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Posts tagged ‘Malmö’

Oh my goodness (Augusta update)

I’ve had an exciting couple of comments on the blog today from a lovely person who’s apparently a relative of Augusta Parsons Hylander, whose memoir I’ve been transcribing and posting here.

The comments (here and here) are really helpful, particularly in that they reveal a rather amazing piece of information about Augusta’s childhood home in Sturup. It’s not gone forever. The village was indeed, as I’d understood from my clearly inadequate research, within the footprint of Malmö Airport, and was apparently dismantled. But Augusta’s actual homestead is, it seems, still there, and still in use. They built the airport around it.

*books ticket* (no, not really. I wish.) But isn’t that fantastic?

Susan, the commenter, also mentions that there is a book in existence that documents the lost village, although I don’t know whether it’s in English.

I am full of questions: why was that homestead saved when the rest of the village was lost? What is its use now – do people live there? With an airport surrounding them? That seems unlikely, so presumably there’s another explanation. In any case, I’m fascinated. I’ll post more here as I learn it.

Malmö to Ellis Island: part five of Augusta Parsons Hylander’s account

A shorter extract now, wherein seventeen-year-old Augusta studies dressmaking in Malmö so that she’ll have a marketable skill before embarking on her solo journey to America. Read more

Augusta Parsons Hylander’s memories of 19th-century Swedish life, part three: “Our home was broken up by my father’s death. That changed everything”

September 20, still 1959

This is written in Hamilton, back from Brooksville, Maine. I am sitting in my room here at Ray and Gay’s house [Gay was Augusta's daughter], writing at the big desk that came to us from Sweden after my husband’s sister Maria died. It is a beautiful desk, now considered a valuable antique. My husband’s father built it himself. The slanted front comes down to form a good writing surface, and inside are eight small drawers, four on each side. Read more

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