Visit to Halmstad

The new Ikea-catalogue provided inspiration for interior design, so Friday I went to Helsingborg to check out the new collection. I bought a shoe rack for the hall and a small but practical hook to be attached to the exterior of a wardrobe. It's meant to be for hanging clothes on temporarily, for the next day or for when you iron them. Saturday I went to the nearest mall to get more practical hooks, this time I found some to hang over the wardrobe doors and also on the side of a bookcase.

I got a task from the historical society, they wanted me to gather material about an event in Swedish history just before World War I started in 1914. I went to the library to do research. I hid in the newspaper room in the basement, but there were still colleagues who spotted me. No, they were not surprised to see me. Today I continued the research by going to the city library in Malmö, because they had a book I couldn't find at my library. Really surprising, as we should have all Swedish books. This one might be in our ephemera collection though, and it takes such a long time to find it, since there is no catalogue of that collection. It was easier to get the book in Malmö, and I only needed to write a few things down from it.

Yesterday I went to Halmstad by train. It's the city in Halland province where Aunt Olga lived. I knew from prior visits that it's a large city and of course the places I needed to go to were spread out in almost every direction. The cemetery, museum, library and train station are not close to one another. After an entire day of walking I was very tired.

At the cemetery I actually couldn't find Olga's grave. Slightly disturbing. I have sent an e-mail to the cemetery office to ask if it still exists. I hope I have somehow missed it, since it's a very large cemetery. I knew it was there a few years ago and I have a photo of it. They sometimes remove gravestones if there are no known family members left. I did find the other two graves belonging to this family. At one there were nettles growing in front of it. I made an effort and dug them up. It's sad that no one has the opportunity to attend these graves, but we all live far away from there.

The visit to the museum was not productive, as they didn't have any photos of my relatives or the houses they had lived in. It was, honestly, a very long shot, but you never know. At the city library I browsed the local history collection. I was looking for information about the schools my relatives had attended and found some details in various books. I noticed that the library had a database of old vital records for most of the parishes in Halland province. Too bad I didn't know this - I didn't bring Olga's ancestor chart. There are some death dates missing on it, and I might have been able to find them easily in this database. Those particular church records are very hard to decipher, so it would have helped a lot. I might have to visit Halmstad again soon. It's a nice city, beautifully situated by the west coast, with the Nissan river flowing through it. There are very nice parks and bridges. The library is also special, it's a big glass house extending out over the river.