Saturday, September 30, 2017

A Swedish Romance: Part Four

The Love Letters
From the letters found among Grandma Berg's effects.
Translated from the original Swedish by her son with the help of Swedish friends and relatives.
Missed the other installments?
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
We'll be here when you get back...

Ostra Ras, Alghult, March 3, 1919

My Dearest Petrus,
Now finally I have my ticket and clearance for the trip on the ship Stockholm which should have sailed on the 15th of March. But I have just learned today that it won't be leaving until the 22nd. I must check with the office in Goteborg if there is any further change and I hope you will be able to find out when it will arrive in New York. I am anxious about how everything will turn out and I suppose you are the same.
But thankfully now I am so happy, so very happy my dearest, my very own darling. It is so wonderful that we will soon meet again. I loved you from the first glance with a happiness which no one nor anything could turn off.
Thanks, a thousand thanks that you wrote to Mother. It was a great help for me. It is true that she thinks that it is a hard blow that I shall leave her, but she does not wish to stop me from going. It is the same with my sisters and brother even though they only saw you once briefly. I should have told you of this in an earlier letter but I was just back from a trip and it was not so clear then. Now everything is fine for me and I no longer have any doubts.
It was kind of you to sent the fare for the ticket. It was plain proof that I would be welcome. What was more difficult was before I could travel I had to make a personal appearance at the Land Board and have my photograph taken. I had to take nine copies with me to insert in the pass and the trip declaration. Also the Church Warden had to write on it declaring that it was I. I has been so much to do but now it is all clear.
What would have been very pleasing for me would be to have visited you parents, to tell them that I shall go to you. But that was not possible and I hope in the future that I could meet them and be on as good terms with them as you are with mine.
Oh, how happy I am that in you I have a friend, a true friend who loves and is loved in return. Now life is worth living, if that isn't our fate, I cannot understand my feelings as I sit here alone in the evening. Now my darling it only remains to make a commitment and face the future and trust that here at home Mother will understand that everything in life has a pathway where meeting and separating is part of life.
The next time the Stockholm comes to America I will be on it.
En Hjartvarm fran din egan Ellen.

3 comments:

  1. And now we know the REST of the story . . . of course she would be hesitant to go and leave her widowed mother behind. That can't have been easy. What a wonderful picture of them!

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  2. It IS a lovely photo.
    The courage those trips took is incredible. So many emotions. And made so much harder by the absence of things we take for granted (like speedy travel and communication).

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  3. I have great grandma Berg's quote from this letter on my fridge. "Everything in life has a pathway where meeting and separating is part of life." A life well lived is one where separating is always difficult and moving on is a beautiful adventure.

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