Background
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:22 pm
I'm basically Swedish. My grandfather came here via tramp steamer from Gothenburg (where they make Volvos) in the late 19th Century.
He matriculated through Ellis Island and then rode a cattle train, with his family, from NYC to the Chicago Stockyards - that's all the money they had - and he grew up in a Swedish ethinic neighborhood called, a that time, Swedish Harlem.
Mom's folks were English/Irish farmers who wound up on 400 acres in Michigan's rich soiled upper mid-state area.
He was a pioneer aviator, she was a comely high school girl and they met in Lansing. And the rest - as they say - is history.
He matriculated through Ellis Island and then rode a cattle train, with his family, from NYC to the Chicago Stockyards - that's all the money they had - and he grew up in a Swedish ethinic neighborhood called, a that time, Swedish Harlem.
Mom's folks were English/Irish farmers who wound up on 400 acres in Michigan's rich soiled upper mid-state area.
He was a pioneer aviator, she was a comely high school girl and they met in Lansing. And the rest - as they say - is history.