My great-grandmother
Earlier this month, I was invited to do presentations on Norwegian immigration history to the students at one of our local schools.
One of the teachers blogged about my presentation and it was fun to read about how much the students enjoyed it — and I could tell that from the delighted responses I was getting.
My presentation tells two stories of immigration.
One is about a servant girl growing up on Norway's west coast who leaves her family and goes on a journey alone to join her brother thousands of miles away in the farmlands of Minnesota.
The other is about a young boy from southern Norway who runs away to sea at a very young age and sails the world until deciding to live permanently in Brooklyn, New York.
I show lots of pictures of things these two saw and did. I even have a few items I bring with me that the students can pass around and see. Sometimes I sing songs, too. I tell what happened to their families — and that the son of the servant girl married the daughter of the sailor!
The surprise ending is that I've been telling MY story – the story of how my grandparents came to the New World.
And then I tell them that while my stories may be fun to hear, they — too — have these kind of stories in their families and they should begin to find out what they are — because your own family stories are always the best!
I'm thankful to my grandparents for providing me with such great stories to share — and to my family for saving and sharing them with me.
