Family ties

1954: (clockwise) Iver, Eva, Alice, Bob, Grace, Betty, Les, Lilian

My mother's father is a legend in our family. He's the man at the left of the photo. Iver was the eldest of 13 children. In 1904 he left Sweden and came here by ship at the age of 15, with $5 and a trunk of belongings. The ship landed in Quebec, and from there Iver took a train to Minnesota where his Uncle Frank had a farm. The woman to Iver's right is my grandmother, Lilian. The woman to Iver's left is Eva, his youngest sibling, who visited the U.S. in the early 1950s. About 10 years after this reunion, Alice (next to Eva) and her family visited Iver's siblings and their families in Sweden.

2013: Magnus and EvaLotta

Fast forward to 2013 and meet my mother's cousin EvaLotta (the daughter of Iver's sister Lisa) and her son Magnus. EvaLotta made her first trip to see us in 1969 as a teenager. Then again in 2003. And now we are meeting her family for the first time. (So sorry that I don't have a picture that includes her husband Anders, but I will get one from one of my cousins.)  We had a perfect day of reunion a few weeks ago at Cousin Jim's house. Not only are our family ties strong, they are elastic, drawing us back and forth across the Atlantic. Let's keep it up!