The Old Country Newsletter

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Statistics you didn’t ask for

During 2022, approximately 12 % of the Swedish population devoted at least one day of the year to recreational fishing. That may sound like a big number, but it’s still shy of the 16 % of Americans that “went fishing“ during the same period. For a nation that prouds itself with spending a lot of time outdoors, there seems to be some room for improvement for the Swedes.

The fish in our waters might disagree.

In other news

• High youth unemployment rates might be a head-scratcher for a lot of politicians worldwide. But not in Luleå, in the northern parts of Sweden. Here, the issue is reversed. So few young people are unemployed that the local schools fear that their students will get worse grades as they prioritize working over studying.

• On April 6, Sweden celebrated the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s Eurovision Song Contest victory with Waterloo. ABBA dissolved as a group in 1982, but reunited temporarily in 2021 for the Voyage Album.

• Two Shetland ponies died after being attacked by wolves in northern Norrtälje municipality on Wednesday, re-igniting a controversial debate on whether or not the hunting measures against wolves should be expanded. The County Administrative Board is urging pet owners in the area to secure their animals and fences due to previous wolf attacks on sheep in the region.

Grief and distraught

My search in the new country

In the summer of 2022, my girlfriend Lisa and I realized a dream that I had nurtured for many years: we travelled to the U.S and drove coast-to-coast. During the course of seven weeks, we spent the night in New York City, Washington D.C, Tonawanda, Toronto (sorry, Americans), Detroit, Chicago, Saint Louis, Tulsa, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Page, Hatch, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Los Angeles and, finally, Honolulu. It was the biggest trip we had both ever been on. And it cost us all the money we had saved whilst working part-time during our school-years.

It was worth every dime.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the stories of the Swedish emigrants that left for the new world between 1850-1920. My girlfriend and I are both originally from Småland, and I dare say that almost every family has at least one relative that emigrated. For Lisa, that was her great-grandmother. During one of our days in New York City, we took the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. For many migrants, Ellis Island was the first American soil that their feet touched. Today, the museum offers an opportunity to search in their archives for registry documents of family members that went through Ellis Island.

Here, we found the documents for Lisas great-grandmother. It was a moment of reverence for both of us, as well as Lisa’s family at home.

My grandfather’s older (much older) brother also left Småland for the USA. He settled down in Michigan and started a family. A few years earlier, I found an online obituary of his son, that had passed another few years earlier in Ann Arbor. The son of my grandfather’s brother passed away when he was older than my grandfather is today.

When Lisa and I had spent the night in Detroit, our next destination was Chicago. As fate would have it, our drive led us through — Ann Arbor. We had to re-route our drive from time to time while crossing the country. Therefore, I never assumed that we would actually get to Ann Arbor. I was ill-prepared.

Initially, we stopped at a random cemetary. There, I started to search the internet from front to end to try to locate again the obituary of my grand-father’s deceased nephew. The obituary stated that the memory service for my relative had been at the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. So we went there.

Outside the church, construction was taking place. And we were alone. Until a biker stopped. I asked him for directions for the cemetary, as I could not see one. He was new to the area and couldn’t help me. However, while we were talking a group of ladies exited one of the church buildings. I stated my business to one of them, who led me inside the church where she presented me to another lady that worked there. Together, we went down through the basement of the church to find a memorial garden for ashes. We went through all the plaques but couldn’t find my relative’s name.

So, together we went back up through the church and exited the building. The lady that worked at the church went into an office and later came out with a big folder containing information about every ceremony that had taken place in the church. She told me that my relative had been buried at a cemetary just north of Ann Arbor, called Washtenong Memorial Park.

Thanks to the enormously helpful women at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, we continued our search by driving north. Upon arriving at Washtenong, we realized that a ceremony was taking place at the far end of the park. Therefore, the offices were vacant. We spent more than an hour strolling around, randomly looking for the name of my grandfathers nephew. After a while, we realized that we would soon have to leave for Chicago, if we wanted to arrive before the sun set. Still, no one had returned to the office.

Here we were, so close, but still not close enough.

Just when we had decided to give up, a janitor returned to the office. I immediately explained my situation to him. And he, like most Americans we had stumbled upon, was more than happy to help. He searched through their digital archives for the name of my grandfathers nephew. Finally, he gave me a map of the mausoleum. We went to the hall that he had marked on the map and found the number we were looking for well up on a wall. Once again, the janitor hurried away to retrieve a ladder. He came back. I climbed it.

And there it was. The name of my grandfather’s nephew. His urn. An American flag. And some pictures. The resemblance between the man in the photos and my grandfather was evident.

About 100 years after his father had left Sweden and Småland, a relative from the Old Country was able to visit his final resting place. And pay respect.

I was so thankful for being there, and for all the help that we had received from the kind people we had met throughout the day.

It felt momentous, not just for me but for my family at home — and especially for my grandfather.

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