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For many immigrants faith is mentioned as a major factor that pulled them through really tough times, crisis and hardships. What is your story? How does our moral fiber, culture, upbringing, experience, education and training add up to the resilience toolbox we carry to build and rebuild our lives understand stress and duress Grandma MajaContinue reading “Immigrant Faith and Spirit: A Solo Act?”

Stories that mention the old country and home are near and dear to our hearts. Just the thought of hearing the voice of a loved one who no longer speaks to us can melt our emotions. “Where we love is home,Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Homesick in Heaven SometimesContinue reading “Back Home-Old County-Hälsa Dem Därhemma (Greet the Folks at Home)”

A good portion of the inner drive perseverance it took to keep striving ahead to complete my book, My Maja A Grandson’s Tribute was to prompt a movement to remember the role of women immigrants. The more research I did to find well documented stories describing in detail how women were heroic in stepping upContinue reading “Forgotten Women Immigrants and their Lost Stories”

All my life I have lived with a deep down fascination with the lore and legends of “old country” Sweden. Memories like books added to my library have been filed in my head since birth. It is little wonder that warm and tender images of sights and sounds of an idealized place are so vivid.Continue reading “Immigrant Homesickness Nostalgia and Swedish Hiraeth”

I will always remember at Christmas traveling to Chicago’s Andersonville with mom and Grandma Maja to stock up for traditional Swedish foods from Wickstrom’s deli. Of course, no pilgrimage to Andersonville with mom and Grandma Maja would be complete without the purchase of LutFisk. (Lye Fish) No Christmas would ever be complete without the ritualContinue reading “Swedish Lutfisk: Much More than Tradition”

To think that when I die, Grandma Maja’s story might be unknown and unshared makes me sad and angry. I was sad when I visited Maja in the hospital the night before she died, July 6, 1969. I was angry that she was dying alone except for me. This tragic event was terribly important toContinue reading “Righteous Indignation and the Struggle for Naught”

Grandma Maja convinced me that the core of her idea of making an American Dream come true pivoted on motherhood. Maja was born in 1897, the sixth child of nine children brought into the world by Ida Källgren. My mother, Dolores Elizabeth Virginia Wittenstrom was born in 1924, two years after Maja landed and cameContinue reading “Shattered American Dream Mosaic”

The stories told by Maja about venturing off to America were mesmerizing. First, A few pictures of life in Sweden for Maja. For me, Maja’s Sweden as a young girl was described to be like a snow globe kind of wonderland, all year long. (Thanks to Solleftea friends for the use of vintage photos) MajaContinue reading “Going Back in Time: Maja Goes to America”

Little did I realize when reaching into discover my Swedish grandmother’s family history I would discover my roots touch the Stone Age. Very near Grandma Maja’s home town of Sollefteå I discover history older than the Vikings. Rock Art – the Petroglyphs at Nämforsen in northern Sweden

In my book about Grandma Maja growing up in Sollefteå Sweden I reminisce about Swedish log drivers as brave Vikings with gritty guts, gumption and resilience. The spirit of the timmerflotarre became an author’s metaphor to explain the essence of Maja’s Swedish GRIT. Maja had extraordinary deep down Swedish Viking grit. I discovered that aContinue reading “Search for the Essence of Swedish Grit”