My fun Summers

I always looked forward to the Swedish summers with their long light nights because the sun hardly ever set below the horizon. As a young girl the summers seemed forever. Sometimes it could rain for weeks. Then we played up in the attic with our dolls, listening to the rain as it landed on the roof. We lived close to a forest where we picked and ate blueberries, lingonberries and wild strawberries. I loved fish. Once a week a fisherman would come by selling freshly caught herrings out of the trunk of his car. That was our dinner for that day. We put up a tent in the backyard, in which several of my friends and I slept. The days were spent down by the river in Baggbole, swimming in the very, very icecold water among big timber logs that were transported to the mouth of the Baltic Sea. To get there we had to go down a very long, very steep hill and coming back up the hill seemed twice as steep and long. Thinking back, I am amazed how few parents were there to supervise their children. With the water being so very cold and the riverbottom suddenly becoming very deep even close to the shore, it is surprising that only one accident happened during those years. Unfortunately one of my friends, Monika, drowned there when she was 12 years old. She was her parents only daughter with four brothers. We, her friends, dressed in white clothes, sang at her funeral. I still remember that sad day very clearly.
We lived very close to the main road and when I was very young, horse and wagon was the main trainsportation. Occasionally we saw a spooked horse come running down the street all alone. A sight to behold was when the gypsies came by on their horsedrawn wagons. The gypsies were stateless people who roamed from country to country. I remember the women wearing brightly colored clothing, consisting of layered skirts, head scarves and lots of golden necklaces and bracelets. They set up their tents in the forest where we picked blueberries and stayed for a couple of weeks. We never went into the forest when they were there.
Also coming by on the road were tattare. They were poor groups of people outside the established Swedish society. Their clothing were very very simple and plain, the kids were dirty and, as I mentioned, you could tell they were very poor.
When I got older, I attended the fun barn dances in the next little village. We walked or rode our bikes there on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights.
However, life was not just fun and dances. I got my first 'real' job when I was 16. Mr. Hultman, the owner of the only grocery store in town asked me to work there for the summer. I really enjoyed it. The ladies there were extremely fun to work with. They had such a fun sense of humor.
The next summer I got a job at Umedalen's Mental Hospital as a nurse's aid. I worked in many different wards depending on where I was needed. I was the first girl ever to work on a ward with about 50 male patients who had severe mental illnesses. My duties were mainly to be in the 'kitchen'. That meant that I was responsible to get the food loaded on a big heavy cart from the main kitchen via underground culverts three times a day. I had to set the tables, serve the food, feed some patients, clean up, wash all the dishes and containers, and bring the cart back to the main kitchen. One month I worked nights from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. by myself on a women only ward. Every hour I had to check on the ladies as they were sleeping to make sure they were OK. I worked at the hospital off and on the next four summers also. The pay was actually quite good.
When I was 19 I went with two friends to Paris and then on to Spain for a month in the summer. We were in Paris only a few days. One night we went dancing. There was this really handsome well-dressed man there. He did not dance with anyone. He finally came and asked me to dance. His name was Sven and he was from Switzerland. We had the same birthday. He wanted to show me Paris by night and I let him because he was a gentleman. He had a VW bug that he had parked on the sidewalk and he drove me around looking at the sights. It was soo romantic to see Paris by night with a tall, handsome guide. He had given me his business card while we were dancing and since I did not have neither purse nor pockets, I put the card in my heel-less shoe. Later that year, in August, I was going to go with my parents to the LDS Temple in Bern, Switzerland. Sven wanted me to contact him when I got there. Unfortunately, I lost his business card and never saw him again.
In Spain we visited Barcelona, Castellon and Alicante, along the coast. We spent most of the time on the beaches during the day. I remember one occasion when we went to a nice nightclub. The Spanish girls who were there had chaperones with them. We decided not to stay and started walking away. When we looked back, all the fellows at the dance were following us at a safe distance to see where we were going next. Spain was gorgeous with red soil and lots of orange and lemon groves. We ran into a Swedish couple who had a beautiful summer home there. Everything was very inexpensive at that time. We took taxicabs to lots of places.
When I was 21 I served a mission for my Church. I was the secretary to the Mission President in Stockholm, Sweden, for 19 months. After that I went to the United States for about two and a half years. I got back to Sweden in February with a return ticket to the U.S. in September.
Well, I did not make it back to the U.S. then. I had always wanted to go to Switzerland because it looked so beautiful on the pictures I had seen. I had taken German in school and figured I could work in a hospital as a nurse's aid. I would not need to talk much doing that. I went to the library to see if I could find the name of a hospital in Zurich. I just saw the word Kantonspital. Anyway, I wrote a letter in English asking if I could work there in June and July. I addressed the envelope as follows: "To the biggest hospital in Zurich, Switzerland." (In English, not even in German.) I got a response back telling me I could work there in July and August. I accepted. I chose a hospital because they usually have housing for their staff and they did within walking distance. I flew to Zurich and started working. Even though I had taken German in school, I did not understand much of what they said when they spoke to each other in Swiss German. Eventually I learned to understand that also. I liked it so much there that I stayed at the hosptial till December and then I got a job at the Swiss Bank Corporation for 18 months, the maximum length of the work permit.
I truly enjoyed my stay in Zurich. On my first day off, I located the LDS church on the map and walked there, so I knew where the go the following Sunday. It took me over an hour. After that I took the tram when I learned how it worked. I met some wonderful young people at the Church. They were all from different countries, Germany, England, United States, South Africa. We did fun things as a group. We did not associate with the Swiss Church youth much. Since we were all foreigners, we had that in common and got along very well. While I was there I dated a guy from England, Peter, as well as a guy from Zurich, Ruedi, and a guy from Lausanne, Fernand. Peter had a degree in chemistry and was a private tutor to a rich man's son. Ruedi had a motorcycle and took me on a few rides. Fernand had a pilot's license and his dad owned a small airplane. I was able to go on some trips with Fernand over the Swiss alps. I also went with him sail plane gliding. I really had a great time doing all this.

My Family

I have two wonderful children, Anna and Erik, who never gave us any trouble or problems. They are adults now and still wonderful. They were both born in San Diego. Anna was born just after midnight in August of 1976 and the doctor who delivered her also delivered my husband when he was born. Anna was about five weeks early. She weighed 5 lbs 2.5 oz. My water had started to "drip" a week before she was born, but the doctor sent me home anyway. Because of this, she had bacteria in her when she was born and had to be put in an incubator. However, she did really well and I was able to take her home two days later. She was awake all the way home in the car and just looked at me. We did not have any insurance at that time, but I had saved my money to be able to pay for her delivery, so I claimed that she was all mine.

Erik was born in October 1979. I woke up about 2 a.m. because my water was breaking. I hopped into the car and drove myself to the hospital not too far away, thinking that the doctor would send me home again. The first thing the nurse said was: "It's full moon, this happens all the time." Well, they kept me and induced labor and Erik was born about eleven hours later. When my husband, Gary, came to see me, he was totally nervous. He said to the nurse: "Hi, I am Christina's wife, no I mean her mother."

Anna loved to dance and read as a child. Where ever we went, she always had a book with her. She loved to do well in school and did her very best just to win a candybar from the teacher. She was always a honor student. She now has her own blog: aroundthequiltbock, which you can find under 'my favorite blogs.'

Erik was very much into sports and did very well. He was very thoughtful and did not want to hurt anyone's feelings. One time when he was five years old, we were shopping at a mall in San Diego and found a fountain into which money was thrown while making a wish. We threw in some coins and found out that Erik's wish was that "no little kids would every go hungry." Erik has a website, ellipsoidclub.com, featured on the side.

One year both Anna and Erik got 'Citizen of the Month' the same month at Avocado School in La Mesa, California. Erik also got a very nice little note from his second grade teacher when we moved. Anna was honored as the last Citizen of the Month in her last year of high school.

I am extremely grateful for them!

Vintage Apron

I entered a "drawing" today for a vintage apron I found on Penny's blog that reminded me of the apron I made in fourth grade a long, long time ago in Sweden. I found this via my daughter's blog. It would be fun to win it along with some other items Penny is giving away. Penny's blog is called Sew Take a Hike and she's a very talented woman who makes some fun and original crafts. I collect pigs and she has a really cute Petunia the Pig on her Etsy store.

How did I get to the US?

"Who would have known, when you started learning English in fifth grade a long, long time ago, that that would be your children's native tongue," my mother once commented to me. I liked English very much and it came easy to me. I even got a little poetry book in English from my teacher, Mrs Eby, at the end of the first year, commending me on my good grades.

So how did I end up in the United States? It probably has everything to do with the fact that I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was 18 years old. My parents and two younger brothers had already joined the Church six months earlier, but I was a stubborn teenager and did not want to do it on their time. There were two diligent missionaries, Elder Baugh and Elder Nelson, who felt that it was time for me to join, so they gave me the missionary lessons and I was baptized in April. A couple of years later Sweden got a new missionary president, Reid H. Johnson, and he came to a district conference in the town where I was living and he asked if I wanted to go on a mission. He needed a secrectary to work in the mission office. Well, I said yes and then went home crying, worried about what I had committed myself to. In October, on my 21st birthday, I started my mission and had a most wonderful time till May, 19 months later when I was released.

There was this missionary, Elder Jim, who I met on my mission and he wanted me to come over to the United States to see if things could work out between us. I started filling out immigration papers while in the office and everything went very smooth, one paper after another. Usually to get an immigration visa, you have to have a skill needed in the U. S. or someone to sponsor you. Well, I did not have any of that. The only thing I had was a letter that President Johnson had written to one of his friends who held a higher-up position at ZCMI Department Store about me maybe working there.

I left for Salt Lake City, Utah, in July and was met at the airport by my missionary companion and good friend, Ann, as well as Jim and another returned Elder.

I met with the ZCMI director and decided that a position there was not for me. Instead I got a job at the Genealogical Society checking microfilms in French for a couple of months. My friend, Ann, was going to continue her studies at BYU in Provo, so I quit my job and followed her there. We shared an apartment with four other girls at the Seville. I started job hunting and was extremely lucky to get a job at Christopherson Travel Agency a couple of blocks from Seville. The manager had just hired an new girl to work there, so he did not really need any more employees, but he hired me anyway. Unfortunately, he made life not very nice for the other new hire so she quit.

While in Provo, I enrolled at BYU as a Sophomore because of my credits from Swedish schools. I wanted an activity card so I could go to dances and participate in everything BYU had to offer. I took classes in English, Book of Mormon, Russian, German, PE (dance), piano and health. In my dance class, after I had danced with the same guy for a couple of weeks, he asked me out for a date and I declined. After that he did not dance with me anymore, and since there were more girls than guys in the class, I had no one to dance with any more, so I quit going to the class. Consequently, I got a bad grade in that class. I should have explained the situation to the teacher instead.

I stayed at BYU till February two and a half years later when I returned to Sweden with the intention to go back to Provo in the fall. My next "posting" will tell more about that.