Meeting mormor's family here in Sweden

Pure delight is how we would describe our days in Värmland, Sweden, as we had the privilege of meeting Barb's mormor (mother's mother) after her departure from Sweden 107 years earlier to move to the US.  Here are a few pictures that celebrate the days we had together.

Looking back at the church from the lake.  There was just so much history in this little village.  And not just my grandmother's history either!

This still place and cross were located in a cemetery outside of the village that is the final resting place for people who died from cholera.

First time ever in my life that I've seen a picture of my mormor's parents, so my gammelmormor and morfar (in Swedish).  Great grandparents, hello!

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was getting the chance to hold and ready several letters that my mormor had written from Chicago back to her family in Sweden.  What a beautiful mix of Swedish and English.  What fun that I can now understand Swedish and could hear from her heart about life in Chicago.

One café in the village of 600+ people.  It's called the Värmskog Café.  Their speciality:  shrimp sandwiches.  This was literally quite a mountain of shrimp piled on the plate.  I had to share one with my second cousin.  Yummy!

Another precious place:  the "fika" (coffee) room in the church's hall, the building that stands just next to the church.  Mormor would have been confirmed in the church and enjoyed fika in this room.

One of the lakes mormor would have known....it reminded me so much of northern Minnesota and the UP of Michigan and Covenant Point!

View of the property that would have been mormor's last view of her family home before she left for Göteborg and eventually for Chicago....very powerful to reflect on this view and her life ~ and by extension, my own life.

The view from inside the fika room.  I was trying to get all the crosses and the church together in one shot:  cross in the fika room, church and cross down by the lake.  Never grew tired of this view....

As we prepared to leave to return to Malmö, my second cousin, the one who is really responsible for helping us all to get connected, gave me a most precious gift:  the letters that my mormor had written to her mormor (my second cousin's mormor, who was Hannah's sister).  I now can learn just a bit more about this woman that I never really knew.

Mormor and Morfar, Hannah and Johannes, holding me as a baby in Chicago in 1960.  They would both die in the next year. 

Feeling super blessed by modern technology, DNA testing, and genealogy records that allow the possibility of families being reunited from across the world and after a century plus of not knowing about each other.  Amazing!