Anne-Berit, Knut and Lillemor

Bestefar was an avid photographer, and had a good eye.  The sweet pictures of his children attest to his talent.  This picture was no doubt taken in the King's Park in Oslo, blocks away from their home in Mauritz-Hansensgate.  The year had to be around 1928 judging from everyone's size.  Mom (Anne-Berit) was born in 1925.

Bestefar og Oslo Havn

Bestefar Einar Strand worked at the Oslo harbor as a foreman, until his retirement.  He would often take me aboard the ships that were berthed there and introduce me to his friends as his daughter's daughter.  When I was 4 years old, I remember the ships' cooks plying me with so much pea soup that I could hardly walk home.

Bestefar

My grandfather, Einar Strand, was the most wonderful man I’ve ever met.  He was my pirate king and my hero, my loving Bestefar (grandfather).

Einar Anthonsen Strand was a large man, a good 2 or 3 inches (maybe 4?) over six feet, and despite skinny legs and knobby knees, and being slim, he was broad and strongly built.  He wasn’t particularly good looking.  Nearing sixty when I first met him, his receding brown hair was peppered with grey.  He had fair skin mottled by spidery red veins and his large eyes were blue.  He had angular features and bushy eyebrows that got wilder as he got older.  He had kind eyes, though, and a kind heart and somehow one got the impression of an attractive man, despite his physical appearance.

Bestefar loved children.  I think he liked hearing them laugh.  I remember him leading bands of children to the King’s Park a few blocks away.  He would play tag and other games with us until we were breathless and convulsed with laughter.  He would gather the children on his knee and tell them stories of the Strandaguttene (the Strand boys).  He was one of five brothers and he would tell of their adventures on the strand – the beach at Lier, Norway -  where he grew up.  I wish I could remember these stories, but they are lost to time, I’m afraid.  He would also tell the traditional tales of Norwegian folklore, tales of Bamsefar (the bear father) and Mikkel Rev (Michael the fox) and the other creatures of the forest.  Of course, every story began, Det var en gang… (Once upon a time) and ended,  Snip, snap, snute, så var eventyret ute (Snip, snap, snute, the story is over).

Lier Åsen in Winter

It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized Bestefar also wrote stories, especially historical and color pieces, for the Drammen newspaper as a free-lance reporter.  We didn't discover this until well after my brother Jay, Einar's only grandson, had gone into Journalism as his life's work.  There's gotta be something to this genetic inheritance stuff!

When Bestefar finally retired, small children in the neighborhood would often ring the doorbell at #4 Mauritz Hansensgate and ask if “that nice man can come out and play”. 

Sigrid as a young girl

Sigrid, being the youngest of the children in her family, was by her own admission a spoiled brat.  She once told me a story of going shopping with her mother in downtown Oslo when she was about seven or eight years old.  Her mother bought her a chocolate candy bar as a treat.  However, when it was unwrapped, the chocolate bar was found to be broken in two pieces.  Sigrid cried and cried but wouldn’t eat it because it was broken, no matter how hard her mother tried to show her that the two parts put together made a whole bar.  Her mother ended up giving in to her – buying another bar that was whole – just to stop her crying.

Sigrid Olsen Strand

Never have your picture taken in a hat, my grandmother used to say.  However, I t hink she looks rather spiffy in one!

Miss Sigrid Sophie Olsen sailed to America in 1914 or 1915 and spent the World War I years in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She lived with her aunt and worked as a maid in one of the big mansions of the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake.  The gentleman of the house found her so “cute” she was promoted to upstairs maid.  However, she couldn’t speak much English and had to learn on the job. 

There is a funny story about her calling her aunt on the phone, saying in Norwegian, “Han sa – he said - ‘Draw de curtains’, hva mente han – what did he mean by that?”   Her aunt would have to translate, “Han sa,  trek gardinene, Sigrid”.  Oh, “Draw the curtains” means “Trekk gardinene”  She would then go draw the curtains.  It was a tough way to learn a language, but she had a good ear and learned quickly.

Sigrid was a tiny woman, approximately 5 feet tall.  She also had the fair complexion, light brown hair and dark blue eyes that are a stamp of Scandinavian heritage.  She wore her hair long, kept it in a braid and wound the braid around her head several times, pinning it into place.  It was an attractive style for her.  When I first met her, I remember the braid being to her waist and almost totally grey.  When she undid it, her hair spread like a fine grey veil nearly to her knees.  She was an attractive woman, with big eyes and a demure smile. 

I think, despite her opinions about hats in pictures, the hats of the period were very becoming to her.

Heritage of Faith

Ever since the death of my aunt, Inger-Mari “Lillemor” Strand-Henriksen, I have been obsessed with writing down the stories of my family.  Especially since it occurred to me one day that, with her death, I may be the only person left alive who knows some of these stories.

My mother was Anne-Berit Strand Evensen.  I wanted to start out by saying how much I love her family, the Strands.  They are a big part of who I am.  My experiences with each one of them is woven tightly into the fabric of my life.  I hope the reader will understand this as I share my memories of them and the family stories I grew up with.  I will try to be as accurate in the details as I can, although I regret not having my mother around to ask questions of.  If I have gotten details mixed up because of my poor memory, please know I have tried to present a fair picture of life in Victorian Norway as far as I remember correctly the stories told to me.

The adjective that keeps coming to mind as I write these stories is kind.  The Strands were kind.  It was kindness and goodness that made people flock to the modest apartment at number 4 Mauritz Hansen’s Street in downtown Oslo, Norway. 

I took my first steps in that apartment.  I learned my first words there.  I was born in October, 1951.  I took my first trip to Norway as a baby, some six months later.  I spent six months there with my mother.  My next trip, as a child of four, lasted nearly a year.  I celebrated my 5^th birthday there.  I spent a summer there as an 11 year-old, and the summer following my graduation from high school, as a 17 year-old.  I came back as a junior in college as part of my “Grand Tour” of Europe.  By then, Grandmother Strand, my Bestemor, had passed away.  I had two more trips to Norway, one with my friend Ilene, and one with my friend Cindy, while Grandfather Strand, my Bestefar, was still alive. 

Every year as I was growing up, there was a long-distance telephone call to Norway at Christmastime.  Unlike today, these were extremely expensive and the quality of sound was poor.  We would yell into the receiver, as if we were yelling across the Atlantic.  My mother wrote weekly letters to her folks.  These were answered mainly by my grandfather, Einar Strand, and my Aunt Lillemor.  (Bestefar had a wild scribbly handwriting that almost took a urim and thummin to translate.  I have a shoebox full of his letters and will try to translate a few for posterity someday.)  We also received birthday cards and packages at Christmas.  I always knew my grandparents loved me.  They were as much a part of my life as the distances that separated us would allow in the latter half of the 20^th century.

For a while, we also sent reel-to-reel audio tapes back and forth so we could hear people’s voices.  I believe my brother Jay may still have some of those tapes.  This wasn’t too effective, since the idea was for the receiving party to re-record their own message on top of the old one and send it back.  Invariably, someone would keep the tape, because they enjoyed replaying it.  I think it only went back and forth in the mail a few times.

My mother was a great story-teller.  We would spend hours after dinner, sitting around the dinner table, listening to stories of gamle Mau’ern, aka Mauritz Hansensgate, where my mother grew up.  She told stories of her life, her school friends, her parents and grandparents, the people who lived on the street she grew up on, stories of World War II and the German occupation of Norway, stories of the L.D.S. (Mormon) church and the American Mormon missionaries.

Drammen, Norway, where the Strand family came from.

I have tried to record faithfully the various stories as I remember them.  I hope these stories will be treasured by my niece and nephews and cousins – and future generations. 

May we always hold the memories of these wonderful people, our ancestors, in our hearts.  We owe them a great debt, for helping to preserve our freedoms, and for leaving us the legacy of their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here's to our Family

I've wanted to do this for a long time and am finally jumping in and just doing it.  I hope to be able to provide genealogical information and family stories about the wonderful family I come from.  Einar and Sigrid Strand were my grandparents.