End of Day One- Begin Day Two - Saturday

Now settled in at the school dorms.

It was still very much daylight at 6 O'clock but we kept dozing off and after eating breakfast for dinner we gave ourselves permission to go to sleep at 8 O'clock. I had quickly made the beds knowing we could fall asleep anywhere.

We slept soundly-( with a slight remembrance of the school people coming in from evening entertainment and noisy)- till almost 2 O'clock.

(I do remember just before dropping off to sleep or somewhere in the night having a time of panic. I felt like we were on another planet. I never felt this way in Australia. I guess because of the same language and April being there. I had a small panic attack, thinking we didn't really know where we were and aside from Lian, no one else did.)

We both woke up after 6 hours of sleep, read for a while and wrote in our journals. Then at 4 O'clock we climbed back into our beds for a while.

Awake again at 9 O'clock. Robin got up and made breakfast for us in the kitchen down the hall. I made the beds and tried to arrange the small space so we could move around. We dressed and prepared to go out. The school people are all young adults and we saw them in their classes and at the open air patio at breakfast. We went to the office and were directed to the Library by Frida (too lovely looking to be called Frida) to get online for e-mail.

The library was unattended and we wandered around looking for something in English to read. No Luck! We sent an e-mail out to Matthew, Mom and Geri and Gay and Earl hoping they will send it on to others. We may get replies but we're not sure when we will get back to a computer to receive them.

We bought some postcards and stamps and addressed and wrote on two.

We ate a small lunch and then walked to the road to look for Anita to come. At the same time they had entered the school grounds from another driveway and were looking for us. Anita and her husband, Lennert, were there to meet us and we finally connected. Anita speaks English and Lennert smiles and is rather shy. He may know more English than he lets on. After greetings and hugs we climbed into their SAAB... men in the front and ladies in the back. Sweden drives on the right side. All is normal here. The roads are very narrow in the country but not much traffic to challenge. In many places there is just room for one car going one way- that's a challenge ... But I think we never did meet many cars.

Anita's plan was to take us to the town of Fritsla. She had done some research, when she knew we were coming, on Per Johan's wife, Maria Lousia's line.

Even though she is not related to this line Anita felt she should help us find some of those family places.

The town of Fritsla is where Maria Lousia went in 1885, at the age of 20, to work in the weaving mill. There were over 2,000 people employed there, mostly young people, aged 14 and up. They were sent out from their families to earn their way.

Maria Louisa at age 14 was in the mills at Tranemo (hope to go there) in 1877, with the records showing her parents and older brother, August Emil, there also. In 1884 she went to the mill in Kinnarumma after both her parents had died. The records show that other brothers and sisters were often at the same mills or towns at the same time...Trannemo, Fritsla, Asarp, Ullasjo and Nittorp.

Anita and Lennert showed us the river and spot where the mill and waterwheel would have stood and on the other side of the bridge where the dormitories would be. They were still there but painted a lovely yellow with board and bat siding. Surely, we all agreed, they didn't look so nice then.It looked like they were now apartments -shiny windows with white trim and pots of flowers on many of the sills.

Fritsla is a much bigger place than Seglora...(any place would have been, then and now). There was a downtown area, can't think what to compare it to... a small Grass Valley, CA. So far, all of Sweden seems to be forest and meadow with small towns scattered along. Even Goteburg, where the airport was, and the second largest city in Sweden, seemed small.

In Fritsla we found a church and wondered if it was old enough...1800's... to be there when the Mortenssons were there. Yes!! Very old! We walked around the church and into the grave yard. We found a few gravestones with Hagberg. But no first names to match our records. Then we found Mortensson...Emil 1861-1945 and Eldina Hustra (wife) 1867-1935. At the base of the headstone was a small stone with Gustof 1907-1985 and Lilly 1904-2000.

I remember thinking..."we are 6 years too late!"

Emil would be Maria Louisa's brother August Emil and his wife was Maria Elvida (or Eldina on the birth records) Johansdotter. Could these other names be grandchildren? The mother would have been 37-40 years old at their birth...we have decided they were their children, who we have no record of...need to research them! They, Gustof and Lilly, would have been of Carl's generation (1908-1992). Lilly would have died at age 96.

Day One - Continued

STOREHAGEN, the ancestral home of the Hagberg Family.

We watched from the roadside as a young man was mowing the yard. We decided not to bother him...Yet!



Lian drove us to the place we were going to stay, called....Viskadalens Folkhogskola & Kursgard... (Whisper Dale or Valley Adult Peoples School and Sports Ground)

Whisper is the name of the small river that flows through Seglora.

They have dorms for the people who come to seminars and take "extension" courses.

We went to the office and took what they offered us for a room. Other than that room they were booked up for the weekend. It was one room with a toilet and sink room. We were to share a kitchen. (one on each floor) We felt OK with it as we paid only $40.00 a night.

We left our luggage and headed back to Storehagen.

Robin's grandfather , Per Johan, would have inherited the home as the oldest son but he went to America in 1910 and the next oldest son, Adolph, took it over. When he died his oldest living son, Torston, took over the farm and inherited it. He had no children but his "wife" had three girls and the house was now in the hands of one of his "grandchildren", Helen Johansson.

Here we were, looking at Storehagen- of Hagberg Storybook fame.

The young man, Hans Andersson, was the "significant other" of the inheriting granddaughter and he invited us in after hearing who we were. Helen was in the neighboring town getting groceries.



We walked through the house with reverence. The ceilings were low and the windows bright. Hans showed us around and explained the things they had done to remodel and renovate through the years. He seemed to think the roof had been changed by raising it so there could be rooms upstairs but I remember reading somewhere that there was sleeping space up there for the children in earlier years. Anyway the tiny house is still tiny.




As we entered the living area- right there hanging on the wall , was the same picture of August Persson and Anna Britta Lund that we have seen in Per Johan's records. Hans said he and Helen didn't know who the people were but thought they should keep the picture there where it always had been. There was also a wedding picture of Adolph and Ida. (We've seen that one before, too.)

We walked around in wonderment, thinking we were walking where they had walked, looked at the place where the large, old fireplace/stove had been (replaced with a like but smaller version) .

We looked out the windows to see what they would have seen. Across the meadow, past the old stone bridge, was the church and graveyard.

We walked out into the yard, took some pictures and asked if we could return again... and again. Hans was very sweet (and good looking) and said, "Of course, Yes!"

We then went to Kinna (I have always said Key-nah ...in my map reading ... but find that it is pronounced She-nah...the K is SH!) to do some food shopping. With provisions in hand, Lian returned us to our lodgings for the night. Lian went home with plans to return day after tomorrow to take us to church in nearby Boras.

We had told Lian at the early planning for the trip that we wanted to spend the whole time in Seglora. I think she had to scratch to find a place she thought was good enough for us. She looked a bit questioning about the "school" set up and I think she was making plans right then to find another place. more about that later.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be picked up by another cousin, Anita Thim, to be shown around Fritsla, the weaving mill and factory town in Maria Louisa's life.

Day One

These blogs are excerpts from our trip to Sweden in 2006. The story will be more easily read by starting at the bottom (the earliest blog) and work your way to the top. The BOLD font will be from my journal and colored font will be me thinking as I type the entries. Hope you enjoy!

Friday 25 August 2006

we pick up the journal story after a 22 hour flight from SLC to Chicago to London and now landing in Goteburg, Sweden.

We held it together- just barely- anxious to "be there". At Goteburg we deplaned on the tarmac- down metal stairs, across the blacktop to a shed with 2 flights of stairs up to the airport. We just barely dragged ourselves the last few steps. It was a bit of a hike to the "passport showing" place- then off to customs.

We had a scare when we had to wait so long for our luggage. They must have been the first loaded and fell into a deep recess in the bottom of the plane. The three bags were almost the last three pieces in a long line of sundry and ratty collection of bags and boxes. The place was small with only one conveyor belt.

As we stood there, hands on hips, we noticed some people on a walkway that overlooked the customs area. A young woman in a pink sweater was waving both arms- at us? We turned around to see if anyone else thought she was "theirs". Others were waving. We had waved back and were now embarrassed!

At Customs we decided to "declare nothing"- not even the granola bars- and walked through, waiting for a buzzer to go off (or something). Then, when we saw all was well we strode through, heads held high. Lian was waiting- in a pink sweater! With many hugs and exclamations of joy we greeted each other!

Cousin Lian, who is the age of our kids, had found us over the Internet Christmas time of '05 and we had been emailing back and forth ever since. In January of this year she and Peter stopped over in Las Vegas after a month in Asia on a business trip. They had planned the stopover long before we had been "found" and she moaned at the fact that the stop wasn't in SLC. "Oh, Las Vegas is too far from Provo!" We has assured her it wasn't and were able to meet up with them for a day of sightseeing in Las Vegas.

We loaded our luggage in her Toyota Prias and were on our way. The ride was so exciting. We were quickly out of the Airport- really a bit like the Sacramento Airport- outside the city with trees and meadows around.

Lian gave us a running commentary on the places as we passed. We quickly saw that it was forest and meadow, small rolling hills and a few colorful homes dotting the landscape. She drove us on the small roads so she could show us road signs of places we would later come back to see. I recognized so many of the names from my map study and microfilm reading.

The day was warm and we were tired but it was just past noon...so we were up for any adventure. Just then we passed a small sign - SEGLORA. We perked and were surprised to see "THE" house! "THE" house was right in front of us.


Robin exclaimed, "It is the same house I have seen in a picture on the wall at home,all my life!"