the motherland (one of them)

in august i went to sweden with my mom, sister stephanie, and niece madeline. this was a family heritage trip that had been on my mom's bucket list for a while. my great grandfather (morfars far) immigrated to minnesota with his family when he was sixteen. my mom knew that they had lived near vilhelmina in northern sweden, but we did not know if there were other relatives that stayed. my mom did some research before our trip and was fortuitously connected to two women who turned out to be distant relatives on the other side of my mom's family. we met one of them - berit - in stockholm when we arrived and she toured us around old town stockholm - gamla stan - and showed us what she had discovered about our relatives. 

Berit and my mom learning about their shared relatives

Stockholm storkyrka (cathedral)

                            one of the narrow streets in Gamla Stan

we had a few days in stockholm to hit the highlights, including a trip across lake malaren to the viking settlement of birka. birka was one of the biggest viking trading posts in the area from the late 700s to about the 900s. from there we started heading north to vilhelmina, stopping along the way in sundsvall and ostersund.

on the boat to birka

burial site 

replica viking sail boat

replica viking house

The Vasa - way cool museum showcasing a boat that sank
20 minutes into her maiden voyage. Oops.    

Skogskyrkogarden - woodland cemetery on the outskirts of Stockholm

 

Stockholm stadhuset (city hall)

our first outdoor museum, above Sundsvall

one of the many dragons of Sundsvall

   

beautiful, quiet street in Sundsvall

picturesque village of Spikarna

  

  Cliffs along Alno island        

fronso kyrka & bell tower - Ostersund

on our drive to vilhelmina, we began to understand why so many swedes settled in northern minnesota...the landscape was eerily similar. mostly flat, lots of conifers, and random rocky outcroppings. and four-legged wildlife. with necklaces. :) 

we met with the other woman my mom had been corresponding with in vilhelmina. she was also a distant relative and had done a lot of research for us. she knew where homesteads where, where to find headstones in the cemetery, and the fates of other family members. she also had a serendipitous conversation with a coworker that put the wheels in motion for us to meet relatives of my great grandfather.

the area around vilhelmina was beautiful - i'm glad we had a couple of days to explore it. the sami culture is prevalent in northern sweden - thus the collared reindeer and the round huts called kotos. 

     

koto at fatmomakke (church village)

food storage at fatmomakke

trappstegforsen

 

cemetery looking over the lake near vilhelmina

main street in vilhelmina

many more adventures on our way south back to stockholm, including a bit of time along the coast and the sites of uppsala. we met four of our cousins at the airport in stockholm and were blown away by how strong the mellstrom genes are after so many generations. 

moose paintings from 4000-1000 BC (touched up) at namforsen, nasaker

mosaic at jakobs kyrka in hudiksvall

hoga kusten (high coast)  

lands museet in harnosand

gamla stan in gavle

  

the cathedral in new uppsala 

 

me with a statue of my man, Carl Linnaeus!
(he was a botanist and created the scientific naming system we still use
today. yes, i am quite aware that i am a total nerd. we also stumbled upon a
play in front of the cathedral the night before that was portraying the history of Uppsala. the bit about linnaeus was awesome...people dressed as plants, little kids buzzing around in bee costumes. my mom was totally confused how i knew what was going on in spite of knowing zero swedish. good times.)

cousin meeting!

figuring out how we are related

  

Per, my mom, Leif, and Ove

Now for some scary comparison photos showing the family resemblance:

my mom and her siblings

 

my brother and grandpa (morfar)

a good trip and such a treat to connect with relatives at the spur of the moment. now we have another excuse to visit again!

hand works and the amana colonies

in early may, pete spent three weeks on a ship in the middle of the atlantic collecting sediment from the bottom of the ocean. when he finished his work, we rendezvoused in des moines, iowa. my sister steph and brother-in-law david are in des moines, but the impetus for our visit was an event happening in amana, iowa. as a scientist, i attend plenty of conferences/workshops/other nerd gatherings and pete occasionally travels with me...usually when they are someplace cool (e.g., scotland last summer). this was the first time i accompanied him for his version of a nerd gathering - hand works. this was the second hand works event drawing the hand tool woodworking community to amana, iowa. 

pete started working with hand tools in earnest a few years ago after taking a class from one of his childhood favorites, roy underhill. as a result, our hodgepodge of craigslist furniture is being replaced with pete's beautiful creations. there isn't much of a hand tool community around santa cruz so the gathering in amana was a chance for pete to talk to the people he reads and watches videos from online, try out new tools, and purchase some of the ones he has been eyeing for months. while pete ogled tools, i explored amana - a german colony established in the 1800s. 

 collection of hand planes

pete trying a travisher (a tool used 

to form the scooped seat in a wooden chair)

 a happy pete

 roy underhill delivering a thoroughly entertaining keynote address

 collection of molding planes

 may poles in amana

 woolen mill - still in operation

 old windmill

waiting area at one of the german restaurants in amana

the other bonus of hand works this year was the display of the studley tool cabinet in nearby cedar rapids. for those of you like me who have never heard of this thing, it is a tool cabinet of beauty, created by h.o. studley in the late 1800s. the tool cabinet has been in a private collection since studley died and has only been seen by the public for a very short time in the 1980s when it was displayed at the smithsonian museum. the current owner agreed to let a former curator at the smithsonian photograph the chest, write a book about it, and display the chest for the weekend. every tool has a very defined space, it opens like a transformer, and is a work of art. studley was a piano maker and these are the tools he used in his trade. the photos do not really do it justice...

 some of the compartments opened

don williams, the man who arranged all of this, 

telling us about the tool cabinet and studley

in addition to the show, we spent some time with family in des moines. my mom and i were left to our own devices for the better part of a day so we explored some sites around des moines, including the always lovely botanic garden, the salisbury house (a house modeled after a 15th century manor in england that is now part museum, art gallery, concert venue, and botanic garden), and the sculpture park. 

 spectacular bronze horse at the sculpture park

(i cannot believe it is not drift wood!)

 the thinker, hare style

 steinway grand piano at the salisbury house - 

one of the few with intricate carving on the box

they don't make doors like they used to...