from the early 1900s or so that were from studios in Chicago. This suggested that they must have belonged to my great aunt Gerda (older half-sister to my grandmother Sally), who lived in Chicago c. 1903-1910, working as a maid. So likely to be of people she knew back then...

For SS 636 (2022-08-27), I wrote a post based on the addresses on postcards sent to Gerda while she lived in Chicago. They show that during the first years she changed employers rather frequently, but from around December 1906 and until she returned to Sweden, she remained living on the same address: 3328 Michigan Avenue. Thanks to the American census of 1910, I also know who she worked for there: A Dr Otto L Schmidt with wife Emma (born Seipp), both of German heritage; at the time with three children in their teens: Ernst, 17, Alma, 15 and Clara, 14. At the time of the census, besides Gerda they also had three more white female servants (from Austria and Germany); plus a 'mulatto' chauffeur with wife and two children. Dr Schmidt was a rather prominent citizen of Chicago, and his wife also belonged to a well-known and wealthy family there.

At the bottom of this post, you will find an image from the census, plus links to a number of earlier posts where I've written about Gerda and her time in Chicago and with the Schmidt family.

Anyway - my first thought about the Unknown portraits I was looking at now was that they might be of fellow servants that Gerda had been working with. However, at least one of them did not seem to fit that theory: A child portrait.

Putting these two photos side by side, not only do they come from the same studio, and have the same background - but to me, it also looks like the woman and the child may well be mother and daughter. So I'm beginning to wonder if this could actually be Emma Schmidt with one of her daughters (a bit earlier than 1910, as the girl looks younger than 14).

The double portrait below comes from the same studio but with a different (updated) logo. I also think the two young women look like sisters - and that the one on the left could be an older version of the girl in the portrait above. Could they be Alma and Clara Schmidt?

Next, a portrait of a young man - not from Chicago, but from Palm Beach, Florida. At first, it made me wonder if there had been a "special man" in Gerda's life during her time in Chicago after all, even though I have not really come across anything else pointing to that.

Then I put his photo next to that of the two young women, and now I couldn't help but think I see a family resemblance between all three of them. So what if he's actually Ernst Schmidt?

(Another curious fact, by the way: there are two identical copies of the girls' portrait...)

Trying to verify my guesses, I searched online for photos of the Schmidt family. There are quite a few available at the website of Wisconsin Historical Society, in a collection named "Black Point Estate and Seipp Family Papers". (I.e. Emma's side of the family.) These all seem to be subject to copyright, though, so I won't include any copies here. But here are a few links if you're curious: Ernst in 1912. - Alma in 1906. - Otto and Emma in 1891.

There are no copies of the same portraits that I have though - so hard to be sure. (Btw, searching for photos of this family, it's also rather confusing that they seemed to like naming their offspring after close relatives... Emmas daughters, for example, were named after her own two sisters, also called Alma and Clara.)

For now, I will assume that the portraits above are indeed of Emma Schmidt and her children. Maybe some day I'll get it either confirmed or disproved - that has happened before with theories I've come up with in this blog!

Then there was this portrait below, which seemed somehow familiar... But where from??

It hit me after a while that she must be the woman 2nd from the left in the photo below, standing next to Gerda (in the middle). And this (I have concluded earlier) must be from the Seipp/Schmidt families' summer residence(s) at Lake Geneva - probably a group photo of staff from at least two households, "joining forces" while there.

I think she's also the friend posing together with Gerda in the studio photo below; which makes me assume that she too was a servant in the Schmidt family household in Chicago. Probably one of the two from Austria - but whether Maria or Amalia, I dare not guess. (Both a little older than Gerda, according to the census of 1910.)

And at last, below, two more Unknown photos. They look to me like they could be one and the same woman, though, even if I don't know her name. Unless something turns up to provide more clues, I'll assume her to be another servant colleague of Gerda's. (The portrait to the left is from Rockford, Illinois - so could be someone she worked with for a while in Chicago, but who either came from, or moved on to, Rockford.)