Roots

My day started by taking one last bath before we leave Kyrkhult, and I even shaved my legs - so I'm officially a girl again.

I had my last two Danish pastries for breakfast (yum) and did some 'computer-errands' that had been accumulating while Leif flipped through pages and pages of family history stuff. Leif had told me a couple of days ago that the way the United States Matsons connected with the Swedish Jonssons was because Uncle Bob (my Grandpa Howard's brother) placed an add in a newspaper around the area he thought our Swedish family was from. It was an add looking for descendants of Jons Mattisson. One of Leif's aunts saw this ad and brought it to Leif's attention. They were pretty sure they were the people being sought after. Leif then wrote a letter to Uncle Bob, but he did not have Bob's exact address, just that Bob lived in Monmouth, Illinois. As Leif was going through his folder of family papers, he showed me a copy of the letter he sent to Uncle Bob! That was really cool to read! Amazingly (or maybe not amazingly, Monmouth is tiny) the letter did reach Uncle Bob and from thereon the two branches of the family had established a connection. Without email though this connection took at least a year to form though I think. That part does seem amazing to me - imagine just placing an add and wondering for months if anybody will actually see it, and then sending a letter to Monmouth wondering if it will ever reach the right person that hopefully still lives there. It's pretty incredible.

Leif also found some typed up documents explaining rough facts about Jons Mattisson and his second wife and their children. It was from an internet site so I want to go read more on the site. Some of the details seemed hard to line up with each other, and I have a lot of questions but have still been able to piece a fair amount together.

Leif also was kind enough to draw out family trees of the Mattissons in the States and the Jonssons in Sweden so that I could refer back to them as I continued learning about different people and places.

Then Leif and I headed out again (Laura chose to stay home and Eva was at work) to go see some important places. We saw the house where Jons Mattisson was born (and where Per, Leif's grandfather was also born we think), and the original house is still standing and being lived in! But, because it is currently being lived in we couldn't get too close to it or really stop to take a picture of it. Then we also went to go see where the big red house used to be (there are pictures and paintings of this house because it was exceptionally nice for its time). Per lived in the big red house but later (when they didn't live there anymore) the house burned down. This is really sad, as it would be wonderful to see how pretty it is in real life. All that's left are some of the stones from the foundation. Now, there is a summer house built close by the foundation on the same site that is hardly used and not in our family's possession anymore. There is also a barn that hasn't been touched in ages. There are no windows in it anymore and inside there are broken down tools and wheels all the same shade of dust covered brown. On the inside of the window sill there were some bones which was really weird and kind of creepy and gross! One bone looked like a leg bone and still had what appeared to be an animal's paw on one end. Another bone there was the better part of something's spine! EW! Especially after seeing Hannibal Rising the other night this was a very weird thing to see!

The site is surrounded by meadows and forests and for as far as the eye can see, Jons Mattisson used to own all of this land. It is quite sad that our family doesn't own all of it anymore because it is a lot of beautiful trees and forested area.

Some of our other stops included the cemetery where Leif's grandparents are buried as well as the town that his grandmother and step-grandfather moved to when they left the big red house. Leif referred to this town as being 'forgotten by God' and it certainly appeared that way. There was however a sign with English on it explaining that in the 1930's this town was where people mined and worked with granite. Apparently the town used to be a pretty happening place 80 years ago. It had a train station and two shops (which was a big deal back then) - but now it really does look pretty forgotten and grown over.

The other places we went I will need Leif to give me the proper spellings of but essentially we drove around the streets where all of our ancestors grew up. Everybody stayed pretty close to home, so the entire area we drove through was the stomping grounds for many people related to Jons Mattisson. It was sunny out today so it was a very big treat to drive around and see the Swedish countryside where my family came from! I am very thankful to Leif (who took the entire day off work) for showing me around and teaching me what he could!

When we arrived back home, it was time for Laura and I to pack our bags. We decided to head to Stockholm today rather than tomorrow or the next day or Christmas because it will be easiest for us to get picked up on the other end this evening. It will work out very well because Hokam, Helen's boyfriend, will pick us up at the train station, and Eva gave us a map of Stockholm, so tomorrow we will wake up already in the city with a map! It will be like magic! (We usually spend so much time looking for a map the first day in a new city.) After we had packed, we had an early dinner which Eva had prepared before going to work. Tonight our lucky meal was a delicious traditional Hungarian dish of chicken in a paprika sauce with potatoes and some Hungarian food that kind of reminded me of a mix of beans and noodles. However I have no idea what they are called because they're Hungarian and nobody knew the translation. Neither Laura nor I had ever seen anything like them before, but they were good!

After dinner, I took some time to sketch out a Matson family tree for Leif and Eva and used Facebook to show them pictures of my generation of cousins and second cousins. There are some family reunion pictures posted so that was helpful in showing what everybody looks like now. I hope that they found it at least a little interesting what everybody looks like and what we're all up to (I gave them extremely brief summaries of our lives) stateside.

Then, since the generosity never seems to end with Leif and Eva, Leif drove Laura and I to a train station an hour away because a high speed train passes through there that would get us to Stockholm in 3 hours. We told him that wasn't necessary, but he insisted on making our trip as simple and as smooth as possible. We got to the train station about half an hour before the train arrived and Leif stayed with us until it showed up. I will really miss Leif and Eva and their incredible sense of hospitality! It was a simply amazing few days of rest, delicious food, baths, massages, movies, and desserts. It was a perfect little break and now we are healthy, clean, and refreshed: ready for our last 3 and a half weeks! Especially our 'rock and roll week' ahead :)

We arrived at the station to find Helen waiting for us. We began chatting and laughing immediately and soon Helen stopped and announced that she didn't know quite where we were. This was really funny because Eva had told us stories about how Helen gets lost very easily. Helen had to call her boyfriend Hokam and soon we had cash (finally) and found our way to the car. They gave us a mini tour of Stockholm by dusk on our way back to their flat, pointing out important places here and there. It will be unusual and cool for us to wake up in Stockholm tomorrow morning already with a map and a slight glimpse of what the city is like! We're not quite starting from square one, which will be nice.

I was really excited to see their flat after watching the TV show about redesigning their place. It is a really cute apartment and I think the TV designers did a great job! Helen, who is clearly her parents' child, immediately started making us grilled sandwiches and putting out multiple varieties of juice out on the table for us (at 11 PM) all because we told her we just needed a tiny little snack! She also brought out yogurt and cereal and milk, just in case. Too cute. It is pretty funny and a little strange meeting somebody when you've just hung out with their parents for three days. I arrived knowing about her parents, her ancestors, her hometown, and even what her apartment would look like! It's also interesting to me because family is so important to me so that, in a way, I gauge how close I am to people by how much I know about their family. People's families tend to explain quite a lot about them. Anyway, it's kind of a funny feeling already knowing so much about Helen (and Daniel and Sandra) before meeting them, but in a nice way. I don't know them all personally yet, but I know that we both came from the same great great grandfather. That just blows my mind when I think about it!!!


Quotes:
"Did they, like, move the doors or something?" - Helen, trying to get us out of the train station :)

"Usually I just walk and hope for the best." - Helen, on crossing the street (super funny, since I often accidentally do the same thing...)

Hokam: "Don't you guys have a four flags?"
Helen/Laura/Hilary: "Six flags?"
Hokam: "When I was growing up there were only four, ok!?"

Accomplishments:
Saw where my great great grandfather was born!

Travel Tip:
Check if your train has a required seat reservation. We didn't do this, and our train did have a required seat reservation. Luckily for us, the ticket checker guy forgot to come back and make us pay for it!