More than just a way to see vast, sprawling landscapes, or experience new foods and fashion, or learning about new customs, globe trotting for me is about new stories. Typically I discover these in the form of religious texts about miracles, long ago mythologies, or even bloody tales from ghost-walking tours. My most recent trip to Sweden featured all of these, plus a few more, closer to home.
I’m the third generation, on my mother’s side, to be born in America. My mom always talked about us “visiting the homeland” one day, but as I’d never even spoken to any of my Swedish relatives, I figured it would just be another sightseeing trip, if we ever got there at all. Surprisingly, I found out recently that my maternal aunt was, in fact, in contact with some of those distant cousins and arranging for us to meet them. So, roughly 12 hours after takeoff, we found ourselves in the sacred “motherland”: Sweden. Filled with those vast and sprawling landscapes I spoke of earlier, Sweden is a lovely county and, as we’d timed our visit for midsummer, filled with amazing flowers of every hue and perfume imaginable.
We soon met one of those aforementioned cousins, Liam, and was instantly wrapped within the warmth of his hospitality and genuine excitement at meeting another branch of relations. So much so, that we were invited to attend one of Sweden’s most important festivals with his family—The Raising of the May Pole. We also discovered that this generous fellow was eagerly working to create a complete family tree. In fact, a lot of his records dated back over a hundred years. It was in these files that we discovered a shocking family scandal!
(This is a dramatic retelling of those events. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
My mother was sitting on the sofa of our rented guesthouse, perusing the papers cousin Liam had provided us the previous day. I was in the kitchen making tea, my sister on her camera going over photos from the day before, my cousin on her laptop editing promotional ballet dancer photos, and my aunt at the table looking through a guide book in Swedish (she can’t actually read Swedish).
“No way,” my mother gasped from the sofa.
We all turned to her. “What’s up,” I asked.
“We may not be Smiths after all. We might be Stewarts,” she declared spreading out the papers on the coffee table with a flourish.
“What?” My aunt walked over and sat next to her little sister on the sofa.
“Our great grandfather William is recorded as being the child of Elsa and Noah Smith.”
“Yeah.”
“Great great grandfather Noah died before William was born, and great great grandmother Elsa then got married to a man named Hugo Stewart.”
“Of course,” I say. “She already had three kids before William. With four kids to raise on her own, she’d need help, especially back then.”
“But look at the dates,” my mother said dramatically. “Noah dies, and in less than a year Elsa is married to Hugo.”
“What are you saying,” my aunt wants to know.
With a glint of mischief in her eye, my mother looks up and proclaims, “Elsa and Hugo must have been having an affair. Realizing that Elsa was pregnant with his child, Hugo, in a jealous rage, arranges an ‘accident’ for Noah!”
“What? No.” My aunt gasps.
“Really?” My sister asks at the same moment leaning in to look at the papers. “We need to make a murder mystery podcast out of this.”
“Really?” I ask in a much more skeptical tone than my sister had used.
“Really. Look, he died in a ‘cart accident’. Hugo could have met him on the road, murdered him, and just thrown him in the ditch. We could be Stewarts.”
I shook my head. “And thus not really related to cousin Liam at all? Man, that makes the excellent cake and coffee he served us yesterday feel like a lie now.”
“This is so exciting.” My mother says, practically giggling with glee.
My aunt waved a dismissive hand. “Oh you. We’re seeing cousin Axel in a few days, then we’ll check what his records have to say on the matter.”
“Still, forbidden love, a jealous lover, a death under mysterious circumstances–you all didn’t think Sweden would be this exciting did you?”
At that point, my sister pulled out her phone to begin recording her murder mystery podcast, and we all got into the spirit of things. We spoke of theories about what happened, how Hugo had done it, and about how the thrilling events must have unfolded. It was a fun evening.
Later in the week we met up with cousin Axel, who had a much more in-depth account of the family chronology. He even had newspaper clippings concerning various family members, and a detailed account of why our ancestors had originally moved to America–a famine after three years of terrible winters. It was then that the whole story came to light.
“Noah Smith died when his cart ran off the road into a gully. He was crushed beneath his horse and died instantly (does this sounds familiar to anyone?). It happened back then,” Axel told us with a shrug.
“So Hugo didn’t murder him,” my mom asked, slightly crestfallen.
Axel laughed. “Oh heavens no. The pregnant widow Elsa met the widower Hugo at a community dance. He had two daughters of his own from his first wife. It seems it was more of a marriage of convenience rather than love. Hugo was quite mean to William when he was born, being the son of another man, which could have been another reason he set out for America at the age of 19.”
“Oh,” my mother replied sullenly.
Her melancholy didn’t last long however, as even more distant relations started showing up. Cousin Axel had arranged something of a family reunion dinner for the cousins and siblings in the area. It was a lovely time, getting to know new people who I just happened to be related to over a home-cooked meal. We drank wine and chatted far into the night about cousins in my own generation, scattered throughout the world, filling in our own branch of the family tree and getting a small surge of pleasure seeing my own children added to the wide web of names, and listening to stories old and new.
So, you see, stories can be found in the most unexpected places, all you need to do is keep your eyes open for them.
(P.S. The photo for this one is my own “places I’ve traveled” globe and the new dalahäst I bought on the trip)
