I felt something different in my heart and gut as our plane approached the land underneath us. Land that contained snow-capped mountains, steep cliffs, and water inlets spreading across and everywhere in between. This was not going to be like any other prior time landing somewhere on vacation. The sun itself was making a grand debut topping off this wondrous experience of seeing Norway for the first time in my life.
Never did I imagine how awestruck I would be to finally set foot in a country where my great-great-great….grandparents lived. I love to tell people that the left half of me is Norwegian and the right half is Swedish. I am proud to be of 100% Scandinavian descent, which is a bit more rare in the melting pot of the US. It is crazy when I meet people from Sweden or Norway here in Germany and realize…wow, I even look like them. And then, actually being in Norway, I was not prepared to actually feel like I was coming a bit home.
Growing up, we were always reminded of our Scandinavian ancestry when we travelled to visit our grandparents. Because we lived closer to my mother’s parents, about a 5 hour drive away, we were more ‘exposed’ to Swedish customs, such as food and holiday traditions because her great grandparents were all born in Sweden. In fact, they all were born in Sweden in the same area, but their children all subsequently met and married in Minnesota (the immigrant population definitely settled together). My dad’s mother lived much further away, a good 12 hour drive, so visiting her and our family there was more rare, but just as treasured. There we could eat Grandma’s Lefse as Grandma Harriet was Norwegian. It was from her that we learned the precious exclamation, “Uff da”. Handy for many of life’s circumstances.
Lefse, a Norwegian soft flat bread made out of potatoes. Yum!
I remember a framed family tree on our hallway wall when I was young that listed my Swedish ancestors on my mother’s side. I was so intrigued by who those people were as I walked past that tree daily. What were they like? What did they look like? What do I have in me today that ties to them? And what about my dad’s side, from Norway?
When I was little, I begged my grandmother (who was of Swedish descent) to teach me Swedish. This was way before Duolingo, but as a retired school teacher, she was thrilled to pull out her children’s Swedish school books. She taught me to count to 10 and how to say the cow was black. But we were not able to be there for any period long enough for me to pick up the language from her. How wondrous would it be to travel back in time and learn things that we now find more important, to have more of a connection between those generations that have come before us.
Hidden Parts of Me
Photos of several of my great -grandparents from Minnesota
Glimpses of the past
So about 3 years ago, I felt the urge to dive more into my roots and dig into my ancestry. What would I learn? What could I find? I have always enjoyed the show “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, so I wanted to see what I could learn for myself. I found many unexpected things (I will leave that one for a future blog…or maybe book), but the more and more that I searched through the records to connect to my ancestors, the more excited and dedicated I felt to put the pieces of our ancestry puzzle together. I knew names off the top of my head, but in most cases, they were faceless. I have not seen photos of many of them, my relatives from my Norwegian side, but I could tell you when they were born, where they were born and who were their neighbors. In some cases, you can even see what their handwriting looked like by looking at Draft cards from the wars.
Bryggen, the old wharf of Bergen, consists of old wooden buildings that have been rebuilt numerous times with traditional methods (due to fires). Bergen was an important part of the Hanseatic League’s trading empire from the 14th to the mid 16th century and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
But landing in Norway…that put real places in my line of sight. I could see the mountains, the fjords, the houses that looked so much like those in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I was stunned by how much things looked like the Midwest of the US (aside from the mountains and sea). We landed in Bergen, Norway, which is located about a 12 hour drive south of Trondheim, where my Norwegian ancestors came from. In Bergen, we went on a fjord tour where we saw first hand how isolated the houses and small villages were because of the fjords and mountains. According to National Geographic, the coastline of Norway, one of the longest in the world, would circle the world two and a half times if stretched out. There are few roads connecting these villages- thus the dependance on the sea. I can just imagine how even more isolated the communities must be 12 hours to the north. Those were my ancestors. Leaving their tight-knit community for something different, “America Fever”. Was it out of desire for something better? Desperation? Adventure?
None of us had any input in how we came to be in this world.
But it all made each of us, us.
All I know is a series of events over thousands and thousands of years (and the grace of God) resulted in my DNA being created with my arrival on this earth. I would imagine that in those generations and generations before me, there were many stories of joy and love and many of heartbreak and pain. I am happy to be though in this space. In this time. In this place. And I am happy to learn any connections with those generations to help me better understand me. I am who am I because of the people who came before me.
Embracing Second Half Wonders 