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My Grandmother's Photo Album: Clues to the Past
Shortly after my
mother passed away in 1999, I discovered an old photo album that she had
stored in their basement. The photo album was in a box that apparently hadn't been opened for
several decades. In
fact, no one in my family had ever seen the photo album.
When I
flipped through the pages and studied the old black-and-white photos, I realized
that it had belonged to her mother, Helga Reinhard, and it included
photos from the early 1900’s. Unfortunately, though, most of the photos weren’t
captioned. I was four years old
when my grandmother Helga died so I barely remember her, but I do know that my
mother was very fond of her.
The
photo album also contained several pictures taken by Helga’s mother, Anna Swang (my
great-grandmother, pronounced "Swong"), who had lived in North Dakota and died in 1933 at age 65. No one in my
family knew anything about Anna other than that she had been born in Norway in
the 1800’s and had come to America as a young girl.
These were the first photos that I or any of my living relatives had ever seen of Anna and her husband Nels
(my great-grandfather). From some of the captions that Anna had written, she seemed
to be a cheerful person with a good sense of humor. It was interesting to
try to get to know Anna only through the things that she left
behind, such as her photos.
During the past two years in Portland, I spent countless hours poring over Helga's
photo album, trying to figure out where the pictures were taken, who the people
were, and what their lives were like.
The photos totally and completely fascinated me, but they also baffled me
because very few of the pictures had captions.
The photo album was a treasure trove and I
decided that I’d visit North Dakota some day to figure out who these people were and what they were like. The story of my mother's family was like a giant puzzle... and I've always loved
puzzles.
For those interested,
I've described the results of my seven weeks of research
on the next two pages:
Above
left: Questions, questions, questions.
This is a picture in Helga's photo album, which I discovered after my Mom passed
away. This woman was my great-grandmother Anna Swang,
(Helga's mother), and the caption says, "These are my two sisters, Judith
and Montana." However, the girls appear to be 20 to 30 years younger than
Anna. Were they her step-sisters? And what happened to them?
Above
center: That's Anna's daughter (my grandmother Helga) on the left, but who were
these other women? And where was this taken?
Above
right: I knew that Helga had taught
school in North Dakota before she got married in 1923. Were these children at her
school? What school was this, what was it
like, and where was it? After looking through Helga's photo album in
Portland, I had dozens of questions... and very few answers.
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My Grandmother's Photo Album: Clues
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