Midsummer at Mösseberg - Repost for Sepia Saturday 831

 

Mösseberg, Ankdammen. 52737
Imp. G.W. Lundins Bokhandel (Hjalmar Lundin) Falköping

 

(G.017.01)

Date: Unknown, but most likely 23.6.1902 (Midsummer Eve)
Sent from: Mösseberg, Falköping (spa resort)
To: Herr Gustaf Ekman, Storegården, Fristad
From: Gerda

Jag är nu på Mösseberg och har mycke roligt. Här skulle du varit med. Jag kommer nog hem på tisdag e.m. på halv 7 tåget tänker jag, eljest på sista tåget, möt mig då.
Tack för brefvet, det kom oförväntat. 
Hälsningar från Gerda
Hälsningar från Anna E—? o E—r o Edith.

I am now at Mösseberg and am having a very good time. You should have been here. I think I'll be home on Tuesday by the 6:30 train, or else the last train - meet me then. Thanks for the letter, I did not expect that.
Greetings from Gerda
(and Anna E-, E-r and Edith)

Mösseberg is (still) a spa resort up on the hill Mösseberg at Falköping, founded in 1865. There was a spring there, and the location high up was also considered to be good for people with lung diseases. (The hill is ~100 m high.) A railway nearby made it easy for people to get there. In 1885, there was a sanatorium for people with tuberculosis. In the early 1900s, it became more of a spa for "anyone", including healthy and wealthy upper class people. The park and bath were restored and more guest rooms added, to be able to have guests there all year round. (Source: Swedish Wikipedia article.)

The postmark on the card shows vague traces that the date may have been 23, but not which month or year. My guess is June 1902, though. Later that year, Gustaf (the recipient of the card) and his sister Gerda (the sender) would both be emigrating to America. The image on the card shows a Midsummer pole. Midsummer Eve back then was always celebrated on June 23. In 1902 that was a Monday, and Gerda writes that she'll be going back home on Tuesday evening. E-r might refer for Ester (their sister), and Edith could be their niece - their older sister Emma's daughter. I also seem to recall having heard that Ester at some point did spend some time at Mösseberg for her own health - but I don't know when.

You'll find my original post about this card here (2013-06-18). 

Back then, I had not yet starting linking this blog to Sepia Saturday.

Linking now to Sepia Saturday 831 -  "Celebration time"

Sepia Saturday 826: Stormy Weather at Varberg (Repost)

This is a modified repost of an early post on this blog, from 2012-02-21 .

Varberg: Hamnpiren i storm. / Varberg: The Pier in storm.
Publisher: Vilén & Johanson, Borås 

Varberg 6/8 (1903). Heartfelt thanks for the postcard. Yesterday there was quite a storm here. Rather beautiful to behold. Mother does not have to be anxious about us going out on the sea, because that is impossible. Otherwise we are quite well. Greetings G.J.

This is a card that seems to fall outside my own family history. My great-uncle Gustaf (in whose postcard album the card is found) probably got it second-hand later in life, from some friend who knew he collected postcards. In August 1903, Gustaf was living in America; but he returned to Sweden in 1910. This card was written by a  G.J. to an J.A. Johanson. My guess is that J.A. was the sender's mother, as it was common in Sweden back then to address your parents “in the third person” rather than using “you”. 

The card shows quite a magnificent picture of stormy weather at the pier in Varberg, a town on the west coast in the county of Halland. Varberg and all of Halland are well known for their "typical west coast" sandy beaches. In Varberg the coast changes from wide sandy beaches to rocky terrain that continues north into the Bohuslän archipelago.

Varberg is still a popular summer and spa resort for  people living further inland. Its reputation as a spa resort was founded in the early/mid 19th century. The railway line between Varberg and Borås was established in 1880. The town has an old fortress from around 1280-1300; now museum + hostel.

Below are my own photos from a visit there in 2001 - in not so stormy weather...

1. The Fort
2. The Pier
3. A beach beneath the fort, with an old wooden bathhouse

Linking to Sepia Saturday 826

Visiting Versailles in the 1930s - Sepia Saturday 815

The theme for Sepia Saturday 815 shows a museum bedroom - which made me think of  some old postcards from Versailles, Paris, from my great-aunt Gerda's collection. 

This is a photo of Gerda visiting the gardens of Versailles in 1932. I have shown the same photo in an earlier post, from 2022-05-06, linked to Sepia Saturday 620. But that's nearly four years ago now... Some followers with good memories may remember bits and pieces from Gerda's story, but here's a short summary again:

Gerda Ekman, born 1881, was one of my grandmother Sally's older half-sisters. They shared the same father, but had different mothers. Gerda's mother died when she was six years old. In 1898, when she was 17, her father got remarried  to a younger window with one daughter (six years old at the time). 

In 1900, my grandmother Sally was born, and in 1902 also a baby boy. In those years of her father starting a new family, Gerda seems to have been staying with her oldest sister and her family much of the time. The sibling closest to Gerda's own age was her brother Gustaf, only two years older than herself. He was making plans to emigrate to America, and Gerda was no doubt inspired by him (but perhaps by other friends with the same plans as well). 

They both ended up emigrating in 1902 (for Gerda, when she turned 21). My impression is that they did not go on the same ship, though, but a few months apart. Anyway, while Gustaf ended up at a sawmill in Pennsylvania, Gerda went to Chicago; where she probably started out as simple kitchen maid, but kept working her way up to more respected positions in bigger households. Both siblings returned to Sweden around 1910/11. (Their father had then been dead for a few years - he died in 1907.) While Gustaf went back to farm work, Gerda continued her "career" as lady's maid and travel companion to wealthy ladies. 

When WWI broke out in 1914, Gerda happened to be in France - and got stuck there for the duration of the war. I've so far not been able to figure out who exactly she worked for during those years (and I probably never will) - but it was obviously for some fairly wealthy woman (or couple), as postcards show that in spite of the war going on, they went on holidays in the eastern parts of France, down to the riviera, and also over lake Geneva to Switzerland. After the war, Gerda returned to Sweden again - but continued to work as lady's maid/travel companion for various upper class women, also travelling abroad now and then.

In the autumn of 1928, she got employed as lady's maid to Estelle Manville-Bernadotte, daughter of a wealthy American, who in December that year married the Swedish count Folke Bernadotte (nephew of King Gustav V of Sweden). (The wedding took place in Pleasantville, N.Y.) The couple/family kept travelling a lot in the 1930s, both between Sweden and America, and within Europe; and Gerda travelled with them. 

Years ago, a relative quoted (in an email to me) a document stating that in 1932, Gerda was employed at Square Lamartine no 3 in Paris, as "domestique au service du comte Bernadotte de Wisborg, neveu du Roi de Suède"  (Cf a post from 2022-05-06: Cairo and Paris, 1932 - Sepia Saturday 620) 

So I know for a fact that Gerda was in Paris in 1932, and visited Versailles that year. Possibly the postcards may have been bought even earlier though. (No dates printed on them, so I can't be sure.)

Anyway - what made me think of these cards for this week's Sepia Saturday was three bedroom photos:

Marie Antoinette's Bedroom

Lous XIV's bedroom

Napoleon's bedroom

I'll include the rest of the Versailles postcards as well, just to have them all gathered in one post:

Linking to: Sepia Saturday 815 (28 February 2026)