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.