Memorable

The last prompt of 2025 is "memorable." This Fall I came into contact with the wife of a descendant of Jonas Fahnstrom, brother of Ingrid Fahna. She is the family historian in her family and had a wealth of information on the Fahnstrom/Fahna family in America, and their life in Sweden. It was her research into her husband's family in Sweden that greatly helped me in researching our branch of the family. I am eternally grateful to her for putting that online as it helped me so much in my research. Out of all the information she sent me, 2 pieces really stood out. One was a picture, and one was a letter. 

The first is a picture of a young George Henrickson. I'm guessing he was in his early 20's when the picture was taken. He arrived at age 17 and was married at 25. You can see just how handsome he was. No wonder Malvina fell in love with him. I really like this picture because it's rare to get a picture of an ancestor so young in age. Most of the pictures I've seen of George are when he's older, and his health has started to fail. In this picture he's young and has his whole life ahead of him.

George Henrickson

The second memorable piece of information this year is a letter written from Malvina to her sister in-law, Amanda, George's younger sister. The letter is dated April 1938, and it's written near the beginning of George's illness. George suffered from Pernicious Anemia, the body's inability to absorb vitamin B12. It's an autoimmune disease that occurs primarily in people of northern European descent. This link explains the disease in more detail. Pernicious Anemia I'm not sure the doctors had an adequate way of treating it back then.

Allegan, April 22nd, 1938.
Dear Amanda.
You will probably be surprised to get a letter from me. I don’t know that I
have ever written to you but I want you to know that Goran is ill. He has been ill since the beginning of March but during these last few weeks he has been in bed and I fear the worse.
He has become so thin and it seems he gets weaker and weaker day by day so I have been thinking, maybe, if it’s possible for you, that you could come and see him.
He is himself having great courage and believes that he will recover and it is good because the doctor says that this is the best of medicine for him.
If you can come, write me a few lines in advance but say nothing more than I have written that he us I’ll and that you are coming to see him.
If you will be coming by railway it would be best to get off at Kalamazoo because there aren’t any passenger trains going to Allegan anymore.
I have two daughters living there.
They will meet you and give you the address to Eulalia. If you write to her they will meet you and bring you here.
Write  me in English.
Her address is Mrs Charles Marsh
1023 Eagleston Avenue.
Kalamazoo
Michigan.
Her telephone number is 8071
Maybe you have got a car and will get someone to drive you here.
That would be the least trouble.
I would like you to know, though, that he is ill
My two youngest boys are at home and are doing the work now.
Hope that all of you are well. Now I want to finish this time by many dear greetings to all of you. Kindly and in a hurry.
Malvina.
Excuse my bad writing. I haven’t written in Swedish for a long time. I have almost forgotten how but I hope that you will be able to read.

I know that George was not said to be a fan of his sister marrying their cousin. I wonder if that also means the families did not have much contact with each other. Malvina says that she thinks her letter will surprise Amanda as she's never written her before. Or maybe George is the one who wrote to his sister? You can also tell from the tone that Malvina is very concerned about George, enough to write to his sister herself. Her two youngest sons would have been Ray and Evald. 1938 is also the time Ray started seeing a young Viola Strand. 

Another interesting fact we learn from the letter is that Malvina knows how to write in Swedish! She learned not only how to fluently speak it, but also to write it. She does say it's pretty rusty and for Amanda to try and reply in English so she must not have felt good about trying to read it. The local Lutheran Church stopped Swedish language services in the early 1920's so that's probably when Malvina stopped using it more often. I also think it's interesting she referred to George by his Swedish name of Goran. Maybe she thought Amanda would be more comforted by that name than his American name? 

Unfortunately, we don't know if Amanda made the journey or not. Hopefully she was able to. 

What were your memorable family history moments from this year? Surprising stories or information? Surprising relatives or ancestors? Let me know down below. As always, feel free to share and repost with anyone you think might be interested.

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