Regional Sociology Commons^™

A Danish Lad In America, Fred Delcomyn

The Bridge

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” So said L.P. Hartley in The Go-Between (1953). Looking back on myself as a young immigrant child in Detroit at mid-century, the phrase seems especially apt. In my past I was quite literally in a foreign country.

A Family Sketchbook, Eva M. Johnson

The Bridge

Father, Otto Christensen, was born in 1875 on a farm

that lay on the edge of the North Sea in Jutland, Denmark.

When he was four his mother died and his father remarried.

He spent his childhood tending sheep and cattle and playing

in the sand dunes and heather along the sea. He must have

spent much time dreaming his dreams.

Sentenced To Be Hanged: The Tragic Story Of A Danish Immigrant, Peter D. Thomsen

The Bridge

Several years ago, Thorvald Hansen who was then in

charge of the Danish Immigrant Archives at Grand View

College, Des Moines, Iowa, asked if I would be interested in

writing the Peter Mathiasen story. I had previously told him

that in my childhood home I had heard bits and pieces of this

tale and that what I remembered most was how intensely it

was discussed by some of the immigrant people with whom

my parents associated. Little did I realize they were talking

about something that happened fifteen years before my

birth.

Memories From Childhood And Early Youth, Andrea Blichfeldt Smith, Alma K. Stark, Translator, Peter D. Thomsen

The Bridge

The story which follows was translated from the Danish language shortly after it was written around 1937. The original manuscript, written in longhand on scraps of brown-bag paper, no longer exists. On the typewritten copy of my cousin's translation, however, she writes: "Mother wrote this at my request." Today, at age 95, Alma Stark lives at 14801 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, California. She corresponds regularly with me and has been very helpful in my quest for genealogical information.

Reminiscences From A Long Life, Ane Helena Paulsen

The Bridge

My maiden name was Ane Helene Nielsen and I was born in Yestergaard, Lendum Sogn close to Frederickshavn on January 22, 1866. My father's name was Ole Christian Nielsen, Kirkerod, Skaerum Sogn. He died early of tuberculosis. I can scarcely remember him. My mother's name was Mariane Jensen. She was the daughter of Jens Nielsen, Sondergaard, Lendum Sogn, and his wife Johanne Marie Larsdatter of Vang, S4,ndergaard, Tirslev Sogn.

Book Review, Egon Bodtker

The Bridge

This short book tells the reader what life was like for one young man in a small village in Denmark in the first two decades of this century. As the author writes in the Foreword: " it is a collection of reminiscences, a mosaic of people and places seen from a long distance, both geographically and chronologically." This sensitive sketch of a childhood and adolescence in the first two decades of the twentieth century will make all readers aware of the monumental changes in the world from then until now. While many of the individual behaviors can be related to …