![\"life-buoy\"](\"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/life-buoy-225x300.jpg\")
In 1963 my mother left her home in Sweden for the first time and traveled to the US aboard the Kungsholm<\/i>, one of the elegant passenger ships of the Swedish American Line (SAL). Now, fifty years later, the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia has mounted an exhibit about the SAL. Last week my mom and I traveled to Philly to see it. She was excited to rekindle some memories of that momentous trip.<\/p>\n
My mother was not an intentional immigrant; she just wanted to see something of the world, and didn\u2019t intend to stay in the US for longer than a year. She was a young art student, renting a room in G\u00f6teborg, working, and taking the train home to help her family on the weekends. She had saved her money and made travel arrangements; she had also secured a job in advance so that she could support herself while in the States.<\/p>\n
Young Swedes have been making these kinds of trips since Viking times, and they still do today. In fact, working at the welcome desk at the American Swedish Historical Museum was a Swedish woman who is working as an intern both at the museum and at the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce. She seemed happy to speak Swedish with us. Was she just being friendly, or is she maybe a little bit homesick? At least she can email, skype and text her friends back home! The distance must have seemed much greater when my mother first came over. The trip from G\u00f6teborg to New York took ten days!<\/p>\n
![\"greta-garbo\"](\"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/garbo-225x300.jpg\")
I wonder whether Morfar <\/i>(my mother\u2019s father) somehow knew that she would never again live at home in Sweden; he didn\u2019t want her to go. But Mormor<\/i> (her mother) didn\u2019t share his reservations; if, as a young person, she had had the chance to go, she certainly would have done so \u2013 and gladly!<\/p>\n
The SAL operated from 1915 to 1975, carrying cargo and passengers \u2013 including famous ones such as Greta Garbo, Jussi Bj\u00f6rling and Raoul Wallenberg \u2013 between G\u00f6teborg and New York in high style. The Kungsholm<\/i>, Gripsholm<\/i>, Drottningholm<\/i> and Stockholm<\/i> were sleek, stylish ships, recognizable by the \u201cTre Kronor\u201d (Three Crowns \u2013 a Swedish national symbol) that graced their smokestacks. The china, too, bore this traditional symbol of Sweden, as did the embroidered table linens. Everyone on the ship enjoyed the simple but beautiful table service for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And the interior design and furniture were elegant, mid-century \u2013 very Scandinavian!<\/p>\n
Together my mom and I look at photographs of the ship. She can\u2019t quite remember for certain which type of cabin she lived in for the ten nights she spent aboard. No, there\u2019s nothing wrong with her memory, but as she says, \u201cI don\u2019t think we spent much time in the cabin \u2013 there was too much to do. We were out dancing, eating, meeting people\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
One way to meet people was at your dinner table. My mother was seated with a group of young women like herself and some other people, including an \u201colder\u201d man \u2013 she says he was probably in his forties. I suppose he seemed nearly as old as tomten<\/i> (Santa) to her! He predicted that one of his dining companions would not return. It was probably an easy call for him to make: the odds were pretty good that at least one of those young, adventuresome people would find a new life wherever they ended up \u2013 lots of the Vikings did, after all! Of course he couldn\u2019t say which of them it would be, and maybe none of them believed him at the time, but whoever he was, and wherever he is now, he can be satisfied that events have proven him correct. I should know – I\u2019m living proof that one, at least, of those young people found a permanent home in the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1963 my mother left her home in Sweden for the first time and traveled to the US aboard the Kungsholm, one of the elegant passenger ships of the Swedish American Line (SAL). Now, fifty years later, the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia has mounted an exhibit about the SAL. Last week my mom … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,292],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4526"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}