MEMOIRS PART 23 - THE TRIP TO SWEDEN

In 1970, Gloria was invited to attend an International Conference on Education of the Deaf in Stockholm, Sweden. The tour included one week's stay in Stockholm and a tour of Leningrad, Moscow, Prague, and London. Since Russia was just opening up to Western tourists at that time, we decided to take the tour.

We made the decision to go on the trip to Sweden in January 1970, when the tour was announced. We decided to ask my mother Carrie to come with us, so I must have spoken to her at that time. There may have been a few phone calls in the interim, but the first letter I have from her is dated June 14, 1970. In it she said she would like to go, but that she was afraid that we might not want (in her words) "an old woman holding your arm constantly". I don't have copies of my letters to her, but on June 24 she wrote thanking me for my letter, and that she had decided to make the trip. She also refused my offer to pay her way, and sent me a check.

She had a good deal of trouble getting a passport, but finally got it in late July. Tony was assigned to go with her and to see that she got to Stockholm and back. In this regard, she told me many times how well he had looked after her.

Gloria and I arrived in Sweden a day or two before Mother got there, so I was able to meet them at the airport and take them to the Grand Hotel where I had gotten rooms for them. On the way I stopped to ask for directions to the Hotel, and told Mother to do so in Swedish. The man she asked was somewhat taken aback by her question, but after a slight hesitation, he replied in English. Keep in mind that Mother’s Swedish was then about 80 years old, and had probably become so Anglicized that the man she spoke to may have thought she was speaking English.

Mother stayed at the Grand Hotel that night and then we three drove south from Stockholm nearly 300 miles to Jämjö and Ramdåla. Gloria was attending the Conference meetings. We drove past much beautiful scenery which Mother seemed to admire, and a few miles after we passed through Jämjö we came to a sign that said RAMDÅLA. We stopped, got out of the car and took some pictures of Mother next to the sign. The background was a large green potato field with a church and churchyard in the middle distance. I had a photographer make a composite from two of these pictures, and Mother had it hanging in her bedroom the last time I visited her in Grantsville.




It was late afternoon by then, so we drove on past Ramdåla to the city of Karlskröna and registered in a hotel there. After dinner we looked around the city a little and came upon a genealogical service where they had microfilms of many of the local records. We found some of the records for Mother’s parents, and when we questioned the attendants about their sources, they said they got all their information from the L.D.S. Library in Salt Lake City. Mother was quite amused.

The next day we went back to Ramdåla and Jämjö, and Mother said she found two cousins (children of her mother's sisters). Mother was also convinced that she found the site of the house where she was born, and the church where she was christened. WE stayed in Karlskröna again that night, and the next day we drove back to Stockholm, where we stayed that night. The following day I put Mother and Tony on the airplane for London and home. Gloria and I then went on to Russia.